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Bringing the Ocean out of the Ocean

Mission Blue is proud to partner with Discovery Deep! 
71% of the our planet’s surface is covered by water, yet 95% of that remains unexplored.  Discovery Deep, a Washington, D.C. based ocean exploration foundation is working to change that by “Bringing the Ocean out of the Ocean.”
Discovery Deep uses innovative technologies such as virtual reality, 3-dimensional mapping and 360-degree video to help scientists collect research data, map shipwreck sites, and to educate divers and non-divers alike in the wonders of the underwater world and the importance of conserving it.

Over the last year, Discovery Deep created digital maps of historic shipwrecks, collected DNA samples for a shark research project, and built a diver training course to collect citizen science observations.…

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Hope Spot Nominations Open to the Public!

Citizens of the Blue Planet Have Spoken: 14 New Places in the Ocean, Vetted by IUCN and Mission Blue, Will Now Serve as a Flashpoint to Ignite Global Support for Marine Protection
Over the past year, citizens and organizations across the planet have nominated marine environments especially deserving of protection – known as Hope Spots – for review by Mission Blue and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). After rigorous scientific vetting and policy analysis, Mission Blue and IUCN are proud to announce the names of 14 new Hope Spots, which came directly from a concerned global community calling out for more ocean protection. By allowing citizens to elect their own Hope Spots, Mission Blue and IUCN hope to meet the goal of igniting broad public support for a global network of marine protected areas large enough to protect and restore the ocean’s health.…

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IUCN- Planet at the Crossroads.

The IUCN World Conservation Congress 2016 kicked off two days ago in Honolulu and we can’t imagine a more auspicious occasion! Less than one week after President Obama announced the expansion of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument around the Hawaiian atolls as the world’s largest marine protected area, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) convenes its conference on the monument’s doorstep for the first time anywhere in the United States.
In a recent response to President Obama’s announcement of the expanded Hawaiian monument, Mission Blue Founder and National Geographic Society Explorer-in-Residence Dr. Sylvia Earle remarked:

Americans on this centennial anniversary are encouraged to “find your park” and enjoy these wonders that are the collective conscious of our nation. But with President Obama’s expansion of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument from 50 to 200 miles out from the Northern Hawaiian Islands, now the world’s largest marine protected area, history will remember this anniversary and next century as the “blue centennial”—the time when the national park idea was brought to the ocean.…

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Hope Spots: An Actionable Plan to Save the Ocean

The immense problems facing the ocean often leave us feeling powerless. But what if there was a concrete, actionable strategy to nurse the ocean back to health? Dr. Sylvia Earle argues that there is. As a result, Mission Blue and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) are opening up nominations for ‘Hope Spots‘ – marine areas in a network targeted for enhanced protection that are critical to the health of the ocean.
Hope Spots are areas in the ocean recognized by scientists for having unique ecological attributes that make them especially deserving of designation as marine protected areas. They may have an exceptional abundance and diversity of species such as the Coral Triangle Hope Spot in the Indo-Pacific. Or perhaps they have an ecosystem essential to marine life migration such as the Sargasso Sea Hope Spot in the Atlantic Ocean.…

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Our Final Chance to Keep Maui’s and Hector’s Dolphins From Imminent Extinction

From Mission Blue partner NABU International which has launched the Hector’s and Maui’s Dolphin SOS campaign.

Maui’s and Hector’s dolphins are the smallest and rarest marine dolphins on Earth and live only in New Zealand. Maui’s dolphins have declined from an estimated 1,800 in the 1970s to less than 50 today as a result of fishing. The closely related Hector’s dolphin is also threatened, with several populations numbering fewer than 100 individuals. Maui’s dolphins have become so rare that the death of more than a single individual every ten to 23 years will result in extinction. Yet between three and four Maui’s dolphins die in fishing nets each year.

The  NZ fishing industry, rather than a specific fishery, is the focus of the Hector’s and Maui’s Dolphin SOS consumer campaign.…

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Ascension: Halfway to the Atlantic’s largest marine reserve

 

 
By Charles Clover, Executive Director, Blue Marine Foundation
 
 

On the morning of Sunday 3 January 2016, the world woke to the news that the British government was proposing to create a “marine reserve nearly the size of the United Kingdom” in the tropical Atlantic around the island of Ascension. It was a moment of triumph for all those who had campaigned so hard for this outcome. The proposed designation of half the waters around Ascension Island would be the largest fully protected marine reserve in the Atlantic Ocean. Yet it is important to understand that what has happened is, for now, just a closure of some but not all of Ascension’s waters to commercial fishing and that a great deal more remains to be done by both British and the US governments if the formal protection of this marine treasure is to succeed and, crucially, to be supported by the local people.…

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Sharing knowledge & building capacity for healthy oceans & coastal communities

Here’s a word from Blue Solutions, Mission Blue’s newest partner.

The global oceans community has created a wealth of inspiring “blue solutions” which successfully helped to overcome challenges to sustainable development and human wellbeing in the marine and coastal realm. The Blue Solutions Initiative provides a global knowledge sharing and capacity development platform for these success stories. They can inspire others to adapt and replicate these achievements without “reinventing the wheel,” thereby accelerating action to sustaining healthy marine and coastal ecosystems.
These blue solutions can illustrate a range of topics. Some are local, others are regional or even global. Some can provide insights into technical issues, while others feature good managerial practices. Essentially, they are all specific, applied examples of successful processes or approaches that address challenges of sustainable management and conservation of marine and coastal ecosystems.…

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Rescuing Sea Turtles from Ghost Nets

Mission Blue is thrilled to partner with the Olive Ridley Project in the Maldives! The following is a guest post all about their amazing work:
Every year millions of animals including whales, dolphins, turtles and birds are mutilated and killed by lost, abandoned or discarded fishing nets, otherwise known as “ghost nets.” Entangled animals either drown within minutes or endure long, slow deaths lasting months or even years, suffering from debilitating wounds, infection and starvation. Oceanic currents provide pathways for ghost nets to travel huge distances from their points of origin, often accumulating in various hotspots around the world.
The Olive Ridley Project (ORP) was founded in the Maldives by biologist Martin Stelfox in response to the alarming number of olive ridley sea turtles found entangled in ghost gear.…

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Protection may be Imminent for Great British Oceans

By Courtney Mattison
Mission Blue has teamed up with a coalition of leading marine conservation organizations to urge the British Government to step up to its responsibility to safeguard the maritime zones of the UK’s overseas territories by creating three of the largest marine protected areas (MPAs) in the world. Through the Great British Oceans campaign, this alliance between 106 signatories including The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Greenpeace UK, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Marine Conservation Society, the Zoological Society of London, the Blue Marine Foundation, the Marine Reserves Coalition and National Geographic Society is gaining support for the UK to fund large-scale, full marine protection in the waters surrounding Ascension, Pitcairn and South Sandwich Islands.
The United Kingdom has jurisdiction over the fifth largest combined ocean area in the world – a collection of territories nearly 30 times the size of the UK itself.1 The three MPAs proposed around Ascension, Pitcairn and South Sandwich Islands would more than double the size of existing protected areas in the global ocean.2 Fully protecting these areas would mean shielding countless rare and threatened species including endemic seabirds, whales, turtles, penguins and corals from the enormous threats of overfishing, pollution and resource extraction.…

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World Parks Congress in Australia Unites Global Ocean Leaders

By Courtney Mattison
On a warm summer afternoon in Australia last Wednesday, thousands of environmental researchers, advocates, policy makers and business leaders gathered in a great hall within the Sydney Olympic Park for the opening ceremonies of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Parks Congress. Delegates from around the globe watched as world-class acrobats flew through the air and dancers in vibrant costumes portrayed a story about inspiring future generations to protect the environment. Aboriginal performances and protocols highlighted the rich cultural context of the host country of this meeting, which only comes around once a decade and is held in a different country each time.
IUCN President Mr. Zhang Xinsheng, Australian federal and state environmental ministers and Nelson Mandela’s grandson addressed the congress.…

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