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Hope Spot Announcement Leads to Marine Protection for the Great Fringing Reef of the Red Sea

Featured image: Renata Romeo
New MPA to protect more than 2000km of coral reef along Egypt’s Red Sea Coastline.  
SHARM EL SHEIKH, EGYPT –
Yasmine Fouad, The Egyptian Minister of the Environment, has announced protection for the entire Great Fringing Reef in the Red Sea Hope Spot. The announcement of the new marine protected area occurred on Ocean Day at the United Nations Climate Conference (COP27) in Sharm el Sheikh immediately following the official announcement of The Great Fringing Reef of the Red Sea Hope Spot by Mission Blue, The Ocean Agency and HEPCA.
“The international recognition brought to the Great Fringing Reef by the declaration of a Mission Blue Hope Spot undoubtedly played a big part in securing the protection for the reef”, said Prof.…

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Marine Life Recovery in the Revillagigedo Archipelago Hope Spot Points to Success of No-Take Marine Protected Areas

Featured image: Roca Partida Islet (c) Alberto Lebrija

Established in November 2017, the Revillagigedo National Park is Mexico’s and North America’s largest Marine Protected Area (MPA) at 148,087 square kilometers (57,177 square miles) and is safeguarded from industrial fishing and other extractive activities (The Pew Charitable Trusts). At the time, members of the local fishing industry raised concerns about the negative impact a no-take policy could have on their catch. However, scientists have noted growing biodiversity in Revillagigedo’s waters – news that is good for everybody, both fish and fishermen.
 

 
International marine conservation nonprofit Mission Blue recognizes Mario Gomez, founder of Beta Diversidad (a Mexican NGO), as the new Champion of the Revillagigedo Archipelago Hope Spot. Dr. Sylvia Earle, Founder of Mission Blue, says, “I had the pleasure of seeing Mario in action as he led the work of organized civil society that ended with the creation of Revillagigedo National Park in November 2017.”…

Posted in .Homepage, Dr. Sylvia Earle, Featured, hope spots, mission blue, Multimedia, Partner Stories, Photo of the Day, sylvia earle, Uncategorized |

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The Great Fringing Reef Named First Hope Spot in the Red Sea

EGYPT, RED SEA –
The Great Fringing Reef of the Red Sea in Egypt is a world-renowned coral reef system supporting a brilliant cornucopia of marine life. These reefs, especially those in the Northern Red Sea in Egypt are particularly unique, having been identified as some of the most climate-tolerant in the world (as identified by the 50 Reefs scientific study among others). Scientists believe that the Great Fringing Reef of the Red Sea still has the potential to survive the currently projected ocean temperature rising and could be the key to repopulating surrounding reefs, with the possibility of eventually pulling corals from the edge of near-extinction. Currently, about 50% of the reefs of Egypt’s Great Fringing Reef live within marine protected areas, but Richard Vevers, CEO of The Ocean Agency and Dr.…

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“The Whale’s City” South San Jorge Gulf in Argentina Named a Mission Blue Hope Spot

Image: Southern right whale mother and calf (c) César Gribaudo
SOUTHERN PATAGONIA, ARGENTINA (OCTOBER 18th, 2022) –
Looming over the waters of the South San Jorge Gulf Hope Spot in southern Patagonia, Argentina are rolling green hills and a winding road that traces the coastal edges of Santa Cruz province. The only city along the Gulf is Caleta Olivia, home to 50,000 people who, known to them or not, share a blue backyard with creatures like whales, dolphins and other species. César Gribaudo, CEO of Patagonia Red Global, likes to call his home “Ciudad de las Ballenas” – “City of the Whales”. He began conducting research on the marine life in the area in 1986 and he and his partners’ work remains some of the very little scientific research done on the whales and other marine life in the Gulf.…

Posted in .Homepage, Dr. Sylvia Earle, Featured, mission blue, Partner Stories, Uncategorized |

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Research Expedition in the Galápagos Marine Reserve Focuses on Overlooked Species and Habitats

English and Spanish versions below
Image: Dr. Sylvia Earle is about to go in the submersible for an exploratory dive in the twilight zone a couple of miles off Wolf Island © Rolex/Franck Gazzola 
The Galapagos Islands Hope Spot, Ecuador (August 16th, 2022)

A multi-institutional team of scientists led by legendary oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer, Dr. Sylvia Earle (Mission Blue) carried out a two-week expedition in the Galápagos Marine Reserve on board the M/V Argo to rediscover and evaluate some of the largely overlooked habitats and species in the reserve, as the Reserve approaches its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2023. “Galapagos will always be a special place,” explained Dr. Earle. “It was here that I discovered cold water kelp communities on the equator fifty years ago, and it was Galápagos that, years later, inspired our Mission Blue Hope Spots initiative.”…

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Saving China’s Marine Life, the New Hope Begins in Hong Kong’s Waters

Featured image: Sham Wan
HONG KONG (July 26th, 2022)

Marine conservation nonprofit Mission Blue has declared Hong Kong South a Hope Spot in recognition of the commitment to push for a formal marine protected area (MPA) from Hope Spot Champions Sharon Kwok Pong, Dr. Robert Lockyer, and Professor John Wong, with local NGO AquaMeridian Conservation & Education Foundation (AquaMeridian).

Since 2015, Aquameridian has been working hand in hand with community NGOs and the local government to increase the level of protection offered to the local endemic species including finless porpoises, sea turtles, horseshoe crabs, and the iconic Chinese white dolphins.
 
 
Hong Kong once was home to more than 6,000 species of marine life, including more than 100 species of coral, and transient large cetaceans and two resident dolphins, the shy finless porpoise and the iconic white dolphin.…

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Israel’s First Hope Spot Recognized at Palmahim Slide off the Coast of Tel-Aviv

Featured image: Bioluminescent crab (c) University of Haifa and Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research
MEDITERRANEAN SEA, ISRAEL 

The Palmahim Slide is an area of deep-sea waters that can be found 20-50 km off the coast of Tel-Aviv. The Slide is a bathymetric irregularity creating a distinct geological formation that is 15m wide, starting at depths of -100m and reaching up to -1,200m. Over the last decade, a national and international deep-sea research collaboration led by Dr. Yizhaq Makovsky of the University of Haifa and Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research have discovered two rare and important habitats – methane seeps and deep-water coral gardens – which had not been seen before in the south-eastern Mediterranean Sea. The site was recently documented as a mass reproduction hotspot for deep sea sharks.…

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Uruguay Announces New Marine Protected Area in the Whale and Dolphin Sanctuary of Uruguay Hope Spot

Featured image: Eduardo Sorensen

Today at the 2022 UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon, Portugal, Adrián Peña, Minister of Environment of Uruguay, announced that the country has committed to protecting 10% of its EEZ, or Exclusive Economic Zone with a new marine protected area (MPA) encompassing 12,000 km2 with 60% as a no-take zone. This plan is part of the announced “roadmap” called Uruguay Azul 2030, in which Uruguay commits to expand its total protected areas to 30% by 2030. Previously, just 0.7% of the country’s EEZ has been formally protected. 
 

 
This new MPA will not touch the coastline; at the furthest point from the coast, the boundary begins at 64.3 km, and at the nearest point, the boundary begins at 16 km off the coast.…

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New Champion of the Charlie Gibbs Fracture Zone Hope Spot Urges Comprehensive Protection of the High Seas

Featured image: Deepsea lizard fish (Bathysaurus ferox) found in the Charlie Gibbs Fracture Zone (c) David Shale 
HIGH SEAS, MID-ATLANTIC RIDGE

Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone (CGFZ) is part of the high seas and the deep sea often referred to as a “living library”, brimming with understudied and unobserved creatures. The fracture zone is of great scientific interest and a unique geological feature. In 2018, it was identified as the area in the deep North Atlantic with the highest potential for climate change resilience (Johnson et al., 2018). While only being discovered in 1966, the fracture zone has since been recognized as part of the OSPAR Convention’s High Seas MPA (marine protected area) network, comprising two MPAs that together protect elements of the seafloor and the water column.…

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A Yellow Submarine Explores the Depths of the Panamanian Pacific

Six scientists from Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia and Ecuador spent two weeks exploring the recently expanded Cordillera de Coiba marine protected area, an unknown region to science. This is what they saw.

By: Leila Nilipour
 

 
After almost 30 hours of sailing from Panama City, the M/V Argo, with six researchers and two science communicators on board, stopped near the fifth parallel: a few meters from the line that divides Panamanian and Colombian waters. A long underwater mountain range shared by both countries rose from the sea floor, one of its peaks directly below the ship, at a depth of about 130 meters. The Colombian side of the seamount had been explored before, but the Panamanian side had not. The scientific expedition led by marine ecologist Héctor Guzmán from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and MigraMar, and with researchers from Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia and Panama, would be the first to do so.…

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