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2nd Annual Shark Conference Grows Support for MPAs in Gulf of California

Mission Blue Expeditions Team, led by Kip Evans, travelled to the Gulf of California Hope Spot last month and continued its multi-year work of supporting shark conservation in the region through documentary video and community engagement in partnership with Pelagios Kakunja. This La Paz-based non-profit is led by Dr. James Ketchum and is at the vanguard of shark telemetry and a strong advocate for enhanced protection of sharks in the region. The Expeditions Team was joined by Andrea Asunsola, a marine biologist based out of Baja California Sur and Pelagios Kakunja alumna, who helped create local connections, interview shark fishermen and generally support the conservation goals of the expedition.
Over the course of the expedition — part of a shark conservation project generously funded by the Marisla Foundation Paul M.…

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Southern Ocean Retrospectives and Perspectives

Maggie Amsler, Department of Biology University of Alabama at Birmingham

I recently sailed away from Antarctica on almost the shortest day of the year, plying north through the Southern Ocean to the port city of Punta Arenas, Chile and ultimately flying home to Alabama where I touched down on the longest day (and hottest?!) of the year in Alabama. The four-day transit featured relatively calm seas most of the time, even in the notorious Drake Passage. Island-lifestyle enthusiast Jimmy Buffett would term my relocation a “change in latitude” and as a career polar marine biologist, I have made this drastic hemispheric shift for each of my 27 expeditions to Antarctica. According to my back of the envelope scribbles, I have had the privilege of spending approximately eight years of my life beside, on, in and even above the Southern Ocean.…

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Declaration of Jæren Coast Hope Spot in Norway Emphasizes Ocean Conservation and Ecotourism Over Oil Extraction

STAVANGER, NORWAY (June 16th, 2018) – While Norway has a leading role in the international oil industry and underwater technology, there are significant gaps in Norwegians’ knowledge of their own coastal marine ecosystems. In an effort to highlight the vibrancy of the local marine environment and as well as the threat that oil extraction presents to ecosystem integrity, Mission Blue has declared a Hope Spot at the Jæren Coast on the southwestern coast of Norway. The Hope Spot is championed locally by the Rachel Carson Prize, an organization dedicated to enhancing the legacy of Rachel Carson, the mother of the modern environmental movement. Dr. Sylvia Earle, the founder of Mission Blue, visited the Jæren Coast last year along with scientists and Norwegian policymakers, in order to bring more awareness to this rich marine ecosystem and also to accept the 2017 Rachel Carson prize.…

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Dive Deep Into Jellyfish Lake

By Ailan Flowers, Palau Mission Academy Chapter

Recently, on Wednesday, February 28, 2018, I, along with my fellow Heir, had the amazing experience of going out to Jellyfish Lake in the Rock Islands of my home state — Koror, Republic of Palau — with incredible Palauan biologists of Coral Reef Research Foundation (CRRF).
Through a program that Heirs To Our Oceans and CRRF partner in – A Day With A Scientist — I was invited to be a marine biologist for a day at Jellyfish Lake. I had no idea what it would be like, but I decided to jump at the opportunity. I hadn’t been to Jellyfish Lake for over three years, and I knew the experience was going to be a ton of fun.…

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Patagonia: A Land of Wonder, A Sea of Hope

We’re proud to bring you this guest blog post from Sebastian Nicholls.

“WE’RE TALKING ABOUT TERRAFORMING MARS WHILE WE MARS-IFY EARTH”
–Sylvia Earle
Imagine a land, at the tip of a continent, where the rugged coastline cuts into the ocean like a curved dagger, and the whales sing a different tongue. A land whose ferocious natives resisted invasion after invasion attempted by Europeans, but for a brief hiatus accepted a French lawyer and adventurer as their king. This land of myth and adventure, where Sir Francis Drake reported seeing giants, caught the attention of even the worldliest travelers of old. Darwin, upon landing there in December of 1833, wrote “The first landing in any new country is very interesting, and especially when, as in this case, the whole aspect bears the stamp of a marked and individual character.”…

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The Goliath Grouper still needs your help in Florida waters!

This just in from our partners at Shark Team One regarding Goliath Groupers in the Coastal Southeast Florida Hope Spot!

There is controversy over this large, lovable and docile creature! Even though most Floridians and people across the world know that goliath groupers are critically endangered, other people want to allow a select open season on this iconic fish due to the false belief that its numbers have increased enough to justify such a slaughter.
Goliath groupers are extinct in most of their worldwide range and an official (SEDAR) stock assessment was done in Florida waters in 2016 but the results were thrown out due to lack of reliable indicators of the abundance of goliath groupers outside Florida, according to the FWC website.…

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Coral is an Animal: Weaving the Threads of Art and Science

By: Sasha Solis Sikaffy, Diverse Divers Production

Anima mundi –the amazing interconnectivity of life on earth- was the inspiration for Diverse Divers. The catalyst was coral, the giver of life and fertility of the oceans.
For photosynthetic coral, the experience of sunlight is the encounter with the ultimate reality; light is connected with the beginning and the end. This relation conveys the same cosmic reality as the human’s quest to reach the light and attain the centre.  Such splendor of enlightenment is the stuff of life that combines the cold blue light of the intellect with the emotional warmth of the earthly sun. 

Diverse Divers is the bringer of power through art: the tool of tools to excite, express and wonder.…

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What do you get when passion and private enterprise collide? A story of love, hope and the world’s richest reefs

The Mission Blue Council has just named the Misool Marine Reserve in South Raja Ampat, Indonesia as a Mission Blue Hope Spot. Misool is a shining beacon of hope inside the Coral Triangle, the most biodiverse marine ecosystem in the world. Here’s Misool’s story about how conservation and tourism can be the perfect marriage…
Back in 2005, when Raja Ampat was visited only by a handful of daring divers aboard their pirate-esque Phinisi schooners, Marit Miners and her future husband Andrew spent their third date, which lasted nearly a month, diving Misool’s undiscovered reefs. They explored the region’s maze of karst outcroppings and rugged islets.  During a surface interval between dives, the pair stumbled upon a secret beach which was home to an itinerant shark finning camp, clearly contributing to the estimated 100 million sharks killed each year to supply the shark fin soup trade.…

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Turning the Tide on Plastics in the Mediterranean

by Courtney Mattison

At first glance, the cove of Cala Figuera in Mallorca’s Bay of Palma looks like a Mediterranean paradise, with sun-kissed boulders tumbling into glittering turquoise water. Take a closer look at its beach, however, and you will discover that instead of sand, it is comprised of heaps of plastic. Snarls of Posidonia seagrass tangle with plastic straws, fishing line, drink cups and syringes. Thousands of tiny plastic sticks from cotton swabs and lollipops are strewn like confetti across the beach. Dig into the top layer of sun-bleached plastic rubble and you will discover a rainbow of bottle caps, toys, tile spacers, cigarette butts and microplastics at least a meter thick.
“We’ve actually come on a good day and the sea is relatively clean,” said Brad Robertson, Founder and President of Asociación Ondine, a nonprofit ocean conservation organization based in Mallorca, Spain.…

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Citizen Scientists Nurture the Moreton Bay Hope Spot

The power of the people that helped to secure Hope Spot designation for Moreton Bay Marine Park in 2016 continues to build on that strong stewardship legacy. In 2017, citizen scientists have been collecting important information on the habitats and wildlife across beautiful Moreton Bay/Quandamooka including topics from mangroves to manta rays. These efforts complement the knowledge and care provided for tens of thousands of years by the traditional owners of the region, and is increasingly important with the rapidly growing population in this unique region.
“Citizen scientists provide not only data, but hope. The commitment to collecting high-quality information to help care for this unique place and its wildlife demonstrates how the community can play a truly important and influential role in science-based stewardship,” said Jennifer Loder, Reef Check Australia.…

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