Marine Resources

Despite considerable efforts these past four years, we are not on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. We must dramatically step up the pace of implementation as we enter a decisive decade for people and the planet.

For over 40 years, hydrothermal vents and the communities that thrive on them have been a source of profound discovery for deep-sea ecologists. These ecosystems are found throughout the world on active plate margins as well as other geologically active features.

With the establishment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, the Human Development Forum launched a series of publications entitled A Better World, each volume dedicated to one of the 17 SDGs.

Well-managed and enforced no-take marine reserves generate important larval subsidies to neighboring habitats and thereby contribute to the long-term sustainability of fisheries.

Corals and coral-associated species are highly vulnerable to the emerging effects of global climate change. The widespread degradation of coral reefs, which will be accelerated by climate change, jeopardizes the goods and services that tropical nations derive from reef ecosystems.

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are conservation tools that are increasingly implemented, with growing national commitments for MPA expansion. Perhaps the greatest challenge to expanded use of MPAs is the perceived trade-off between protection and food production.

While coral reefs become increasingly degraded, new techniques are increasingly needed to assist reefs in recovering and adapting to changing environmental conditions.

This Guide has been produced to provide practical, science-based advice on how to maximize the effectiveness of both new and existing shark and ray MPAs, to ensure these animals are protected now and far into the future.

In this report the World Ocean Initiative assesses the challenges facing key sectors in the ocean economy, including seafood, shipping, tourism and renewable energy.

Coastal ecosystems and the services they provide are adversely affected by a wide variety of human activities. In particular, seagrass meadows are negatively affected by impacts accruing from the billion or more people who live within 50 km of them.

Rapid anthropogenic climate change is a major threat to ocean biodiversity, increasing the challenge for marine conservation.

Substantial efforts and investments are being made to increase the scale and improve the effectiveness of marine conservation globally.

United Nations General Assembly Resolution 69/292 has committed States to develop an international legally binding instrument under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction

The Marine Protected Area (MPA) Guide refines existing language and captures a shared vision to describe MPAs and the conservation outcomes they provide. The Guide is the work of many hundreds of stakeholders from around the world.

Atlas of Ocean Wealth

Atlas of Ocean Wealth

Atolls are small, geographically isolated, resource-poor islands scattered over vast expanses of ocean.

The potential for imminent abyssal polymetallic nodule exploitation has raised considerable scientifc attention.

Low-cost, portable, observation-class, underwater remotely operated vehicles (microROVs), which can be transported and operated by a single user, are increasingly common tools in scientific, industrial, commercial, and recreational ocean application.

Catchment Management and Coral Reef Conservation

The ecology of many coral reefs has changed markedly over recent decades in response to various combinations of local and global stressors.

Ancient Hawaiians developed sophisticated natural resource management systems that included various forms of spatial management.

Climate change will impact coral-reef fishes through effects on individual performance, trophic linkages, recruitment dynamics, population connectivity and other ecosystem processes.

Scientists have advocated for local interventions, such as creating marine protected areas and implementing fishery restrictions, as ways to mitigate local stressors to limit the effects of climate change on reef-building corals.

Coastal Management Profiles: A Directory of Pacific Island Governments and non Government Agencies with Coastal Management related Responsibilities

The aim of the present report is to provide a comparative assessment of commonly used pelagic sampling methods.

The United Nations are currently negotiating a new international legally-binding instrument to govern the global ocean commons, a vast area beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) owned by everyone but not cared for by any single entity.

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has just finished a report on the "Contribution of Marine Conservation Agreements to Biodiversity Protection, Fisheries Management and Sustainable Financing in Fiji."The report documents the degree and scale to which Marine Conservation Agreements (MCAs) ar

The marine environment is vital for Fiji's tourism sector, yet industry and community partnerships to conserve it have largely gone unrecognised.

Cook Islands priority Environmental Problems (PEC) report 2004

In April 2011, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation (KSLOF) embarked on the Global Reef Expedition (GRE)- the largest coral reef survey and mapping expedition in history. The GRE was a rigorous five-year scientific mission to study coral reefs around the world.

This policy gap analysis identifies threats to coral reefs, evaluates the effectiveness of the existing legal framework to address these threats, and formulates recommendations to strengthen community-based natural resource management in Solomon Islands.

Coral reefs underpin a range of ecosystem goods and services that contribute to the well‐being of millions of people. However, tropical coral reefs in the Anthropocene are likely to be functionally different from reefs in the past.

Coral Reefs

Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network

Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2008

Increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere put shallow, warm-water coral reef ecosystems, and the people who depend upon them at risk from two key global environmental stresses: 1) elevated sea surface temperature (that can cause coral bleaching and related mortality), and 2) ocean aci

The global COVID-19 (or coronavirus) pandemic is having a major impact across the globe and on all segments of the population.

The pandemic caused by the virus, COVID-19 has had wide-ranging effects on coastal and island communities throughout the South Pacific.

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 has had far reaching effects across the Pacific, including isolated island nations like the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), population 112,000.

Papua New Guinea (PNG), the largest of the Pacific island nations (population 8.9 million), has not been spared from the COVID-19 pandemic. The government declared a State of Emergency in March, closing off international borders and suspending domestic air travel.

Over the last decades scientists have discovered that seagrass meadows, tidal marshes, and mangroves – “blue carbon” ecosystems – are among the most intensive carbon sinks in the biosphere.

Dare To Be Deep:  SeaStates Report on North America’s Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)

Our rapidly warming climate is threatening coral reefs as thermal anomalies trigger mass coral bleaching events. Deep (or “mesophotic”) coral reefs are hypothesised to act as major ecological refuges from mass bleaching, but empirical assessments are limited.

The deep sea — usually defined as the realm below 200 metres — is a world of extremes. Temperatures near the sea bed in many places hover near 0 °C, there is next to no light, and pressures can exceed 1,000 bars, equivalent to having a couple of elephants standing on your big toe.

Designing Marine Protected Area Networks to Achieve Fisheries Biodiversity an

The Guide contains information about essential components and sub-components of marine spatial planning legislation, describing each and highlighting its role and significance.

This study identifies the importance of: acquiring robust baseline data, being fully protected (no-take), using ecosystembased management, community inclusion, and of adopting an ecologically connected network approach.

The UN General Assembly has made a unanimous decision to start negotiations to establish an international, legally-binding instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity within Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ).

Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSAs) and Commercial Activities

Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSAs) Special places in the world’s oceans (Western South Pacific)

Monitoring of marine protected areas (MPAs) is critical for marine ecosystem management, yet current protocols rely on SCUBA-based visual surveys that are costly and time consuming, limiting their scope and effectiveness.