1. We focus a lot on science communication as the generation of content.  However equally, and if not more, important is the filtering of content.  In the last few years, poorly informed, incorrect and out right maliciously wrong content has become prolific.  We need now, more than ever, for trusted domain experts to amplify, share, and provide reliable and accurate information. I saw this first hand reporting here at DSN with both the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and the Fukishama Reactors that bad information was rampant and people were looking for trusted content.

2. Somewhere we stopped teaching students and the public how to critically evaluate information. Or may be it never existed at all.  We need with renewed vigor to teach students and the public how to think, reason, and evaluate information.  We need mandatory classes and lessons across education levels in logic, philosophy, mathematics, statistics, problem solving, and scientific methodology.

3. We need to make sure good and correct information is more accessible and more viral than bad information.  We need to make it easier for students and the public to get the information they need to be an informed citizenry.

4. Science needs to be more open.  Open access publishing, science communication, and citizen science and other initiatives were good start of a larger “open” movement.  But now we need to swing the doors of science open a little wider.  We are not open or honest to our failures in the enterprise of science.  Metal health issues, inequality, profiteering, and harassment run rapid.  We need change and a river in Egypt isn’t the first step.

We need to be more open about our failures not just successes. @DrCraigMc giving a rallying cry rant I needed to hear and can get behind this morning. #nerdsoftrust

— KT (@vivalakt) June 25, 2018

5. We need to renew the social contract between educational institutions and the public.  We need to place value on an informed and educated citizenry.   This is the hallmark to economic prosperity and quality, political stability and growth, innovation in the sciences and humanities, and overall public health.  The renewal of this contract comes first and foremost with economic commitment from local to national levels and the foresight that this investment will be returned 10-fold.

6. Scientists need to all become nerds of trust. On Facebook, over beers at the bar, in your local and state government meetings, you need to be there with science.

@DrCraigMc of @deepseanews encourages us librarians to be “nerds of trust for friends & family” & use social media like Facebook to discuss science in our social spheres. @alaannual #alaac18 @ALA_ACRL #STS pic.twitter.com/8it9UtOV4m

— Michael R Leach (@mikeleach42) June 25, 2018

7. Science communication needs to be goal and mission oriented.  The idea of a “Field of Dreams” model of putting something out there and expecting it work is ridiculous.  If you have not thought about what success is and how you are going to measure it, stop now.  Science communication has to be deliberate in action.

“We need to stop half-assing our science outreach” and to think I almost meh’d out of this mornings session because sleep. >⁦@DrCraigMc⁩ https://t.co/5wOgz5bTEJ

— KT (@vivalakt) June 25, 2018

8. We need to break out of the echo chamber.  If you defriended all of your Facebook friends who had different political leanings to you, you are probably part of the problem.  Are your science communication efforts only reaching the NPR and PBS, science-enthusiast audience?  Was the last science and drink night you talked at just hipsters in tweed? Probably…  Are you still wondering why the public is struggling with science or just actively anti-science.  YOU ARE NOT TALKING TO THEM.  We need new and creative ways to reach new audiences especially those in lower socio-economic classes. We need to go to where they are and put science there.

9. We need to create and support places and times of innovation…places that domain experts in humanities, social science, education and pedagogy, science communication, and scientists learn from each other and build together.  These need to be places that applaud risk and go after moon shots while focused on action and products. Events like #oceandotcomm are one example.

10. Even if we don’t get anything else right, we need to get one thing right.  Be passionate.  This idea of science as cold, heartless, and stale enterprise needs to die.

“Be passionate. Science is not a cold place, it is an amazing place. Share that.” – @DrCraigMc in how we connect and excite the community in science efforts #alaac18

— Paige Dhyne (@LibandLife) June 25, 2018

The post 10 Things Science, Science Communication, and Just Maybe All of Academia Needs first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Ocean science and conservation, like any human enterprise, is subject to its fair share of internal messiness from time to time.  As someone whose expertise and experience intersects several discrete domains (coral reefs, sharks, marine protected areas, and policy), I’ve witnessed plenty of dust-ups, arguments, and spats over the years.  And this week’s flurry of discussion instigated by a New York Times editorial on ocean protected areas is just the latest kerfuffle. In his op-ed, Bigger Is Not Better for Conservation, coral reef scientist and California Academy of Sciences curator, Dr Luiz Rocha, argues that large-scale, remote marine reserves are a disservice to ocean conservation.  It’s Dr Rocha’s perspectives, however, that seem more damaging.

Rocha’s argument hinges on four key points:

1. The current tally of big, remote marine reserves is in low-conflict, easy to protect (ie, low-hanging fruit) areas of the ocean where human reliance upon them is negligible and therefore government willingness to protect is strong;
2. There’s nothing worth protecting in these big, remote areas;
3. More important, smaller, near-shore ocean areas with high levels of human use are in dire need of protection;
4. Marine protected areas should be science-based (eg, protected zones should be guided by “sustainable catch limits” of commercially targeted species).

Let’s go one-by-one to see if any of these points hold water. [Note: For the sake of brevity, I’ll be using the acronym MPA frequently in this piece for “marine protected area,” but it will also serve as shorthand for “marine reserve,” “protected area,” “locally managed marine area,” or “marine managed area.”  I recognize that an MPA may not be managed or enforced, but let’s forego that technicality for the moment.]

POINT 1: “Big MPAs are easy and less consequential.”
As of today, there are approximately 20 large-scale protected areas across the ocean (ranging from tens-of-thousands to millions of square kilometers in protected area).  This includes a range from the Marianas Marine National Monument’s 16,400 square kilometers to the 1.15 million square kilometers of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in Hawai’i.  These MPAs may consist of fully-protected, no-take (no fishing/extraction) designation to protection that still allows multiple uses.  According to the folks at MPA Atlas, there are approximately 15,000 small, coastal MPAs around the world.  Some of these, like Cordelia Banks off the island of Roatan in the Bay of Honduras, encompass only 17 square kilometers.  Many are even smaller.  Totaling all of the massive/remote and small/near-shore MPAs together gets us to approximately 2% of the ocean under some form of protection.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress, held in Hawai’i in September 2016, called for member nations to set aside “30% of each marine habitat” in “highly protected MPAs and other effective area-based conservation measures” by 2030, with the ultimate aim being ”a fully sustainable ocean, at least 30% of which has no extractive activities.”

For rhetorical effect, I’ll reiterate that as of March 23, 2018, only 2% of our global oceans is protected, and 2030 is only twelve years away.

As someone in the MPA biz, I can testify that there are at present a small handful of big, deep-pocketed, international NGOs working on big international MPAs: The Pew Charitable Trusts, Conservation International, Oceana, and National Geographic. These folks have the gravitas, influence, and resources to capture heads of state attention and convene forums necessary to get things done.  You can bitch all you want about the pros and cons, but this is the reality.  Alongside the big NGOs, there are tens-to-hundreds of small to medium-sized NGOs that are working simultaneously on everything from big/remote MPAs to smaller/near-shore MPAs.  Sometimes the big NGOs work in concert with the smaller ones.  Sometime not.  It’s all site dependent.

Having worked on everything from massive MPAs to tiny MPAs over my career, I can say that none of them were “easy wins.”  So-called “low hanging fruit” may represent a unique opportunity in time.  You may have a receptive government or local community that welcomes the process.  It’s always easier to work with the willing than the resistant.  But every MPA effort in which I’ve participated involved strategy, identifying champions, public consultations, negotiations, community organizing, building political will, battling nefarious characters, rebooting strategy, sweating-out votes, and of course finding funds to support all of this.  If there are “easy wins” out there, big or small, I sure would appreciate someone pointing me in that direction.

Protecting big/remote areas or smaller/near-shore areas is not an either/or game.  This is not a binary proposition of doing one or the other.  It’s a yes/also.  We need to protect small, not so small, medium, larger, big, bigger, and massive tracts of the ocean.  We need to protect what is easy to protect, and what is harder to protect.  We must gather every bit of low-hanging fruit, and plan to reach the currently out-of-reach fruit.  MPAs occupy a spectrum or continuum, and we need to be prepared to work with everything along that spectrum.  Some NGOs will have a mandate (and talent) for pursuing big swaths of ocean.  Others are more tuned to work on local needs.  But there is a lot of real estate between the biggest and smallest MPAs for organizations, individuals, and yes, even FUNDERS to find their niche.

POINT 2: “There’s nothing worth protecting.”
This is just wholesale wrong.  What is Rocha considering as “worth” protection?  Certainly, there are species whose entire life cycle may be captured by the boundaries of an MPA.  Other species may only spend a portion of their lives within the boundaries of protection.  Protected areas are designed to factor in these variables.  But not all MPAs are envisioned around biological significance alone.  The Monitor National Marine Sanctuary in North Carolina, the very first marine national monument designated by the United States in 1975, honors the historic significance of the shipwreck of the famed Civil War ironclad, USS Monitor.  Similarly, the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument and the entire Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, including the 110 seamounts, open waters, and all life in that area are considered biocultural resources and linked to the Hawaiian people through environmental kinship.

The ocean as a cultural seascape is vital to Hawaiian identity, their being, and essential dimension to their cognitive understanding of the world.  The ocean waters in Papahānaumokuākea were an ancient pathway for a voyaging sphere that occurred between this region and the main Hawaiian islands for over 400-500 years (ca. AD 1300-1800).  The practice of traditional wayfinding and voyaging—recently popularized in the film Moana and which is one of the most unique living traditions of the world—requires protection of the entire marine environment and open waters, not just the islands and reefs, because it relies on biological signs and natural phenomenon, such as winds, waves, currents, and the presence of marine life and birds at key moments and locations.

At the same time as Papahānaumokuākea was successfully expanded in 2016 by President Obama, the State of Hawai’i also supporting the establishment of small, coastal community-managed makai areas, driven by and for the community.  Yes, both can happen at the same time and using the same human capital, as many of the same people fought for both the small makai areas and the big Papahānaumokuākea effort.

POINT 3: “There are more important, smaller places to protect.”
Importance is relative and subjective.  It is place-driven and context-heavy.  What is important to someone in Brazil, might be less so to someone in Hawai’i.  So instead of casting stones at our neighbors, perhaps we should recognize that there are seriously limited resources, conservation bandwidth, and political will, and try to triage our priorities.  I recognize that the reality is that not all NGOs/organizations like to play-well together.  Furthermore, some places and approaches are simply not tenable due to practical considerations and political and social realities.  Again, this is a reality of modern conservation.  But as I mention above, effective MPAs do not occupy one half of a binary state.  It’s not either small or large.  Remote or near-shore.  Fully managed/enforced or paper parks/un-enforced.  Every single MPA in existence occupies a position somewhere along a continuum of effectiveness.  Even an un-managed, unfunded, and unenforced MPA is a work in progress along that continuum.

POINT 4: “They’re not science-based.”
Science should help inform MPA zoning and designation.  No questions or arguments here.  But the science needed may at times be incomplete or lacking.  Many decisions around the world, particularly in developing nations, on “sustainable catch limits” are not acted upon because data is deficient.  Should we be expected to wait for the science to be decided and settled (whatever that might mean) before action/conservation measures can be activated?  And science is but one arrow in our quiver that we should use to scope, establish, and manage MPAs.  The social sciences and economics are also driving MPA priorities and planning.

Finally…
I find an editorial like Rocha’s to be, quite frankly, dangerous.  Staking-out a claim on one side of a false dichotomy or constructing straw man arguments is the purview of graduate school.  I get it… Rocha would like to see more love shown to near shore/coral reef areas (including where he has worked in Brazil).  But what is the benefit to conservation as a whole to publish these half-baked propositions that large, remote MPAs are a waste of time in the pages of The New York Times and under the banner of an august and internationally recognized organization like the California Academy of Sciences?  We are not currently living in normal times, and this sort of rhetoric plays right into the hands of those keen to see less ocean protection, not more.

For the first time in US history, an administration is rolling back protections on national monuments, both land and sea.  Australia just this week has announced the possibility of cutting in half the protections for the Coral Seas MPA.  Conservation in one place in the ocean is not the enemy of conservation in another place.  And MPAs are not a binary switch of either big or small…  Local or remote…  Fully protected or not.  If we are going to get to the IUCN recommended target of 30% of our oceans under strong protection by 2030, we need to ramp up protections everywhere along the MPA continuum.  Yes/Also should become our mantra!  We must embrace a process of continuous improvement in our MPA work, not display a reflex of undercutting other conservation efforts.  And we need to keep our focus and attention on the real threats to a healthy ocean: over-fishing, illegal fishing, pollution, climate change, and lack of political will for action.

The post Embracing Yes/Also: Marine Protected Areas Are Not An Either/Or Proposition first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Threats of international boycotts. A conservation activism group’s boat burned in effigy. Government vehicles overturned by angry citizens. A cartel trafficking illegal wildlife goods worth thousands of dollars per kilo.

At the heart of this? An adorable porpoise – the vaquita, sometimes called the “panda of the sea.” It is the world’s most endangered marine mammal, occurring only in the Upper Gulf of California and threatened by bycatch in gillnets in local small-scale fisheries. Its fate is inextricably entangled (ah, bycatch puns) in a complex mess of human motivations and actions.

This high-profile conservation issue has drawn millions of dollars and decades of hard work by some of the world’s brightest and most dedicated minds. Yet we’ve reached a point where desperate, high-risk efforts to catch and keep vaquita in captivity is the only option for this species’ survival (here is a not particularly great, but widely read, piece in the NYT). How did this happen?

Well, one thing to consider is that there is a critically important group of players that are not represented in most media stories on this issue: the local communities. These include people now unable to feed their families, and worried about increasing rates of drug addiction and crime. People who feel disenfranchised and villified and misunderstood.  Numerous colleagues and I believe that this sector has been disregarded not only in media coverage, but also in decision-making, in a way that is ultimately counterproductive to conservation (not to mention human well-being).

My insights are based on a recent research project that I co-developed: “Stakeholder perspectives on the future of vaquita conservation.” With guidance from experts, my fantastic research team and I interviewed fishers and community members in San Felipe and El Golfo de Santa Clara, as well as conservation groups, researchers, and government agencies about their perceptions regarding vaquita conservation.

Given the heated nature of this topic, some fine print: These ideas do not necessarily represent the views of anyone besides me. This post presents a *very* simplified version of our project and the system. Our findings are based on what people chose to tell us – truths, deliberate non-truths, or inadvertent non-truths. Even though these might not be absolute fact, people’s perceptions are critically important.

The system

At the interface between small-scale fisheries and conservation, it is especially critical to understand the elements and interactions between human society and nature. So, what does the vaquita conservation system look like? Below is a (simplified) version of the entities involved:

At the heart of the system? The vaquita, local fisheries, and the illegal fishery for totoaba, a fish whose swim bladders sell at staggeringly high prices to Asian markets. This is run by cartels (one of my field assistants – somewhat jokingly – said, “Tara, please don’t get us killed”).

The infrastructure and economics of local communities, as well as the health and well-being of community members, heavily influence the feasibility of transitioning from a gillnet-based economy. The system includes how these fisheries and communities are managed, i.e. by government agencies (local and national), as well as conservation groups, and researchers who might be affiliated with government agencies, conservation groups, or academia.

These groups dynamics are complex. For example, fishers might belong to cooperatives, organized into federations.  The perspectives of a cooperative leader will differ from those of a fisher who works on a boat that someone else owns.  There are also independent fishers who do not belong to cooperatives. Furthermore, different priorities exist within the government agencies, researchers, and conservation groups.  Some focus more on fisheries, others more on vaquita conservation. This sets the stage for conflict not only among different stakeholder groups, but also within.

The “solution”

As an emergency effort to save this species, conservation groups pushed for a 2-year gillnet ban from 2015-2017. This ban was accompanied by a compensation scheme for fishers who would be losing their livelihood.  Additionally, social programs were promised to assist in transitioning to alternative livelihoods.  At the same time, trials were being run for “el chango ecologico,” a small, apparently environmentally-friendly, trawl. This vaquita-safe gear would be the proposed alternative gear for local fishers.  Additionally, enforcement efforts again the totoaba fishery were stepped up, by the Navy and Sea Shepherd.

This is my doodle rendition of the plan – with anticipated reduction of bycatch and totoaba fishing, recovery of the vaquita, and limited negative impacts (perhaps positive impacts) to local communities:

So…how did it go?

Well, not as hoped:

Vaquita bycatch continues, with the population dropping to a downright grim 30 individuals. The illegal totoaba fishery continues (and possibly has increased). And conflict between communities and conservation groups has grown even more heated.

The compensation program was mismanaged such that many fishers are not receiving it; no social support programs materialized; and many community members reported serious degradation in community and individual well-being. There was mention of some fishers entering the illegal totoaba fishery as the only feasible livelihood option.

The alternative gear is widely rejected by fishers, who state that it difficult and costly to use, inefficient, and damaging to the environment (more on this in a recent paper by Aburto-Oropeza et al. in Conservation Letter, summarized here). There is a daunting level of distrust between various groups involved in these trials.

All of this occurs on a long-standing foundation of conflict between stakeholders (e.g., Cisneros-Montemayor and Vincent 2016) .  Some community members stated that the vaquita is a myth invented by conservationists; that bycatch does not occur in their gillnets; that data related to this are faked.  Even those with more moderate beliefs expressed dismay about the lack of communication and inclusion by researchers and conservation groups. However, researchers firmly and exasperatedly emphasized to me that they had tried to share their research and findings.  Clearly, there is a disconnect here. Even though information has been shared, it has not been effectively received – for whatever reason.

On a certain level, the solution to bycatch seems to be fairly simple: reduce the overlap between gillnets and the animals of concern. Of course, bycatch does not occur in isolation. Not to belabor the “bycatch pun” angle, but bycatch is generally tied up in complex systems of interconnected strings and knots. Any attempt to disentangle the situation will involve pulling on certain strings, which are connected to other strings and knots.  In other words, each action will introduce tensions to other parts of the system.  If these tensions are not anticipated and managed, the whole tangle might just become more intractable.

The ban added tension to an already-complicated series of intertwined knots. It pulled on the complex interconections between gillnet fisheries and community well-being, and at the particularly intractable knot linked to the totoaba fishery.  Without a series of effective, concerted efforts to untangle these knots, this added tension has only made these knots more tight.

Narratives

Problems are easier to think about in simple terms. A bad side, a victim, and a good side. Evil, greedy corporations despoiling the earth for their own gain make for a storyline with limited moral ambiguity. This is an easy way to communicate a problem to the broader public.

Unfortunately, many conservation problems simply do not fit into this narrative. They are the products of complex systems – they are “wicked problems” (see Jentoft and Chuenpagdee 2009 on how this term applies to fisheries and coastal management) They make our heads hurt and force us to consider tricky ethical dilemmas.

So, it’s not surprising when a complex problem like vaquita bycatch becomes oversimplified in media coverage. Narratives that thoughtfully share the community side of this story are rare. The considerable impacts of the gillnet ban on their incomes, health, and well-being have not been widely covered.  And though the NYT story and others convey otherwise, most of the fishers and community members we interviewed had positive perceptions of the vaquita – viewing it as a beautiful animal that had a right to exist, that was a part of their natural heritage. Their objections were to conservation approaches that harmed their communities, but they were generally supportive of the idea of conserving the vaquita.

Community members are tired of being villified. Many of them feel that their communities also suffer from the totoaba fishery and related influence of cartels; they feel attacked from all sides, by the cartels and by the conservationists. While some community members have engaged in aggressive protests, there are others who feel that these actions do not represent their community in a favorable light – yet these are the actions grabbing headlines.

A shift from the simple “bad guy, good guy” narrative could promote greater demand and support for holistic and, one imagines, more effective approaches. Some key recommendations from our interviewees include: truly effective communication about research methods and findings; inclusion of communities in research and decision-making, including the search for alternative gears other than the chango ecologico; cooperative, community-inclusive efforts to combat the totoaba fishery, improve infrastructure, and develop job training and alternative livelihoods; and broadening the focus of vaquita conservation to include other aspects of the ecosystem and the needs of communities, as articulately argued for in two recent papers (Cisneros-Montemayor and Vincent 2016; Aburto-Oropeza et al. 2017).

Of course, easier said than done. And it’s very easy to criticize as an outsider looking back on past actions. However, with greater demand for these types of solutions, I hope that there will be more research on how to meaningfully design and implement these recommendations rather than having them be the “ta-daaah, we’re finished here!” final section of reports and papers.

What now?

The solutions indicated by our research are long-term efforts to effect holistic change in the system. These are not last-ditch, emergency measures. So, while conservation and research groups mobilize to save this species through captivity, what else can be done?

You might have seen calls on social media to boycott seafood from Mexico. Supporting a boycott is a personal decision, and not necessarily a bad one. I would be loathe to support a market linked to vaquita bycatch. But I’d urge you to carefully think: what happens with this boycott? What strings does that pull on, and what tensions might be worsened? Would this spur the government toward more effective conservation action, toward more effectively controlling the totoaba trade? Are there plans to ensure that communities do not bear the burden of a problem that isn’t necessarily their fault? I’d like to see those calling for boycotts to also call for complementary efforts to work with communities as partners, rather than opponents.

What else can be done? There are at least two major opportunities:

1. Invest in long-term social and environmental sustainability in the Upper Gulf beyond vaquita conservation, and involved the community in a more open, participatory approach to developing and designing creative, appropriate solutions for greater social and environmental well-being;
2. Take these hard-earned lessons from the vaquita mess and apply them to similar conservation problems globally, that do not have the amount of publicity or funding that have been showered upon the vaquita. Unfortunately, marine mammal bycatch is a global issue, and we need to evaluate all attempts to solve this problem.

I was hoping to think of a humorous, catchy title for this post – for example, “Conservation at Cross Porpoises.” But that felt flippant in the face of this all-around depressing situation: a species will almost certainly soon be extinct in the wild, communities have suffered, scientists and conservationists have worked their hearts out, and the only obvious “bad guys” continue to reap the benefits from the illegal totoaba trade. My hope is that we can start to appreciate the complexity of these situations, and design strategies that match and adapt to this complexity for other cases.

—

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Sincere “thank you” to all who participated in these interviews and to the communities of San Felipe and El Golfo de Santa Clara; to collaborator Samantha Young @ San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research and research team Areli Hernandez and Veronica Vargas; to the Gulf of California Marine Program. Research funded by NSF SEES Fellowship and SeaWorld Busch Gardens Conservation Fund.

REFERENCES

Aburto-Oropeza O, López-Sagástegui C, Moreno-Báez M, et al. 2017. Endangered Species, Ecosystem Integrity, and Human Livelihoods: Species conservation humans ecosystems. Conserv Lett.

Cisneros-Montemayor AM and Vincent AC. 2016. Science, society, and flagship species: social and political history as keys to conservation outcomes in the Gulf of California. Ecol Soc 21.

Jentoft S and Chuenpagdee R. 2009. Fisheries and coastal governance as a wicked problem. Mar Policy 33: 553–60.

The post Beyond drug lords and conservationists: Who is missing in the coverage of the vaquita’s demise? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

I am on a ship 950 miles away from the nearest landmass. Here, in the middle of the equatorial Pacific Ocean, our team sends a remotely-operated vehicle 2.5 miles down to the flat abyssal plain. As deep-sea biologists, we get to see some pretty AH-MAZING sights and this time is no exception: an anemone-like animal with 8-foot tentacles that billow across the seafloor. This creature, Relicanthus sp., is so different from other anemones it was recently moved to a new order.

As incredible as seeing this tentacled beast was, I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of sadness. It’s difficult for a marine biologist working in an area that may be forever changed within the next two decades. As the demand for metals increases, humans are seeking resources in ever more remote places and the next frontier of mining will likely take place in the deep ocean.

So what are countries after 3 miles deep in the central Pacific Ocean? Potato-sized lumps of metallic ore laden with cobalt, copper, nickel and other rare metals known as polymetallic nodules. The Clarion-Clipperton Zone has the most valuable beds of these nodules that sit like cobbles on a street and form at a rate of a few millimeters per million years. As the Clarion-Clipperton Zone is in international waters, it falls under the mandate of the International Seabed Authority (ISA). So far, there have been 15 mining exploration areas allocated, each up to 75,000 km² or roughly the size of Panama.

Let’s be honest, nodule mining is going to do some damage. Nodules will be removed resulting in local extinctions of the many animals (corals, sponges, bryozoans, polychaetes, nematodes etc.) that call these nodules home and leaving no possibility for their re-establishment in the future. Machines, similar to combine harvesters, will disturb and compact large swathes of sediment, kicking up sediment plumes, which will travel for kilometers before depositing elsewhere. Further entombment of the seafloor will occur when tailings are discharged into the water column. Not to mention other possible impacts that include light and noise pollution from machinery, and major changes to the geochemistry of the sediment, food webs and carbon sequestration pathways. The cumulative impacts of these operations aren’t yet understood but will likely be long-standing and ocean-wide.

Despite this looming threat, the Clarion-Clipperton Zone is critically underexplored. We know little of what species live there. It is mandatory that contractors undertake baseline studies of the biology living at the seafloor before EIAs and mining can begin. The ABYSSLINE Project, which I work on, is doing just that in the easternmost claim area leased to UK Seabed Resources Ltd (UKSRL). My research is trying to find out what megafauna (the awesome charismatic animals over 2 cm in size) live in the UKSRL claim, how abundant and diverse they are, and what ranges they occupy, not only within the claim but also across the entire Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Over the last two years, ABYSSLINE scientists have spent over two months out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean sampling the seafloor with a menagerie of oceanographic equipment (plankton pumps, fish traps, a remotely-operated vehicle, an autonomous underwater vehicles, sleds, corers etc.).

Preliminary results show that the UKSRL claim area is rich not only in metals but also in life. The seabed, at a first glance, appeared to not have much living there. Taking a closer look, we realized that there were small animals everywhere: tiny white corals, pink and purple sea cucumbers, bright red shrimp and strange unicellular animals that create sedimented homes the size of your fist. On our first expedition, we sampled an area the size of Hong Kong (30 x 30 km) and found 170 tentative species of megafauna and that’s likely an underestimate! These levels of biodiversity are the highest in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone and are comparable to many other abyssal regions worldwide. We also collected 12 megafauna species and half of those were new to science, including some of the most commonly seen, reiterating how little we know of the abyssal life in this region.

The post Megafauna and Minerals on the Pacific Abyss first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Goodbyes are the worst things ever. EVER. Especially when it comes to two people I have looked up to for so long. Not only are Al and Rick impeccable science communicators, when I think of tangible hope for our oceans…their names are at the top of the list. I could not think of two finer gentlemen on the front lines of oceanic research and conservation. I salute you both.

Al- I hope that my secret dream of stowing away on a research vessel and frolicking with you through fields of whale sharks…is still a viable plan.

Rick- Since we have never met in person, I can’t confirm or deny your existence. But I live vicariously through your Facebook adventures and conservation conquests. I hope one day our mugs may clink in joyous union. Vinaka my friend.

As I stand here at the edge of the dock, I pour two shots of only the finest  scotch into the briny blue. A high toast to each of you. And in true DSN fashion, I bid thee farewell on the sails of a shanty.

The post Long May Your Big Jib Draw first appeared on Deep Sea News.

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CHOOSE YOUR MARINE FUNDER

The post Reef Roulette first appeared on Deep Sea News.

As the sun rose this morning here in Trinidad and Tobago where I’m conducting field work, I was certain about two facts.  First: Trinidadians and Tobagonians awoke to their morning ritual of doubles and a new reality with regard to their nation’s obligations on the international trade of five species of endangered shark species (Great, Scalloped, and Smooth Hammerhead sharks, Porbeagle sharks, and Oceanic White-tip sharks) as well as all manta ray species.  And secondly: I knew I could still drive this very morning (or any morning) to the public market just outside the Trinidad capital of Port of Spain and find dozens to hundreds of dead hammerhead sharks for sale.

Let’s take a look at the ocean optimism first.  As the direct result of the hard work by individuals and organizations for over a decade, the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP) for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (or familiarly known as CITES) resolved in 2013 that five shark species and all manta rays were to be included in Appendix II.  As of this Sunday morning, September 14, 2014, those new rules came into effect and nations that are party to CITES must now enforce these regulations (more on what’s at stake if nations fail to take these obligations seriously in just a moment).

In the case of shark and ray conservation, the need for a body like CITES is born from the recognition of the self-perpetuating cycle of lack of information and lack of adequate management action for commercially valuable species at the local and regional levels.  This cycle has been acknowledged by many of us within the shark conservation community as the Wheel of Shame.

Although shark fishing occurs around the world, most jurisdictions lack good or reliable data on shark populations (or data is deficient for making informed decisions on sustainability).  Because of this data-poor situation, scientists cannot offer recommendations on stock assessments, catch limits, or other critical fisheries advice.  Governments tend not to prioritize or create fisheries management guidelines in the absence of scientific recommendations.  All the while, shark fishing continues unabated, species depletion continues, and the ecosystem function of having healthy shark populations in our oceans is undermined.  And around we go.

CITES works to help partially control the Wheel of Shame by subjecting international trade in specimens of selected species to certain controls. All import, export, re-export and introduction from the sea of species covered by the Convention has to be authorized through a licensing system. Each Party to the Convention must designate one or more Management Authorities in charge of administering that licensing system and one or more Scientific Authorities to advise them on the effects of trade on the status of the species.

The species covered by CITES are listed in three Appendices, according to the degree of protection they need.  Appendix I, the category with most stringent protection, includes species threatened with extinction.  Appendix II includes species not necessarily threatened with extinction, but in which trade must be controlled in order to avoid utilization incompatible with their survival.  Appendix III contains species that are protected in at least one country, which has asked other CITES Parties for assistance in controlling the trade.

At each COP, the 175-nations (or Parties) submit proposals to list species on the Appendices, remove species from the Appendices, or transfer species from one Appendix to another. Species proposals are discussed and either passed or defeated by consensus or voted upon. Each Party gets one vote. It takes two-thirds of the Parties present and voting to pass a species proposal.

Decisions to propose CITES listing is based on the best available scientific evidence on species biomass, distribution, genomics, ecological connectivity, and known threats and vulnerability to commercial trade. Consideration for CITES listing is, by mandate, to include species not necessarily threatened with extinction, but in which trade must be controlled in order to avoid utilization incompatible with their survival:

CITES RESOLVES that, when considering proposals to amend Appendix I or II, the Parties shall, by virtue of the precautionary approach and in case of uncertainty either as regards the status of a species or the impact of trade on the conservation of a species, act in the best interest of the conservation of the species concerned and adopt measures that are proportionate to the anticipated risks to the species.

Long-time readers may recall that I’ve not always felt so optimistic following a CITES meeting.  COP 15 in Doha saw Blue-fin tuna, polar bears, eight species of shark, and an entire family of red and pink corals get passed over.  Conservation work at this international level is extremely high stakes, tricky, and often (if not regularly) a quagmire of corruption, coercion, and collusion.  I’ve heard too many stories of flamboyant bribery, vote-buying, secret ballots, and eleventh-hour reversals.

Yet despite these challenges, CITES remains one of the most powerful tools in the international conservation arsenal.  Flouting CITES obligations is not a trivial matter for a Party.  And while it’s not as complete a list of shark species that I’d like to see receiving protection, the new CITES restrictions that came into effect today represents the most comprehensive global effort seen in CITES’ 40-year history to give sharks and manta rays a better chance of surviving in the wild.

WHAT DO NEW CITES RULES MEAN IN PRACTICAL TERMS?
The new CITES Appendix II listing for the five sharks and all manta rays has created a new reality to all CITES Parties.  Effective today, Parties wishing to continue international trade in any of these listed species must demonstrate a non-detriment finding in order to be provided permits for international trade.  While the official verbiage gets a bit technical, a non-detriment finding represents a comprehensive stock assessment of the target species that considers an analysis of population status, distribution, populations trajectories, current harvest rates, ecosystem roles and implications, and existing trade data.  In total, a non-detriment finding demonstrates that (in the case of sharks and rays) fishing for and international trade in these species will not cause the collapse or critical depletion of the species nor loss of any ecosystem functions those species provide.  Short of providing a non-detriment finding, Parties may not continue international trade.

Since participation in CITES is voluntary and each Party assumes financial and technical responsibility for their own implementation and compliance, you might think that CITES has little teeth when it comes to infractions or failure to uphold obligations.  In truth, the CITES Secretariat does not monitor international trade but  needs to be informed of an infraction by a Party before action is considered.  And if international trade in the now CITES Appendix II-listed sharks and rays is small, you might think that a Party has little to no risk in letting shark fins or manta gill-rakers slip through their borders.  But consider for a moment the full suite of CITES species a Party may traffic in their international trade, not just sharks and rays.

Infractions from lack of enforcement of any single CITES species regulation can impact all of a Parties trade in CITES species.  The language of the Convention stipulates that infractions can result in, “the recommendations to all Parties to suspend CITES related trade with the offending party.”  This means that a Party not only risks its trade in shark fin through lack of compliance in CITES Appendix II restrictions, but also its lucrative trade in exotic hardwoods like mahogany, rosewood, or ebony.  Then there’s trade in fish, invertebrate, and coral species for the multi-million dollar home aquarium industry.  Or trade in birds, reptiles, or mammals for the pet market.  And Parties also benefit financially by supplying biological specimens for pharmaceutical research.  With CITES regulatory infractions, if you’re in for a penny you’re in for a pound.

But while the new CITES Appendix II listings for sharks and rays are reason for celebration within the conservation community, our work is far from over.  Scroll back up to the top of this post and take another look at the photo.  That dead Scalloped hammerhead shark was photographed in a fish market here in Trinidad yesterday.  It was a juvenile, and it was one of many.  Today’s new CITES rules change NOTHING with regard to domestic fishing, consumption, and trade.  In a place like Trinidad, that local consumption and trade volume is not trivial.  Those endangered hammerheads will be there today, tomorrow, and as long as local and regional management recommendations are lacking.

That’s where working with local fishing communities, regional fisheries management organizations, local governments, and local communities comes into play.  Until local people recognize the importance of healthy sharks to healthy oceans, the unique life histories of sharks that make them particularly vulnerable to overfishing, and that in many cases a shark is worth far more alive than dead to local economies, this scene will continue to play out.  To date, ten nations have stepped forward to demonstrate shark conservation leadership at the local level through the creation of shark sanctuaries.  Coupled with regional fisheries reform measures, and now strengthened by the enhanced protection derived by the new CITES sharks and rays Appendix II rules, we are seeing real reason for cautious ocean optimism.

The post New Obligations and Continuing Challenges in Shark Conservation first appeared on Deep Sea News.

In real estate it’s all about location, location, location. A cozy home with an ocean view, white-sand beaches, comfortable climate, close to great food, and good neighbors. But that last part is currently giving penguins a problem. Boulders Beach, a suburb of Simon’s Town south of Capetown, South Africa, is a picturesque seaside community with 60,000 visitors a year and a resident population of 2,100 African Penguins struggling to live and breed among the vacation houses and beachgoers.

Penguins led a difficult and ultimately tragic parallel history with humanity in South Africa extending back nearly half a million years. Prehistoric foraging by early humans likely had little impact on the once expansive populations of these seabirds. As early as the 1600’s, penguins in South Africa – numbering perhaps in the tens of millions – were harvested on a large scale by European settlers, increasing through the 1800’s, they were boiled for their oil, and ground into hog feed. Eggs collected for human consumption at the breeding rookeries took the largest toll – over half a million eggs were taken in some years at one island alone, and the practice wasn’t banned until 1968. Mining of penguin guano for fertilizer (the ‘white gold’ of penguin droppings) not only disturbed the birds on their breeding sites, but crushed the burrows the birds needed to escape the South African heat and protect their eggs from gulls and ibises. Moreover, guano is a necessary link in coastal productivity, so less fertilizer that makes it back into the ocean means fewer nutrients for the base of the food chain, ultimately causing a decline in the fish the penguins need. Add to that the usual loss of habitat, impact from invasive predators, over-fishing of their preferred prey, and general human disregard for a very loud, very stinky bird.

Population estimates of African Penguins in the early 1900’s may have been as high as 3 million penguins, sinking to less than 300,000 during the first census in 1956, by the 1990’s penguin populations declined by more than 90%. Surprisingly in the mid 1980’s, a single pair colonized Boulders, with new breeding pairs arriving in following years, and later their offspring returning to breed, by the end of the last century, the Boulders Beach colony grew to nearly 4,000 animals, of those, 2,100 were breeding birds.

Part of Boulders Beach is a sandy-white strand of the Table Mountain National Park reserved just for the breeding birds, with a boardwalk for visitors to cross over the penguins for observation & appreciation. The remaining coastal strip is a jumble of rocks, small beaches, and coastal scrub. It’s this scrub where the penguins find shade from the heat and sometimes build their simple nest. Getting to that habitat after a day’s fishing along the coast means a mad scramble between beach blankets, forced photographic pairings with selfie-crazed tourists, and crossing several busy roads. Death by roadkill is only a recent risk in their evolutionary history, as are the poor penguins seeking a cool respite under a parked car, unknowingly crushed by the driver backing out of a parking spot. A variety of signs warning people of such dangers to the local penguins makes for an oddly comedic experience.

This new suburban environment is a strange place to survive. Where penguins once feared predation from brown hyenas and leopards, or egg loss from genets and mongoose, today they fear off-leash dogs, feral cats, and the hundreds of gulls lured to the beach by leftover food strewn on the shore that find an unguarded penguin egg too tasty to pass. Curious children chase the birds, hoping to cuddle these cute animals. But unlike the animated critters they know and love, cranky African Penguins pack a serious defensive bite, sort and twisted by a pair of sharpened pliers.

I was once bitten by an African Penguin named Elvis at the California Academy of Sciences, so I know the intense pain they inflict. These penguins are more ‘street’ than Happy Feet. Even though warning signs are posted, and a fine for touching a wild penguin is 500 Rand (about fifty U.S. bucks), penguins are harassed every day by a few idiotic tourists. But that’s just one downside of the neighborhood. In other areas of South Africa, large oil spills have made a huge dent in some populations, and even rescued oiled birds only have a 50% chance of survival after cleaning & rehabilitation. Locally, the less obvious but far more numerous small oil leaks from commercial and pleasure boats kill dozens more penguins each year.

While humanity can be an annoying and often fatal drag on the penguins, the bigger problem is the loss of their local marine cuisine. Their preferred prey are delicious, high-fat sardines, virtual Twinkies of-the-sea, that fatten both parents and chicks. Once the sardine fishery was over exploited a few decades back, leaner and smaller anchovies moved in to occupy their ecological niche. But their lower fat content made them less than ideal for raising a family, and penguins needed to spend more time catching more anchovies, causing an energetic drain on the birds. As a second-choice meal, anchovies still provided penguins with abundant food.  In more recent years, the anchovies have also become a targeted commercial fishery, and data show a direct correlation between increase in commercial take of anchovies, and a reduction of nest success and adult survival of penguins. The bad news: African Penguins are on the decline again. Current estimates suggest that about 2% of the population from a century ago still survives.

Every so often I get the chance to teach a month-long university field course on wildlife biology & conservation in South Africa, and I take my students to Boulders Beach, mostly because it’s beyond awesome to snorkel with penguins, but it’s also a great way to engage students in the complexity of current-day conservation issues. Invariably one asks “why are all the penguins are here with the people?”, and I flip the question around: “why are people here with all these penguins”? It’s the monetization of the wildlife experience, and a unique one at that. The town knows the financial draw the penguins have, so it’s in their best interest to preserve them. Mo’ penguins, mo’ money. Working with the residents, local schools, and visitors, the National Park and non-profit groups are better educating visitors on penguin etiquette, providing more helpful signage, and creating the accommodations the penguins need. Currently, the local population of penguins at Boulders are still hanging on, but projected impacts from climate change, fisheries trends, increasing marine plastics, and coastal development don’t bode well for other populations throughout South Africa. The deeply-ingrained sense of conservation among South Africans, buoyed by the cooperation of government, researchers, non-profit organizations, and dedicated citizens, provide hope that African Penguins may not be totally lost.

The post Penguin Problems first appeared on Deep Sea News.

I’ve got something important I want to share with you that is not getting the attention it should from press or the authorities.  As regular #DeepSN readers will know, I work a lot with whale sharks in Yucatan Mexico as part of the research program at Georgia Aquarium and through association with the Mexican government and Mexican Conservation NGOs like Blue Realm/Ch’ooj Ajauil AC and Amigos de Isla Contoy.  Over the last few years many folks associated with these efforts have worked extensively to understand the largest aggregation of whale sharks in the world,  and we have begun to move towards conserving the extraordinary biodiversity of the marine realm of northern Quintana Roo, from Cancun to Cabo Catoche.  But, there is now a clear and present threat to marine life in this area.

Last year in cooperation with the Mexican national parks agency CONANP and Amigos de Isla Contoy, we (including DSN’s Dr. M!) installed an AIS receiver on the observation tower at Isla Contoy National Park, an incredibly picturesque island north east of Cancun.  This device relays signals from transmitters that are compulsory on all ships over 300 tonnes; signals that indicate ship ID, location, heading, destination and so on.  Our goal was to monitor commercial ship traffic in waters to the east of the island, where the majority of whale sharks gather these days, which is close to a big shipping lane at the western entrance to the Gulf of Mexico.  On July 6, however, we noticed in the data stream a ship doing some weird maneuvers, a ship which eventually came to a stop in the area immediately north of Isla Contoy.  The AIS data showed the ship to be a 300ft long bulk chemical tanker called Atlantic Sun and that she was anchored in less than 10m of water inside the bounds of the Whale Shark Biosphere Reserve, a marine protected area established in 2009 to conserve whale shark habitat.  The area is fedeally protected and anchoring is not allowed without special permitting.  It is certainly NOT appropriate anchorage for a 300ft chemical tanker.

Working with colleagues in Mexico we sent an aerial survey to confirm the presence and disposition of the ship and showed that yes, it was anchored in the protected area.  I contacted CONANP by email to urge an investigation, but to the best of my knowledge the ship remains today anchored in the MPA, some 2 weeks later.  Reports from contacts in Mexico suggest that the ship is either mechanically disabled or out of fuel, or both, and that the company that operates the ship may be in financial difficulties, which may be why they have not summoned a tug to move the ship to a more appropriate anchorage to await repairs or refueling.  There are reportedly six people on board – 5 men and 1 woman – and they are running low on supplies.  We are told that the cargo tanks are empty, which is good, but the ship itself represents a significant risk to healthy reef patches and adjacent bottom habitats, especially if it is disabled.  The potential anchor damage alone is significant.  Oil/diesel leakage and the risk of fuel spill from at-sea refueling should also be considered.  The best course of action is an immediate tow to the nearest safe harbour.

The maddening thing about this is that we warned about the risks of this some time ago.  Oh, and think about what could happen to a crippled tanker in shallow water if THIS continues on its current trajectory…

If you share our concern for the health of the Isla Contoy National Park, and for the whale sharks, manta rays, coral reefs, turtle mating/nesting areas, flamingos, manatees, dolphins, sailfish and frigate birds of northern Quintana Roo, please spread the word to your friends and colleagues in Yucatan Mexico, because so far there has been no press coverage in Cancun (or anywhere else) of this potential environmental disaster and little action from the regulatory authorities.  Marine protected areas and National Parks exist specifically to conserve extraordinary natural assets, but what good are they if we don’t use the provisions that they afford to effectively protect such critical habitats when they need it most?

You can email CONANP at  remolina@conanp.gob.mx

The post The Atlantic Sun is a potential environmental disaster first appeared on Deep Sea News.

“Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change – it can not only move us, it makes us move.”                                         -Ossie Davis

What better way to bring awareness to the threats facing our oceans than to plaster them on the sides of buildings. Bold, beautiful, and too big to be ignored.

This is exactly what Tre Packard and the rest of the brilliant company of street artists at PangeaSeed are doing with their Sea Walls project.

Harnessing the power of their craft, the PangeaSeed artisans are fulfilling their ongoing mission to use art as a medium to bring public awareness and education surrounding the conservation and preservation of sharks and other marine species in peril.

Since 2009, PangeaSeed has shed light on numerous ocean issues through their artivism  campaigns. Most recently, their Sea Walls campaign has brought them all over the world as they draw epic murals depicting everything from invasive species to overfishing.

This next week, PangeaSeed will be assembling street artists from around the globe as they descend on the small Mexican island of Isla Mujeres. Inspired by the massive homage of whale sharks and manta rays that annually come to the island to feed, artists will cover the island in Sea Walls with the hopes that they can shed light on the issues and help change the tide for these majestic creatures.

Check out more of the amazing artwork that has stemmed from this project:

Aaron Glasson – Galle Fort, Sri Lanka addressing ocean pollution.

Aaron Glasson – San Diego, California addressing shark conservation.

Aaron Glasson and Celeste Byers – Colombo, Sri Lanka addressing manta ray overfishing.

Celeste Byers and Aaron Glasson – Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam addressing the impact of fish farming. 

Aaron Glasson and Celeste Byers – Colombo, Sri Lanka addressing human impact on our seas.

CYH JAYSON – Taipei, Taiwan addressing “seafood” over-consumption and conservation.

Toof – Honolulu, Hawaii addressing shark conservation.

Aaron Glasson, PangeaSeed and JMA Middle School students, Burbank California addressing shark conservation.

For more about PangeaSeed and their Sea Walls project, please visit them at: www.pangeaseed.org

Top image: Aaron Glasson & Celeste Byers – Tulum, Mexico addressing invasive species.

The post Sea Walls: Lessons from a Paint Can first appeared on Deep Sea News.