Elizabeth Claire Alberts
Mongabay
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Past articles by Elizabeth:
Panama ocean conference draws $20 billion, marine biodiversity commitments
International delegates attending the eighth annual Our Ocean Conference in Panama March 2-3 have pledged billions to protect the world’s oceans. Participants made 341 commitments worth nearly $20 billion, including funding for expanding and improving marine protected areas and biodiversity corridors. Previous Our Ocean conferences have generated more than 1,800 commitments worth approximately… → Read More
‘They’re everywhere out there’: Three new nautilus species described
During the 16th century, European traders sailed to the Maluku Islands, in what is today eastern Indonesia, seeking spices like nutmeg, cloves and pepper. The traders also found something else of interest: spiral-shaped nautilus shells, once inhabited by deep-sea mollusks fringed with an abundance of tentacles. The shells, patterned with white and brown stripes on […] → Read More
Potential impact on whales overlooked as deep-sea mining looks set to start
The potentially imminent start of deep-sea mining in international waters could impact whales, dolphins and porpoises, particularly in terms of noise pollution, according to experts who say there needs to be urgent research into the issue. In a new perspective piece published in Frontiers in Marine Science, scientists from the University of Exeter, Greenpeace Research […] → Read More
‘Not a good sign’: Study shows Greenland temperatures at 1,000-year high
Collecting core samples from the Greenland ice sheet is no easy task. During a recent expedition, scientists and drilling experts boarded a ski-equipped aircraft and flew to a site at an elevation of about 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) above sea level in central-north Greenland. Then they drilled into the ice sheet with special equipment and […] → Read More
Good fisheries management, if enforced, can help sharks and rays recover
New research has found that carefully managed fisheries can help dwindling shark and ray populations recover, illustrating a pathway for protecting species from fishing pressure. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study analyzed several decades’ worth of trends in fishing pressure, fisheries management, and population status of 26 shark and […] → Read More
U.S. refuses calls for immediate protection of North Atlantic right whales
The U.S. government has denied two petitions to immediately protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales during the species’ calving season, raising concerns that this population of whales will continue to decline without intervention. There are currently about 340 of these whales left, making them one of the most threatened cetaceans in the world. The […] → Read More
Study aims to unmask fishing vessels, and owners, obscured by loopholes
New research has generated a comprehensive system for tracking and monitoring fishing vessels — from the moment they disembark from the shipyard to their eventual dismantlement at a ship graveyard — which can help determine possible instances of unlawful fishing. Published in Science Advances, the new study fuses a decade’s worth of satellite vessel tracking data […] → Read More
For threatened seabirds of NE Atlantic, climate change piles on the pressure
In spring and summer, visitors flock to Northern Ireland’s Rathlin Island to catch a glimpse of the bright-billed Atlantic puffins that stop there to breed. But in recent years, the island’s puffin population has plummeted, largely due to invasive ferrets and rats preying upon them. To protect the Atlantic puffins (Fratercula arctica), whose global population […] → Read More
Island conservation should focus on land-sea links for most impact, paper says
Stuart Sandin’s first impression of Palmyra Atoll, a remote island in the central Pacific Ocean, during a visit in 2004, was troubled. There were seabirds, but their presence was fragmented, likely because of the rats that had hitched a ride on board military ships and invaded the atoll during World War II. On walks through […] → Read More
Deep dive uncovers previously unknown underwater ecosystem in Maldives
In September, scientists boarded submersibles and dived into the waters surrounding the Maldives, a nation of islands peppered across the Indian Ocean. Very little is known about the Maldivian sea below 30 meters (about 100 feet), despite the country’s entire area consisting 99% of water. The Nekton Maldives Mission, a collaboration between scientists and the […] → Read More
To boost fish catches, try banning fishing, new study shows
In 2016, Barack Obama, the U.S. president at the time, made a proclamation: he would expand the protection of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, a stretch of ocean fringing the islands and atolls of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands that native Hawaiians consider to be sacred. Ten years earlier, his predecessor, George W. Bush had protected […] → Read More
Proposal to grant the ocean rights calls for a sea change in legal framework
The idea is simple but ambitious: protect the ocean by giving it the same kind of rights a person might have. No such legal mechanism is currently in place, but support for this concept is growing as experts increasingly recognize that the ocean is in dire need of defense. Existing laws already provide some levels […] → Read More
Greenland shark, world’s longest-living vertebrate, gets long-awaited protection
Everything about the Greenland shark seems to be slow: these long-bodied animals swim slowly, grow slowly and reach maturity slowly. Their maturity rate is so sluggish, in fact, that scientists believe they don’t start reproducing until they’re about 150 years old — and that they can live anywhere from 270 to 500 years, making them […] → Read More
Catfished: New species described from DRC after mistaken identity
In 2006 and 2010, Congolese researcher Raoul Monsembula collected catfish and other species from the rivers in Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Then he hopped on a plane to New York City so colleagues could analyze them in their lab. More than 10 years later, Monsembula learned that he’d actually […] → Read More
Pandemic dip was just a blip as global emissions rebound, report shows
On Sept. 20, the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research, or EDGAR, a scientific group associated with the European Commission, released its 2022 report detailing the CO2 emissions of every country in the world between 1970 and 2021. It found that global CO2 emissions in 2020 — the year distinguished by COVID-19 lockdowns — fell […] → Read More
Europe moves to protect deep-sea sites in Atlantic from bottom fishing
BRUSSELS — On Sept. 15, the European Commission made a historic announcement: it will prohibit bottom fishing across 16,000 square kilometers, or 6,200 square miles — an area about half the size of Belgium — in waters controlled by the European Union in the northeast Atlantic Ocean. While some fisheries representatives have criticized the decision, […] → Read More
Climate change and overfishing threaten once ‘endless’ Antarctic krill
Antarctic krill — tiny, filter-feeding crustaceans that live in the Southern Ocean — have long existed in mind-boggling numbers. A 2009 study estimated that the species has a biomass of between 300 million and 500 million metric tons, which is more than any other multicellular wild animal in the world. Not only are these teensy […] → Read More
Amid haggling over deep-sea mining rules, chorus of skepticism grows louder
It starts with tiny deep-sea fragments — shark’s teeth or slivers of shell. Then, in a process thought to span millions of years, they get coated in layers of liquidized metal, eventually becoming solid, lumpy rocks that resemble burnt potatoes. These formations, known as polymetallic nodules, have caught the attention of international mining companies because […] → Read More
‘We’ve got to help the oceans to help us’: Q&A with deep-sea explorer Dawn Wright
On July 12, oceanographer and geographer Dawn Wright was sealed inside a submersible, traveling to Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Wright and her travel companion, explorer Victor Vescovo of Caladan Oceanic, managed to reach a depth of 10,919 meters (35,823 feet) below the surface of the ocean, […] → Read More
A clean and healthy environment is a human right, U.N. resolution declares
This week, member states of the U.N. General Assembly — the highest UN body that wields considerable influence over its member states — adopted a historic resolution: the recognition that it’s a universal human right to live in a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. The resolution received overwhelming support when it was put to a […] → Read More