Coastal & Marine Conservation

Written by Collen Callahan I would like to share the below announcement about " Soak it Up! A Briefing Paper on the Impacts of Oil Spills and Leaks with Strategies for Sustainability," made possible through a Switzer Network Innovation...

Amy Clipp gave a webinar for us that offered ideas for bridging the gap between science and policy, with a particular focus on helping scientists apply their work in complex, political environments. Her stories are based on lessons learned advising the State of Louisiana on its 2012 Coastal Master Plan.

Because they spend so much time in remote waters, and don't survive in captivity, great white sharks are deeply mysterious creatures. But over the last ten years, biologists have been able to track them using electronic tags which record their position and depth, and the ocean temperature. On the face of it, that information can't tell you what the sharks are actually doing. But Salvador Jorgensen of the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California, and colleagues have developed a new statistical analysis that picks out patterns of behaviour from the tagging data.

Humboldt Baykeeper welcomed a new executive director to its Eureka offices Monday. Jessica Hall, a Los Angeles native and registered landscape architect, worked as a watershed coordinator for the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission, private consulting firms and the non-profit North East Trees, before accepting the position of executive director for the nonprofit, a press release said. Hall will continue the work of prior executive directors by engaging stakeholders on policies, activities and programs that promote the health of Humboldt Bay, the release said.

The Los Angeles Times also ran an excellent story on this subject: "An exquisite Mexico beach, cursed by plastic" (January 27. 2012)

Recent attention has focused on the high rates of annual carbon sequestration in vegetated coastal ecosystems—marshes, mangroves, and seagrasses—that may be lost with habitat destruction (‘conversion’). Relatively unappreciated, however, is that conversion of these coastal ecosystems also impacts very large pools of previously-sequestered carbon. Read more

Using a new comprehensive index designed to assess the benefits to people of healthy oceans, scientists have evaluated the ecological, social, economic, and political conditions for every coastal country in the world. Their findings, published today in the journal Nature, show that the global ocean scores 60 out of 100 overall on the Ocean Health Index. Individual country scores range widely, from 36 to 86. The highest-scoring locations included densely populated, highly developed nations such as Germany, as well as uninhabited islands, such as Jarvis Island in the Pacific.

Editor's Note: Leslie's work with the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary is supported with a Leadership Grant from the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation. Whales feeding on abundant krill are crowding the California coast in such unusual numbers that marine sanctuary officials are urging large ships to slow down as they approach San Francisco Bay. The "notice to mariners" was also broadcast Tuesday by the Coast Guard.