OpenChannels News

• New marine planning and management trainings added to Skimmer database
• Report assesses challenges and opportunities facing ocean economy post-COVID
• New information hub for monitoring, forecasting, managing, researching Sargassum
• New policy brief links ecological connectivity to effective ocean governance
• UN published framework for MSP in high seas
• Review of economic impacts of MSP available
• Guide provides guidance and examples for drafting MSP legislation
• Sharks missing from 19 percent of world’s coral reefs
• Northeast Pacific and Northwest Atlantic experiencing marine heatwaves
• Viral and bacterial outbreaks among marine mammal populations on the rise
• La Niña conditions likely through at least Northern Hemisphere winter
• New ocean ecoprovince classification developed with machine learning
• More research shows microplastic in ocean vastly underestimated (here, here)
• Plastic flow into ocean could triple by 2040, but existing technologies could reduce current flow by 80%
• China revises rules for distant-water fishing fleets to curb illegal fishing, improve sustainability
• No countries meet 2020 targets for ocean-focused sustainable development goal
• COVID-19 pandemic makes achievement of SDG goals more unlikely
• Report suggests ways to strengthen Arctic Ocean management
• Study estimates benefits of protecting 30% of planet would outweigh costs 5:1

When MPA News reported on blue carbon back in 2016, it was still just a concept, discussed as a way that MPAs could help fight climate change. But now two MPA projects are implementing blue carbon strategies as a source of revenue – the first MPAs to do so. They are generating credits based on the tons of carbon their projects have captured and stored, then selling those credits to global buyers who want to offset their own carbon emissions.

This is a whole new way of monetizing MPAs. The timing is potentially good: the global market for carbon credits is expected to grow substantially as nations and other entities, like airlines, strive to meet various emission-reduction commitments. According to one of the projects selling blue carbon credits, the current demand for them may be as much as a thousand times greater than current supply.

By Ton IJlstra

Over the past 20 years, wind energy and MPAs have staked important spatial claims with regard to the Dutch North Sea – to the potential detriment of the Netherlands' commercial fishing industry. For this reason, the North Sea Foundation called in 2017 for an agreement among stakeholders that would preserve the country's North Sea ecosystem while enabling sustainable fisheries and the expansion of wind parks.

Editor’s note: In this series, The Skimmer is taking a look at the various ways that the pandemic is affecting marine ecosystems and their conservation and management. In April, we took an initial look at the impact of the pandemic on fisheries and aquaculture. In this issue, we cover how the pandemic is impacting coastal and marine tourism and the potential impacts of these changes on coastal and marine ecosystems. In future issues, we will examine the pandemic’s impact on plastic pollution, climate change, and more. We will update previous articles as we are able, so if you see critical aspects that we are missing from this and previous articles, please let us know at skimmer [at] octogroup.org.

In many ways, coastal and marine tourism has become a posterchild for the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the earliest and highest-profile cases of the mass spread of the COVID-19 virus happened aboard passenger cruise ships (here, here). Photos of crowded beaches have become synonymous with inadequate social distancing to prevent the virus’s spread. And photos of empty beaches show the devastating impacts of the pandemic on local economies.

The Skimmer asked coastal and marine tourism operators and experts from around the world (Indonesia, Brazil, the Mediterranean, the United States, and more) about the diverse ways that the COVID-19 pandemic is currently affecting coastal and marine tourism, how it is likely to change coastal and marine tourism in the future, and what impacts this is likely to have on coastal and marine ecosystems. Their responses (below) give reasons for both hope and concern.