By Rachel Jones
On 11 September 2018 the Bertarelli Foundation hosted its first Marine Science Symposium at the Royal Geographical Society in London. The event was a showcase for the first full year of activities in the Bertarelli Programme in Marine Science – a program that focuses entirely on the 644,000-km2 British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) marine protected area, which includes the Chagos Archipelago.
By Anne Nelson and the IMPACT team
Our IMPACT training team has spent a lot of time lately on building capacity for good governance. Good governance may be viewed as applying a set of internationally accepted principles for governing protected areas. These include equity, inclusivity, accountability, efficiency, responsiveness, transparency, and more.1 MPAs that effectively apply these good governance principles can have sustained support and resiliency, and can meet multiple community and conservation goals.
These recent articles or preprints on MPA-related science and policy are all free to access.
Preprint: Voyer, M., et al. Shades of blue: what do competing interpretations of the Blue Economy mean for oceans governance? Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 20, 595 - 616 (2018).
Eight nations met in Greenland in October to sign a historic formal agreement, first announced in November 2017, that bans commercial fishing across much of the Arctic for the next 16 years.
In another case of “are you serious, how has this been happening??” Taylor Energy, an oil company, is reported to have failed in informing both the public and government officials about a consistent oil spill, and has since being found continuing to lie as to the amount of oil being dispersed. This comes at the same time that President Trump approves a controversial plan for oil drilling along Alaskan federal waters, hiring a somewhat less than reputable oil company. (via Washington Post)
The endangered European oyster is trying to make its way home. This is not the doing of researchers or scientists, but was kick started by the Glenmorangie Distillery which sits above the Dornoch Firth. Dornoch Firth historically was home to a large European oyster reef that has since been farmed away. The owners of Glenmorangie Distillery hope to replant this reef to use as a natural filter that will help to clear any discharge created through the distilling process. (via bbc)
Marine ecosystem restoration – such as reconstructing saltmarshes that have been lost to human development, replanting coastal mangrove forests that have been degraded, and enhancing the structural complexity of damaged reefs – is an emerging field that seeks to move ecosystems to healthier states, often with the goal of increasing their ability to provide ecosystem services.
By Tundi Agardy, Contributing Editor, MEAM. Email: tundiagardy [at] earthlink.net
I’m of two minds about restoration. On one hand, I’m amazed and encouraged by the advancements made in fixing some of the damage we’ve done to marine habitats such as salt marshes, seagrasses, mangroves, and coral and shellfish reefs. New technologies and knowledge are creating possibilities we could only dream of in the past. On the other hand, I worry about our hubris, and whether we are really fixing the damage done, or just creating the illusion that we can successfully reconstruct healthy, functioning ecosystems. And I worry that, if this illusion is accompanied by the deception that restoring ecosystems is easy, we pave the 
way for wholesale pillaging of the earth.
By Robert Orth, Professor of Marine Science, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Gloucester Point, Virginia. Email: jjorth [at] vims.edu
The system of barrier islands, coastal bays, and salt marshes along the Atlantic coast of Virginia’s portion of the Delmarva Peninsula represent some of the most natural, unspoiled coastal habitat along the US East Coast. Historically, finfish and shellfish resources in this region supported large fisheries. However, during the 1930s, this region underwent a dramatic ecological shift.
