Latest news with #UNOceanConference
7NEWS
a day ago
- Science
- 7NEWS
Inside the lab trying to save the Great Barrier Reef
Australia's iconic Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on the planet and home to a vast array of species. But in recent years it has been hit by a series of devastating mass bleaching events, turning the vibrant colours of parts of the reef a bright white. Across the world, corals are suffering a similar fate, with more than 80 per cent of the ocean's reefs hit by an ongoing global bleaching event that began in 2023, due to record high marine temperatures. Bleaching can be deadly, as the corals are depleted of the algae that live inside them and act as a food source. The effects can be catastrophic; while coral reefs occupy just 0.01 per cent of the ocean floor, they support a quarter of all marine life, as well as providing people with food and livelihoods, and helping to reduce storm surge and protect against erosion. At the UN Ocean Conference this month, 11 countries signed a pledge to protect climate-resilient reefs, and, separately, governments and partners pledged $A38.2 million to a global fund for coral reefs. Ultimately, if coral reefs are to be saved, efforts to curb ocean warming by reducing carbon emissions need to be stepped up, but scientists are also searching for other solutions to keep coral reefs alive in a warming world. At the University of Technology Sydney, scientists from the Future Reefs team are searching for 'super corals' — species that are naturally more resilient to environmental changes, such as high temperatures, acidity or low oxygen levels. One of the program's goals is to identify these corals, discover what methods they are using to survive, and use them as a blueprint to support other corals in the harsher environments of the future. 'We have a focus on trying to understand reef resilience in a changing environment,' says Dr Emma Camp, marine biologist and leader of the Future Reefs team. 'How do we build coral resilience to survive the stresses they're going to inevitably face? But also, how can we as humans use technology and science to support corals to make them more resilient?' Searching for super corals Camp first discovered 'super coral' species growing in mangrove lagoons, which are naturally hot and acidic. Since then, she says the team has found up to 40 of these hardy species growing in different environments across the globe. Now, their focus is on finding them within the Great Barrier Reef. '(We want) to identify coral species with greater heat tolerance, but that are still able to maintain other traits that are really critical: we want them to be fast growers, we want them to provide good habitat for other organisms living on the reef,' Christine Roper, a postdoctoral researcher on the team, said. During expeditions to the Great Barrier Reef, the team collects and analyses specific coral species. They carry out real-time heat tolerance testing on the samples using a special phenotyping machine that helps to predict which coral has the best chance of survival as water temperatures rise. They also take fragments of coral back to the lab, where they can extract DNA and conduct more extensive tests. Once they've identified a stress-tolerant species, the Coral Nurture Program — a project co-founded by Camp that works with local tourism operators and indigenous communities to replant corals at scale — propagates it on coral nurseries which they have established at different locations across the Great Barrier Reef, before 'outplanting' them on the reef to help restore areas that have been affected by bleaching. Since the program's inception in 2018, over 125,000 corals have been outplanted across the Great Barrier Reef — off Cairns, Port Douglas and the Whitsundays — with a survival rate of 85 per cent. But restoring areas of the Great Barrier Reef is no easy task. It has almost 3,000 individual reefs and covers 344,400 square kilometres, and as of April 2024, as much as 60 per cent of its reefs had recently been exposed to potential bleaching. The team is hopeful that areas where outplanting has taken place are already showing visible signs of recovery. Other labs around the world are developing similar solutions, also with promising results. The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) has been using artificial selection and selective breeding to grow heat-tolerant corals, reporting that genetic interventions can work, but with varying success between species. The UK's University of Newcastle has also selectively bred corals that it says can better survive marine heatwaves, although it is yet to conduct large-scale trials in the wild. Studies have shown that traditional coral restoration efforts can be undone within a few years if there is a bleaching event, but by planting heat-resilient corals the Coral Nurture Program hopes the restoration will be able to withstand future events. 'By focusing our efforts on identifying and increasing the abundance of heat-tolerant corals in the population, we optimize our efforts by ensuring those populations will be more resilient to future heat stress events,' Roper said Scaling up The major challenge — be it with naturally or selectively bred corals — is how to scale up the process of planting, which is labour-intensive and costly, requiring people to dive down to the reef and plant the corals by hand. That's why the focus of the Coral Nurture Program has been to engage tourism operators and local communities. 'We can build scale by having pockets of communities undertaking these actions,' Camp said. It collaborates with seven tourism operators on the Great Barrier Reef, including Wavelength Reef Cruises, so that snorkelling trips to the reef paid for by tourists double up as outplanting expeditions. On these trips, members of the crew — who are all trained divers and marine biologists — outplant coral, tend to nurseries and conduct surveys of the area. The team at Wavelength helped to establish the program with Camp and has also been integral in operating coral nurseries along the reef and collecting data on coral health. Even so, there is a limit to how much can be achieved just through outplanting tough coral species. The Future Reefs team is also exploring other solutions, including whether feeding corals different food or vitamins could change their heat tolerance. Corals feed by extending tentacles out from their body to catch microscopic food particles. Past research has shown that feeding corals zooplankton — tiny animals that float near the surface of the water — after a bleaching event can help to boost resilience, as can growing corals on substrates infused with metal nutrients such as manganese and zinc. But such methods have not yet been tried on a large scale. 'Despite knowing a lot about corals, we know relatively little about coral nutrition,' Camp said. 'This, to me, is an area where research and science can really help us advance restoration practice by understanding more about what the corals fundamentally need to survive through stress.' Though in its early stages, the team back in the laboratory in Sydney has experimented with feeding corals foods such as microscopic brine shrimp fed with different types of algae, and adding certain metals or vitamins to the water that the corals will absorb. The goal is to develop a supplement that could give corals extra nutrients when stressed, helping them survive or recover from mass bleaching events. 'It's like us as humans: when we are run down, we might take a supplement to give us a boost. It's the same with the corals,' Camp said, adding that this kind of solution would potentially be easy to scale and apply to reefs globally. 'It's these sorts of new ideas that we have to explore, and nothing can be off the table, because if we don't do something, the end result is going to be a loss of reefs around the world,' she said. While hopeful that scientific innovation and scalable solutions can provide some sort of stopgap for coral reefs, Camp warns that protecting them long-term comes down to tackling the cause of mass coral bleaching, which means reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating global warming. 'There's only so much we can do to buy time for the reef,' she said. 'We have to tackle climate change, because if the temperatures keep increasing, we're going to be asking too much of the corals to survive through the environment that they're being faced with.'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
‘Super corals' and supplements: Inside the lab trying to save the Great Barrier Reef
Editor's Note: Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet, together with the solutions. Rolex's Perpetual Planet Initiative has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and to inspire positive action. Australia's iconic Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on the planet and home to a vast array of species. But in recent years it has been hit by a series of devastating mass bleaching events, turning the vibrant colors of parts of the reef a bright white. Across the world, corals are suffering a similar fate, with more than 80% of the ocean's reefs hit by an ongoing global bleaching event that began in 2023, due to record high marine temperatures. Bleaching can be deadly, as the corals are depleted of the algae that live inside them and act as a food source. The effects can be catastrophic; while coral reefs occupy just 0.01% of the ocean floor, they support a quarter of all marine life, as well as providing people with food and livelihoods, and helping to reduce storm surge and protect against erosion. At the UN Ocean Conference this month, 11 countries signed a pledge to protect climate-resilient reefs, and, separately, governments and partners pledged $25 million to a global fund for coral reefs. Ultimately, if coral reefs are to be saved, efforts to curb ocean warming by reducing carbon emissions need to be stepped up, but scientists are also searching for other solutions to keep coral reefs alive in a warming world. At the University of Technology Sydney, scientists from the Future Reefs team are searching for 'super corals' — species that are naturally more resilient to environmental changes, such as high temperatures, acidity or low oxygen levels. One of the program's goals is to identify these corals, discover what methods they are using to survive, and use them as a blueprint to support other corals in the harsher environments of the future. 'We have a focus on trying to understand reef resilience in a changing environment,' says Dr. Emma Camp, marine biologist and leader of the Future Reefs team. 'How do we build coral resilience to survive the stresses they're going to inevitably face? But also, how can we as humans use technology and science to support corals to make them more resilient?' Camp first discovered 'super coral' species growing in mangrove lagoons, which are naturally hot and acidic. Since then, she says the team has found up to 40 of these hardy species growing in different environments across the globe. Now, their focus is on finding them within the Great Barrier Reef. '(We want) to identify coral species with greater heat tolerance, but that are still able to maintain other traits that are really critical: we want them to be fast growers, we want them to provide good habitat for other organisms living on the reef,' says Christine Roper, a postdoctoral researcher on the team. During expeditions to the Great Barrier Reef, the team collects and analyzes specific coral species. They carry out real-time heat tolerance testing on the samples using a special phenotyping machine that helps to predict which coral has the best chance of survival as water temperatures rise. They also take fragments of coral back to the lab, where they can extract DNA and conduct more extensive tests. Once they've identified a stress-tolerant species, the Coral Nurture Program — a project co-founded by Camp that works with local tourism operators and indigenous communities to replant corals at scale — propagates it on coral nurseries which they have established at different locations across the Great Barrier Reef, before 'outplanting' them on the reef to help restore areas that have been affected by bleaching. Since the program's inception in 2018, over 125,000 corals have been outplanted across the Great Barrier Reef — off Cairns, Port Douglas and the Whitsundays — with a survival rate of 85%. But restoring areas of the Great Barrier Reef is no easy task. It has almost 3,000 individual reefs and covers 344,400 square kilometers (133,000 square miles), and as of April 2024, as much as 60% of its reefs had recently been exposed to potential bleaching. The team is hopeful that areas where outplanting has taken place are already showing visible signs of recovery. Other labs around the world are developing similar solutions, also with promising results. The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) has been using artificial selection and selective breeding to grow heat-tolerant corals, reporting that genetic interventions can work, but with varying success between species. The UK's University of Newcastle has also selectively bred corals that it says can better survive marine heatwaves, although it is yet to conduct large-scale trials in the wild. Studies have shown that traditional coral restoration efforts can be undone within a few years if there is a bleaching event, but by planting heat-resilient corals the Coral Nurture Program hopes the restoration will be able to withstand future events. 'By focusing our efforts on identifying and increasing the abundance of heat-tolerant corals in the population, we optimize our efforts by ensuring those populations will be more resilient to future heat stress events,' says Roper. The major challenge — be it with naturally or selectively bred corals — is how to scale up the process of planting, which is labor-intensive and costly, requiring people to dive down to the reef and plant the corals by hand. That's why the focus of the Coral Nurture Program has been to engage tourism operators and local communities. 'We can build scale by having pockets of communities undertaking these actions,' says Camp. It collaborates with seven tourism operators on the Great Barrier Reef, including Wavelength Reef Cruises, so that snorkelling trips to the reef paid for by tourists double up as outplanting expeditions. On these trips, members of the crew — who are all trained divers and marine biologists — outplant coral, tend to nurseries and conduct surveys of the area. The team at Wavelength helped to establish the program with Camp and has also been integral in operating coral nurseries along the reef and collecting data on coral health. Even so, there is a limit to how much can be achieved just through outplanting tough coral species. The Future Reefs team is also exploring other solutions, including whether feeding corals different food or vitamins could change their heat tolerance. Corals feed by extending tentacles out from their body to catch microscopic food particles. Past research has shown that feeding corals zooplankton — tiny animals that float near the surface of the water — after a bleaching event can help to boost resilience, as can growing corals on substrates infused with metal nutrients such as manganese and zinc. But such methods have not yet been tried on a large scale. 'Despite knowing a lot about corals, we know relatively little about coral nutrition,' says Camp. 'This, to me, is an area where research and science can really help us advance restoration practice by understanding more about what the corals fundamentally need to survive through stress.' Though in its early stages, the team back in the laboratory in Sydney has experimented with feeding corals foods such as microscopic brine shrimp fed with different types of algae, and adding certain metals or vitamins to the water that the corals will absorb. The goal is to develop a supplement that could give corals extra nutrients when stressed, helping them survive or recover from mass bleaching events. 'It's like us as humans: when we are run down, we might take a supplement to give us a boost. It's the same with the corals,' says Camp, adding that this kind of solution would potentially be easy to scale and apply to reefs globally. 'It's these sorts of new ideas that we have to explore, and nothing can be off the table, because if we don't do something, the end result is going to be a loss of reefs around the world,' she says. While hopeful that scientific innovation and scalable solutions can provide some sort of stopgap for coral reefs, Camp warns that protecting them long-term comes down to tackling the cause of mass coral bleaching, which means reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating global warming. 'There's only so much we can do to buy time for the reef,' she says. 'We have to tackle climate change, because if the temperatures keep increasing, we're going to be asking too much of the corals to survive through the environment that they're being faced with.'
Time Magazine
4 days ago
- Business
- Time Magazine
10 Steps Needed for Ocean Action Now
The recent United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, France, which we joined along with leaders from around the world, brought notable accomplishments in its mission to address the mounting threats to the seas, from pledges to reduce the flow of toxins into the water to new financing commitments for ocean economies. But as Peter Thomson, the UN's Special Envoy for the Ocean, noted as the event closed: 'It's not so much what happens at the conference, it is what happens afterwards.' So what needs to happen now? The good news is that we have many of the tools. Science and decades of experience have shown us what works. We know how to restore coral reefs, manage fisheries to produce more food and income, and stop fertilizers and untreated sewage from running into the sea. This isn't a crisis of complexity. It's a crisis of execution. What's missing is broad participation and a focus on clear, immediate, actionable steps. Heads of state, ministers, NGOs, and scientists showed up in force in Nice. But to translate ambitious pledges into durable results, we also need more business leaders at the table. This is an ocean planet. And every company—whether it realizes it or not—depends on the biodiversity, food systems, and shipping routes the ocean sustains. If the ocean fails, we all fail. That's why the private sector must play a role—not just as funders or advocates, but as partners and engines of solutions that scale. We need more public-private alliances that can help turn proven ocean solutions into real-world outcomes. We've both seen this work through organizations like Friends of Ocean Action, which convenes leaders from across sectors to accelerate ocean solutions and track progress on global goals, and the Florida Keys Environmental Coalition, which works on the ground to protect marine ecosystems and improve water quality across one of America's most vulnerable coastal regions. We're also inspired by a rising generation of ecopreneurs aiming to fix ocean problems while generating profit. At the Blue Economy and Finance Forum in Monaco, held ahead of the UN Ocean Conference, public and private investors pledged $10 billion in new "blue finance" to further scale the rapidly growing ocean economy. The 1000 Ocean Startups coalition, a global network of incubators, accelerators and investors, has already raised more than $4 billion in capital and is halfway to its goal of funding 1,000 ocean ventures tackling marine challenges like seaweed farming, microplastic filtration and wind-powered transport. Previously, we outlined a straightforward blueprint for global coral reef recovery. These same principles apply across the broader marine agenda. We believe progress can be made between now and the next UN Ocean Conference scheduled for 2028 by focusing on the following 10 steps. Strengthen U.S. fisheries by ending industrial-scale reduction fishing and midwater trawling for forage fishThese are small fish that feed bigger fish and whole ocean ecosystems. A handful of industrial operations are chiseling away at the base of the food chains for our U.S. coastal economy by scooping up hundreds of thousands of tons of these fish —not for food, but to be ground up into meal and oil, a large proportion which is then exported. Ending these practices and managing forage fish at ecologically sound levels will protect food chains, support fishermen, and improve U.S. marine resilience. Solve the Tijuana River years, billions of gallons of raw sewage and industrial waste from Mexico have poured into American waters off San Diego, harming ecosystems and undermining public health. The solutions, including the installation of floodgates to prevent sewage overflow and stronger oversight of Mexican treatment plants, are well understood. This is a test of will, not capacity. Make ocean polluters old notion that 'dilution is the solution to pollution' no longer holds in an era where industrial and pharmaceutical waste is outpacing our ability to detect it. We need a new approach—one that stops pollutants from entering the ocean in the first place and makes transparent who is discharging what, and where. That means clear rules, public reporting, and a robust 'polluter pays' principle to shift the burden onto those doing the damage. Adopt a new and balanced approach to U.S. marine protected treasure our National Parks on land. There is also a place for parks in the busy, working ocean. Well-designed ocean parks can support tourism, expand the U.S. geopolitical presence, and increase fish stocks. But the real work for a marine protected area begins after they are created. We must continue to invest and care for these parks. In Papahānaumokuākea, American's largest ocean park, that has meant public-private partnerships that ensure access to its sacred places, and funding clean up efforts to remove almost a million pounds of hazardous plastic pollution and debris from its coral reefs. Extend programs from the Trump administration's marine debris cleanups and reductions of plastic pollution and other debris have delivered concrete gains for U.S. fisheries, wildlife, and communities that depend on clean beaches and coastlines. We should reauthorize that mandate and build on and scale those successes. Restore America's coastal efforts are needed for our coastal ecosystems, such as mangroves, seagrass beds, coral reefs, and salt marshes, as natural hurricane defenses. That includes the Mangrove Breakthrough supported by Salesforce. They are among the most cost-effective ways to protect ocean-front infrastructure from increasingly severe storms. Shrink the Gulf dead runoff is creating massive low-oxygen zones that suffocate Gulf fisheries. Supporting farmers to adopt proven techniques to reduce and soak up pollution before it gets into rivers and oceans is a win for farmers and fishermen alike. Leverage American innovation to sidestep the need to mine our encouraging entrepreneurship and tech advancement we can reduce our reliance on foreign critical minerals and reserve these materials for key defense applications. This includes supporting U.S. national lab programs and private sector innovation to scale up use of next-generation battery technologies built with more readily available materials like iron instead of cobalt. Sustained success here would reduce or eliminate the need to begin mining for these minerals in the ocean—an activity which would negatively impact US fisheries, could introduce toxins into our seafood supply, and involve costly spending by the US government. Address the Sargassum seaweed blooms now plague Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Caribbean. Coordinated cleanup and reduction of nutrient runoff near West Africa and the Amazon—significant Sargassum points of origin—are some of the important steps needed to contain this growing threat. Stop the sewage killing coral reefs in U.S. from Florida to Hawai'i are collapsing in part because we have allowed leaking septic systems, outdated infrastructure, and uncontrolled runoff to poison the very ecosystems that sustain tourism, fisheries, and coastal communities. Across all of these fronts, we believe in a core principle: focus on what's achievable and measurable. With smart, common-sense steps, we can secure thriving oceans that sustain American jobs, coastal communities, and national security—while restoring life to some of the planet's most vital and magnificent ecosystems.
eNCA
20-06-2025
- Science
- eNCA
Bringing ocean science to rural communities
CAPE TOWN - The UN Ocean Conference has come and gone but the urgent need to protect our oceans, remains. READ: National Sea Rescue Institute | Raising funds for rescuers A Cape Town-based design company Formula D is using interactive, travelling exhibits, to bring ocean science education directly to communities. Their latest project blends hands-on learning with indigenous knowledge, showing how education and culture can come together to inspire environmental care. Michael Wolf, Co-CEO at Formula D, discussed this with eNCA.
Scoop
20-06-2025
- Business
- Scoop
Three Major French Investors Reject Deep Sea Mining
Three major French financial institutions, including two of the country's largest banks and the state's public investment arm, have announced their rejection of deep sea mining during the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) last week in Nice. The three institutions are: BNP Paribas - France's largest and Europe's second largest bank. BNP Paribas confirms it does not invest in deep sea mining projects due to the intrinsic environmental and social risks involved. Crédit Agricole - The second largest bank in France and the world's largest cooperative financial institution. Crédit Agricole stated it will not finance deep sea mining projects until it has been proven that such operations pose no significant harm to marine ecosystems. Groupe Caisse des Dépôts - The public investment arm of the French Government, which also holds a majority stake in La Banque Postale. The Group has pledged to exclude all financing and investment in companies whose main activity is deep sea mining, as well as in deep sea mining projects. Amundi Asset Management also made a statement that it seeks to avoid investment in companies 'involved in deep sea mining and/or exploration'. This now brings to 24 the number of financial institutions who exclude deep sea mining in some form. Deep Sea Mining Campaign Finance Advocacy Officer Andy Whitmore says: 'This is a truly significant outcome from UNOC. Until recently no French financiers had matched their Government's position calling for a ban. This UN Ocean Conference, co-hosted by France, was the perfect opportunity for the most important national players to step up and be counted' These financial announcements are a sign of global concern pushing itself on to the agenda. World leaders renewed calls for a global moratorium on the dangerous industry, with French President Emmanuel Macron denouncing it as 'madness', with UN Secretary-General António Guterres responding to recent announcements from President Trump by warning that the deep sea 'cannot become the Wild West.' Slovenia, Latvia, Cyprus and the Marshall Islands also announced their support for a moratorium or precautionary pause, bringing the number of like-minded countries to 37. Andy Whitmore concluded 'the events at UNOC have added further momentum to the financial establishment rejecting deep sea mining. The recent unseemly rush to mine is creating push-back from the financial world, as much as from governments and civil society.'
