Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Exclusive: finding out who owns land will become simpler under plans to make the best use of green spaces and hit net zero targets Finding out who owns land in England is to become much simpler because a paywall will be lifted from large parts of the Land Registry, the government is to announce. A small number of landowners control the majority of land but finding out who owns what is difficult to piece together, even for government departments, owing to the way the Land Registry operates. Freeing up access will make it easier to determine ownership of key areas, such as river catchments, grouse moors and peatland. Continue reading...

Pipeline, closed since 2015 after huge oil spill, reopens after president cites need to boost US supply amid war on Iran Oil has begun to flow from a controversial California pipeline system for the first time in more than a decade following a Trump administration order, despite state officials decrying the move. Sable Offshore Corporation, the Houston-based owner of the coastal pipelines, announced on Monday that offshore oil was now flowing through its Santa Ynez unit and Santa Ynez pipeline system, which runs through several California counties. Continue reading...

Fearing that extreme weather threatened its epic breaks, Oriente Salvaje is piloting the first surf insurance policy to protect livelihoods and ecosystems In the late 1990s in El Salvador, Rodrigo Barraza went in search of every surfer’s dream: a pristine wave, far from the crowds. Down a rough dirt track hours from any city, he found it: a little-known surf spot on the country’s eastern shores, where long lines of waves form a crisp right-hand break, surrounded by thousands of hectares of tropical forest. “I fell in love with the place,” says Barraza. In 2004, he opened a small hotel there, and along with some surfing friends, founded a tourism association. They developed sustainable tourism standards and committed to protect the surrounding biodiverse ecosystem of rare dry tropical forest, rivers and mangroves. They called it Oriente Salvaje – the “wild east”. Oriente Salvaje is known by surfers for its world-class breaks, Las Flores and Punta Mango Continue reading...

Water shortages and rising heat is putting pressure on beer ingredients, but US brewers and farmers are adapting With St Patrick’s Day this week, millions of Americans are raising a glass. Beer remains the country’s most popular alcoholic drink with more than 6bn gallons consumed each year. But from water shortages to rising temperatures, the climate crisis is putting pressure on beer’s most essential ingredients. At Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon, beer is either stacked high in warehouse rows or racing down a canning line and assembled into 12-packs. Inside the cavernous cellars, enormous 6,000-gallon tanks hold the latest batches in progress. Continue reading...