This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
Continue reading...
Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/05/2025 - 01:00
I knew that a revolution in our understanding of soil could change the world. Then came a eureka moment – and the birth of the Earth Rover Program
Report: Experts say seismic waves can check soil health and boost yields
It felt like walking up a mountain during a temperature inversion. You struggle through fog so dense you can scarcely see where you’re going. Suddenly, you break through the top of the cloud, and the world is laid out before you. It was that rare and remarkable thing: a eureka moment.
For the past three years, I’d been struggling with a big and frustrating problem. In researching my book Regenesis, I’d been working closely with Iain Tolhurst (Tolly), a pioneering farmer who had pulled off something extraordinary. Almost everywhere, high-yield farming means major environmental harm, due to the amount of fertiliser, pesticides and (sometimes) irrigation water and deep ploughing required. Most farms with apparently small environmental impacts produce low yields. This, in reality, means high impacts, as more land is needed to produce a given amount of food. But Tolly has found the holy grail of agriculture: high and rising yields with minimal environmental harm.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...
‘We can tell farmers the problems’: experts say seismic waves can check soil health and boost yields
12/05/2025 - 01:00
‘Soilsmology’ aims to map world’s soils and help avert famine, says not-for-profit co-founded by George Monbiot
George Monbiot: Over a pint in Oxford, we may well have stumbled upon the holy grail of agriculture
A groundbreaking soil-health measuring technique could help avert famine and drought, scientists have said.
At the moment, scientists have to dig lots of holes to study the soil, which is time-consuming and damages its structure, making the sampling less accurate.
Continue reading...
12/05/2025 - 01:00
Climate crisis and overfishing contributed to loss of 95% of penguins in two breeding colonies in South Africa, research finds
More than 60,000 penguins in colonies off the coast of South Africa have starved to death as a result of disappearing sardines, a new paper has found.
More than 95% of the African penguins in two of the most important breeding colonies, on Dassen Island and Robben Island, died between 2004 and 2012. The breeding penguins probably starved to death during the moulting period, according to the paper, which said the climate crisis and overfishing were driving declines.
Continue reading...
12/05/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 05 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00167-w
Sustainable solutions: exploring trade-offs in marine protected areas from six European case sites
12/04/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 04 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00155-0
Reply to: “Comment to ‘Rethinking maritime security from the bottom up: four principles to broaden perspectives and centre humans and ecosystems’”
12/03/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00156-z
Comment to: Rethinking maritime security from the bottom up: Four principles to broaden perspectives and centre humans and ecosystems
12/03/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00165-y
Hidden costs and propped-up profits: unraveling the economics of Europe’s purse-seine tuna fishing industry
11/28/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 28 November 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00169-8
Summarising CBD target 3 to “30 × 30” emphasizes area coverage, but conservation success depends on MPA quality. Many existing MPAs are under-protected, and rapidly designating new areas risks creating ‘paper parks’ without ecological or social benefits. Prioritizing strictly or fully managed MPAs, supported by a clear and shared definition, is essential to achieve meaningful biodiversity outcomes. Quality-focused strategies ensure that global targets benefit both nature and people, rather than merely meeting numerical goals.
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | [email protected] +12077011069
Read more »
