Breaking Waves: Ocean News

11/01/2025 - 03:00
Many waterways vulnerable to breaches and closures and face mounting maintenance costs, charity says Britain’s network of canals and rivers is under strain from funding shortfalls and growing climate pressures, campaigners warn. Three-quarters of the country’s waterways face financial peril, according to the Inland Waterways Association (IWA), an independent charity advocating for Britain’s canals and rivers, as the country braces for heavier winter rainfall and intensifying summer droughts. Continue reading...
11/01/2025 - 02:00
Others languishing near bottom of 61-country study include Canada, Germany, Israel, Japan and Spain Britain is one of the least “nature connected” nations in the world, according to the first ever global study of how people relate to the natural world. Britain ranks 55th out of 61 countries in the study of 57,000 people, which looks at how attitudes towards nature are shaped by social, economic, geographical and cultural factors. Continue reading...
11/01/2025 - 02:00
Huge increase in tree-killing disease is result of climate crisis, experts say A golden mushroom that grows in clusters and can attack and kill trees has increased by 200% in the UK in a year because of the hot summer and damp autumn. Recorded sightings of honey fungus are up by almost 200% compared with the same period last year, according to iNaturalist. Continue reading...
11/01/2025 - 01:00
Keir Starmer is taking the lead on tackling the climate crisis. With the US backing away, now is the moment when other nations must step up With the once-familiar pillars of the old world order crumbling and the US stepping away from action on climate crisis, it falls to others to assume global environmental leadership. Those leaders who understand the urgency should seize the opportunity afforded by Brazil hosting Cop30 this month to build a coalition of committed countries determined to turn back the climate deniers. Many now see China – the most successful manufacturer of solar, wind, battery and electric vehicle technologies – as the global low-carbon powerhouse. But its national emission goals, recently submitted to the UN, are underwhelming and it is unclear whether China is willing to take up the mantle of climate leadership. Continue reading...
10/31/2025 - 23:00
The threatened Jillaga Ash (Eucalyptus stenostoma) was spotted 90m down a cliff in Wadbilliga national park, in southern New South Wales Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Two horticulturalists have undertaken a daring abseiling mission to rescue gumnuts from an endangered tree on a 300m cliff face. Stan Wawrzyczek, a threatened flora ecologist at the Threatened Species Conservancy, spotted an endangered tree, Eucalyptus stenostoma (Jillaga Ash), 90m down the cliff in Wadbilliga national park in southern New South Wales. Continue reading...
10/31/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 01 November 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00160-3 Human activities in coastal and marine regions increasingly generate inter-sectoral conflicts, emphasizing the need of effective spatial planning. India’s marine ecosystems, which sustain millions of livelihoods, are under mounting pressure from overexploitation, climate change and competing human uses. To address these challenges, developing a robust marine spatial planning framework is essential for both conservation and sustainable ocean use. Puducherry, with high recreational potential, serves as a pilot site for such an initiative, aiming to balancing stakeholder interests and needs, strengthening coastal resilience, and promoting a sustainable blue economy.
10/31/2025 - 21:45
Policy position diverging from senior Coalition partner expected to be formalised at Nationals partyroom meeting on Sunday morning Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The Nationals’ grassroots members have voted to ditch net zero, setting the scene to formally scrap the target at a meeting on Sunday morning. “We believe in reducing emissions, but not at any cost,” the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, told the party’s federal council on Saturday. Continue reading...
10/30/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 31 October 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00153-2 Distant-water fleets, local consequences: lessons from a case study in Liberia
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
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