Source: Popular Science
Author: Sara Chodosh
If you want deep sea footage to go viral, you have to give whatever creature you find a funny name. Blobfish, for example, are always popular—and now so is the ‘headless chicken monster,’ which is really a swimming sea cucumber (but sounds more interesting if you call it a headless chicken monster).
Continue reading This headless chicken is the deep-sea ‘monster’ of our dreams
Source: Stuff.co.nz
Author: Michael Field
A summer at Antarctica’s McMurdo Sound has come up with the alarming finding for scientists – the region’s population of toothfish shows signs of collapsing.
Continue reading McMurdo Sound’s toothfish population at risk
A United Nations (UN) meeting on oceans biodiversity will today hear how poorly high seas fishing nations have performed in implementing their commitments to ground breaking resolutions adopted in 2006 and 2009, designed to protect biodiversity in the deep sea.
Continue reading DSCC presents preliminary findings at UN General Assembly
On behalf of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), we extend our best wishes to you for 2009.
We wish to highlight 2009 as an important year for the conservation and protection of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction. As of 31 December 2008, high seas fishing States have agreed, under UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution 61/105, to prohibit their flagged fishing vessels from bottom fishing on the high seas where regulations have not been established to implement paragraphs 83 – 86 of the resolution.
Update on the implementation of UN GA Res/61/105 With the sustainable fisheries negotiations resuming next week, below is a compilation of the latest news from recent RFMO meetings and their progress towards implementation of UNGA Resolution 61/105 paragraphs 83-86 on the protection of vulnerable marine ecosystems from high seas bottom fishing.
The Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) held their 27th annual Meeting in Hobart, Australia, between 27th October and 7th November 2008.
Since our last update in April, there is much to report with regard to protection of biodiversity in deep-sea ecosystems on the high seas. To name a few highlights: NAFO agreed on measures to implement provisions in the UNGA Sustainable Fisheries Resolution (61/105) on high seas bottom fishing; the 9th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity endorsed scientific criteria that will be important for establishing marine protected areas in the high seas; the FAO has published an updated draft of the international guidelines for managing deep-sea fisheries and the high seas (to be finalized in August); and countries are beginning to implement interim measures in the South Pacific. The DSCC is encouraged by progress in some areas towards meeting the obligations set out in 61/105, though the devil will be in the implementation details.
Recently touted as headline news around the world was the fact that the Wilkins Ice Shelf is “hanging by a thread.” This news from Antarctica is the latest in an increasingly worrying string of stories about melting polar ice caps and the effects of climate change on global oceans, declining fish stocks, the devastation of bottom trawling, and the total human impact on the world’s oceans (see below a collection of media reports on the latest scientific findings).
This year’s CCAMLR meeting (CCAMLR-XXVI), held in Hobart, Australia, from 22 October to 2 November adopted a Conservation Measure on bottom fishing, which maintains the existing stop on new bottom fishing activities and prioritises the necessary research and data collection to allow full development of appropriate management measures for vulnerable marine ecosystems in line with UNGA Res 61/105 at next year’s CCAMLR meeting.
Continue reading CCAMLR XXVI maintains prohibition on bottom fishing
Download this press release (pdf) The long awaited UN Report of measures to protect the vulnerable deep oceans of the high seas has confirmed that these areas receive about as much protection as the dodo did in seventeenth century Mauritius. The Report was ordered by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in 2004 and was conducted by the UN Oceans Division known by its acronym DOALOS.
