“The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released an updated analysis of American fisheries late last week via its annual ‘Status of the Stocks’ report, which provides an assessment of the populations of the seafood species fishermen catch and customers buy. The report states that 94% of fish stocks are not subject to overfishing, which is slightly better than a year ago.

The U.S. was able to remove several important fish stocks from the overfishing list, NOAA said in a statement. They include the Gulf of Maine and Cape Hatteras stock of Atlantic mackerel and the Gulf of Mexico stock of cubera snapper.”

From Associated Press.

“Centuries of industrial whaling left only a few hundred Antarctic blue whales alive, making it almost impossible to find them in the wild.

New research suggests the population may be recovering. Australian scientists and international colleagues spent two decades listening for their distinctive songs and calls, and have found the whales – the largest animals ever to have lived – swimming across the Southern Ocean with growing regularity.”

From The Guardian.

“Brilliant Planet, a UK-based climate technology company … aims to harness the power of marine algae to remove emissions by the gigaton, and then sell its service within the broader carbon marketplace. Brilliant Planet relies on a mix of modern engineering coupled with the carbon-capturing capacities of some of the world’s most ancient aquatic organisms.

The startup essentially replicates the natural algal coastal blooms that sustain marine ecosystems –– albeit on land.”

From C3.

“In the first study of its kind, published in the journal Science, scientists from dozens of research institutes reviewed 665 trials of conservation measures, some from as far back as 1890, in different countries and oceans and across species types, and found they had had a positive effect in two out of every three cases.

Co-author Dr Penny Langhammer, executive vice-president of environment charity Re:wild, told BBC News: ‘If you read the headlines about extinction these days, it would be easy to get the impression that we are failing biodiversity – but that’s not really looking at the whole picture.

‘This study provides the strongest evidence to date that not only does conservation improve the state of biodiversity and slow its decline, but when it works, it really works.'”

From BBC.