Conservation

The ocean is not a backdrop. It is an ecosystem under extraordinary pressure - from warming, acidification, plastic, and overfishing - and the people working to defend it are doing some of the most important work on the planet. These are stories about ocean conservation: the science, the initiatives, and the reasons to remain hopeful.

40 stories

Conservation

World Manta Day 2026: The First One With a Trade Ban

Three manta species now, and one global trade ban finally in force. The first World Manta Day where the law caught up with the animal.

Conservation

World Dolphin Day 2026: The Massacre That Made the Date

12 September 2021. 1,428 dolphins killed in a single afternoon. That is why the day exists, and why it is not a celebration.

Conservation

Coral Bleaching Awareness Month 2026: The Recovery Gap

September is Coral Bleaching Awareness Month. Reefs now get four years to recover, not ten. What that means underwater.

Conservation

The Sachet Economy: The Plastic Crisis the West Doesn't See

The sachet economy puts 855 billion single-use packets a year into the world's poorest waste systems. How it started and why none of it can be recycled.

Conservation

International Whale Shark Day 2026: The World's Largest Fish

Described in 1828, and still the most mysterious animal in the ocean. One pregnant female studied in two centuries, no birthing ground ever found.

Conservation

World Krill Day 2026: The Animal Everything Depends On

86 species, in every ocean on earth. The animal that feeds whale sharks, whales and the biggest fishery on the planet, and almost nobody thinks about it.

Conservation

World Oyster Day 2026: The Most Damaged Reef on Earth

Oyster reefs filter the water, raise the fish and slow the waves. We lost 85 percent of them before we thought to measure it, and they can come back.

Conservation

International Mangrove Day 2026: Blue Carbon Turns Ten

Ten years of Blue Carbon: How mangroves store more carbon than rainforest, raise the reef's next generation, and where restoration works.

Conservation

Coral Reef Awareness Week 2026: The El Niño Year

El Niño is back, 84% of reefs have bleached, and I know what that looks like on the descent. The honest version, without the sugar.

Conservation

Hammerheads Just Won the Highest Protection There Is

Ecuador wrote the proposal. Panama backed it. Hammerheads just got Appendix I, the strongest protection this treaty offers.

Conservation

World Orca Day 2026: The Pods Where Every Whale Has a Name

World Orca Day is a reminder that even the ocean's top predator is not safe from us, and why protecting orcas means protecting us all.

Conservation

World Shark Day 2026: 9 People Killed, 100 Million Sharks

World Shark Day: celebrating and protecting the apex predators that hold the whole ocean in balance, and challenging the myths that put them at risk.

Conservation

Are Sea Turtles Still Endangered in 2026?

The green turtle just came off the threatened list, the first comeback of its kind in four decades. Two species are still waiting.

Conservation

What Is the Coral Triangle? The Reef That Feeds 120 Million

Coral Triangle Day is 9 June. The Amazon of the Seas spans six nations and holds more marine life than anywhere on earth.

Conservation

Ocean Conservation in 2026: What Is Actually Working

The first World Oceans Day under the High Seas Treaty. Ten days to Mombasa. The state of the ocean and what divers can do about it.

Conservation

World Reef Day 2026: The Year 84% of Reefs Bleached

Year four of the fourth global bleaching event, 84% of reefs hit. What conscious people and divers can actually do about it.

Conservation

The First Biodiversity Day Under the High Seas Treaty

Sixty-six percent of the ocean has been significantly altered. Today is the first biodiversity day under the new High Seas Treaty.

Conservation

The Ocean Cleanup in 2026: 50 Million Kilos Pulled

About 1,000 rivers carry 80% of ocean plastic. The Ocean Cleanup has now intercepted 29 million kilograms before any of it reached the sea.

Conservation

The 'Protected' EU Waters Still Being Bottom-Trawled

Sixty percent of EU Marine Protected Areas are still being bottom-trawled. A 250,000-signature petition just landed in Brussels.

Conservation

Papua New Guinea: A Marine Highway the Size of the UK

Papua New Guinea's new Western Manus MPA covers 214,000 km² of the Bismarck Sea, the largest no-take reserve in Melanesia's history.

Conservation

Iceland Whaling 2026: 318 Whales, and the Faroes Still Hunting

Forty years after the moratorium, two North Atlantic nations are still killing whales. What 2026 looks like, and why it still matters.

Conservation

Verde Island Passage: The 2026 Fight to Protect It

A 2026 Filipino coalition is pushing Congress to give the world's most biodiverse marine corridor full ENIPAS protection.

Conservation

Five Weeks to Mombasa: Why Our Ocean 2026 Matters

The 11th Our Ocean Conference lands in Mombasa on 16 June, the first time the summit has been held on African soil. What divers should watch.

Conservation

David Attenborough at 100: What He Did for the Ocean

Seven decades of filmmaking changed how the world sees the sea. On his hundredth birthday, what David Attenborough actually did for the ocean.

Conservation

The People Who Guard Malpelo's Shark Sanctuary Year-Round

A tiny crew lives year-round on a catamaran off Colombia, keeping illegal boats away from the world's most important shark sanctuary.

Conservation

Mission Blue Unites the Ocean Champions of Southern Africa

From Mozambique's manta rays to South Africa's whale routes, Mission Blue brought the ocean champions of a whole continent together.

Conservation

Egypt's Great Fringing Reef Is Now Officially Protected

Egypt just protected 2,000 kilometres of Red Sea reef, the coral system scientists call the most climate-resilient left on earth.

Conservation

Why Ghana's First Marine Reserve Matters for the Ocean

Ghana declared its first marine protected area, guarding spawning grounds and turtle nesting on the West African coast.

Conservation

Rapa Nui's Sacred Sea Becomes a Mission Blue Hope Spot

The sacred waters of Easter Island are now a Hope Spot, protected by Indigenous governance that has already held for generations.

Conservation

The High Seas Treaty Just Entered Force. What Now?

The High Seas Treaty is in force. The door to protecting international waters is finally open, and the hard part of it starts now.

Conservation

Deep-Sea Mining Is Much Closer Than Most People Realise

The world is close to mining the deep ocean floor, before anyone can say what lives down there or what exactly we would be destroying.

Conservation

Cabo Pulmo: Where Fish Biomass Climbed 460% in a Decade

A fishing village closed its own bay and fish biomass climbed 460%. It is the strongest case anyone has made for no-take marine reserves.

Conservation

The Fourth Global Coral Bleaching Event

The longest and most severe bleaching event ever recorded, and why the windows reefs need to recover are closing faster than they can use them.

Conservation

The Shark Fin Trade Has Not Stopped

Around 11,000 sharks are killed every hour for their fins, and new reef surveys show the ecological toll is still climbing every year.

Conservation

What Sunscreen Does to Coral

Common sunscreen ingredients damage coral DNA at parts per trillion, and most places in the world still have no rules limiting them.

Conservation

Seagrass Is Disappearing Faster Than Coral

It stores carbon faster than rainforest and raises most of the fish on the reef, and we have lost nearly half of it in under a century.

Conservation

Ghost Gear: The Nets That Keep on Killing

Lost fishing nets keep killing sharks, turtles and rays for decades after the boat has gone. They are a tenth of all ocean plastic.

Conservation

How Coral Gardening Is Bringing Reefs Back from the Brink

Growing coral from the colonies that survived and replanting it on reefs that are dying. Survival rates are high and the field is moving fast.

Conservation

Ocean Plastic: The Scale and the Solutions

Eight million tonnes a year, most of it from ten rivers. An honest look at which projects are actually working against ocean plastic.

Conservation

Marine Protected Areas: Why Protection Actually Works

Fully protected reefs hold 600% more fish, but most marine protected areas are paper parks. What separates the ones that actually work.