This week, as governments of various coastal states gather in Mombasa, Kenya, for the Our Ocean Conference, Africa must demand an end to industrial krill fishing in the Southern Ocean before irreversible damage is done to Antarctica and the ocean systems upon which our continent depends. A clear call from Africa would bolster international calls for a ban on industrial krill fishing and support positive leadership developments like the European Parliament’s recent call for a moratorium on krill fishing. The Southern Ocean regulates global ocean circulation, absorbs enormous quantities of heat and carbon dioxide, and sustains marine life across the planet. At the center of this system is Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba), the tiny crustacean that feeds whales, penguins, seals and seabirds while helping lock carbon into the deep ocean. Industrial krill fishing has expanded rapidly over the last few years, with the largest share of this extraction controlled by fleets linked to certain European and Asian countries. Most concerningly, fishing is intensifying precisely where Antarctic wildlife is most vulnerable: critical feeding grounds for whales, penguins and seals are actively targeted by the industry. A single adult Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) is usually just five centimeters long, but the importance of its massive populations to marine food chains, and the millions of people who depend on ocean protein as part of their daily diet, is major. Image courtesy of Uwe Kils via Wikimedia Commons. The damage is already visible. In April, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classified…This article was originally published on Mongabay

This week, thousands of delegates are gathered in Mombasa, Kenya, for the first Our Ocean Conference to be hosted on African soil. As expected, much of the conversation will focus on the global “30×30” target — protecting 30% of the world’s land, freshwater and oceans by 2030. Yet, far from the conference halls, the big pledges and state commitments, many of the people doing the daily work of marine conservation are community organizations operating on modest budgets along Africa’s coastlines. They often do so far from the spotlight, but their contribution is vital for the global ambition to conserve ocean spaces. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), under whose Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework the 2030 targets were adopted, highlights that success hinges heavily on community involvement. Across Kenya, Tanzania and Namibia, four such groups — Coastal and Marine Resource Development (COMRED), Action for Ocean, Mwambao Coastal Community Network and the Namibia Nature Foundation (NNF) — offer a window into what community-led marine conservation looks like in practice. Their work might be underfunded, uneven and sometimes slow, but are increasingly central to how marine protection is imagined on the continent. Marine ecosystems in Africa support fisheries, tourism, transport, carbon storage and coastal protection while sustaining millions of livelihoods from the Western Indian Ocean to Africa’s Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. In East Africa in particular, mangroves, coral reefs, seagrass meadows and nearshore fisheries underpin food systems and local economies even as they face pressure from overfishing, habitat degradation, climate change and pollution.…This article was originally published on Mongabay

ROOIELS, South Africa — Baboons aren’t exactly punctual, but Gavin Lundie still expected them to appear in the village around 9 a.m. “They’re coming!” his wife Lesley called. Members of the Rooiels baboon troop had begun to make their way down. Lesley made her way to the sliding doors on their patio and secured it with two shoelaces attached to a hook. She remained on the balcony and watched as the troop entered into the village a few properties away. The Lundies live in Rooiels, a small, affluent village on False Bay, approximately 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Cape Town’s city center. The village, scattered from the coastal flats up the slopes of the Klein Hangklip mountain, is part of the Kogelberg Biosphere Reserve. The mountain’s cliff faces offer sleeping baboons (Papio ursinus) protection from leopards, their natural predator, but the sparse vegetation doesn’t offer enough for them to eat or drink. In contrast, the lower slopes, where the village has grown up, is still covered with dense fynbos scrub on undeveloped plots, in gardens and along unpaved verges. The baboons forage on a range of flowers, seeds and berries in the warmer months; in winter, when the fynbos is dormant, the baboons eat kikuyu grass from lawns in the village. They also eat limpets in the intertidal zone, and the Rooiels River is a year-round source of freshwater. A juvenile baboon clings to its mother’s back as she forages in fynbos on the roadside in Rooi Els. Image by…This article was originally published on Mongabay