On the messaging platform WhatsApp, Mohammed Abu Daya’s profile picture features an aerial view of Gaza City before the current war. A clutter of high-rise buildings rises against the sky; at their feet, a strip of sandy beach, bathed by the sun, and the dark blue sea, dotted with small fishing boats. The photograph bears witness to a landscape that no longer exists — aside from the sea. “Gaza is now a big prison, with two million people living among rubble and destroyed infrastructure,” the Palestinian marine ecologist told Mongabay in May 2026 over the phone. “Life in the Gaza Strip is miserable.” For many months now, he has been unable to go out to sea to carry out research in his field. Before the war, Abu Daya was a lecturer at several Palestinian universities including the University of Palestine in Gaza and a researcher at the now-shuttered National Research Center in Gaza. His research focuses on spinetail devil rays (Mobula mobular), sometimes called giant devil rays, a critically endangered species that can reach up to 3.5 meters (11.5 feet) in width. The Gaza-based conservationist is one among a handful of scientists worldwide who study this species. Historically, it was thought to be endemic to the Mediterranean Sea, until taxonomic revisions in the late 2010s led scientists to consider the Mediterranean populations as genetically connected to others in the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Indo-Pacific region. The majestic rays are thought to roam the entire Mediterranean, from the…This article was originally published on Mongabay

NAPLES — On a warm, moonlit night in May, Maurizio Simeone sat in an ambush at his desk about 10 kilometers (6 miles) south of Naples, Italy. The marine scientist and director of the Marine Protected Area (MPA) Gaiola Underwater Park was watching the grainy live feed from cameras surveilling the MPA as poachers descended on the seafloor. “It was midnight. Here they were again,” Simeone told Mongabay. The poachers had come a few nights before to scout the area. Then a second time. This time, Simeone was waiting for them. He rushed to alert the Coast Guard. The poachers operated with ruthless efficiency, using a dangerous illegal method known as the hookah system. A compressor on a small boat pumps air through a hose to a diver, allowing them to stay underwater for hours and systematically strip the seabed. Every 20 minutes, the diver resurfaced to hand over a net full of purple sea urchins (Paracentrotus lividus), grab an empty net and then dive back down. When the authorities moved in, the two men on the boat began dumping hundreds of sea urchins and their gear into the sea, as the diver quickly resurfaced. The three men were old acquaintances of Simeone’s. “They are repeat offenders. It’s not the first time we’ve caught them,” Simeone said. Illegally harvested sea urchins seized in July 2024. Image courtesy of Maurizio Simeone. During a previous bust a year earlier, the vessel was apprehended with a staggering haul: 976 sea urchins pulled from…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From pollution to overfishing to the escalating effects of climate change, human activities are placing mounting pressure on the world ocean, fueling what U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres describes as a “deepening crisis.” Those warnings are detailed in the third U.N. World Ocean Assessment, released June 8 and authored by approximately 600 experts from 86 countries. Covering the period between 2021 and 2025, the report echoes concerns raised in the U.N.’s earlier World Ocean Assessments, published in 2015 and 2021, which describe a global ocean under immense strain due to human-driven pressures. The authors point toward progress in ocean governance through a review of 57 global treaties related to ocean protection, including the recently ratified high seas treaty, known more formally as the marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) agreement. However, they caution that existing frameworks generally remain “fragmented” and cannot fully address the scale of the challenges facing the ocean. Even so, the authors argue that it is imperative to continue strengthening conservation efforts, regulations and international cooperation to mitigate the damaging impacts of human activities and preserve marine ecosystems. Some 52.1 million metric tons of plastic waste enters the ocean each year, impacting more than 4,000 marine species, including seabirds. Image by NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program via Flickr (CC BY 2.0). “The imperative for a healthy and resilient ocean has never been more urgent,” Rafael González-Quirós, director of the Oceanographic Centre of Gijón, Spain, who played a key role in coordinating the report, said in…This article was originally published on Mongabay

MTWAPA, Kenya — On a mid-morning in March, Mohamed Mwazigona, 58, had just landed a measly catch on the town beach in Mtwapa on Kenya’s north coast. His crew was preparing the boat for a second trip into the sea with hopes of better luck. As traders started trickling in to buy fish, Mwazigona sat on a broken upturned boat staring at the horizon beyond the sea. His morning trip had netted only 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of fish. He worried that his catches had decreased a lot in recent years. “The number of fishermen has gone up; we have become too many,” he said. That’s the reason he left his village of Shariani, 40 kilometers (25 miles) to the north, to base his fishing in Mtwapa, which he felt had fewer fishers and better access to markets. In Kenya, local beach management units (BMUs), like the Mtwapa BMU that Mwazigona belongs to, have a legal mandate to support collection of fisheries data for submission to the government: mainly the type of fish its members catch and the weight. These data are meant to inform government decision-making about small-scale fisheries so it can help reverse the competition for dwindling fish stocks that Mwazigona and his colleagues are experiencing. They are also meant to help fishers themselves make decisions on where and when to fish. However, the BMUs’ small-scale fisheries data have been inaccurate and inaccessible to stakeholders. To address this problem and improve the sustainability of Kenya’s small-scale fisheries, WorldFish,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

This is part 2 of a two-part series examining the U.S.’s efforts to begin deep-sea mining in federal waters. Part 2 examines the regulations that would govern the industry. Part 1 explored the process behind proposed lease sales in U.S. federal waters and reactions to those plans. The deep-sea mining industry could launch in the near future in U.S. federal waters. Yet legal experts and former government officials warn that the regulations that would govern this industry are outdated and lack important oversight provisions. In April 2025, the Trump administration signaled its intention to enter the global race to mine the deep sea when it released an executive order calling for the development of the industry. Following the administration’s direction, in April 2026 the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) announced its plans to hold a series of seabed lease sales over the course of this year and into early next. The first one is slated for August in American Samoa, with subsequent lease sales planned for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and Alaska. If these go forward, they could mark the first commercial lease processes for deep-sea mining anywhere in the world. Critics say deep-sea mining could cause large-scale and irreversible damage to the marine environment, and some governments in areas slated for leasing have even taken steps to ban deep-sea mining. In 2024, the governor of American Samoa enacted a moratorium on seabed mining from its territorial waters, which extend 3 nautical miles (5.6 kilometers)…This article was originally published on Mongabay