Researchers say urgent conservation efforts will be needed to mitigate the ‘shocking statistic’ that threatens to unravel ecosystems
More than 500 bird species could vanish within the next century, researchers have found, calling for urgent “special recovery programmes” such as captive breeding and habitat restoration to rescue unique species.
Birds such as the puffin, European turtle dove and great bustard will be among those to disappear from our skies if trends continue, according to the paper. Their loss threatens to unravel ecosystems across the globe.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
06/24/2025 - 04:51
06/24/2025 - 00:21
The prospect of handing control of the energy company to overseas buyers has raised a series of concerns. But many of them are nebulous
Amid the multifarious chaos of the past week, many of us might have missed the controversy over the proposed purchase of the energy business Santos by an overseas consortium. But the proposal is likely to create big problems for Australian governments and its resolution will reveal a lot about how Australian policymakers view energy and climate policy.
Santos is one of the largest and oldest Australian producers of oil and gas, second only to Woodside Energy (its name is an acronym of South Australia and Northern Territory Oil Search). The core of its operation is the Moomba gas field in the Cooper Basin, in the north-east corner of South Australia. The company now supplies gas to the entire eastern seaboard and has assets in the Timor Sea and Papua New Guinea.
John Quiggin is a professor at the University of Queensland’s school of economics
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06/24/2025 - 00:00
The Lower Thames Crossing proves the point. It’s a white elephant plan, sucking money from local projects that could actually improve lives
There appear to be two main determinants of what infrastructure gets built. The first is whether it provides large and lucrative contracts for powerful corporations. The second is whether ministers can pose beside it in hard hats and yellow jackets. Otherwise, it is hard to explain the decisions made.
Both determinants favour large and spectacular schemes. Big corporations don’t want to dabble in minor improvements: real money comes from prestige projects over which governments cannot afford to lose face, ensuring that they keep throwing cash, however high the budget spirals. And few ministers want to pose beside a new bus stop: a grand ego demands a grand setting.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
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06/23/2025 - 23:00
About 110 million people suffer stress and sleep disturbance that lead to tens of thousands of early deaths
More than 110 million people across Europe suffer high levels of health-damaging noise pollution, according to a report. The resulting physiological stress and sleep disturbance leads to 66,000 early deaths a year and many cases of heart disease, diabetes and depression.
The report, from the European Environment Agency (EEA), focuses on noise from cars, trains and aeroplanes and found that 20% of the population of the European Economic Area (EEA) were affected. Separate research, using a slightly lower threshold for dangerous noise pollution, found that 40% of the UK population were exposed to harmful transport noise.
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06/20/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 21 June 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00134-5
Improving detectability of illegal fishing activities across supply chains
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | director@thew2o.net +12077011069
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