Blogger: Forest & Bird’s Marine Advocate, Kirstie Knowles. As a small piece of rock that is surrounded by a giant, frothy, swirling mass of ocean, we’re in a unique position to harness our marine energy. Some of the tidal and wave technologies used to harness the power of our currents. And already, scientists, bureaucrats and […]
Blogger: Forest & Bird’s Marine Conservation Advocate, Kirstie Knowles. Our Ministry of Fisheries has just received possibly the largest wake-up call to fish more sustainably – care of the world’s largest shipping company – Maersk. The company announced yesterday* it is refusing to transport Orange roughy, Antarctic toothfish, or any of our shark species, because it believes […]
Blogger: ‘Sea-slug girl’ aka Forest & Bird’s Marine Advocate Kirstie Knowles. What absorbs 1/3 of our atmospheric carbon? What is thought to hold over 80% of NZ’s unique plants and animals? What has forests, volcanos (some of the largest lava fields) and mountains? What holds the world’s tallest mountain?** Where did we come from? What […]
Blogger: Forest & Bird Marine Advocate, Kirstie Knowles Our critically endangered Southern Bluefin Tuna swims around the seas of several countries from Australia to Japan – and while these countries are working to reduce their quotas – we are trying to bump ours up by 25%. The back-story goes something like this. Five (Japan, Australia, Indonesia, […]
How utterly disappointing that with its first opportunity to make a difference for life in our seas our new government has let us down – and not just us: more importantly, they’ve let down our threatened and endangered marine life. Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei’s private member’s bill – the Marine Animals Protection Law Reform […]
When we think of life in the ocean we often think of our whales, our dolphins, fish and crayfish – things we can see and things that can see us. But actually the building blocks of life in our sea – that provide us with the oxygen we breathe, absorbs the carbon dioxide we pump into […]
Google has just announced a new tool that allows viewers to take a glimpse under the sea, which goes a long way to addressing our “out of sight – out of mind mentality” currently plaguing marine conservation efforts. Having just rolled out google sky following the ever-popular google earth, google is now giving us a chance to dive […]
While the impacts of climate change on land are hotly discussed, its effect on our oceans and marine life tend to fall into the ‘out of sight out of mind’ black hole. Yet the effect of increased carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere is likely to have significant impacts both on our marine life and […]
Well it’s official. 113 is the new kill quota for our threatened New Zealand sea lions – a 40% increase on last year’s quota. Set by the new Minister of Fisheries Phil Heatley, the quota determines how many sea lions the Auckland Island squid fishery can kill in the 2009 fishing season.