OCF’s insights from across the ocean sector – November 26, 2024

Devoted black-eyed squid (Gonatus onyx) mother carries her eggs with her through the deep sea, likely for months. Image by Schmidt Ocean Institute.

Welcome to OCF’s insights from the marine and coastal sector. This week we have summarised the most relevant stories for you from a range of Marine and Coastal Sectors, including; Fisheries; Offshore Wind; Offshore Industries; Conservation; Climate and Marine Pollution and more.

Fisheries

At the annual meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) meeting in Cyprus, the EU paved the way to a breakthrough agreement for the sustainable management of tropical tunas. This agreement includes a bigeye tuna Total Allowable Catch (TAC) increase, improved fishing opportunities for the European fleet, and carves out an agreed pathway for the mandatory use of biodegradable and non-entangling Fish Aggregation Devices (FADs). After five years of implementation, the FAD moratorium enforced by the ICCAT was reduced from 72 to 45 days, as the moratorium’s effectiveness in protecting stocks could not be satisfactorily demonstrated.

On World Fisheries Day a coalition of ocean advocacy NGOs gathered outside the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in London to deliver a petition signed by almost 200,000 people from across Europe. The petition called for an immediate ban on bottom trawling within the UK’s Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).

NOAA Fisheries awarded more than $9.2 million in grants funded by the Inflation Reduction Act to academic partners that will help recover threatened and endangered Pacific salmon. They will support research that will build upon decades of knowledge from NOAA and its state, tribal, and academic partners.

A new report by the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) has warned Britain is facing a future of increasingly catastrophic marine heatwaves that could destroy shellfish colonies and fisheries and have devastating impacts on communities around the coast of the UK. The NOC are pressing for the launch of a targeted research programme as a matter of urgency to investigate how sudden temperature rises in coastal seawater could affect marine habitats and seafood production in the UK.

The North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) cited significant challenges in securing consensus among its members as the meeting came to a close, grappling with issues of fish stock management, illegal fishing and compliance with existing regulations. For the first time in the NEAFC’s history, no compliance report was presented, sparking serious concerns from the European Union as it means serious infringements by some NEAFC parties will not be formally recognised or addressed, and violations by other fleets operating within the NEAFC area are unlikely to face sanctions.

The International Council for Exploration of the Sea (ICES) has issued its annual advice for cod (Gadus morhua) in the North Sea, West of Scotland, eastern English Channel and Skagerrak regions. The 2024 recommendation includes significant reductions in the total allowable catch (TAC), of no more than 15,378 tonnes across three substocks, to address continued overfishing of vulnerable stocks. As cod remains a bycatch species in fisheries targeting haddock and whiting, detailed mixed-fisheries scenarios were also drawn up.

Only 1 in 5 people eating NHS recommended two portions of fish a week, while one in four consumers in the UK are eating less fish than two years ago. The latest figures released by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation show more than a third of fish stocks are overfished, and 45% of UK respondents gave some kind of environmental reason for changing diets, demonstrating that concern for the planet, and ocean, is influencing dietary choices.

The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) has opened a public consultation to gather views on the proposed closures of king scallop (Pecten maximus) dredge fishery in English waters of ICES area 7d and the Lyme Bay area of 7e for the summer of 2025.

A new article gives an overview of recent statistics relating to fishing fleets, fish catches, and fish landings in the European Union (EU). Highlights included; EU catches in 2023 were an estimated 3.3 million tonnes of live weight, continuing the downturn since 2018; The EU fishing fleet is getting smaller in number, capacity and power; Quantity of EU landings declined further in 2023 but value of landings went up.

French, Dutch and Belgian fishers have reached a historic Gentlemen’s Agreement on the management of the flyshooting fishery in the Eastern Channel, setting clear rules for gear specifications, fishing zones and fishing intensity. The new rules came into effect on the 18th of November, and reflect a shared commitment to sustainable practices.

A temporary fishing ban in the Bay of Biscay showed a marked reduction in accidental dolphin deaths, according to the French government’s recent findings.

The Thai Tuna Industry Association and the Fishing Net Association (Thailand) have reaffirmed their commitment to sustainable fishing practices and local sourcing by signing a second memorandum of understanding (MoU). The agreement aims to purchase more than 50,000 tons of O-fish (black O-fish, O-lai-O-tube) from Thai fishing boats operating in Thai waters, valued at about 2 billion baht (<£46 million).

The Master of the Spanish-registered fishing vessel Punta Candieira has been convicted and fined €7,000 at Cork Circuit Criminal Court for unauthorised fishing operations in Ireland’s exclusive fishery limits. The Court additionally ordered the forfeiture of €15,000 from the value of the catch and gear involved.

Aquaculture

Scotland is the world’s third-largest producer of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar), after Norway and Chile. The industry is seeking to significantly increase production there, driven by growing foreign demand. However, it faces ethical concerns over mounting fish mortality, as well as environmental concerns about pollution, the proliferation of sea lice affecting wild salmon, and opposition from several local communities.

Offshore Wind

Backed by a £7.3 million investment through the Offshore Wind Evidence and Change Programme (OWEC), the Crown Estate is partnering with a range of expert bodies across the UK to launch five new projects that they say will accelerate the nation’s path towards a net-zero and energy-secure future, whilst enabling our marine and coastal ecosystems to thrive. However, the Crown Estate has been accused of “a smoke-and-mirrors campaign to smooth the path for even more lucrative offshore wind farms” and “a greenwashed land grab”.

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has awarded a €6.7 million grant to the NO-REGRETS project, aimed at understanding the ecological impact of the transition from fossil fuels to wind energy. The project has also invited the participation of the Dutch Fishermen’s Association to provide industry insights.

Plans have been submitted by OceanWinds (OW) for turbines bigger than the Eiffel Tower to be built in an area with marine protected status off the north east coast. The Moray Firth has been described as one of the richest areas of biodiversity in Europe, but if approved, the north sea inlet will see up to 140 new turbines, reaching 355m (1,160ft). It would also involve a total of four offshore substation platforms and four offshore export cables, which would make landfall at Stake Ness on the Aberdeenshire coast, according to the plans.

A member of a committee looking at the potential for wind power in Guernsey has said they hope to bring proposals to the States in January next year, and take advantage of exporting energy to England and France to earn money for the islands.

More than 600 unexploded World War Two (WW2) bombs lying on the seabed could be exploded ahead of three new wind farm projects in Norfolk. The energy firm RWE has applied for two licences to investigate a large area stretching out from Sea Palling and Mundesley into the North Sea. Options could include detonating the bombs and mines, routing cables around them or relocating them, if deemed safe to do so.

Controversial plans to lay miles of cable to link two proposed windfarms to a substation near Preston have been accepted by the Planning Inspectorate, prompting concerns from Fylde Council. The proposed development involves undersea cables landing near Blackpool Airport and running underground to two substations between Kirkham and Newton, before continuing underground and beneath the River Ribble to Penwortham.

Reuters has reported the global offshore wind industry no longer has much chance to hit the high targets set by governments in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere, marking a setback for efforts to fight climate change as the technology forms a significant part of government strategies to advance renewable energy and decarbonise the global power industry. After interviewing 12 offshore wind companies, industry researchers, trade associations, and government officials in six countries, the main obstacles were identified as soaring costs, project delays and limited supply chain investment, causing key companies to retreat from the industry.

In collaboration with Van Oord’s initiative Ocean Health, Orsted has successfully installed the first-ever droppable oyster structures (DOS) at their Borssele 1 & 2 Offshore Wind Farm in the North Sea. These innovative, scalable reef structures are a key step in restoring the European flat oyster population and revitalising the region’s marine biodiversity.

A surprise pitch from a midwest company with no experience building offshore wind farms has reignited enthusiasm for wind energy development in the Gulf of Mexico. Best known for land-based solar projects, Hecate Energy presented its plan to build a 133-turbine wind farm in the Gulf shortly after the Biden administration cancelled the region’s second lease auction. BOEM is waiting to see if more companies propose projects for the two areas, which total about 142,000 acres.

The Massachusetts Legislature has passed a new bill extending the terms of future offshore wind contracts, with contract terms able to be negotiated up to a maximum of 30 years instead of 20. The Bill also allocates $200 million to the state’s Offshore Wind Industry Investment Fund and directs the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) to review the effectiveness of existing solicitations in contributing to state emissions requirements.

Offshore Industry

The National Institute of Ocean Technology, an Indian Government organisation, recently conducted an exploratory deep-sea mining tria l in the Andaman Sea. Even as the International Seabed Authority (ISA), is yet to finalise the mining code for commercial purposes, those with exploratory licenses have been conducting mining trials in international waters.

Two new electricity-generating tidal farm projects in France have been awarded $55 million in funding to add around 29 megawatts of sustainable power to the local grid. This funding, granted by the European Union, is just part of 85 net-zero projects across 18 countries to receive financial support totaling $5.19 billion from the coalition’s Innovation Fund.

Two undersea fibre-optic communications cables in the Baltic Sea, including one linking Finland and Germany, were reportedly severed, raising suspicions of sabotage. The 1,200-km cable connecting Helsinki to the German port of Rostock stopped working on 18 November, and a 218-km internet link between Lithuania and Sweden’s Gotland Island went out of service on 17 November. Other incidents in the same waterway that authorities have probed as potentially malicious included damage to a gas pipeline and undersea cables last year, and the 2022 explosions of the Nord Sea gas pipelines.

General Oceans have completed a number of recent acquisitions in the underwater technology market, and now consists of six operating companies including RS Aqua. General Oceans reported revenues of GBP 62 million in 2023, an increase of 28 per cent compared to 2022, and employs more than 300 people based in Europe, UK, US and Australia.

Conservation

The British Trust for Ornithology has published its latest annual r eport on seabird population trends in breeding abundance and productivity using data from the Seabird Monitoring Programme (SMP). The report documents changes in the abundance and productivity of breeding seabird species in Britain and Ireland from 1986 to 2023, and provides a detailed account of the 2021, 2022 and 2023 breeding seasons.

An epidemic of avian flu that spread through elephant seal colonies in Argentina, nearly doubling the death rate in some areas, appears to be on the decline after researchers found no new cases in recent surveys of the coast. However, the recovery process for many colonies, which were nearly wiped out in some areas, could be just beginning.

Global shipping routes overlap 92% of large-whales habitats and are a leading threat to their survival, but protecting whales in the most dangerous collision hotspots would require action over just 2.6% of the ocean’s surface, potentially saving thousands of whales with minimal disruption to global trade. However, currently less than 7% of global hotspots for whale-ship collisions have protection measures in place.

At this year’s meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) an unprecedented international effort to prevent shark finning , gaining a record 42 co-sponsors (roughly 80% of ICCAT Parties), was blocked by Japan and China. The UK won a two-year effort to ban retention and promote the safe release of manta and devil rays. The EU secured similar protections for whale sharks and previewed plans to propose expanding them to basking and white sharks next year.

The first grey seal pup of the season has been born at Orford Ness on the Suffolk coast, at a remote shingle spit that was once a cold war weapons-testing site. The National Trust said more than 130 seal pups were born at Orford Ness during the 2023-24 breeding season, and the first pup born this season arrived about a week earlier than last year’s.

A study investigating how marine biodiversity conservation, human health and wellbeing are connected, conducted by the conservation charity World Wide Fund for Nature, Harvard Institute of Public Health and Duke University’s marine laboratory, further evidenced that marine protected areas can be good for both planet and people.

AU-IBAR, with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), is implementing a 3-year project on ‘Conserving Aquatic Biodiversity in African Blue Economy’. The overall objective is to enhance the policy environment, regulatory frameworks and institutional capacities of AU member states and regional economic communities to sustainably utilise and conserve aquatic biodiversity and ecosystems.

The marine Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment programme (mNCEA) is a major UK Government project to improve evidence and natural capital approaches for our coasts and seas. mNCEA have been investigating a range of different techniques, many of them innovative, for monitoring marine mammals (understanding of which is currently very limited), and working towards a new integrated monitoring strategy for the future.

Climate

Animating the Carbon Cycle is a groundbreaking field of science that bridges biodiversity and climate — showing how healthy wild animal populations supercharge the ability of ecosystems to capture and store massive amounts of carbon from the atmosphere.

Hundreds of polar researchers have issued an emergency statement titled “Making Antarctica Cool Again”, calling for urgent action to deal with the impacts of climate change in Antarctica. More than 450 researchers gathered in Hobart for the inaugural Australian Antarctic Research Conference, the first such event in more than a decade, and almost two thirds of attendees were early career researchers.

New evidence points to the phenomenon of “atlantification” of the Arctic Ocean, a process related to climate change that involves the progressive invasion of Atlantic waters into the polar Arctic Ocean. The intrusion of Atlantic waters is turning the Arctic into an ocean that is becoming warmer and less saline due to the accelerated melting of ice. In addition, this intrusion is rapidly changing the marine ecosystems and species distribution of the Arctic.

Scientists have found new evidence that desertification, potentially linked to global warming, leads to large amounts of nutrient-rich dust landing in the sea, causing ocean algae to grow rapidly. The researchers found that drought in southern Africa’s drylands had caused the strongest phytoplankton bloom in about 27 years, south-east of Madagascar.

Ocean temperatures in the early twentieth century may have been warmer than previously thought, due to improvements in measurement technologies in the years since. After reconstructing global temperatures using only land surface air or ocean surface temperature values, researchers found between 1900–1930 the estimates based on the ocean figures are on average 0.26 °C colder than the values generated by land data, a trend which is unsupported by other lines of evidence. The authors argue that this discrepancy could be due to an uncorrected bias in sea surface temperature data from this time.

Read a summary on what was and was not achieved at COP29.

The UK Government’s Nature Minister Mary Creagh, announced funding for projects that will build resilience to climate change in oceans at COP29. So far 20 projects have been revealed that will benefit from funding from Round One of the Ocean Community Empowerment and Nature (OCEAN) Grants Programme. Ruth Davis, the UK’s first ever Special Representative for Nature, accompanied Minister Creagh to COP29 to ensure that nature takes its place at the heart of climate change discussions.

On Ocean Action Day at COP29, a coalition of 23 leading environmental NGOs called on world leaders to formally recognise and integrate the planets ‘blue beating heart’ into international climate action, highlighting the critical role healthy oceans play in fighting the climate crisis and supporting coastal communities.

The world’s largest cruise line company is responsible for producing more carbon dioxide in Europe than the city of Glasgow, a report by the Transport and Environment (T&E) campaign group has found.

Declining water levels of the Caspian Sea, a critical asset for the five littoral states: Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan, pose an escalating environmental challenge that threatens its biodiversity, socio-economic development, and regional stability.

Science

Marine and ocean researchers in Australia and the US have developed an innovative open-source framework which they say transforms how research image datasets are managed, processed and shared, setting a new standard for scientific collaboration, citizen science and data accessibility. The work builds on various projects which are opening up the underwater world for scientists, and the data projects are all open source and millions of the images are available to the marine-curious public.

New research suggests for centuries manatees might have been tourists in Florida rather than residents, staying for a short visit before returning to their Caribbean homes such as Cuba. Despite being a charismatic species of the Sunshine State,it is possible that they did not become Florida fixtures until after Europeans colonised the future state in the 1500s. The motivation for the research was fueled by Pluckhahn’s realization that there was a lack of evidence pointing to a large population of manatees in Florida’s pre-colonial era.

Deep-sea scientists were amazed by the rare sight of a mother squid carrying her eggs through the ocean, putting herself at risk to protect her offspring.

Marine Pollution

Dr. Amina Schartup, a marine chemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography who has studied the mercury cycle for nearly 20 years, shared insights on mercury pollution and its global impact at COP29.

The impacts of Artificial Light at Night (ALAN) on marine organisms is a rapidly growing concern in those coastal areas exposed to human activities and development. This new paper highlights the damage that exposure to ALAN can do to the eye of a marine animal.

The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) has sent a letter to Cooke Inc. CEO Glenn Cooke, announcing its intent to sue the company over alleged Clean Water Act violations at its salmon farms in the U.S. state of Maine. Cooke responded immediately to the allegations, stating CLF’s claims are “false, misleading, and lack any substantiating evidence.” and assuring that the salmon farms are routinely audited and certified by third-party sustainability organisations. The CLF lawsuit is targeting 13 different Cooke sites for “several types of pollution” such as fish faeces, disease, sea lice and escaped fish.

Wales has announced its retraction from the UK-wide Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), and would now be working “to develop a scheme that supports the transition to reuse for all drinks containers including those made from glass”. The DRS system, expected to come into force in the UK in 2027, will see consumers pay a small fee when purchasing bottles or cans, however glass bottles were removed from pending plans for the scheme in England and Northern Ireland in 2022, while Wales and Scotland decided to keep it.

In a “grim reminder” of the consequences of marine pollution, a grey seal pup found ensnared in discarded tackle in north Cornwall had to be euthanized, due to the extensive damage caused by the two hooks.

Two NGOs, Terra Cypria and Friends of the Earth Cyprus, have warned the marine environment of Kato Pyrgos Tillyria in Cyprus is in immediate danger from organic material being dumped in the sea. The organisations called on the environment department of the agriculture ministry to honour its commitment to terminate the systematic dumping of waste from the fishing shelter, and urged the ministry to take all necessary action to secure the fundamental right of public access to information concerning the environment.

Recently, the Department of Fisheries and Fishermen Welfare, piloted an initiative among Thengaithittu fisher community in India to tackle the marine pollution challenge caused by fishing-related debris. From the Thengaithittu harbour alone, each of the 60 boats engaged for multi-day trips generates about 5 kg to 6 kg of assorted waste. Fishers were instructed to bring back used plastic covers and bottles to the shore after their trip, and only those who segregate the marine litter and hand over the debris to the Puducherry Mechanised Fishing Boat Owners Welfare Association would be permitted to sell that catch at the harbour.

SAFE is calling on Environment Canterbury to stop the harmful wastewater disposal practices at Silver Fern Farms’ Pareora slaughterhouse near Timaru. Footage obtained by SAFE revealed significant volumes of toxic wastewater flowing directly into the ocean, raising alarm over environmental degradation and grave risks to marine life. The footage casted doubt on the company’s compliance with environmental laws, as under the Resource Management Act it is illegal to deposit substances in coastal areas that could cause adverse effect.

Residents on Singer Island are frustrated as they have been picking up rubbish along their beaches, coming from a makeshift barrier wall that they call “an eyesore” and “a danger to our environment”.

Marine Media

‘She turns her siphon into a gun’: Watch coconut octopus firing stones at fish in world-1st footage.

Read the “Opening Remarks at Caspian Sea Water Decline in Light of Climate Change” delivered by Inger Anderson, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme.