Protecting the ocean: 5 essential reads on invasive species, overfishing and other threats to sea life

Illegal fishing – taking too many fish, or harvesting threatened species – causes economic losses estimated at US$10 billion to $25 billion annually. It also has been linked to human rights violations, such as forced labor and human trafficking. But it’s easy to conduct these activities out of sight on the high seas.

By looking at when and where fishing boats turned off their location transponders at sea, academic and nongovernment researchers showed that these silences can be an important signal.

“Vessels frequently went dark on the high-seas edge of exclusive economic zone boundaries, which can obscure illegal fishing in unauthorized locations,” wrote Heather Welch, a researcher in ecosystem dynamics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Ships may also disable their transponders to avoid pirates or avoid drawing competitors to rich fishing sites, so making it illegal to turn their signals off isn’t a practical strategy. But more analysis of where boats go dark could help governments target inspections and patrols, reducing crimes at sea.

Just as there are unnumbered life forms in the ocean yet to be discovered, there also are many unanswered questions about its physical processes. For example, scientists know that the ocean pulls carbon from the atmosphere and transfers it to deep waters, where it can remain stored for long periods. But they don’t know how biological and chemical shifts affect this carbon cycling process.

Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts are designing a monitoring system called the Ocean Vital Signs Network that could make it possible to test strategies for storing more carbon in the ocean and tracking how well they work. They envision “a large network of moorings and sensors that provides 4D eyes on the oceans – the fourth dimension being time – that are always on, always connected to monitor these carbon cycling processes and ocean health,” wrote WHOI director Peter de Menocal, a marine geologist and paleoclimatologist.

The network would include intelligent gliders and autonomous vehicles that could collect data and then dock, repower and upload it. It also would use sensors and acoustic transceivers to monitor dark, hidden reaches of the ocean where carbon is stored. “This network makes observation possible for making decisions that will affect future generations,” de Menocal wrote.

Over the past several decades, plastic pollution has become one of the world’s more widespread environmental crises. Every year, millions of tons of plastic trash end up in the ocean, killing sea creatures, smothering ecosystems and threatening human health.

Georgia State University art professor Pam Longobardi grew up in New Jersey, where her father brought home plastic trinkets from his job at the chemical company Union Carbide. Today, Longobardi collects plastic waste from shorelines around the world and sculpts it into large-scale installations that are both eye-catching and alarming.

“I see plastic as a zombie material that haunts the ocean,” Longobardi wrote. “I am interested in ocean plastic in particular because of what it reveals about us as humans in a global culture, and about the ocean as a cultural space and a giant dynamic engine of life and change. Because ocean plastic visibly shows nature’s attempts to reabsorb and regurgitate it, it has profound stories to tell.”

Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

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