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© 2025 Island Innovation. All rights reserved.

    News

    Curated stories and analysis from islands and sustainability leaders worldwide.

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    Showing 9 of 239 news items in Ocean & Biodiversity
    Japan’s unprecedented project could test the limits of deep-sea mining
    Ocean & BiodiversityFebruary 11, 2026

    Japan’s unprecedented project could test the limits of deep-sea mining

    Excerpt from grist.org The year 2010 was a reckoning for Japan’s economic security. On September 7, the Chinese fishing trawler Minjinyu 5179 refused an order by Japan’s coast guard to leave disputed waters near the Senkaku Islands, which are known in China as Diaoyu. The vessel then rammed two patrol boats, escalating a decades-long territorial feud.

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    Polar bears on Norwegian islands fatter and healthier despite ice loss, scientists say
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    Ocean & BiodiversityFebruary 4, 2026

    Polar bears on Norwegian islands fatter and healthier despite ice loss, scientists say

    Excerpt from bbc.com Scientists expected the opposite, but polar bears in the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard have become fatter and healthier since the early 1990s, all while sea ice has steadily declined due to climate change. Polar bears rely on sea ice as a platform from which to hunt the seals that they rely on for blubber-rich meals. The bears' fat reserves provide energy and insulation and allow mothers to produce rich milk for cubs. Researchers weighed and measured 770 adults in Svalbard between 1992 and 2019 and found that bears had become significantly fatter. They think that Svalbard bears have adapted to recent ice loss by eating more land-based prey, including reindeer and walruses.

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    The High Seas Treaty Comes Into Force: What This Means for Ocean Protection
    Ocean & BiodiversityFebruary 4, 2026

    The High Seas Treaty Comes Into Force: What This Means for Ocean Protection

    Excerpt from earthshotprize.org Today, the High Seas Treaty officially enters into force, marking a historic milestone for global ocean protection and international cooperation. After more than two decades of negotiations, this moment signals a new era in how the world governs and protects nearly half of the planet. The Treaty, formally known as the Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ), gives humanity its first global legal framework to safeguard the High Seas. Winner of The Earthshot Prize 2025, the High Seas Treaty reflects the power of collective action and demonstrates that protecting our shared ocean is possible. This is not the end of a journey, but the beginning of a new chapter in ocean governance.

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    Brazil's most mysterious oceanic island recovers part of its forest after eliminating goats
    Ocean & BiodiversityFebruary 4, 2026

    Brazil's most mysterious oceanic island recovers part of its forest after eliminating goats

    Excerpt from oglobo.globo.com Photo credit: Élcio Braga via OGlobo.Globo.com The Brazilian island that holds the most mysteries per square kilometer is becoming greener. For centuries, Trindade — 1,180 kilometers off the coast of Espírito Santo — began to be devastated by a herd of hungry goats, transforming it almost into a desert bathed by the South Atlantic. A study conducted by researchers from the National Museum, with support from the Navy, shows that this scenario has been changing over the last 30 years. A forest is resurging — and, even better, with native species. The green area increased by 1,468%, equivalent to 65 hectares. Meanwhile, the undergrowth expanded by 325 hectares, an increase of 319%.

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    The Great Pacific Garbage, Once the World’s Dirtiest Ocean Zone, Is Now Home to Dozens of Species
    Ocean & BiodiversityJanuary 16, 2026

    The Great Pacific Garbage, Once the World’s Dirtiest Ocean Zone, Is Now Home to Dozens of Species

    Photo Credit: The Ocean Cleanup, via dailygalaxy.com Excerpt from dailygalaxy.com It floats, it drifts, it doesn’t break down. Plastic in the ocean is everywhere, but now it’s doing more than polluting. It’s becoming something else. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where no islands or coastlines exist, small marine animals are settling. They’re not just riding the currents. They’re building communities. Some are growing, others are reproducing. All of them are doing it on plastic.

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    Could freezing coral larvae protect reefs from ocean warming?
    Ocean & BiodiversityJanuary 16, 2026

    Could freezing coral larvae protect reefs from ocean warming?

    Image: UNEP, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Flickr. Excerpt from eco-business.com The Coral Triangle, one of the planet’s most diverse reef regions, is under siege. The area, spanning the waters of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste, is home to 75 per cent of the world’s known coral species. It sustains 3,000 species of reef fish and the livelihoods of over 120 million people. But over 85 per cent of its reefs are threatened by rising temperatures, ocean acidification, pollution and unsustainable fishing, according to the World Resources Institute.

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    Scientists discover incredible 'window into the past' at remote islands: 'We only have five years left'
    Ocean & BiodiversityJanuary 16, 2026

    Scientists discover incredible 'window into the past' at remote islands: 'We only have five years left'

    Excerpt and Photo Credit: thecooldown.com An incredible new study examining shark and predatory fish populations in the Eastern Tropical Pacific shines a light on what the ocean ought to look like at its healthiest, according to an article by the National Geographic Society that was shared by Phys.org. The study surveyed remote marine protected areas such as the Galápagos, Malpelo, Clipperton, and Revillagigedo islands. It also looked at islands that were closer to coasts. It found that shark populations were much higher in the most remote and well-protected areas. Meanwhile, the more accessible and coastal marine protected areas, which allow fishing, showed signs of depletion. "The oceanic islands of the Eastern Tropical Pacific represent a window into the past, where sharks and large predatory fishes are the norm and not the exception," said senior author Dr. Pelayo Salinas-de-León, the principal investigator at the Charles Darwin Foundation. "These areas provide a glimpse of what a healthy ocean looks like."

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    Tiny Caribbean island brings hope for critically endangered iguana
    Ocean & BiodiversityJanuary 15, 2026

    Tiny Caribbean island brings hope for critically endangered iguana

    Excerpt from news.mongabay.com Over the past decade, Prickly Pear East, a small, privately owned island in the Caribbean, has become a beacon of hope for a critically endangered lizard. The islet, near the main island of Anguilla, a British territory, is one of just five locations where the lesser Antillean iguana (Iguana delicatissima) is breeding and thriving, protected from invasive iguanas and human disturbances, conservationists say. The latest surveys, from July, show the species’ population on Prickly Pear East has grown to more than 300 adults and adolescents — up from just 23 individuals that were moved there from Anguilla starting in 2016.

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    Coral reefs in Mauritius are turning ghostly white. Can nurseries rescue them from climate change?
    Ocean & BiodiversityMay 12, 2026

    Coral reefs in Mauritius are turning ghostly white. Can nurseries rescue them from climate change?

    Excerpt from cbc.ca For Nadeem Nazurally, snorkelling off the coast of Mauritius lately has become disheartening.  The coral reefs that once glowed in vivid greens, blues and pinks now stretch out below him, faded and ghostly. “When I see … all white, it means there is a big problem,” Nazurally, an associate professor at the University of Mauritius’ faculty of agriculture, told What on Earth’s Laura Lynch. “We are losing all these colours, we are losing life, we are losing those important corals,” which not only act as natural buffers against the island’s frequent cyclones, but are also vital to tourism, fisheries and support a wide range of marine life. In Mauritius, home to nearly 250 species of coral and 150 kilometres of reef, the decline has been stark. The island nation off Africa’s southeast coast has lost roughly half of its coral cover since the 1970s, according to the International Union from the Conservation of Nature, enduring multiple bleaching events and a devastating oil spill in 2020. Across the western Indian Ocean, rising ocean temperatures driven by climate change are triggering mass coral bleaching events on an unprecedented scale. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns the world's coral reefs would virtually vanish if global warming exceeds 2C above pre-industrial levels.

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