squidboymom;175822 said:
Actually think our conservation efforts may be leaning towards protecting open-ocean and deep water species. I found two really interesting orgs. this morning...'Global Bioderversity Initiative', and 'High Seas Conservation.org'. Anyone heard of them before?
That's excellent to hear. We need to protect a diversity of marine habitats- including and especially deep sea areas, and in the tropics especially these often get overlooked- but are nonetheless essential to marine connectivity and the future of our oceans. High Seas Conservation doesn't list new projects or successes, so may not be active anymore. I'm not especially familiar with the Global Biodiversity Initiative, but imagine it might be like the Coral Triangle Initiative- a guiding principal and intellectual framework around which funding agencies and governments can prioritize the work the fund/sponsor/take on. It might take some searching to find out who is doing work under this priority. One thing to consider with this is that it likely funds a lot of taxonomy, evolutionary, and population genetics work- absolutely necessary for our understanding of the oceans, but not always (though sometimes) directly applicable to conservation action/management on the ground in the near-term, depending on the area/taxonomic group being studied. For example an understanding of reproductive barriers and gene flow (i.e. population genetics) is essential to protecting some lineages, such as salmon or marine mammals. But not all projects might have this level of applicability. You'd want to decide yourself about the particular project.
For protecting deep-sea/open ocean habitats---The Phoenix Islands Protected Area (
PRAGMATIC218: Situs Slot Online Terpercaya Daftar Dewa Slot88 Gacor 2023) takes this to heart in ways that few MPAs worldwide can match. One of the largest protected areas in the world, PIPA covers coral reefs, seamounts, and deep-sea pelagic ecosystems in a combination of 'subsistence use' and 'no-take' zones. The New England Aquarium (
http://www.neaq.org/conservation_and_research/index.php) is a strong and dedicated conservation partner in the Phoenix Islands, and they are very forward thinking when it comes to protecting deep-sea areas, especially seamounts. Both NEAq and PIPA websites offer up lots of information about active projects with direct management/conservation science outcomes, and other general information about ocean ecosystems.
Also- as someone who sees a fair share of threats to marine ecosystems, it can be easy to get discouraged. But your son should know he's part of a large and growing community of people who care tremendously for the oceans, work very hard to protect them, and are making lots of progress. For example- I just got back from an island that used to be a favorite overnight spot for turtle poachers. It is now strongly protected by community members who patrol the beaches nightly, measuring every female they can- last month alone they recorded 120 turtle nests laid on the island! All 100% protected now.