🐳 Pristine Seas, 2021 Earthshot Prize Finalist, is a mission led by Enric Sala to defend our ocean.
🐳 Their impact speaks for itself:
- 47 epic expeditions
- 29 marine reserves created
- 6.9 million km² protected (over twice the size of India!)
This isn’t talk, it’s real change.
🐳 In 2023, Pristine Seas launched a five-year Global Expedition across the tropical Pacific, partnering with Pacific Island nations to protect the world’s richest marine life.
🐳 In 2024, they found a coral colony the size of a blue whale that was 300+ years old in the Solomon Islands.
It’s proof that our ocean can still surprise us with wonders.
🐳 Since 2008, Pristine Seas has been working to protect 30% of the ocean, and creating hope for marine life and coastal communities worldwide.
Small-scale fishers and coastal communities across the tropics are set to gain renewed support thanks to a landmark USD 62 million gift to B
Midweek break to share some good news (from December 2025).
Blue Ventures is a nonprofit focused on rebuilding small-scale fisheries and making coastal communities and their ecosystems more resilient by leading with local knowledge and leadership. Part of Blue Ventures's 2030 strategy is to empower 10,000 communities to lead their own fisheries management and marine conservation along with funding, data and training to keep the work sustainable. The org was gifted a significant donation from MacKenzie Scott, to the tune of USD 62 million. 62 million. Just let that sink in a sec.
There's a lot going on in the world right now and it feels good to take a minute and appreciate something good happening.
Young people living by the sea are often in some of the most deprived areas of the country, but they say they want the chance to thrive. The
I live in Kent, which is often seen as the ultimate in Home Counties - leafy, pleasant, affluent, part of the commuter belt - and this is true of parts of it. But other parts of Kent, especially communities around the coast, rank highly in deprivation statistics. The same is true for other south-eastern counties.
Even in south-eastern towns where attempts at 'regeneration' have taken place, too often - as many complain about Margate for example - this has simply resulted in gentrification and a split community. On the one hand you have wealthy, trendy 'DFL' (Down From London) people who buy up and do up any decent housing and open businesses almost exclusively to cater to one another and, on the other hand, locals who are left with shit housing (because they can't pay prices inflated by the DFLs) and facilities, with very few employment opportunities open to them, and with nowhere to go and fuck all to do that they can afford.
Storm surges and sea-level rise damage sanitation systems and threaten ecosystems and human health. We need to take this risk seriously.
Excerpt from this story from The Revelator:
As rising sea levels and climate change-induced storms batter coastlines the world over, one threat often flies under the radar: sewage pollution.
Today many tropical coastal communities on the frontlines of climate change find themselves battling not just erosion and flooding, but also crumbling sanitation systems. Sea-level rise and storm surges, especially in rural and low-resource areas, bring saltwater pouring into inland spaces, where it corrodes pipes, damages pit latrines, and floods freshwater aquifers with sewage-laden salty water.
More frequent and severe storms flood pit latrines and septic tanks and overwhelm treatment plants with stormwater, causing uncontrolled discharge. As these systems fail, overflowing waste contaminates groundwater, soil, and water bodies, increasing the risk of waterborne diseases, exacerbating existing inequalities, and creating unsafe conditions for sanitation workers.
As we’ve seen in our work studying coastal pollution, the damage to sanitation systems is not just a human health issue (though that’s bad enough). It has profound environmental consequences. Sewage carries pathogens and high concentrations of nutrients and organic matter that cause coral disease and mortality, generate algae blooms that smother seagrass meadows, weaken the root systems of mangroves, and kill fish.
The waste also increases the vulnerability of coastal ecosystems to climate change. For instance, sewage makes corals more sensitive to marine heatwaves. The weakened mangrove forests are more susceptible to erosion from sea-level rise and are less able to store carbon. Nutrients and higher temperatures combined amplify algae blooms.
Degradation of coastal ecosystems, meanwhile, creates a vicious cycle in which damaged sanitation systems lead to more pollution that further harms ecosystems, making them less resilient to climate impacts and less able to protect coastal communities — and results in yet more damage to sanitation systems.
Some people are more vulnerable to climate impacts than others. Developing countries and communities are often the hardest hit. Many already experience devastating destruction caused by climate change. For example, 2022’s summer of disasters saw Pakistan’s flooding killing thousands and leaving millions without a home. Droughts in Somalia and Ethiopia caused food and water shortages, leaving many people facing hunger and famine. Sudden extreme weather events aren’t the only threat. Climate impacts happen slowly too, but the results can still be devastating. Changes to weather patterns means it becomes harder for communities to count on rains coming to grow crops. And rising sea levels mean thousands in coastal communities risk permanently losing their homes, as huge areas of land go underwater. None of this is a far-flung future; loss and damage is happening now.
‘Loss and damage: who foots the bill for climate destruction?’, Greenpeace
The ocean is not just filling up, it’s swelling up. Half of sea-level rise comes just from the warming of the water. No matter what humans do next, we are now doomed to deal with drastically higher flooding of the world's coasts every year for decades, possibly centuries. Nearly half of humanity lives near coasts. Many of our greatest cities, and their infrastructure, will have to deal with the ever-rising waters.
Some coasts in the world are already experiencing what is coming for every coast soon. Jeff Goodell's reports from those places are doubly grim. The harm is already huge, but the response of local people is even more disturbing. With few exceptions, they and their governments refuse to accept that the problem is permanent and will keep getting worse. Those most affected by global warming—rich and poor—remain perversely in denial about it.
There’s lots of talk, but humanity is doing almost nothing to adapt to sea level rise. So far. Jeff Goodell is author of The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World (2017), How To Cool the Planet (2010), and Big Coal (2006).
"The Water Will Come" was given on April 02, 02019 as part of Long Now's Seminar series. The series was started in 02003 to build a compelling body of ideas about long-term thinking from some of the world's leading thinkers.
Residents of Laurel, Delaware, will have a new water feature to check out this year - a floating wetlands structure designed to improve water quality in the town park.
The device was designed by five University of Delaware engineering students - Danielle Gerstman of Chalfont, Pa., Sarah Hartman of Wilmington, Del., Erica Loudermilk of Lothian, Md., Mark White of Wilmington, Del., and recent graduate Megan Doyle - and can be placed in rivers, ponds and areas that are not part of a natural structure.
Plantings for the six-sided structure are chosen for the way they interact with water - removing nitrogen and phosphorus with both high efficiency and beauty.
The team worked with faculty advisors Dustyn Roberts and Kurt Manal, with participation from UD’s Sustainable Coastal Communities Initiative and Delaware Sea Grant, Andrew Hayes and landscape design expert Jules Bruck of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
“I am excited about the floating wetland project because of the potential it has to improve water quality both locally and around the world,” Sarah said. “This novel approach to surface water treatment is aesthetically appealing and educational by nature, allowing the community where it is deployed to learn the value of clean water and the science behind how natural wetlands treat water.”
