Group items tagged

Updated December 02, 2018 10:09:23 Photo: The giant waterslide at Kulin in WA's Wheatbelt is attracting tourism dollars. (ABC Great Southern: Mark Bennett) As capital cities get bigger and country towns get smaller, the question of how to attract skilled people to regional Australia has never been so pertinent. Key points The tiny town of…

Oil spilling from Turkish bulk carrier wreck off Cape Town.

BARENTS town envisions Arctic hub with link to China.

Royal Australian Navy Evacuates Residents from Fire-Stricken Town.

Mayor appeals for calm in N.Z. oil slick town.

Somali pirates marked first armed robbery in the Indian Ocean in months with the hijacking of Pakistani fishing boat off the coast of historic Eyl coastal town in northeastern Somalia...

Somali pirates marked first armed robbery in the Indian Ocean in months with the hijacking of Pakistani fishing boat off the coast of historic Eyl coastal town in northeastern Somalia...

Scuba divers in George Town, Grand Cayman, were alarmed this week when they noticed a luxury cruise ship encroaching on a protected coral reef. The MV Zenith, a 700-foot ship with a carrying capacity of roughly 1,800 passengers, was "anchored oddly close to the reef," said diver Scott Prodahl, in a YouTube video on Dec. 8.

Scuba divers in George Town, Grand Cayman, were alarmed this week when they noticed a luxury cruise ship encroaching on a protected coral reef. The MV Zenith, a 700-foot ship with a carrying capacity of roughly 1,800 passengers, was "anchored oddly close to the reef," said diver Scott Prodahl, in a YouTube video on Dec. 8.

The crew of the nordic tall ship 'Draken Harald Harfagre' may be new in town, but after a voyage of 6,500 miles, challenges like raising the boom are anything but new, according to Captain Bjorn Ahlander. "The ship is a long ship from Norway - a viking ship," he said.

Spain has become the latest country to accede to the International Maritime Organization's Cape Town Agreement on fishing vessel safety, significantly boosting the number of vessels needed for entry into force.

Thousands of kilometres from any continent lies Inaccessible Island, small and isolated in the Southern Atlantic Ocean. Yet, it is full of plastic and a growing proportion of it seems to come not from land, but rather from ships dumping their litter at sea in contravention of international law. That is according to new research led by the University of Cape Town (UCT), which casts doubt on the widely held assumption that most marine plastic now comes from land-based sources. Afrique "Afrique australe" "Afrique du Sud" Cap-Occidental "Le Cap" "Université du Cap" pollution déchet plastique Atlantique "océan Atlantique" "Atlantique sud" bateau navire droit loi législation réglementation "droit international" recherche UCT courant

Kevin ESCOFFIER, 40, who is racing in third place in the Vendée Globe solo non-stop around the world race, positioned some 550 nautical miles SW of Cape Town, has triggered his distress beacon. He was racing in a strong SW'ly air stream on starboard tack behind a weather front.

Ship strikes are a widespread conservation issue for many cetacean species globally. Population level impacts depend on the occurrence and severity of collisions, which may lead to life altering injuries or fatalities. Such impacts are a major concern for large, long-lived, and reproductively slow species like the fin whale. Since 2014, a seasonal feeding aggregation of fin whales has been monitored from February to June off the Catalan coast (Spain), in the northwest Mediterranean Sea. Oceanographical factors influence the occurrence and high density of krill within submarine canyons along the continental shelf, resulting in high whale abundance within a small spatial area. The study area extends 37 km offshore across a 1,944 km2 marine strip situated between the towns of Torredembarra and Castelldefels. This fin whale feeding ground is exposed to high density marine vessel traffic, given its location between the northern Mediterranean shipping lane, which links Barcelona and Tarragona Ports to the Atlantic Ocean and wider Mediterranean Basin. Ship strikes represent the greatest conservation threat for fin whales in the Mediterranean Sea. At least four fin whales have been found dead in Barcelona Port since 1986 due to ship strikes and seven live whales have been documented with injuries in the study area since 2018. Fin whale distribution was mapped with known high-risk marine vessels' (cargo, tanker and passenger vessels) shipping lanes. Vessel density and shipping lanes characterised by speed were considered. Collision risk was estimated monthly based on the predicted fin whale occurrence and traffic density. Several shipping lanes crossed the fin whale feeding habitat every month with an average speed of 15 kn. Cargo vessels displayed the highest ship-strike risk during April, overlapping with the peak of fin whale sightings in the critical feeding area. Slower vessel speeds (8 kn) in waters <200 m depth or along the continental shelf should be implemented al

IMO Secretary-General Kitack LIM urges States to take action to achieve entry into force of Cape Town fishing vessel safety agreement

Recently, the rights of small-scale fishers have increasingly been acknowledged in ocean governance because coastal development and various maritime activities have reduced traditional fishing grounds. More specifically, small-scale fisheries (SSF) are increasingly being threatened by ocean grabbing, pollution, and a lack of inclusiveness in decision-making processes. Although there are guidelines to resolve and reduce conflict, formal avenues to include fisher concerns, particularly in the context of ocean development and governance, remain a difficult task. Moreover, there is insufficient information on how fishers are impacted by coastal and marine development and how their concerns are included in the decision-making process. Hence, this study contributes to the SSF discourse by understanding and describing the characteristics and concerns of small-scale fishers from two coastal towns in East Africa with different levels of port development. Using data from perception surveys, focus group discussions, and participatory mapping, we discuss how fishers were involved in the decision-making processes to develop ports in Lamu, Kenya, and Bagamoyo, Tanzania. We found that fishers rely on nearshore ecosystems such as mangroves and coral reefs because of their accessibility since most fishers only use low-powered boats for fishing. Moreover, we found that the fishers' livelihoods were severely affected by port development and that they were excluded from the decision-making process concerning the port's construction and fishers' compensations. While some fishers believe that new ports in the region can increase their livelihoods by creating new markets and jobs, this is unlikely to happen since most fishers are not qualified to work in formal port-related jobs. We propose three steps that will allow fishermen to participate in port development decision-making processes and contribute to the development of a sustainable SSF. These include improving engagement with fisher