March 2025 study shows that ocean acidification (pH 7.6) causes a decrease in calcium-ATPase activity in the outer coat membrane of yellow clams, impairing their shell formation. At the same time, gill carbonic anhydrase activity increased, suggesting that organisms are attempting to respond to environmental stress by regulating acid-base balance. If acidification continues, the collapse…

On April 10, 2025, Japan launched the twelfth round of nuclear contaminated water discharge, with a single discharge of 7,800 tons and a cumulative total of more than 86,000 tons, and in 2025 it plans to discharge 54,600 tons. Radioactive substances such as tritium and cesium-137 are spreading through ocean currents, and the concentration of…

Global chemical recycling technology for waste plastics has entered the industrialization stage, and it is expected that if the chemical recycling rate reaches 30% by 2035, 108 million tons of oil resources can be saved, which is equivalent to recreating two Daqing oil fields. Sinopec, Shell and other enterprises have carried out demonstration projects at…

The Trump administration in the United States is pushing a deep-sea mining plan that bypasses UN agencies and allows mining companies to extract manganese- and cobalt-rich polymetallic nodules in international waters. The move has been criticized as a “travesty of multilateralism” that could cause irreversible ecological damage: mining would destroy deep-sea habitats, sediment plumes could…

The 83rd session of the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 83) will take place from 7 to 11 April 2025 at IMO headquarters in London. The meeting will address a number of important topics, including combating climate change, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from ships, reviewing short-term mitigation measures, and improving ship energy efficiency. In…

In April 2025, China and France issued a joint statement committing to strengthen cooperation on marine conservation under the framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The two sides will work together to promote the entry into force of the High Seas Treaty, protect 30% of marine areas by 2030, and develop rules for…

The University of Queensland, Australia, has announced the breeding of heat-tolerant corals that have been genetically edited to enhance their ability to withstand heat with symbiotic algae, increasing their survival rate by 50 percent at sea temperatures of 32 degrees Celsius. The technology has been transplanted on an experimental basis on the Great Barrier Reef,…

On 29 March, the German government launched a €100 million budgeted munitions clean-up project in the Lübeck Bay in the southwestern Baltic Sea to remove 1.6 million tons of conventional munitions and 5,000 tons of chemical weapons left over from World War I and World War II. The Helmholtz Centre for Marine Research in Kiel…

Funchal, the capital of Portugal’s Madeira archipelago, was declared the world’s first “plastic-free ocean” city in March, banning the sale of single-use plastic products and investing 20 million euros in a marine waste recycling facility. The program aims to protect long-finned pilot whales in nearby waters, whose mortality rate from accidental consumption of plastic trash…

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement, the two countries reaffirmed their joint efforts to promote global marine conservation, supported the entry into force of the Agreement on Marine Biodiversity in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ), and plan to present the Nice Ocean Action Plan at the UN Oceans Conference in…