Oceans Stories

For more than a decade, the Sitka Sound Science Center’s Scientists in the School program has exposed students in every classroom at every grade level to a wide variety of scientific disciplines, using hands-on, engaging classroom and field experiences. 

Hol Chan—Mayan for “little channel”—is a prime example of how a well-operated marine reserve benefits both the environment and economy alike—and makes a convincing case for replicating the model elsewhere.

Despite improved policies to protect these animals in recent decades, whales increasingly face warmer waters and the impacts of global trade.

They slide across the ocean floor using thousands of tiny tubelike projections attached to their arms.

While marine protected areas are the most well-known pathway to protect marine life, experts are turning toward ‘other effective conservation measures' (OECMs) to work alongside marine protected areas as complementary pathways that protect our ocean ecosystems.

The US Environmental Protection Agency took a major step toward protecting one of the world’s most important wild salmon fisheries in Bristol Bay, Alaska, by essentially blocking a potentially catastrophic copper and gold mining project.

WWF and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s Global Maritime Crime Program have launched a new partnership to advance innovative knowledge-sharing to protect the waters around Ecuador.

A 44,000-acre conservation easement will protect four of the world's most important rivers for salmon habitat.

Though the world faces two existential crises—a rapidly warming planet and declining biodiversity—and continues to battle a global pandemic, conservation still made major strides toward protecting wildlife, wild places, and people in 2022.

WWF wants to create healthy oceans that benefit the planet, people, prosperity, and peace. Advancing peace through ocean conservation is the focus of our newest program, Oceans Futures.

A historical decision by Alaska Native landowners, in conjunction with a landmark proposal by the EPA, could finally rip plans for a ruinous mine up from the roots and stop the project for good.

To protect our rapidly changing seas—and those who depend on them—we need to apply a bold way of thinking, one that tackles challenges in a systematic way and focuses on holistic improvements: place-based approaches.

Along the northern coast of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, communities, tourists, developers, and conservation groups like WWF are working together to protect and restore mangroves.

Meet the Matas and learn about the many interconnections that allow both coastal ecosystems and communities to thrive.

Seafood is one of the most frequently traded commodities on earth, so it’s essential that fishing is well-regulated around the world. But regulations must be complied with to be effective, and unfortunately, too much of the fish that comes to market is caught illegally.

Over the course of the last year, with support from hundreds of internal and external collaborators, a group of amazingly dedicated people at WWF developed and is launching our new ocean strategy.

The growing dangers whales face worldwide along their epic migrations are signs of an ocean in peril, and reveal how these waters connect us all.

We need policymakers and business leaders to take game-changing actions to help us transition from our current linear, “take-make-waste" relationship with plastic to a circular one.

Scientists from WWF, Fiji, and partner organizations spent 20 days scuba diving around the reef to collect data on the wildlife and ecosystem that they’ve compiled into a new report

Mangroves, with their incredible ability to capture and store carbon, can be a solution to the climate crisis.

Only 366 critically endangered North Atlantic right whales are left, experts say, representing a shocking 8% decline in a single year and the lowest number in about 20 years for this iconic species. Human impacts—specifically entanglements in fixed fishing gear and vessel strikes from ship traffic—remain the biggest threats to the survival of this species.

WWF co-developed a mobile application called TrazApp with fishers, government, and other supply chain actors, and has been training fishers across three fishing co-ops in northern Peru to use it.

Our oceans provide food, regulate Earth’s climate, and are rooted in cultural traditions and community livelihoods around the world. When we work on ocean conservation, we are inherently also working with people dependent on the ocean, particularly those who live along coastlines.

Alexandria Abuzanuq Ivanoff, who is from Unalakleet, Alaska, a small hunting and fishing community on the northwest coast, discusses how warming waters and increased shipping could impact Indigenous peoples and wildlife.