US President Donald Trump has rescinded a series of federal environmental protections, including reversing the long-standing “endangerment finding” that classified greenhouse gas emissions as harmful to public health. The decision has been widely reported as one of the most consequential climate policy reversals in recent years. Environmental organisations have criticised the move, legal challenges are expected, and analysts warn that it could slow US emissions reductions if upheld by the courts.

Florida has announced the establishment of the Office of Ocean Economy at Florida Atlantic University. This office will develop the state's blue economy sectors, including maritime industries, aquaculture, and tourism, with a strong emphasis on expanding and improving the recreational dive industry.

This strategy outlines a holistic approach to understanding and preserving marine ecosystems, crucial for maintaining the country's economic, environmental, and cultural prosperity.

President Biden has emphasised the ocean's critical role in sustaining life on Earth, highlighting its contributions to jobs, food supply, climate moderation, and cultural identity. The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to conserving at least 30 percent of US waters by 2030, addressing the escalating threats of warming, overfishing, and biodiversity loss.

At the start of the event, US White House climate envoy and former secretary of state John Kerry said that the meeting was “so incredibly important because it is a conference that is focused on action, not on talk. It’s about real commitments and real solutions.”

Huge sums

Nearly $6 billion in US commitments spread across 77 projects to protect the high seas in 2023 was announced by Kerry, including technical cooperation to foster “green shipping corridors.”

“An agreement is being finalized with France, Spain and Cyprus for a large protected area in the extra-territorial waters of the Mediterranean, which is a great contribution to the 30×30 goal,” said Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, the Italian environment and energy security minister at the Valore Natura conference in January 2023.

The legal framework provides a crucial mechanism in setting up vast marine protected areas (MPAs) in the high seas. The historic treaty plays a critical role in the enforcement of the 30x30 pledge that countries had made in December 2022 at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal, Canada. The 30x30 target aims to protect a third of the sea (and land) by 2030.

The announcement by conference president, Rena Lee of Singapore, was met by a standing ovation from delegates, who had worked long days and nights to finalize the deal.

This action expands on the 2022 closure of the Guadalupe Island Biosphere Reserve by the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP), the federal agency tasked with managing Mexico’s protected natural areas.

They also closed the island to cage diving in 2021 and the pandemic closed down operations in 2020.

Shark fishing was completely banned in the Maldives in 2010 so when the country announced plans to discuss legalising the practice again, it created a massive backlash from the international community.

Sharks have always been a valuable tourist attraction in the small island nation and the declining status of shark fisheries, exacerbated by unresolved conflicts with other stakeholders led to the declaration of total shark fishing ban in 2010. With the shark fishing ban in place, sharks are now caught as bycatch in the Maldivian fisheries.

The Lost Shark, Carcharhinus obsoletus, is already extinct, and others that are expected to follow soon include four species each of hammerhead and angel sharks, from the world's most threatened shark families. In spite of all the press that shark conservation has received in the past two decades, no effective protection of sharks has been established, no sharks have been saved, and their decline into extinction is ever more apparent.