Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Seaweed has become a key cash crop as climate change and industrial trawling test the resilient culture of the semi-nomadic Vezo people Along Madagascar’s south-west coast, the Vezo people, who have fished the Mozambique Channel for countless generations, are defined by a way of life sustained by the sea. Yet climate change and industrial exploitation are pushing this ocean-based culture to its limits. Coastal villages around Toliara, a city in southern Madagascar, host tens of thousands of the semi-nomadic Vezo people, who make a living from small-scale fishing on the ocean. For centuries, they have launched pirogues, small boats carved from single tree trunks, every day into the turquoise shallows to catch tuna, barracuda and grouper. A boat near lines of seaweed, which has become a main source of income for Ambatomilo village as warmer seas, bleached reefs and erratic weather accelerate the decline of local fish populations Continue reading...

npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 24 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00180-z Observations of mariculture associated N2O loss: a need for system specific studies

New protections for hares, and more humane conditions on farms, should be welcomed by all Looking after wildlife and improving the lives of farm animals and pets are the related but distinct aims of the government’s new animal welfare strategy for England. Its launch is timely: more than 1 billion chickens and around 8 million turkeys are reared each year – with many of the latter slaughtered in the run-up to Christmas. Winter is also peak season for pet abandonments, with animal charities particularly fearful this year, given the already high numbers of dogs and cats being dumped. Pledges to end the use of cages for laying hens, and cramped farrowing crates for pigs, will be welcomed by all who object to animal cruelty. So will a proposal to replace the carbon dioxide stunning of pigs with an alternative that is less distressing for them. New rules for farmed fish are also on the way. Until now, fish have been largely excluded from the evolving set of regulations aimed at minimising suffering at the point of slaughter. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

U-turn lifts limit from £1m to £2.5m after protests and warnings that family farms were at risk Ministers will increase the threshold for taxing inherited farmland from £1m to £2.5m after months of pressure from campaigners and MPs representing rural areas. In a statement slipped out just before Christmas, the environment department announced the U-turn, which will apply from April when the tax kicks in. Continue reading...