Port of Dakar. Photo by Garth Cripps ©, Coalition for Fisheries Transparency.
The decades-long overexploitation of the marine fisheries resources of most West African countries is one of the top drivers of illegal immigration to Europe via deadly routes through the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Strait of Gibraltar.
Mogadishu’s fish market. Image by AMISOM Public Information, Wikimedia Commons.
Indian Ocean fisheries are vital for global nutrition as they provide 12 per cent of wild-caught seafood worldwide which, in turn, corresponds to nearly 30 per cent of all calcium from seafood, 20 per cent of vitamin A, 15 per cent of iron, and 13 per cent of vitamin B12.
Sea Around Us Research Associate, Dr. Vicky Lam, and MSc Student, Anna Luna Rossi, at UNOC 2025.
By Vicky Lam.
Nice, in southern France, is known for its stunning Mediterranean coastline, and it proved to be a fitting host city for the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) 2025, held from June 9 to 13. With over 15,000 participants from around the world, the event brought together governments, scientists, NGOs, Indigenous leaders, and civil society to advance action to conserve and sustainably use the ocean.
The Sea Around Us MSc student, Anna Luna Rossi (fourth from the left), with her NGO Reserva colleagues and actress Auli’i Cravalho at UNOC 2025.
By Anna Luna Rossi.
June 2025 marked the third edition of the United Nations Ocean Conference, hosted in Nice, France, and co-organized by France and Costa Rica. UNOC3 falls within the Ocean Decade initiative to create a framework for communicating and using ocean knowledge to generate real-time actions for safeguarding our marine resources.
French President Emmanuel Macron, being interviewed at UNOC 2025. Image by France.TV.
During an interview with French national television, President Emmanuel Macron was confronted with images from David Attenborough’s Ocean documentary, which shows the gigantic nets of bottom trawlers operating in the Mediterranean dropping hundreds of tonnes of all kinds of fishes on a boat after razing the seafloor and everything in their way.