Turquoise waters at the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park

Real MPA or paper park? Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park

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Turquoise waters at the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park

Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park. Image by UNESCO, Wikimedia Commons.

World Oceans Day (WOD), the initiative proposed in 1992 by Canada at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and officially recognized by the UN in 2008, aims to catalyze collective action for a healthy ocean and a stable climate.

Some of the yearly campaigns thousands of organizations run, inspired by this goal, are guided by the annual action theme that NGO The Ocean Project proposes for WOD. The Ocean Project, together with the World Ocean Network, led efforts to get the UN to recognize June 8th as World Oceans Day.

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Helostoma temminckii or kissing gourami with its mouth open.

Animal-welfare models fail to account for fish’s need for oxygen

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Helostoma temminckii or kissing gourami with its mouth open.

Helostoma temminckii or kissing gourami. Image by Jörn, Wikimedia Commons.


A new essay published in Issues in Science and Technology argues that current animal welfare science and policy frameworks overlook a fundamental aspect of the lives of fish and other aquatic “water-breathing” species — and calls for a shift in how governments, researchers, and industry assess humane treatment in aquaculture, research, commercial fisheries, and in the wild.

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