Turquoise waters at the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park

Real MPA or paper park? Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park

February 1, 2026February 2, 2026

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.

Continue reading →

Renowned marine biologists talk about ocean conservation in the Philippines

January 10, 2018January 8, 2019

A group of marine biologists led by the world’s top fisheries scientist, Daniel Pauly, are calling for stronger action to conserve and protect fisheries resources in the Philippines.

Pauly is the Principal Investigator of the Sea Around Us at the University of British Columbia and a co-founder of FishBase.org. Together with his team, he produced global, multi-year analyses of fish catches, which have helped the public understand the sad plight of the oceans – particularly the fact that fish populations all over the world are plummeting.

Continue reading →

Teaching about Filipino sardines in Canada

April 6, 2017July 31, 2017

Amy Coghlan, Eric Sy, Sony de Guzmán, Gordon Tsui, Sarah Popov

Asunción de Guzmán, aka “Sony” in the underwater-research scene, is passionate about sardines, particularly those caught in the Philippines.

In fact, she is so fond of the tiny pelagic fish that she flew all the way from Manila to Vancouver Island to present at the “Drivers of Dynamics of Small Pelagic Fish Resources” symposium, organized by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea and the North Pacific Marine Science Organization. Continue reading →