Search results

Aquaculture is booming – in 2014 nearly every second fish consumed by people came from a fish farm. The ecological and social problems caused by this aquatic stockbreeding are immense.

Unseen treasures with mysterious names beckon from the depths of the ocean: manganese nodules, cobalt crusts, black smokers. Hidden within them are rich concentrations of valuable metals.

The plants and animals that currently live in the “wilderness” of the ocean or in marine protected areas are just a fraction of what once thrived in the seas. To understand what we’ve lost and what we might be able to recover, we need to know what used to be.

Gourmets visiting Sylt, Germany’s idyllic North Sea vacation destination, can choose between fresh Pacific oysters and native blue mussels. But what seems like fine dining is actually a cautionary tale as the foreign oysters threaten to overrun the native mussels.

Beaches littered with plastic garbage, seabirds strangled by bits of plastic – these images are ubiquitous today. Yet we also see photos of people cleaning beaches and hear about plans for purifying the ocean. Are things actually improving?

Coffee, bananas, smartphones, automobiles: cargo ships transport goods around the world. 90 percent of global trade is seaborne. Who does what – and who pays for it all?

Without the ocean, climate change would proceed far more quickly. The massive volumes of water in the seas greatly influence the changes occurring in our atmosphere.

For thousands of years people have taken to the sea to fish and trade. Wars have been fought as rival rulers claimed the rights to the sea and its exploitation. Those conflicts have continued to this day.

Flooding, erosion, sinking: our coasts are under ever-increasing pressure. People who live in coastal regions are especially endangered – and there are an ever-increasing number of them.

Each summer, a 20,000-square-kilometer dead zone forms in the Gulf of Mexico. The cause of the lifeless water lies not in the gulf itself but on dry land, 2,000 kilometers upriver.

Cruise ships carrying 4,000 travelers, all-inclusive beachfront resorts – increasing global tourism places an ever-greater strain on the ocean and coastal populations.

Our oceans are becoming more and more acidic. Though barely detectable to humans, for many of the animals that live there, the change is already proving fatal.

The ocean is far, far away from Springdale, Arkansas. And yet the city is feeling the effects of the rising sea level. Seeking safety, 10,000 inhabitants of the Marshall Islands have made the city their new home.

All graphs of the Ocean Atlas are published under a Creative Commons License CC BY SA 4.0. and can be used, processed and published under these conditions. There are downloads available of all graphs in various formats (png, pdf).

Nearly half the Earth is covered by areas of the ocean that lie beyond national jurisdictions. Considering the importance of the oceans for our food supplies, preventing climate change, and preserving biodiversity, this is irresponsible. Change is needed, urgently.

Fish is a cornerstone of global food security. This global dependence on fish is actually the greatest threat to our fish populations. Many are overfished, and the number is rising.

Many experts contributed their expertise to the Ocean Atlas, particularly scientists working together at the University of Kiel’s Future Ocean Cluster of Excellence to research the development of our oceans. Here's the who is who.

All graphs of the Ocean Atlas are published under a Creative Commons License CC BY SA 4.0. and can be continued to be used, processed and published under these conditions. You can find all downloads available in various formats (png, pdf) here.

Sexual and gender minorities remain dangerously vulnerable to human rights abuses across much of Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite immense legal and cultural barriers, civil society activists around the continent are rising up to improve the lives of LGBTI people. Brian Pellot spoke with two leading activists in Uganda and Botswana.

Political transition in Myanmar from a military to a civilian government holds the promise of opening up political spaces to previously marginalized groups. However, the dividend of the country’s democratization process seems to be still far off for the LGBTI community.

Are LGBTQ rights on the line under the new administration? We spoke with Sharita Gruberg, associate director of the LGBT Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress, about challenges that face LGBTQ community under Trump.

Despite the empowerment of the LGBTI movement during the last 20 years, LGBTI people in Russia face extensive legal discrimination, widespread homophobia and even massive violence.

In April 2017, a series of demonstrations took place in Budapest against an amendment to the Higher Education Act. They were organised by mostly social media-based groups, but they differed in several aspects from the demonstration culture that has been the norm in Hungary in recent decades.

Political empowerment of women cannot be made possible without changing the patriarchal mindset within political parties, participants at a consultation on “Gender Action Manifesto” highlighted. The consultation was held in Karachi on April 20, 2017as part of a series of such activities being organsied by the Heinrich Boell Stiftung (hbs) at provincial and national level under its “Gender Action Manifesto” project.

It is difficult to have peace if you do not move your positions. We were talking with Dr. Sai Oo over the opportunities for a constructive peace conference. He is the Country Representative of Pyidaungsu Institute for peace and dialogue in Yangon, Myanmar.

What options do German policymakers have when shaping the European Energiewende debate? The Heinrich Böll Foundation proposes a set of recommendations.

Against the backdrop of persistent ethnic tensions, the second round of the peace conference of Burmese government, army (Tatmadaw) and ethnic minorities begins on 24 May in Myanmar. The political internal climate and the relationship of Aung San Suu Kyi to the international community projected its shadows ahead.

Plastic pollution is a defining problem of our time - and one entirely of our own making. But how do we solve it? This article proposes a possible solution: a comprehensive, binding, and forward-looking global plastics treaty.

Germany depends on the import of metallic, mineral and fossil fuel resources. The extraction of these raw materials takes place at the expense of the environment and leads to human rights violations. The German Federal Government has to take these consequences adequately into account.

In the beginning of April, the Hungarian President János Áder signed into force certain amendments to the Higher Education Act which in their particular formulation are obviously directed against the renowned Central European University (CEU), based in Budapest. We discussed with President Michael Ignatieff the implications of the new legislation on the university and its future prospects.