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  • NEWS FEATURE

How to save the high seas

As the United Nations prepares a historic treaty to protect the oceans, scientists highlight what’s needed for success.
  1. Olive Heffernan

    1. Olive Heffernan is a science writer in Dublin.

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A view from the back of the freighter and cruise ship Aranui 5 as it sails in the Pacific Ocean.

Vast expanses of the South Pacific, viewed here, are unprotected by law. Credit: James D. Morgan/Getty

In the early fifteenth century, Portuguese sailors reached a becalmed part of the Atlantic Ocean, coated with mats of gold-brown seaweed. Under windless skies, their ships drifted idly with the currents. The sailors named the seaweed Sargassum — after its resemblance to a Portuguese plant — and the region eventually became known as the Sargasso Sea.

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Nature 557, 154-156 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05079-z

References

  1. Edgar, G. J. et al. Nature 506, 216–220 (2014).

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  2. Kroodsma, D. A. et al. Science 359, 904–908 (2018).

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  3. Gill, D. A. et al. Nature 543, 665–669 (2017).

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