The United States and Canada protect ocean and Great Lakes environments through a mosaic of laws, agencies and partnerships. The names differ—national marine sanctuary, marine national monument, Oceans Act marine […]
Papahānaumokuākea extends across the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, a chain of small islands, atolls, reefs, banks and deep ocean stretching northwest from the main Hawaiian Islands. Its immense area attracts superlatives, […]
About one hundred miles off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana, coral reefs rise from the top of underwater salt domes. The surrounding water is blue, clear and oceanic, a […]
Canada has the world’s longest coastline and marine environments spanning the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans, plus major estuaries and inland seas. Protecting that scale cannot be accomplished through one […]
The United States National Marine Sanctuary System protects places in the ocean and Great Lakes for their ecological, cultural, archaeological and historical importance. A sanctuary may contain kelp forests and […]
A marine ecoregion is a large area in which ocean conditions and biological communities are more similar to one another than to those in neighboring regions. It is not a […]
The Arctic Ocean is not an empty white margin around a map. It is a seasonal seascape of moving ice, polynyas, river plumes, shelves, deep basins and narrow passages. Life […]
The North Atlantic right whale and Rice’s whale live in different seas, but their conservation stories share a disturbing fact: both populations are so small that preventable human-caused deaths can […]
The Pacific coast of North America is cephalopod country. Cold upwelling, rocky reefs, broad shelves, submarine canyons and the deep open ocean support octopuses, true squids, bobtail squids and their […]
North American waters range from tropical coral reefs to polar seas and from tidal marshes to trenches beyond sunlight. That variety produces animals that seem designed for different planets: glowing […]
