You know what’s frustrating? When a chance to fix something that is so clearly in need of fixing is passed over. This time around, it has to do with safety in European offshore drilling activities

You’d think after the lessons learned from BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill, the European Commission would be doing everything they could to make sure such a disaster never occurs in European waters…and yet today, when EU Energy Commissioner Oettinger presented his long awaited proposal to regulate offshore oil and gas activities in Europe, we learned they didn’t.

Red coral (sometimes called precious coral) is widely used throughout the world for jewelry, and in beauty products.  The human “appetite” for this stunning coral, which dates as far back as ancient Greece and Egypt, when red coral was considered to have sacred properties, has unfortunately led to the destruction of many red coral colonies, and there are concerns about the sustainability of coral harvesting.

Today is a really exciting day for us. In 2008, OSPAR developed a list of Threatened and/or Declining Species and Habitats. The list is unfortunately vague in many habitat definitions, which prevents a common and clear understanding of where they occur.

Sam Dougados practices an interesting type of art that he dubs, “beach art”. Using a rake, he etches incredible patterns into the sand, photographing them before the tide washes them away.

Last week, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists   (ICIJ) released 4 in depth articles, as part of their “Looting the Seas” project that we think are worth sharing with you.

We’ve been slacking on our Friday meet & greet blogs that introduce you to some cool species. But after a summer of expedition, in the Baltic, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, our photo albums are bursting at the seams, full of beautiful and interesting creatures.

So without further ado, meet a striped Seasnail (Liparis liparis). We found this little one in the Bubbling Reefs of Hirsholmene Marine Reserve in the Kattegat Sea (Denmark).

Remember Vidal? Despite their well-known illegal activities since the nineties and the blacklisting of several IUU fishing vessels, linked to Vidal Armadores, Vidal companies have received millions of Euros of fishing subsidies from the local government of Galicia, the Spanish fisheries ministry and the European Union, since 2002.