National Geographic Ocean
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Good news on the reef preservation front: Today, New Caledonia announced the creation of multiple no-take and no-entry marine reserves, safeguarding 28,000 square kilometers of pristine coral reefs and the surrounding waters. The newly protected area is home to an array of sharks (blacktips, whitetips, silvertips, gray reefs, nurse sharks, and others), which the Nat Geo Pristine Seas team surveyed and documented in a 2013 expedition to the rarely explored area. Photo by Enric Sala.

First National Geographic Society Explorer Jessica Cramp helped ban the shark trade in the Cook Islands. Now she’s studying whether the law is protecting sharks.

Jacques Cousteau once called the Gulf of California the Aquarium of the World, but even such a title might not give justice to the Sea of Cortez.

Thirteen percent of the world’s oceans is considered marine wildernesscrucial areas of water mostly undisturbed by humans where biodiversity is able to flourish.

Did you know? More than 5 trillion pieces of plastic are already floating in our oceans. #PlanetOrPlastic

From getting stuck in nets to eating plastic that they think is food, creatures worldwide are dying from material we made. #PlanetOrPlastic