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conservation
The Time Has Come to Establish the International Arctic Ocean Sanctuary
In addition to accelerating efforts to reduce global carbon emissions to reverse global warming, governments must urgently adopt strong, permanent protections for the entire Arctic Ocean.
Jun 08, 2025
On World Ocean Day, and the eve of the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, France opening Monday, the Arctic Ocean ecological crisis needs to be top of the list for attention by governments.
Given the well-documented, catastrophic decline of the Arctic Ocean sea ice ecosystem in recent decades due to climate change, coupled with the increasing threats and impacts from industry and military activity in the region, it is imperative that governments establish an International Arctic Ocean Sanctuary to preserve this extraordinary ecoregion as a global commons for peaceful, non-commercial, scientific purposes.
Covering approximately 5.4 million square miles, the Arctic Ocean is one of the most extraordinary and vibrant regions of the global ocean, and plays an important role regulating Earth’s climate.
Combined with the effects of climate change, industrialization and militarization would further accelerate the ecological and social collapse of the struggling Arctic Ocean region.
The Arctic marine ecosystem is globally unique, productive, and remains relatively unexplored. The ocean biome supports more than 7,000 identified species, many of which are found nowhere else on Earth—polar bears, walrus, several kinds of ice seals, narwhals, beluga whales, bowhead whales, some of the largest populations of seabirds in the world, and many unique fish and invertebrate populations. It hosts cold seeps, hydrothermal vents, stunning benthic habitats, a rich pelagic ecosystem that remains surprisingly active during winter darkness, and supports the subsistence cultures of coastal Indigenous Peoples.
However, this unique polar marine ecosystem is now one of the most endangered regions of Earth’s biosphere, suffering effects of climate change more severely than anywhere else. Arctic sea ice has declined by more than half in the last 50 years, losing about 1 million square miles in both summer and winter, has thinned from an average of four meters to about one meter, and could disappear entirely in summer by 2035. Multiyear sea ice has all but vanished. This remarkable decline has been caused by global carbon emissions from human activity, mainly fossil fuel use.
The loss of Arctic sea ice over the last half-century constitutes one of the largest declines in ecological habitat on Earth, rivaling the loss of tropical rainforests. The resultant Arctic Ocean ecological crisis is now severe, and predicted to get much worse in coming decades.
In addition to devastating impacts of climate change in the Arctic Ocean, commercial interests are clamoring to exploit ice-free offshore areas for oil and gas, methane hydrates, minerals, commercial fishing, shipping, and tourism. And Arctic coastal nations have made Extended Continental Shelf (ECS) seabed claims (pursuant to U.N. Law of the Sea, Article 76) beyond their 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), a dangerous territorial expansion into international waters with an eye toward resource extraction.
As Arctic nations and others (China, India, etc.) advance their own parochial interests across the region, there is a growing competitive race to exploit Arctic offshore resources and to project military power across the region to secure these competing national interests. As such, the risk of military confrontation across the Arctic Ocean is escalating. Combined with the effects of climate change, industrialization and militarization would further accelerate the ecological and social collapse of the struggling Arctic Ocean region, and would clearly compromise the ability of the bioregion and its people to survive the 21st-century climate crisis.
In fact, the resource and political tensions in the Arctic Ocean today are remarkably similar to the Antarctic after World War II, that were resolved then by the leadership of U.S. (Republican) President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposing and negotiating the historic 1959 Antarctic Treaty. The international Treaty, now with 58 nation-state members, permanently protects the extraordinary 5.5 million square-mile Antarctic continent as a global commons for peaceful, scientific purposes, free from nuclear testing, military operations, economic exploitation, and territorial claims. The Antarctic Treaty remains the single greatest conservation achievement in history.
The same opportunity now presents itself with the Arctic Ocean. In addition to accelerating efforts to reduce global carbon emissions to reverse global warming, governments must urgently adopt strong, permanent protections for the entire Arctic Ocean to give this region and its people the best chance possible to survive the 21st-century climate crisis. Given the pace of decline, this may be our last best chance to do so.
While Arctic nations have begun protecting some areas off their coasts, still less than 5% of Arctic Ocean waters are in permanently protected status. This is clearly insufficient.
The proposed circumpolar Arctic Ocean Sanctuary must fully protect not only international waters beyond coastal state 200-mile EEZs across the 1.1 million square mile Central Arctic Ocean (as is currently proposed), but also the highly productive waters within the EEZs of Arctic coastal nations—Canada, Norway, Denmark and Greenland, Russia, and the U.S., where most ecological activity, human impact, and threat occurs. The sanctuary should permanently prohibit oil and gas leasing, mineral leasing, commercial fishing, military activities, improve shipping safety, reduce pollutants, and enhance scientific research.
To be sure, it is a big ask of the five Arctic coastal nations to contribute some of their claimed territory into a globally protected area, but this was the right thing to do in 1959 in the Antarctic, and it is the right thing to do now for the Arctic.
While the current federal administrations in the Russia and U.S. habitually oppose any and all environmental conservation proposals, perhaps presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump might see this as a historic legacy in the midst of the environmental havoc they have caused, a chance to be remembered as Eisenhower is today for his leadership in negotiating the Antarctic Treaty. And just to note, former President Joe Biden ignored this request entirely, enacted no comprehensive permanent protections in the U.S. Arctic Ocean off Alaska, and made no effort to begin discussions on the International Arctic Ocean Sanctuary.
Global society has a historic choice to make with the imperiled Arctic Ocean. Should we continue our competitive industrial and military expansion into one of the last wild areas of the world, further degrading a region already unraveling due to human-caused climate change? Or should we protect and sustain this magnificent place for all time, giving it and its inhabitants, human and non-human, the best chance possible to recover from climate change this century?
How we answer this question will tell us a lot about ourselves and our future.
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Don’t Be Fooled: the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project Is a Corporate Land Grab
This project is a textbook case of environmental injustice. It would carve through preserved farmland and forests, pollute streams and wetlands, and destroy habitats for threatened species.
May 21, 2025
The name “Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project” is a masterclass in Orwellian branding. It sounds like public service—what it really delivers is environmental destruction, labor exploitation, and corporate profit at the public’s expense.
My name is Karyn Strickler, and my family farm lies directly in the path of this 70-mile transmission line. Located in Carroll County, Maryland, our farm has been in agricultural preservation for decades. My sister, her family, and my 95-year-old father live on the land. The third generation is now growing up here. Our roots stretch back to the early 1700s in America—and 500 years before that in Switzerland.
We preserved this land for farming. Not for it to be bulldozed by a private utility company.
The MPRP is part of a growing national trend where energy infrastructure is being redirected to power unregulated, fossil-fueled data centers—putting local communities and ecosystems at risk across the country, not just in Maryland.
The Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project (MPRP) isn’t about homes or communities. It’s about servers—giant fossil fuel-powered data centers in Northern Virginia. And while these billion-dollar corporations get the power, Marylanders get the pollution, the grid drain, and the bill.
Public Service Enterprise Group couldn’t meet the labor standards required by New Jersey for a wind project. So they ran to Maryland—where wage protections are weak, enforcement is inconsistent, and union labor is often ignored. Meanwhile, construction jobs are temporary, low-wage, and often filled by undocumented workers with no protections.
This project is a textbook case of environmental injustice. It would carve through preserved farmland and forests, pollute streams and wetlands, and destroy habitats for the bog turtle and the Baltimore checkerspot—Maryland’s own state insect. These species are already threatened. MPRP could push them further toward extinction.
And let’s be clear: This isn’t about my family alone. There is widespread grassroots opposition across Carroll, Frederick, and Baltimore counties. We are farmers, homeowners, business owners, and residents who see this for what it is: a high-voltage land grab disguised as progress.
The MPRP is part of a growing national trend where energy infrastructure is being redirected to power unregulated, fossil-fueled data centers—putting local communities and ecosystems at risk across the country, not just in Maryland.
This is not reliability. It’s recklessness. It’s time Maryland lived up to its promises of equity, sustainability, and dignity for workers. The bulldozers are warming up—but so is the resistance.
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Trump-GOP Budget Imperils Pollinators Amid Bee Colony Collapse
One scientist asked, "How can the administration make good on its promise to make America healthy again while cutting support for the bees that are essential to producing fruits and vegetables?"
May 16, 2025
Scientists warned Friday that over $300 million in federal funding cuts for bee research proposed in U.S. House Republicans' budget reconciliation package imperils critical conservation efforts amid an ongoing colony collapse crisis afflicting the indispensable pollinators.
The proposed budget, which is backed by President Donald Trump, cancels $307 million in funding for the Ecosystem Management Area, the division of the U.S. Geological Survey that oversees biological research including the USGS Bee Lab. The laboratory is the government's preeminent pollinator research institution and plays a crucial role in efforts to conserve thousands of native U.S. bee species.
The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) noted Friday that "native bees pollinate 75% of flowering plants, including fruit and vegetable crops that are important to a healthy diet. Through crop and wild plant pollination, native bees contribute $3 trillion to the global economy."
"To ensure an abundant supply of food, we have to protect pollinators."
Although the latest quinquennial Census of Agriculture showed the nation's honeybee population hit an all-time high in 2022, researchers forecast a 60-70% decline in U.S. commercial honeybee colonies in 2025, a significant increase from average annual losses of 40-50% over the past decade.
"How can the administration make good on its promise to make America healthy again while cutting support for the bees that are essential to producing fruits and vegetables?" CBD staff scientist Jess Tyler said Friday. "As pollinator population declines get worse, we need to double down on research and protections for bees to ensure a healthy and affordable food supply."
"You can't have an America-first agenda if America can't feed itself," Tyler added. "I implore the Trump administration to reconsider its slashing of the Bee Lab's budget. To ensure an abundant supply of food, we have to protect pollinators."
Earlier this week, the government notified USGS researchers and students that their funding could be frozen and staff terminated as part of the Trump administration's gutting of federal agencies, led by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. While a federal judge earlier this month temporarily blocked Trump's mass layoffs, the administration has appealed the ruling, fueling uncertainty over ongoing and future research.
John Ternest, a scientist who studied pollinators at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's research arm who was laid off in February, toldThe New York Times last month that about 15 bee researchers have already been fired.
"We have so many crops that are going into bloom and rely on pollination right when all of this was happening—the firings, the crisis of honeybees," Ternest said. "What kind of trickle-down effect does that have on, of course, the farmers, but potentially even things like food prices?"
"Somebody has to push back—it's time to speak out."
Sam Droege, a biologist at the USGS Bee Lab, warned this week that the Ecosystems Mission Area—the U.S. Interior Department's biological research arm—"is absolutely, completely targeted" for layoffs by the Trump administration.
"Somebody has to push back—it's time to speak out," Droege said.
Retired senior USGS research official John Organ said earlier this month that "the elimination of funding for the USGS Ecosystems Mission Area will be a generational catastrophe for North American—and global—conservation science and management."
"Who will train the next generation of fish and wildlife managers, scientists, and leaders while conducting actionable science to help ensure future generations will be able to enjoy and benefit from our public trust in wildlife?" Organ wondered.
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