Issue 279 – Oceans: Lives and livelihoods

Oceans are our planet’s largest life-support system. They sustain our lives and livelihoods every day. From providing food to eat, jobs and resources, and health and well-being. This edition of ECOS takes a deep dive under the ocean surface to showcase new discoveries, sustainable fishing, and what the next decade holds to ensure a healthy marine environment.

Overhead view of a research vessel at sea.

Australia’s oceans are big, beautiful and bountiful in resources. Our national ocean research vessel Investigator delivers the capability to help us understand and protect them.

Longtail tuna fish in a basket

New DNA and microchemistry analysis reveals multiple populations among the Indian Ocean’s tunas and will underpin improved fisheries management.

Deep sea delights: this coral species, Victorgorgia eminens, and its snake star symbiont, was discovered living in the seamounts off the coast of Tasmania

CSIRO scientists are finding life in Australia’s cold-water ocean depths that few humans ever see.

Tuna in cane baskets on a dock, being inspected by people

With a team at CSIRO’s Australian National Fish Collection in Hobart, Helen O'Neill is working to make fish identification easier for Indonesian fishery workers.

Giant kelp photographed underwater.

Both giant kelp and Synechococcus are being cultured in CSIRO’s Australian National Algae Culture Collection in Hobart, where scientists study impacts on algae in our warming world.

A diver wearing goggles holding a Prickly redfish.

After years of mutual learning, a safety net is in place for the Torres Strait Beche-de-mer Fishery.

A blue, green and white painted research vessel on the open ocean.

RV Investigator’s seafloor mapping systems are increasingly being used to locate and image Australian shipwrecks and other heritage targets.

Oceans are the planet’s largest life-support system. The launch of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development is an important opportunity for Australia as a nation girt by sea.