We reported earlier in the year that a Beirut-based property developer has designs to build a Dubai “World”-like set of islands in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Lebanon. Modelled after Dubai’s The World and Palm Islands, developers in Lebanon report that its $8 billion development project will not sink. This is all despite […]
Will The World be saved? UAE attempts to rescue collapsed real estate market in Dubai. The massive world-shaped islands off the coast of Dubai have been an environmentalist’s nightmare. With little regard to marine ecosystems, and the future impact of these buildings, Dubai ‘s building of The World has been brought to a halt due […]
Corals caught munching on jellyfish. Are they adapting to climate change? It would seem that jellyfish, often referred simply to as “jellies” wouldn’t have any problem floating around near patches of coral – unless that coral just happens to be a predatory species known as mushroom coral, or fingia scruposa in Latin. This unusual phenomenon […]
Dubai’s been building without limits and now seeks debt hold on “The World” artificial islands project. When the idea was conceived, money seemed limitless, their goals too: Real Estate developers Nakheel of the artificial island “World” project in Dubai now say they will ask creditors to accept a moratorium on debt worth billions of dollars, […]
Marine research on the Red Sea will be more serious, thanks to new ship. With pirates, environmental pollution, increasing water traffic and a collapse of coral reefs, a new research ship with its course set for the Red Sea port of Eilat is good news for us to hear. According to Hebrew University in Jerusalem, […]
Alanna Mitchell’s new book, ‘Seasick‘ encompasses two and a half years of aquatic research over five continents. She has literally gone to the oceans depths to see and report upon the hidden ecological crisis of the global ocean. Reading it, a reader becomes profoundly aware of the oceans breadth, width and depth. Salient facts leap […]
EcoOcean is an Israeli non-profit organization that has been working since 2002 towards maintaining a healthy marine environment in the eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The organization’s team of Israeli scientists does this by conducting research and running ecological education programs. (You can read here about its director’s Andreas’ swim with the whales). Education […]
(Lebanese fishermen in southern Tyre clean their catch. Photo from AFP.) Southern Lebanese fishermen say their catch has slumped from 88 pounds a day in the 60s and 70s to a measly three or four-pound daily take because of aggressive dynamite fishing, overfishing and pollution. According to a report published by AFP, the Lebanese marine […]
Explore where no man has gone before, with tentacles? Now building the world’s first robotic octopus, and the world’s first soft-bodied robot, Israeli “octopus” scientists have joined a seven group international team to help marine scientists explore nooks and crannies on the ocean floor, like an octopus would. Instead of dropping down clunky metallic submarines […]
(Illustration of Cedar Island, a new artificial island project proposed for off the coast of Lebanon). Environmentalists in Beirut’s American University are calling it a disaster: A Lebanese company is looking to build mega artificial islands like Palm Island in Dubai, but in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Lebanon. They are calling it […]
She looks like him and was raised in an enviable way: her grandfather Jacques Cousteau (the legendary marine explorer we’ve written about here) taught Alexandra Cousteau how to dive at the young age of 7 and instilled in her a love for the water that covers two thirds of our planet. Now she’s giving back. […]
The earth is warming up. There is no doubt about that. And carbon dioxide levels are increasing too. New research from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Carnegie Institution in the US suggests that if things get worse, coral reefs will start to dissolve. That’s millions of years of evolution that will simply melt […]
If those of us living in Israel think we have a problem with pollution and beach closures in the Mediterranean Sea, we should take a look on what’s happening north in Lebanon. A recent article in Beirut’s English language newspaper, the Lebanese Star, noted that pollution caused by both the public and private sectors is […]
Reporting on a story about the coral monitoring stations in the Persian Gulf, Green Prophet mistakenly labeled the major Middle East waterway the Arabian Gulf. A reader wrote us asking for a correction on the name which has deep historical and new political roots. Today we interview Daniel M. Pourkesali, an Iranian-American who is working […]
Our dear friend Andreas Weil from EcoOcean sent us the YouTube link of the new ad created by the agency Shalmor Avnon Amichay/Young & Rubicam. The ad was donated by the agency to support EcoOcean, a non-profit marine education organization. This company, says Weil, cares about the environment and donated the ad as part of their […]