The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a huge surge in plastic pollution, adding to an already worrying plastic waste problem that is threatening all marine life.
So far 2020 seems to be hitting us with bad news after bad news causing a lot of despair, however there are some conservation success stories that we can celebrate this year.
Here, we look at the European Commission’s environment, oceans and fisheries policies, a role that is headed up by European Commissioner, Virginijus Sinkevičius.
The work of Minister for the Environment and Climate, and Deputy Prime Minister in Sweden, Isabella Lövin, is charted here when it comes to the climate emergency.
Pamela J. Lein, PhD, Professor at the University of California, Davis, sheds light on the plastic crisis and explains what the big deal is with microplastics.
In the northern Bering Sea, scientists undertook a four-year acoustic monitoring project to understand Arctic conservation needs for five marine mammals.
Luisa da Cunda Fernandes and Martin Sharp Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, discuss changing runoff from Arctic Ice caps and Greenland.
When nature is eroding and ecosystems are coming under increasing stress, it can seem like the only reaction is despair: However, there are also inspiring conservation success stories from 2019.
Making waves with offshore wind power in Taiwan, Global Aqua Survey Ltd discuss their involvement in the construction project which is fast taking shape.
Here, Joan Edwards, Director of Living Seas at The Wildlife Trusts shares her thoughts on the UK government announcement of 41 new Marine Conservation Zones (MCZs).
![Figure 1 - The figure illustrates the diversity and multi-scale nature of the structures in the Galaxy. The first two lines are real astronomical images, which go from the galactic disk itself and down to the planet-forming disks. The last two lines are generated from numerical simulations and aim to understand and interpret the observations. [adapted from Facchini et al. 2025, Göller et al. 2025, Hennebelle et al. 2022, Lebreuilly et al. 2024, Molinari et al. 2016, 2025, Reissl et al. 2016]](https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/figure.png)
