Issue 130 - March 2026
SEVENSEAS Travel Magazine – No. 130 March 2026
Welcome to the March issue of SEVENSEAS. This month, our coverage turns toward the Persian Gulf, where an unfolding military crisis carries consequences that reach far beyond geopolitics, into marine ecosystems, global supply chains, and the daily lives of civilians worldwide. Across four connected articles, we examine the Strait of Hormuz as a war zone, the ecological toll beneath the conflict, the civilian supply-chain fallout, and Iran’s rich but imperiled biodiversity from mountain forests to coral communities. This issue features our March Cover Conservationist, Jacqueline Rosa, a URI graduate student bridging oyster science and the working waterfront in Narragansett Bay, alongside a powerful personal essay on queer travel through North Korea, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia. You’ll also find global updates on coral reef science, robotic restoration technology, deep-sea discovery, cetacean conservation across the Pacific, and new momentum in international plastics policy. Together, these stories carry a thread that runs through all of our work: that understanding the natural world, even in its most difficult moments, is never separate from protecting it.
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Meet Jacqueline Rosa, Connecting Oyster Science to Coastal Livelihoods
A URI oceanography graduate student investigates how water quality and gear type shape oyster growth in Narragansett Bay, forging direct links between scientific research and the livelihoods of coastal communities. [Read more]
From issue #129: Student Tracks Rhode Island Oyster Farm
URI researcher Jacqueline Rosa spent 18 months monitoring water chemistry and testing 2,700 oysters across three gear types to help the state’s $9 million aquaculture industry adapt to acidification. [Read more]
They Warned Me. I Went Anyway. A Story of Queer Travel and Compassion.
From Pyongyang to Kabul to Ethiopia’s Omo Valley, one traveler discovers that human warmth and compassion rarely follow the script that headlines and travel warnings try to write for it. [Read more]
Twenty-Eight New Species and a Record Coral Reef Surface Off Argentina
A Schmidt Ocean Institute expedition aboard Falkor (too) documented 28 suspected new species and also found the world’s largest known cold-water coral reef along Argentina’s deep, largely unexplored continental shelf. [Read more]
From Zagros Peaks to Persian Gulf Coral, Iran’s Biodiversity at Stake.
Iran straddles Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Indian Ocean, harboring ancient forests, vital migratory flyways, and fragile coastal ecosystems now placed under extraordinary strain by the widening regional conflict. [Read more]
Below the War Zone, the Persian Gulf’s Marine Ecosystems Face New Risk
While headlines track oil prices and military escalation, a quieter catastrophe is unfolding beneath the Persian Gulf’s waterline, threatening coral reefs, dugongs, and marine ecosystems that will outlast any ceasefire. [Read more]
The Strait of Hormuz Has Become a War Zone. What That Means for Oceans
Coordinated strikes turned the narrow waterway that carries one fifth of global oil into an active battlefield, with consequences for marine ecosystems and energy markets that will ripple for years. [Read more]
How the Hormuz Crisis Will Reach Your Fuel Pump and Grocery Store
Burning tankers and military strikes feel distant over morning coffee, but the Strait of Hormuz crisis is already moving toward your fuel costs, grocery prices, and electricity bills at home. [Read more]
Half the World’s Coral Reefs Bleached During a Single Three-Year Event
A sweeping study published in Nature Communications analyzed over 15,000 reef surveys and found that 51 percent of global coral reefs bleached during the 2014 to 2017 marine heat wave. [Read more]
A Seagrass-Planting Robot Named Mako Passes Its Great Barrier Reef Run
An underwater robot named Mako successfully planted seagrass seeds in turbid, fast-moving waters off Gladstone, completing the first robotic seagrass restoration trial ever attempted on the vast Great Barrier Reef. [Read more]
Guy Harvey Foundation and CCA Florida Join Forces for Ocean Classrooms
Two of Florida’s leading conservation organizations announced a new partnership bringing co-branded coastal education into classrooms, sponsoring hands-on teacher training, and committing a $25,000 youth scholarship for future ocean leaders. [Read more]
Nine Pacific Nations Unite in Fiji to Shield Whale Migration Corridors
Government officials, Indigenous leaders, and marine scientists from nine Pacific island nations gathered in Fiji to advance the regional protection of critical whale and dolphin migratory pathways across shared waters. [Read more]
Global Plastics Treaty Finally Gets a New Chair After Months of Stasis
Six months of paralysis in UN plastics treaty negotiations ended when member states at INC-5.3 in Geneva elected Chile’s Julio Cordano to lead talks stalled over virgin plastic production limits. [Read more]
PRIDE and Conservation: Notes from an Inbox in June
What 550 days at sea taught me about belonging, teamwork, and creating safe spaces in remote environments
SEVENSEAS Travel Magazine — No. 133 June 2026
Coral Reef Field Training in Little Cayman: CCMI’s Summer Professional Courses
What WFP’s HungerMap LIVE Knows About Fisheries (Without Quite Knowing It)
Finding Ourselves on the Edges: Three Years on a Global Expedition
UNESCO Releases People and Nature Report: How UNESCO Sites Sustain Biodiversity and Communities Worldwide
