143rd Edition
Hi everyone!
World Mangrove Day was 2 days ago (July 26) , and I implore you to check out this website by the Smithsonian Ocean Portal to learn more about mangroves and their impact. This is also a cool article on mangrove restoration.
Catch you next Tuesday đââď¸
News
New Zealandâs Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has selected Ocean Impact Organisation to deliver BlueStart Aotearoa, a government-backed blue economy startup platform offering a six-month incubator and twelve-week accelerator to help scale a sector worth $10 billion annually and projected to reach $14 billion by 2035.
Danish company Wavepiston has successfully tested its "plate snake" wave energy system at Spain's PLOCAN test site, positioning the technology as a cost-competitive alternative to diesel for isolated island communities. For context, the system is a modular, cable-and-plate device that uses wave motion to simultaneously pump pressurized seawater onshore, generating both electricity via hydraulic turbine and fresh water via reverse osmosis.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has launched the Schiller Center for Reef Solutions to bring together researchers across ecology, robotics, AI, and marine policy to develop scalable tools for monitoring, protecting, and restoring coral reefs, including "Super Reefs" resilience research and a real-time digital twin simulation system.
The Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture's "Blue Carbon OAE" research update presents new evidence that mangrove restoration delivers significantly more carbon removal than current crediting protocols recognize, with up to 40 to 50% of total carbon benefit coming from ocean alkalinity enhancement driven by natural soil chemistry, and outlines Yale's plan to run multi-region field trials and develop commercial MRV protocols that could unlock new financing streams for mangrove restoration while advancing the broader marine CDR field.
This 2026 NOAA report summarizes a five-year effort by the Coral Reef Conservation Program to conduct comprehensive ecosystem services valuations across all nine U.S. coral reef jurisdictions, providing the first standardized economic accounting of the full range of benefits that American coral reefs deliver to communities, fisheries, coastlines, and tourism.
Opportunities
Schmidt Marine is accepting proposals for novel technologies until July 31st.
The New York Climate Exchange has opened applications for their climate tech fellowship program. In this iteration, they are focused on âEarly-Stage Innovators at the Intersection of Energy & Urban Resilienceâ. Applications close August 1st.
The Ocean Exchange still has an open call for solutions based in the Americas until August 7th.
UC San Diegoâs StartBlue Accelerator has opened applications for their immersive fall program.
The newest iteration of UCSCâs Blue Pioneerâs program has been announced, this year taking place as a two week immersion acceleration in Zanzibar. Check here for more details.
Canadaâs first blue economy accelerator Blue Action Canada has opened applications for their 2026 cohort.
Apply to Katapultâs Ocean Accelerator program that is designed to guide founders through complex entrepreneurial issues, add structure, and help raise a startupâs next round.
Fair Carbon has launched a Blue Carbon Academy that aims to help with the fine-tuning of the design of a Blue Carbon project.
Join the Blue Growth Community to get access to opportunities, expertise, and connections as an innovator.
Events
The California Ocean Science Trust has started a new webinar series entitled âNavigating Your Future: Careers at the Ocean and Coastal Science-Policy Nexusâ. The next webinar is on Thursday, August 6th 12-1PM PT.
If you happen to be in Vancouver August 24th-28th, OceanHackWeek is being held at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre.
The Tomorrow.Blue Economy World Congress is convening in Barcelona November 3-5.
The 7th World Conference for Marine Biodiversity will be taking place in Belgium 17-20 November 2026. You can register here.
Learning
Written in the wake of the Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa, this op-ed by Dalhousie doctoral researcher Abdirahim Sheik Heile argues that the real obstacle to ocean sustainability is not a lack of ambition or coordination but fragmented power â the deliberate division of ocean governance across siloed ministries, donor mandates, and reporting templates that allows everyone to claim responsibility while coastal communities, small-scale fishers, and African economies bear the cost of a system designed to be moved through, not accountable to them.
This paper argues that marine ecosystem models have long neglected social equity by focusing narrowly on fish stocks and ecological dynamics, and proposes three progressively accessible pathways for modelers to integrate equity and justice concerns, from explicitly modeling equity to simply asking new questions with existing tools, so that fisheries science better reflects the lived realities of fisherfolk and coastal communities.
Companies doing the work
Ocean World of Sound is the Mesoamerican Reef's first passive acoustic monitoring program, using ocean soundscape analysis to generate ecosystem data that supports marine protected area management and helps coastal communities connect with and protect their marine environment.