Commonly cited as one of the worst disasters in British naval history, the attack and sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse on 10th December 1941 by aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Navy sent shockwaves through the country.

The desecration of both wrecks 60 miles east off the Malaysian coast by a Chinese purpose-built salvage barge, the Chuan Hong 68, was tracked and recorded early in 2023 by the Maritime Observatory, a non-profit partnership between the Maritime Archaeology Sea Trust and OceanMind which harnesses the growing capabilities of the commercial satellite sector to protect shipwrecks and other underwater heritage at sea.

The ocean is the Earth’s life support system, home to some of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet and our survival depends on their ability to thrive. The ocean is also wild, vast, and remote, making protecting those ecosystems a challenge for humans to undertake alone.

One of the ways we can ensure the long-term conservation and protection of the ocean is to establish marine protected areas, but the solution may not be just in the creation of new reserves. It can also be found in enforcing the regulations that already exist.

Learn how OceanMind monitors 5 million square kilometres of Marine Protected Areas all around the world.

Today on World Ocean Day, we celebrate the incredible progress that the past year has brought us, from the landmark set of goals and targets agreed at the UN biodiversity conference in Montreal in December 2022, to the global commitment and ongoing negotiations to develop an international legally binding treaty on plastic pollution. These frameworks are key to leveraging action for positive change, and in this spirit today we would like to focus our attention on the actions ahead for all nations following the adoption of the BBNJ agreement.

Photo by Abyan Athif on Unsplash