The oceans are currently in the midst of a massive ecological and economic shift. Technologies ranging from remote sensing to deep water drilling to ocean-going robots to enormous freezer ships are enabling humans to explore and exploit the oceans at unprecedented scale in novel ways. We may thus be on the threshold of profound changes in our ability to manage and regulate the seas.

Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN) has commissioned a series of stories that will explore disruptive innovations likely to affect marine conservation, providing a multi-dimensional, global look at the technologies, policies, and people that are creating a new future for the world’s oceans. Funding for this series is being provided by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

In the run up to the landmark COP21 Climate Summit that took place in Paris in early December, our first group of stories focused on how climate change is altering the oceans, and thus changing how humanity will have to manage marine conservation in the coming decades of the Anthropocene.

Our next chapter, on Exploring the Oceans, is being released today. This chapter aims to highlight how new technologies are changing the way scientists research and extractive industries exploit remote regions of the sea. Stories include the following topics:

• Deep Sea Mining in New Ireland, PNG, by Mike Casey, MongaBay
• Deep Sea Vent Communities,  by Kim Fulton-Bennett, Monterey Bay Aquarium/MBARI
• Sea Drones of Antarctica, by Munyaradzi Makoni, SciDevNet
• China’s Krill Catch, by Liu Hongqiao, China Dialogue

Please stay tuned also for upcoming chapters of the Future Oceans Series: stories on Observing the Oceans, and on Healing the Oceans will be released in February.