Author: Ian Urbina
Why are we overfishing the oceans just to feed other fish?
Written by: Ian Urbina
The oceans are rapidly running out of fish. More than 90 percent of the world’s stocks are at or beyond the point of collapse. To …
Not all prison cells have bars
Written by: Ian Urbina
Hundreds of miles from shore, a man is shackled by his neck when he is not working and for two years he is sold boat to …
When murder happens offshore, does anyone care?
Written by: Ian Urbina
“Brace yourself.” This was the subject line of an email that initiated a 7-year investigation of a gruesome slow-motion slaughter at sea. That subject line …
Floating abortion clinics µ nations: How the high seas became a renegade’s refuge
Written by: Ian Urbina
The lawlessness of the oceans has given rise to countless absurd and remarkable stories of renegades and mavericks seeking to escape national sovereignty. Sealand is …
Dystopia meets impossible wonder in the world’s oceans
Written by: Ian Urbina
Too big to police, and under no clear international authority, the high seas constitute perhaps the wildest and least understood frontier on the planet. Invisible …
Will we ever stop treating the ocean like a giant, liquid landfill?
Written by: Ian Urbina
The vastness of the oceans and the impression (as the old and erroneous saying goes) that “dilution is the solution to pollution” has for centuries …
How 1/3 of all fish caught in the ocean is turned into something no one eats
Written by: Ian Urbina
The oceans are running out of fish. To slow down that problem environmentalists pushed for fish farming, or aquaculture. This was supposed to be the …
Slavery is not gone. It’s just moved out to sea
Written by: Ian Urbina
While forced labor still exists throughout the world, one place where it’s especially pervasive is the South China Sea — especially in the Thai fishing …
These illegal fishing fleets generate $10 billion in annual sales
Written by: Ian Urbina
If you look at the taxonomy of crime that plays out offshore, it’s both diverse and acute. And yet illegal fishing sits at the top …
The pint-size nation off the English coast
Written by: Ian Urbina
On Christmas Eve of 1966, Paddy Roy Bates, a retired British army major, drove a small boat with an outboard motor seven miles off the coast …
