"African and Commonwealth nations called Tuesday for a swift implementation of a landmark treaty protecting the high seas, warning that despite record commitments to marine conservation, much of the world’s ocean protection still exists only on paper."
Small-scale fisheries on the wane in an obscure region of the world, and a unique ethnic group trapped between being a tourist attraction and surviving a failing industry. Read how award-winning Polish journalist Tadeusz Michrowski turned this small, unsexy story into something bigger, a complex and nuanced portrait of a community of individuals in transition.
"In the days after Hurricane Helene devastated the southern Appalachians in late September 2024, Blue Ridge Parkway Superintendent Tracy Swartout went up in a helicopter to survey the damage. What she saw was deeply troubling. 'When Helene happened, we ended up with 58 landslides spread across 200 linear miles of the parkway,' Swartout says."
"In late April, heavy machinery began moving into the Pishë Poro-Narta protected landscape on Albania’s Adriatic coast without permits or public notice. Bulldozers and excavators felled coastal pine trees, flattened sand dunes, and cut new roads through previously untouched habitat." "The incursion was the realization of a luxury resort development backed by Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law."
"The Trump administration struck down prohibitions on commercial fishing Thursday across more than 500,000 square miles of marine national monuments in the Pacific Ocean, as environmental groups vowed to challenge the action in federal court." "The president has now signed orders to eliminate commercial fishing bans in all five national marine monuments."
“The bottom of the ocean has barely been explored, but every journey to the deep reveals wondrous new lifeforms. As underwater mining gains momentum, we risk destroying one of the Earth’s last great wildernesses.”
“EPA and Justice Department officials were looking into potential criminal violations by the vast coal empire owned by Sen. Jim Justice. Then the Office of the Deputy Attorney General told them ‘pencils down.’”
“Wildlife department says drought conditions and water released from dam led to ‘major fish kill’ at San Carlos Lake.”
“Global effort needed to limit effects of pollution, industrial fishing and climate crisis, World Ocean Assessment says.”
Massive kelp groves, little-noticed despite their proximity to populated coastlines or their importance to ecosystems and to us humans, face numerous pressures and a drastic decline. In “Forest of the Sea,” author David Helvarg dives into the subject, literally, to help reveal this unique undersea world. BookShelf contributing editor Jennifer Weeks has a review.
