Olivier Bancoult US military personnel live in my birthplace, the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, but I am not allowed to. Since I was four years old, my people, the Chagossians, have lived in impoverished exile, while the US military has been enjoying the fruits of my homeland. The plight of my people has… Read More The US and UK stole our homes. 50 years on, we’re still being denied justice
Pascal Soriot The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is a grim, yet unsurprising, reminder of the catastrophic effect global heating is having on our planet. The message from leading climate scientists is clear: action is needed now. Not tomorrow, not next year, not by the end of the decade. Even drastic carbon reduction today… Read More Climate emergency is the biggest health crisis of our time: bigger than Covid
By Jonathan Amos Scientists have filmed a fish swimming at an extraordinary depth in the ocean, making it the deepest observation of this nature that has ever been made. The species – a type of snailfish of the genus Pseudoliparis – was filmed swimming at 8,336m (27,349ft). It was filmed by an autonomous “lander” dropped into the… Read More Deepest ever fish caught on camera off Japan
JUAN COLE Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Vanuatu, a set of South Pacific islands, is not what you would call a prominent international player. The small country of a little over 300,000 people has nevertheless made history, according to UN News. It presented a resolution to the UN General Assembly asking the UN’s International Court of… Read More Tiny Islands of Vanuatu Convince UN to seek Int’l Court Ruling on Harms of Climate Emergency
Sitting in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a humble port town is home to one of the world’s most remote post offices, which holds mail for yachters from all corners of the globe. Fernando Teixeira and Izabela Cardoso The Azores islands, an archipelago in the centre of the Atlantic Ocean that makes up an… Read More Horta on Faial: one of the world’s most extraordinary post offices (see video)
First posted June 10, 2014 “When we killed the sea whales,” Roddy Morrison, from Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, remembers, “they used to make a noise, like a crying noise. They seemed so friendly, and they’d come round and they’d make a noise, and when you hit them, they cried really… It is difficult to recover… Read More South Georgia: The lost whaling station at the end of the world
Oscar Holland, CNN In her striking images of the Faroe Islands, a remote archipelago between Iceland and her native Norway, photographer Andrea Gjestvang depicts islanders and livelihoods that are as tough and unforgiving as the windswept landscape. Fishing trawlers travel through frigid seas. Clouds roll over craggy mountains and cliffside villages. Clothes and boots are stained… Read More Cold, remote and short of women: A portrait of life on the Faroe Islands
Patrick Barkham Non-native house mice are to be removed from Marion Island in the southern Indian Ocean to protect the wandering albatross and other endangered seabirds, in the world’s largest eradication programme of its kind. Mice accidentally introduced on to the remote island by 19th-century seal hunters have thrived in warmer and drier conditions over… Read More Rescuing endangered seabirds: world’s biggest single operation to remove mice from island
A new field of psychology has begun to quantify an age-old intuition: Feeling awe is good for us. HENRY WISMAYER We were halfway down the Point Reyes peninsula when Dacher Keltner wandered off-trail. He stopped at an outcrop of granite boulders, where the ground fell away toward Driftwood Beach and the wide, open Pacific beyond.… Read More Finding Awe Amid Everyday Splendor
Flora Feltham on Mana The island where I live, Te Mana o Kupe o Aotearoa, sits half an hour off the coast of New Zealand’s north island. It has one house and a permanent human population of two: my husband, Pat, and me. In April, this will increase to three because we’re having a baby.… Read More One house, two people and some rare flightless birds: welcome to Mana Island
After the truth-shower 