Browsing: Environment

Building upon the success of Laamu’s first ever inter-island Turtle Festival in 2016, the entire community recently came together for the second Laamu Turtle Festival. The event took place on the local island of Gan, and was jointly organized by the Gan Island Council, Laamu Atoll Police Department and Six Senses Laamu. This year’s theme was once again Turtles in Laamu – Safe and Protected, aiming to raise awareness about the importance of sea turtles and providing a platform for community engagement about greater marine conservation.

I’m often introduced as an environmentalist. I prefer to be called a father, grandfather, scientist or author, as these terms provide insight into my motivation. Environmentalism isn’t a discipline or specialty like law, medicine, plumbing, music or art. It’s a way of seeing our place in the world and recognizing that our survival, health and happiness are inextricably dependent on nature. To confront today’s environmental crises, everyone — garage mechanics, construction workers, dentists, politicians and judges — has to see the world through an environmental lens.

Sponsored by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, the Arctic on the Edge/L’Arctique à la limite Expedition documents the life cycle of ice from Greenland to Baffin Island, south down the Labrador Coast, ending in Newfoundland

What does climate change have to do with economic growth? Canada’s prime minister and premiers signed a deal in December to “grow our economy, reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and build resilience to the impacts of a changing climate.” The Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change outlines plans for carbon pricing, energy-efficient building codes, electric vehicle charging stations, methane emission regulations and more.

The environment has been a hot topic during the 2017 election campaign but one of the biggest issues, climate change, has received relatively little air time to date. That’s why WWF-New Zealand is hosting a Climate Debate on 19 September 2017 in Auckland, in partnership with Oxfam New Zealand and Fossil Free University of Auckland.

When the Aztecs founded Tenochtitlán in 1325, they built it on a large island on Lake Texcoco. Its eventual 200,000-plus inhabitants relied on canals, levees, dikes, floating gardens, aqueducts and bridges for defence, transportation, flood control, drinking water and food. After the Spaniards conquered the city in 1521, they drained the lake and built Mexico City over it.

Coal, oil and gas are tremendous resources: solar energy absorbed by plants and super-concentrated over millions of years. They’re potent fuels and provide ingredients for valuable products. But the oil boom, spurred by improved drilling technology, came at the wrong time. Profits were (and still are) the priority — rather than finding the best, most efficient uses for finite resources.

August 2 was Earth Overshoot Day. Unlike Earth Day or Canada Day, it’s not a time to celebrate. As the Earth Overshoot Day website explains, it marks the time when “we will have used more from nature than our planet can renew in the whole year.” That is the definition of unsustainable and means we’re using up the biological capital that should be our children’s legacy. We would require 1.7 Earths to meet our current annual demands sustainably.

Environmental organisation WWF-New Zealand, today cautiously welcomed the Ministry for Primary Industries’ new draft squid fishing plan and called for precautionary action to save the New Zealand sea lion. The ‘Squid 6T Operational Plan’, released today for consultation regulates trawling for squid around the Auckland Islands, home to the most important breeding colony of this endangered species.

Humans are an astonishing anomaly. As many species teeter on extinction, our populations grow in size and complexity. From exploring space to eradicating diseases and other remarkable achievements, human curiosity has pushed the outer limits of our physical universe. Yet our ability to embrace shared values has been challenging. More than a billion people live in poverty, inequality gaps are expanding, and we face unprecedented environmental challenges that threaten our survival.

Of all the plastic products we use and take for granted, plastic drinking straws are among the most unnecessary. Designed to be used once and discarded, their only real purpose is to keep your mouth from touching a glass or ice. It made more sense in the days when contaminated vessels were more of an issue.

Canada has embraced the global awaveofchange campaign following the successful launch of the Federally Incorporated Canadian Not for Profit branch of Plastic Oceans Foundation (POF Canada) alongside the premiere of A Plastic Ocean in Vancouver on 19th January. At POF Canada, we have been working to connect with all the organisations and individuals across Canada that participated in or have upcomi

I recently had a great time photographing the wrecks of Subic Bay on the west coast of Luzon, in the north of the Philippines. The bay used to be the location of a US naval base, and it has wrecks from the Spanish-American war, from WWII, and scuttled American ships and planes from the area afterwards. It’s quite a playground for the wreck-diving aficionado and underwater photographer.