I’m in the Arctic in the waters of Svalbard, north of Norway, at 78º North Latitude during the time of year when the sun never sets. For a few days I’m a guest aboard Greenpeace’s ship Arctic Sunrise. We’re concerned about damage to the seafloor by a recent influx of fishing trawlers into the high […]
wildlife
Seven ways fishing trawlers aren’t great for the seabed
I’m writing this in the high Arctic at 78º North Latitude in early July, aboard Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise where I’m a guest for a few days, with 24-hour daylight and gleaming glaciers in the valleys of snow-capped coastal mountains. We’re here because shrinking sea ice and warming ocean water is moving fish farther north, and […]
Not the last polar bear
We’re up in the high Arctic, in Svalbard. I’m a guest for a few days on the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise. (It’s a bit of a misnomer at this time of year because the sun never sets, so—to paraphrase Hemingway—the sun also never rises.) As we are slowly leaving Isfjorden (Icy Fjords) 78º N and […]
Is Swaziland Selling Live Elephants and Rhino Horns Simply for Profit?
Back in February when Swaziland sold 17 formerly free-living African elephants to three U.S. zoos (Dallas, Omaha and Wichita), I made a phone call to the president of one of the United States’ better zoos—a zoo not involved in this deal—asking if he thought it was OK to still be catching wild elephants for zoos. […]
Why Burning Ivory Is Right
On April 30, Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta lit a fire in Nairobi National Park that would ultimately consume one hundred tons of elephant tusks. In an editorial, President Kenyatta wrote that his intent was to, “do my part to destroy any possibility that poachers and their accomplices might benefit from the slaughter of Kenya’s elephants.” His […]
Pesky plastic: The true harm of microplastics in the oceans
Co-authored by Jessica Perelman Pollution is evidently a major concern when talking about environmental protection in light of human development, but waste that ends up in the oceans is oftentimes overlooked. This is in part because many people do not come face-to-face with it on a daily basis, and the effects caused by contaminating the world’s waterways […]