The eThekwini Municipality has closed several beaches stating that "the pollution is considered serious and can affect one’s health if species are collected and consumed. Lagoon and seawater contact must also be avoided." The public is being advised to cease all activity on beaches north of the uMgeni estuary.

The Daily Maverick reports that the river estuary at the uMhlanga Lagoon was littered with "dead fish, prawns and other organisms" yesterday afternoon; the estuary had turned a turquoise colour and a strong chemical smell filled the air. Further north, footage emerged of dead crayfish washing up on the beach:

"Collecting or harvesting of any marine living resource in the area is temporarily prohibited until the cause is determined and the threat has abated," the municipality outlined in a statement. The exact source of the pollution is being investigated as cleanup companies are working to contain the spill. It is hoped that ocean currents will wash the contaminants out to sea where they will be diluted sufficiently to no longer cause damage. The full extent of the spill remains to be seen. 

We will update this story as new information becomes available.

Header image: Janelle Barnard/Facebook

A remote South Pacific island has the highest density of plastic debris reported anywhere on the planet, a new study has found.

The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, estimated that more than 17 tonnes of plastic debris has washed up on Henderson Island, with more than 3,570 new pieces of litter arriving every day on one beach alone.

It is estimated that there are nearly 38 million pieces of plastic on the island, which is near the centre of the South Pacific Gyre ocean current.

A 2014 paper published in the journal PLOS One used data from surface water all over the world. The researchers estimated that there are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic in the top ten centimetres of the world's oceans.

Plastics pose a major threat to seabirds and other animals, and most don't ever break down – they just break up. Every piece of petrochemical-derived plastic ever made still exists on the planet.

__

Top header image: Wouter de Bruijn/Flickr

Jennifer Lavers, Research Scientist, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Reports of the mass die-off began to surface earlier this week after news outlets picked up on a statement published by Peru's National Forestry and Wildlife Service (Serfor). Authorities had responded to claims from a local environmental group that dead frogs were washing up along the banks of the Coata River, a tributary that flows into the 8,372-square kilometre Lake Titicaca. Specialists were called in to investigate and were met with a grisly scene.

"Based on local residents' statements and samples taken in the days after the incident, it is believed that more than 10,000 frogs were affected over about 50km (30 miles)," the statement points out. This number is only an estimate, but even if experts missed the mark by a few thousand, the death toll would still be cause for concern.

The Titicaca water frogs' uniqueness doesn't stop at their resemblance to dangly bits. Weighing in at just under a kilogram (two pounds), the scrotum frogs of South America are amongst the largest in the world. They're also entirely aquatic and perfectly adapted for their lofty life in the highest altitude lake on the planet. Although that excessively flabby skin has earned them a less than flattering moniker, the amphibians actually rely on the skin folds to increase their breathing ability. That's right, they breathe through their skin (in this way, they differ from scrotums).

Sadly, like many of the world's unique species, the Titicaca water frog faces a number of threats, and it's likely that humans are to blame for the recent deaths. While news of the die-off may come as a shock to many outside of Peru and Bolivia, local animal activists are not very surprised. According to the Committee Against the Pollution of the Coata River, untreated sewage sludge is to blame. "Lake Titicaca used to be a paradise," local anti-pollution campaigner and vice president of the committee, Maruja Inquilla Sucasaca, told The Guardian. "Now we can't use the water and our livestock die if they drink it." 

Sucasaca was responsible for alerting authorities to the recent frog deaths, and she's frustrated by the apparent lack of action from local government in dealing with the pollution concerns. "The situation is maddening," she told AFP. "I've had to bring them the dead frogs. The authorities don't realise how we're living."

And raw sewerage may not be the only pollutant in Lake Titicaca that's affecting local wildlife. According to Roberto Elias, a US-based researcher from the Denver Zoo, who has been studying these unique frogs since 2010, runoff from mining operations in rivers surrounding the lake has caused levels of heavy metals in the water to spike. Previous studies show an abundance of arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, iron and zinc – a toxic cocktail that's likely to have dangerous consequences for amphibians in the area.

While Elias stresses that necropsies will have the final say in determining what happened to the frogs, he also suspects that a recent garbage clean-up in the river could have disturbed settled sediments, releasing contaminants that may have caused the sudden die-off.

Pollution is just one of many threats putting the wrinkly frogs in peril. Thousands of Titicaca water frogs are also hunted every year and shipped off to Lima, where they are skinned and blended with water, maca (a local tuber) and honey to make "frog juice" – an elixir that's consumed as an aphrodisiac. Many communities surrounding Lake Titicaca also eat the frogs, and gourmet restaurants catering to the tourist trade sometimes offer dishes featuring frog legs.

According to the IUCN Red List, the species has declined by as much as 80% over the last three generations. In an effort to help these numbers recover, a decision was made at a recent wildlife trade summit held in South Africa to add the water frogs to CITES Appendix I, a listing that offers maximum protection and prohibits all trade in the species.

So yes, the frogs are named after man bits, and, yes, we know it's tricky to say Titicaca without smirking just a little, but sadly this situation is anything but funny. Without intervention from the authorities to clean up the lake and regulate excessive harvesting, conservationists are concerned that we may end up losing the frogs forever.
__

Header image: Shutterstock

These rare, freshwater-dwelling dolphins are found in coastal areas in south and southeast Asia, in just three rivers: the Ayeyarwady (Myanmar), the Mahakam (Indonesian Borneo) and here, in the Mekong river of Cambodia, where just 80 individuals remain. 

Over the last decade, human encroachment, gill-net fishing, poaching and poisoning have pushed the Irrawaddy dolphin to the brink of extinction, but a recent survey suggests the animals could be on the road to recovery. "Their annual rate of decline has slowed from approximately 7 percent per year in 2007 to the current rate of 1.6 percent in 2015," says WWF Cambodia. "This is thanks to years of work by the Fisheries Administration and WWF in protecting their habitat." 

A close relative of the Australian snubfin dolphin, the Irrawaddy (Orcaella brevirostris) is one of seven species of river dolphins. The blue-grey animals are notoriously shy of boats, making surveys like this one particularly difficult. Depsite their smiley appearance (all thanks to a round melon, reduced beak and a mouth line that angles up), life for these creatures is not easy.

Unlike some of their "sweet water" kin, Irrawaddy dolphins can live in both fresh and salt water, but it's the freshwater residents who are considered critically endangered. The river basins they call home also support over 15 percent of our planet's human population, and include some of the most densely populated areas on earth.

The animals give birth only every two to three years, so each new addition is extremely precious cargo. The latest arrival was last seen in Kampi pool, a slow-moving section of the river that plays home to some 20 dolphins. 

It's not time to celebrate quite yet," urges WWF Cambodia director Sam Ath Chhith. "But we have reason to hope that the Mekong's majestic dolphins are on the way back. Now is not the time for complacency. We need to re-double our efforts to protect them."

One of the gravest threats to the dolphins is the construction of hydropower dams along the Mekong. One such dam, the controversial Don Sahong in Laos, sits less than two kilometres upstream from a similar deep-river pool, which contains the country's four remaining Irrawaddy dolphins.

Blasts during dam construction affect the rare cetaceans' hearing and sensory systems, but a more serious threat is the dam's potential to strangle the animals' food supply once the structure is completed. 

"The dam would block the only year-round migratory channel for fish and dolphins on that section of the Mekong," says the team. "In addition, pesticides, heavy metals, plastic particles and other contaminants from industry, agriculture and towns can also endanger the dolphins' lives."

Don Sahong is just one of 11 open proposals for hydropower dams on the Mekong River. 

Threats posed by dams make for an uncertain future for the new arrival, but it's not just the dolphins that are at risk. A rerouting of local fish populations could also hamper the world's largest inland fishery, the main source of protein for the region's 60 million people.

WWF Camobia is urging local governments to halt construction plans until further studies on the environmental and social implications of the dams can be completed, but for now, we'll have to keep fingers crossed for the river's newest resident. Just 0.8% of juvenile Irrawaddy dolphins survive to adulthood.

"This is a ray of hope for the recovery of Mekong Irrawaddy Dolphins," says the team. "Because prior to 2013, [that number] was estimated at zero."

WWF Cambodia believes that working with local communities and government is the only way to protect the remaining dolphins. Nearly 70 guards – mostly local villagers – have been stationed along the Mekong to keep an eye out for illegal activity as the dolphin survey continues.  

__

Top header image: WWF Cambodia

Harmful algal blooms, caused when toxin-producing algae grow out control, do occur naturally, but human activities can also play a role. And the source of Florida's green slime, many reports say, lies miles away in its largest lake, the polluted Lake Okeechobee. 

Runoff from sewage, manure and fertiliser from farms has been fouling the lake for decades, and blooms of blue-green algae, also known as cyanobacteria, are a common sight there come summer. Warm water, sunshine and an abundant supply of nitrogen and phosphorous from the runoff allow cyanobacteria to thrive. By early May this year, a bloom covered 85 square kilometres (33 square miles) of the lake.

In recent weeks, officials have discharged large volumes of excess lake water into local canals towards the coasts, a tactic that's regularly employed when high water levels put pressure on Okeechobee's aging dike. "Water managers started discharging water from the lake early this year to counter the large amount of winter rainfall. The river outflow carried nitrogen and phosphorous from the lake; it also freshened some downstream areas that are usually too salty for much algae growth," explains a post from NASA. 

Since then, harmful algal blooms have unfurled into canals, rivers and estuaries in four counties across southern Florida. Water samples have tested positive for high levels of toxins produced by the algae. Such outbreaks are not uncommon here, but the present situation, locals say, is the worst they've seen. Alarmed residents have been documenting the impact with photos and videos shared to social media.

One widely shared clip shows a manatee struggling to make its way through the foul-smelling sludge, which reports describe as "guacamole-thick". "It stinks like a dead rotting something!" says Martin County resident Chris Mascia Palas, who filmed the encounter. "This sweet manatee was way over across the canal and made its way to us. It must have drank at least eight gallons of water!"

At this point, it's not yet clear how Florida's threatened manatee populations will be affected by the algae, but conservation groups are monitoring the situation closely. Another animal, a dead juvenile, was recovered on Saturday, but tests are still needed to determine the cause of death. All of this comes just a few months after the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed changing the manatee's endangered status to threatened.

"This is exactly one of the reasons why we strongly believe that downlisting the manatees at this point in time is premature," warns the Save the Manatee Club on Facebook. "Algae outbreaks like these occur and may get worse in the future." The group, which has been inundated with queries from concerned residents, has urged the public to report all sightings of distressed, sick or dead manatees to local wildlife officials. 

This past weekend, CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray also shared video clips of algae-choked water, as well as footage of an alligator swimming through the slime. "If you think it looks gross, try smelling it! I can't believe this is Florida! Heartbreaking," she wrote on Instagram. 

Florida's water management officials have now reduced drainage from Lake Okeechobee in the hope of starving the algae. A hotline and website have also been set up for residents to report algal blooms. But many locals and conservation groups, who have been fighting for years to stop discharges from the lake, are blaming government inaction for what they see as an unfolding environmental crisis.

Polluted, fertiliser-laden water from lake, they say, has negative impacts beyond the toxic green sludge. Water quality, human health and fragile ecosystems off Florida's coasts, including seagrasses, oyster beds and fish populations, are all at risk. 

Environmental law firm Earthjustice says more must be done to control pollution, particularly in the form of runoff from agricultural operations. "Once again, pollution from sewage, manure and fertiliser is causing a nasty algae outbreak in south Florida. All this toxic algae is a result of Florida water managers' continued practice of releasing massive amounts of polluted agriculture waste per second into rivers that lead to the coast," the group says.

If you have come across wildlife affected by the blue-green algae, you can contact Florida Fish & Wildlife.

__

Top header image: Travis, Flickr

Back in August, we watched as marine biologist Dr Nathan Robinson struggled to remove a straw from a turtle's nose while on board a research vessel in Costa Rica. The troubling video went viral, causing millions to speak out against ocean pollution. This week, Robinson and his colleagues removed yet another foreign object from a turtle's nostril – only this time, it was a plastic fork.

Like in the case of the straw, the fork was most likely eaten by the turtle, an olive ridley. "When she tried to regurgitate it, the fork did not pass out of her mouth but went out her nose," Robinson wrote in a Facebook post. "I was able to remove the fork but countless other animals are suffering from plastic debris in our oceans. Your efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle will make a difference."

Though many viewers took to social media to express their shock after watching the original video, some swearing off plastic straws for good, this latest grim encounter is a sobering reminder of the scale of this problem: eight million metric tons of plastic pollution are dumped in the oceans each year.

“Many people asked me how they could support my work after seeing the video,” Christine Figgener, the PhD student who filmed the original clip, said on a gofundme campaign. "There are many more things we want to do, and CAN do, but funding is difficult to come by, and there are consequences to this fact. People forget that in order to protect any species effectively, this protection must be based on observations of the species' biology, ecology, and behaviour."

It's important to note that these are trained professionals, and you should never attempt to do this. If you’d like to learn more about what you can do to protect turtles, pay a visit to the Leatherback Trust, the organisation Robinson works for. And the next time you use a plastic fork, think about where it might end up. 

Top header image: Geoporter/Flickr

"They were able to immobilise it for enough time to extract the hook and unwind the line," recalls YouTuber ombracorta, who captured the ordeal on video. Successful as this rescue may have been, it’s worth noting that sharks are top predators, and it's not smart to handle them without training. Should you find yourself in a similar situation, the best course of action is to contact the local coast guard.

They don't get as much time in the spotlight as great whites, but blues are one of my favourite shark species. Their stunning colouration helps them camouflage in open water, and that sleek silhouette you see in the video makes them incredibly graceful swimmers.

To learn more about blue sharks, check out these incredible photos and facts:

A mystery substance is killing birds along the San Francisco coast. Reports of seabirds coated in a thick, sticky goo first began surfacing late on Friday last week and a local bird rescue organisation has since confirmed 242 cases.

Rescue teams have been combing San Francisco's East Bay shoreline in search of more contaminated victims, while staff at the International Bird Rescue’s San Francisco Bay centre have been in emergency mode working to save as many birds as possible.

“Our staff veterinarian and wildlife rehabilitation team is working overtime to ensure all birds transported to us receive optimal emergency care,” said Barbara Callahan, interim executive director of International Bird Rescue, who served as bird unit leader during the 2010 BP oil spill.

So far, the main suspect seems to be polyisobutylene (or PIB): a sticky, odourless and largely colourless substance that's been implicated in bird deaths elsewhere in the world, causing hundreds of seabird deaths off the Dutch coast in March 2010. In 2013, it killed thousands of seabirds along the UK coast. Later that year, conservation organisations welcomed the International Maritime Organisation's worldwide ban on ships discharging PIB into the sea during tank cleaning operations. 

“While on its face, this substance seems very similar to reports from the UK two years ago, we won’t know definitively until lab tests are completed,” Callahan cautions. 

But what promised to be an adventure that would take her into the unspoilt wilderness of her imagination turned out to be a very different sort of journey. This week, we sat down with her to chat about everything from the dangers of filming in such remote locations, to the challenges faced by women filmmakers, and the heartbreak that comes with recording environmental devastation in a once-pristine landscape. 

You're boarding a plane bound for the Congo. How did that feel?

It was daunting. I’ve been to many African countries, but the Congo ... everyone talks of this war-torn place, this so-called ‘Heart of Darkness’. You know that when you get there, no matter how many logistical plans you’ve put into place, you’re very much on your own if something happens. There was no medivac to take us out – on my other film shoots there was always that lifeline so I knew we could be flown home if something serious happened. But we couldn’t organise anything like that in the Congo – there isn’t anything like that. If something went wrong we faced a two-hour boat ride to get us to the nearest hospital – and we don’t know what we would have faced at that hospital. You do question if you would get out of a situation like that alive.

You're a woman filmmaker. Does that add to your fears on a shoot like this?

It’s a challenge being the only woman in an all-male crew. They don’t wake up in the morning and think about what it will be like trying to get to a bathroom that day, for a start. We had no running water or electricity for three weeks and we changed camp every day – so I just had to deal with that. And I don’t think men need to think about that as carefully as women do. What I did find empowering was my ability to speak French – thanks to that, I had a totally different experience than I would have otherwise. I was the one who was sent in to negotiate with immigration and other officials, and because I could speak French, they were much more eager to associate with me. In fact, because my second name is Helena – and in Lingala, the language in that area, this means 'the strong woman' – they called me Madame Helene. Wherever I went, that nickname seemed to stick with me.

What's the worst thing about getting ready for a trip like this?

Well, there's the vaccinations! To start with, there's yellow fever and then at the same time they give you a hepatitis jab ... and a typhoid jab ... and a tetanus jab ... and polio! So they pump you full of medication and that was pretty nasty – I got pretty sick for about a week. And then of course malaria. The travel clinic offered me three options and I chose the antibiotic version because I thought that would also cover me if I got any infections on the trip. You have to be on that for around 28 days after you get back, which is horrible. And it makes you very sun-sensitive ... which of course doesn’t help when you’re filming out in the Congo sun all day!

Right, so give us your first impressions!

Let's start with the airport, which in itself is pretty scary. For a start, airport security carry AK47s around! And they’re also very brusque – they shout at you in French, which is quite daunting. Again, I felt lucky that I could speak French, because I would have been terrified the whole time otherwise. I was also really grateful for our 'fixer' at this point, a local guy who specialises as a tour operator for fishing and scientific trips into the Congo. He was crucial when it came down to the paperwork and permits to get us through passport and visa control. And then there was our luggage – we had 20 items of luggage, so that is also difficult to prepare for. And it’s expensive equipment, so all of the crew had to be stationed along the baggage conveyor belt to keep close tabs on it. And once you get through with all of that ... that's when you face the traffic in Kinshasa, which was – I’d never seen anything like it before. There are people pushing carts of stuff down the highway, there are people hanging out of taxis, hanging onto the back bumpers of taxis... There are people crossing the road pushing trolleys piled high with stuff … It’s death-defying just going down the highway!

Traffic aside, what were you scared of most once you arrived?

Funnily enough, the things I was most nervous about were the things that were most unfounded. I was worried about food, not because I’m fussy, but because I was worried about my crew not getting enough. I was worried about someone getting malaria – even though we were on meds (and we took Coartem with us, which treats you if you get sick). I was worried about crocodiles and hippos once we got on the river. And about our filming permits. All totally unfounded. We ate so well that I actually put on weight while I was there. No one got malaria. Our paperwork sailed through. 

So what did scare you? 

The biggest problem was the shock. The shock at the devastation that was there. I had imagined – especially because I was thinking as a producer and a director and about how my film was going to look – these amazing jungly scenes and filming the boat snaking through this lush landscape ... I guess it's that whole 'Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness effect'! In the book, which I had read again before the trip, the narrator talks about millions upon millions of trees, and, sidestepping all the other literary interpretations, I had envisaged that this ‘heart of darkness' was to some extent simply the darkness created by these amazing forests and all of these magnificent trees. That was my vision for what my film was going to look like.

And what was the reality?

The reality was that we travelled for more than 250km from Kinshasa up the Congo River and that entire time we never got to the jungle. And we were devastated. The crew was devastated. There was deforestation on both sides of the bank: on the DRC side of the bank and on the Republic of Congo side, on the other side of the river. There was deforestation as far as the eye could see. And there was also constant fire ... the sun's rays could never fully penetrate the smoke. There was this incessant haze, so much so that all of our footage has this hazy quality. So in the end, for me, the 'heart of darkness' turned out not to be the darkness from this imposing forest, but the darkness from the death of the forest – that’s how I saw it. We often speak of the Congo as the 'green lung' of our planet. If that's the case then that lung has got cancer now. 

Can you describe the logging activities you saw?

We saw huge rafts of logs and huge barges carrying logs travelling down the river – all the time. Some of these 'rafts' were actually themselves made up of thousands of logs with an engine at the end. Others were barges just laden with logs. According to what I've read, you can buy a logging permit here for just $10 – and with that logging permit you can cut as many trees in any area you want to. And each plank that you sell, you’ll get around $5 for it ... so you have to sell only two planks to recoup the cost of that permit. And with that permit you can just keep logging, logging, logging … just chopping down the forest.

Aside from logging on an industrial scale, a lot of the wood goes to charcoal for everyday use – there's no electricity infrastructure, after all. Even the roads, all of that infrastructure that once existed here has collapsed. In a way, the lack of tar roads means less access to the forest, but the loggers just travel everything down the river now – the river is the main ‘motorway’ here. 

Are there any particularly haunting scenes that have stuck with you?

Every now and then we’d see an enormous tree standing all on its own, like this anomaly in the landscape. And we'd wonder why these trees had been spared. We eventually figured out that they had been left behind because they were of no value to the loggers – their bark looked almost like that of a baobab, completely porous and spongy and useless for charcoal. We'd see these giants standing all alone and we'd imagine what the forest must have looked like not that long ago. It was haunting.

On another occasion we filmed a huge fire burning. You could see a few little birds (most of the birds we saw during our time in the Congo were yellow-billed kites, and they’re actually migrants from India), swooping around trying to grab anything that was being burned alive in that forest. And no one seemed to be able to explain to us why this piece of forest was being burned. It seemed insignificant. There didn’t seem to be any awareness of it being a living thing or of it being important.

It's obviously hard for outsiders to understand what life is like for people here – the extreme poverty and the lack of education about just how precious this environment is to their continued existence here. I once spotted our chef on the boat emptying all of our rubbish into the reeds on the river bank. And when I tried to intervene, she said: "But it's the river." It seemed as if it was simply a natural thing for her to do that.

There's another story you touched on about what happened to the zoo animals in Kinshasa. Can you tell us more about that?

There are so many tragic stories about the Kinshasa zoo, including the terrible fate of the animals after the civil war broke out in the late 1990s. But this particular one I heard on the plane on the return trip from a film producer who's been travelling regularly to the Congo for ten years. The story goes that two years ago, there was rioting in the middle of Kinshasa and the rioters broke into the zoo and ate all of the animals. I asked for more details but he told me he was so upset by it at the time that he didn’t want to know any more. In fact, I only heard this story because I'd told him how upset I was by the fact that we had seen no wildlife at all. 

You didn't see any wildlife?!

No wildlife ... and almost no animals at all. I saw a monkey tied to a wooden signpost in a village. And someone once tried to sell me an African grey parrot at a market. And then of course there was the story of the snake. Throughout our trip, we would stop off each night at villages along the side of the river. On this occasion we were just about to leave one of these villages when our cameraman saw a snake in the water next to our boat – a forest cobra. And since the villagers would always come down to the water to send us off (we were a pretty unconventional sight in these parts), they also noticed the snake. For us, this was the first actual wildlife we’d seen, so we were very excited. But for the villagers ... I guess I'll spare you the gory details by just saying that the cobra ended up chopped up in a pot. Our whole group was terribly upset and our cameraman was devastated thinking he could have saved it if he'd been able to catch it and move it to a safer place. He actually ended up making a little 'snake noose' to use if we ever found ourselves in a similar situation. But, of course, we never saw another snake.

That whole experience, for me, just reinforced the idea that there is so little awareness of the value of wildlife as something to be protected. I bought a box of matches at a local market because I loved the fact that the matchboxes here have beautiful illustrations of different butterflies species from the Congo. It made me feel happy that these species were being acknowledged (and we did actually see some butterflies), but I also noticed that the illustrations were not accompanied by any information, or even the names of the butterflies. Just a pretty picture, nothing more. So again, it came down to that lack of knowledge about what is here. It’s when you start knowing and naming things that you become interested in them and care about protecting them.

What about the river itself? Is there any life there?

That question actually brings me back to those fears I mentioned at the start – like hippos in the river. In fact, there was never a hippo or a croc in sight. The chief of one village informed us that the last one he'd seen was killed in 2006. The last hippo in the area, according to a book I read, was killed and sold for $50 at a local market. Bushmeat sells for a fraction of the price of 'regular' meat here, so sadly it’s the only way to obtain protein for most people here. And so there is not a croc or a hippo to ever be worried about – certainly not in the part of the river we travelled on. They have all been killed.

As for the fish, their populations in the river are being decimated. At some point, a new kind of very fine mosquito netting was brought to this part of the Congo to help combat the malaria crisis here. But in a bleak twist, these same nets are now being used to fish in the river – and because they are so fine, absolutely nothing escapes them. Each day we would see all manner of tiny fish fry pulled up from the river – far too small to be of use as food and just an indication of how much damage is being done to the river ecosystem here.  

Amidst all this devastation, is there anything you experienced that gave you hope? 

I know it sounds terrible ... there seems to be only negative things to say. I’ve heard the Congo described as the bleeding heart of Africa ... and that was very poignant to me. After all, if you look at it on a map, it is the heart of Africa and it is the most minerally wealthy country on the planet – just as you would imagine this metaphoric heart should be, full of diamonds, full of gold, full of beautiful ores, full of this forest that shelters these amazing creatures. And yet now it seems to be broken and bleeding. It’s devastating to think about it like that. 

Any parting words?

During this trip, I read a book called Radio Congo, by a young journalist who travelled throughout this region in search of stories about hope, because it seems everyone always talks about the Congo in negative terms rather than trying to discover the positive. There's an excerpt from the book that struck me as particularly powerful as we made our way down the river. So I'll just leave you with that.

This is what the world might look like after an horrendous natural disaster or economic collapse, as humankind, having lost the battle to master the earth and turn it to our own ends, once again finds itself at its mercy, superstitiously reliant on the soil for the slimmest of pickings, eking out a living amid the wreckage of an industrial past. Rather than a throwback, Congo may in fact represent all our futures.

Top header image: Riaan Laubscher

"I have fed species greater than you and I have starved species greater than you ... Your actions will determine your fate. Not mine," says Roberts in her haunting portrayal of 'Mother Nature'. "Here's an idea ... stop killing me," adds Somerhalder as 'Coral Reef'.

The project aims to redefine the way we think about conservation and to remind today's youth that, ultimately, saving our resources is about saving ourselves. "We thought the idea of giving nature a voice, nature having been around billions of years longer than humans, might make it clear to all of us that the planet will evolve with or without humans. It's our choice," explains creative director Lee Chow.

The result serves as a mirror, reflecting our relationship with the various facets of nature in a beautifully memorable way – we've picked out some of our favourites, but you can catch the full series and behind-the-scenes videos here!

Top header image: Patrick Metzdorf, Flickr 

"While the overall level of Chernobyl contamination in plants and animals has fallen, there is still much radioactivity bound in the soil," explains Lavrans Skuterud, a researcher at The Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority. Along with his team and colleagues at the Norwegian Food Safety Autority, Skuterud works to monitor how much of the radioactive isotope cesium-137 is transferred to reindeer, to ensure local communities can trade their meat. 

Fungi are particularly good at absorbing radioactive elements from the soil they grow in, and after what Skuterud describes as an exceptionally wonderful Norwegian summer, contamination levels in the nation's reindeer have reached alarming highs. 

"The maximum values are the highest observed since 1998 – that is the biggest surprise," says Skuterud. "The reason for this is probably a combination of the length of the fungi season (the animals have been eating fungi over several weeks) and the composition of fungi species," he says. "Rozites caperatus does not fruit every year, but this year extreme amounts have been reported from many locations – and this species is among the edible fungi that can take up most radioactive caesium from the soil."

Two years ago, the most radioactive reindeer tested in the region of Vågå contained 1,500 becquerels per kilogram (Bq/kg) of cesium-137. This year, a number of reindeer from the same location topped the charts at 8,200. According to Skuterud, the consensus is that people should not be ingest more than a total of 80,000 Bq/kg per year and generally should not ingest food containing concentrations over 600 Bq/kg. 

"The permissible level of radioactive cesium in traded reindeer meat in Norway is 3,000 Bq/kg," explains Skuterud, adding that this high level was chosen to reduce the cultural consequences for the indigenous people who live by herding. "They were in danger of losing their livelihood. That could have led to more serious health problems than the radioactivity in the meat they sell," he says.

It's important to note that this spike (though unexpected and very abnormal) is not cause for a radiation-related panic attack. Skuterud and his team believe the numbers will fall in winter, as they have observed in previous years ... but for those who rely on reindeer herding to survive, there is little comfort in this.

While sheep farmers have the option to pen and 'clean feed' their livestock (which allows decontamination), animal welfare concerns prevent reindeer herders from doing the same. Having sent over 800 animals back to pasture already, they have no choice but to sit back and wait for their only source of income to become safe for consumption and sale once again.

"Our concerns are for the animal owners – and for how long we will be dealing with the consequences of the Chernobyl accident that happened nearly 30 years ago," says Skuterud."We are therefore again working on our remediation strategies, to see if they can be improved in a way that makes the situation more predictable for the owners."

Top header image: Lavrans Skuterud

Coral reefs are among the most beautiful ecosystems on Earth – "a jeweled belt around the middle of the planet," in oceanographer Sylvia Earle’s words. They also are extremely valuable. Reefs cover less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the ocean floor but support more than 800 species of coral and 4,000 species of fish. They are spawning grounds, coastal buffers against storms and lucrative tourist draws. According to some estimates, the services they provide are worth up to $30 billion yearly.

To the detriment of those benefits, however, coral reefs have been deteriorating since the 1970s under a cascade of human impacts. Overfishing disrupts their complex communities of large predators, smaller prey species and “grazers” such as parrotfish and urchins that clean large algae off corals. Dredging for coastal development clouds water with sediment, blocking sunlight and depleting oxygen. Massive blooms of algae, fed by nutrients in farm runoff and wastewater, smother corals. Pathogens, possibly spread by global shipping, kill off corals and urchins.

Now increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are causing ocean waters to warm and making them more acidic. Warm water causes bleaching episodes in which coral polyps expel the microscopic algae that live inside their tissues and nourish them. Algae provide corals’ color, so the reefs turn white. Corals can recover, but the process stresses and may kill them. Acidification, which occurs as seawater absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere, reduces the amount of carbonate available for corals to build their skeletons, so reefs grow more slowly and become weaker.

But reef specialists aren’t giving up. Some are identifying characteristics that help certain corals tolerate warming and acidification. Others are conditioning corals to thrive in altered oceans, much as athletes train to compete at high altitudes or in harsh weather.

“We’re trying to counter the message that all corals are doomed,” says Ruth Gates, a research professor at the University of Hawaii’s Institute of Marine Biology. “Corals have been evolving on Earth for millions of years, and they’ve survived for good reason.”

Boosting Resilience

Some experts say warming and acidification are receiving too much attention, and that local stresses are more urgent.

“Climate change is only half the story,” says Jeremy Jackson, former director of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at California’s Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Jackson was lead editor of a report published in July by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network that found wide variations in reef decline rates across the Caribbean since the 1970s. While corals had declined by more than 50 percent regionwide since 1970, countries that restricted fishing, coastal development and tourism, such as Bermuda, suffered much less coral loss than those that failed to enact similar controls, such as Jamaica. And healthy reefs weathered hurricanes and bleaching episodes more easily than ones already degraded by overfishing and water pollution.

“Ironically, the United States spends lots of money on monitoring coral reefs, but doesn’t do much to protect them,” says Jackson. “Our strategy seems to be watching them till they die.”

In late August the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration took a first step toward changing that, listing 20 coral species as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The listing means that other federal agencies will have to consult with NOAA before they fund or authorize actions that would affect these corals, such as energy projects, pollution discharge permits, dredging, boat traffic or military activities. And NOAA will work with states and communities to protect the corals through strategies such as reducing land-based pollution and transplanting corals grown in laboratories to repopulate degraded reefs.

Favoring Survivors

To counter warming and acidification, scientists are working to understand why some corals can recover from these stresses more easily than others. The answer lies in some combination of corals’ genetics and their relationships with the microalgae that live inside their tissues and supply them with food.

In a study published in Global Change Biology in July, researchers led by Ohio State University biogeochemist Andréa Grottoli put healthy corals from nine Mexican reefs through two bleaching episodes one year apart. This process simulated conditions that could occur in the Caribbean as soon as 2030, according to current projections.

Some of their findings were surprising. Porites astreoides, a mounding yellow coral that is increasing in some parts of the Caribbean, was modestly affected by the first bleaching but did not fully recover after the second. Other types showed more ability to recover after repeated bleachings.

“What mattered was the size of the corals’ energy reserves, especially stored lipids,” explains Grottoli. “When we starve, our bodies metabolize fat, and other living things do the same thing.” High fat reserves helped corals survive until they could acquire new symbiotic algae. The study also showed that corals capable of partnering with multiple species of algae were more apt to recover.

Grottoli says findings like this could be used to site marine protected areas in zones where conditions favor resilient coral species. “I’d like to see a rethinking of how we define reefs that are worth protecting,” she says. “You need to know about how coral species behave and respond to stress to predict whether they will survive.”

Super-Corals

At the University of Hawaii, Gates is also working to identify corals that can withstand climate stresses. In October 2013 she and Madeleine van Oppen, a senior research scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences, won a contest sponsored by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation that sought strategies to address ocean acidification. Gates and van Oppen plan to develop corals that are highly resistant to climate stresses and use them to recolonize several sites, including a dead reef in Hawaii and a concrete artificial reef.

To develop these super-corals, they are using three tools. The first is epigenetics – changes in gene function that occur when certain parts of an organism’s genetic code are turned on or off in response to environmental cues. “We’re bringing corals that we already know are robust into the lab and exposing them to conditions that they are likely to encounter in altered oceans: We increase water temperature or lower its pH, then bring it back to the starting point, sometimes in combination,” says Gates. “Exercise can turn on rapidly adaptive epigenetic pathways that encourage those high performers to be their very best.”

Second, the researchers are modifying corals’ symbiotic pairings with microalgae. “Some symbionts are always associated with very robust corals, so we’re seeing whether we can introduce them to corals whose symbionts are similar. Symbionts are corals’ food sources, and the robust ones are extremely good food factories,” Gates says. The third tool is to selectively breed hardy corals and freeze their sperm, bio-banking gains in resistance.

Some accounts say Gates and van Oppen are creating “designer reefs,” but Gates disagrees.

“Coral reefs are changing more quickly than corals can find each other and adapt naturally. It’s a time problem. So we are accelerating individuals’ ability to meet and reproduce,” she says. “It would probably happen naturally under benign conditions, but as corals die off, connections are broken, and sperm and eggs don’t meet as easily. We can watch the problem get worse, or propose something that will make a difference.”

The idea is analogous in some ways to assisted migration for animals and plants on land. In both cases, climate change is altering ecosystems faster than organisms can evolve. The ultimate solution is cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but in the short run, helping species adapt could mitigate the damage.

Top header image: Andrew K, Flickr 

Over the past three decades, the world's reefs have lost around 40% of their coral – and saving these unique, fragile and incredibly valuable ecosystems is now a race against time. One major scientific initiative that's racing to do just that is the Catlin Seaview Survey, an ambitious expedition to create a high-res, 360-degree, panoramic record of these underwater wonders. The reasoning behind the project is that we need to get to know the reefs a lot better if we're to stand a chance of saving them. 

The first stage of the epic mapping mission, carried out back in 2012, saw cameras descend on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, before the Catlin team moved its research focus to the reefs of the Caribbean and Bermuda the following year.

And just recently, the spotlight finally fell on United States waters, with Catlin partnering up with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Office of National Marine Sanctuaries to record and reveal the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, home to the only living barrier reef in North America. The team was joined in the field by world-renowned marine conservationist and ex-NOAA chief scientist Sylvia Earle.

CBS News covered this first foray into US waters, and the video below includes a close-up look at the amazing camera equipment that allows the Catlin team to record reefs like never before. It's definitely worth a watch. (You can also feast your eyes on some of the Florida Keys panoramas here, here and here.)

Top header image: Phil's 1stPix, Flickr

"My daughter and her generation are about to inherit the world we're responsible for, and I want to make sure that we leave the Arctic safe from oil companies and protected for good. I'm making this trip because I want Gaia's generation to grow up in a decent and sane world," said the actress ahead of the trip. 

Items on the Arctic agenda included a visit to the world's northernmost climate research station, a night in a trapper's cabin on the ice and visits to retreating glaciers.

The duo took to Twitter to share their day-to-day experiences with followers – a platform the actress needed some daughterly encouragement to embrace. Their tweets (which you can find both at @gp_espy and @savethearctic) convey both their wonder at the region's incredible beauty and their dismay at how it is being transformed by human actions (with a few weather-related gripes thrown in).

#Gaia: It’s flippin’ cold. #Savethearctic http://t.co/YvEjnEKOaQ pic.twitter.com/Pb4mc369SS

— Greenpeace Esperanza (@gp_espy) August 6, 2014 

#Emma: To be allowed to go near this pristine environment and shining, frozen world was a profoundly moving experience. #SaveTheArctic

— Save The Arctic (@savethearctic) August 11, 2014

#Gaia: Piece of plastic floating in the Arctic sea, miles from civilisation. This is what pollution is, & what we're fighting to stop

— Greenpeace Esperanza (@gp_espy) August 7, 2014

#Emma: Blubber fjord is both breathtaking and tragic. Ten glaciers retreating. It's like visiting a graveyard. #SaveTheArctic

— Save The Arctic (@savethearctic) August 7, 2014

Thompson also took the opportunity to send a few stern dispatches to world leaders. On a visit to the Smeerenburg glacier east of Greenland, the actress was photographed holding a sign with a message for Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott (whose attacks on climate action and affinity for coal mines have drawn some sharp criticism).

In a recent blog post, she again emphasised the role that governments should play in taking action on climate change and protecting the North Pole. "We're told that it is all our fault, global warming – we want the fuel, we want our cars, and that the oil industry is merely responding to the needs of a greedy public. But that's simply not fair. Most of us want to live cleaner lives, but our governments don't make these things easily available," she said. 

"[Use] your voice. Know that you have power and you can make your government listen," she added. 

Yesterday, @gp_espy tweeted this video of more moving words from Thompson, read out by her on board the Esperanza. Worth a watch. 

Top header image: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Flickr

Environmental experts monitoring Ghana’s largest and most toxic e-waste site at Agbogbloshie, in Accra, are convinced that elements of organised crime are involved. The dumping is consistent, it follows a certain pattern, and it's clear that there are people behind the movement of this e-waste who are constantly finding new ways in which to transport it from developed countries, and evade authorities, in order to dump it in Ghana. In other words, it is deliberate and it is criminal.

Direct evidence points to shipments from the UK, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, USA, Canada and Australia. Except for the USA, all of these countries are signatories to the 1989 Basel Convention, which aims to stop hazardous waste (of which e-waste is a part) from crossing borders. Considering their commitment to this agreement, and with compliance being monitoring by intergovernmental organisations, why is it that e-waste shipments continue to be exported?

Part of the answer lies in the safety measures governing the disposal and processing of e-waste within developed countries: because the rules are very strict, recycling e-waste is very expensive. As a low-cost option, many illegal e-waste traders pose as legitimate recycling outfits offering affordable, quick-fix collection services for businesses and households. But rather than recycle or dispose of the items within the country, the fraudsters pack the waste into shipping containers, label it as 'reusable household items', 'secondhand functioning equipment' or 'donated electronic items' ... and then ship it off to e-waste dumps in the developing world.

For many of those who've paid for the service, it's simply a matter of 'out of sight, out of mind': once your old computer, broken microwave or unfashionable TV has been picked up, why should you care what happens to it, right? But if you do care, and if you have witnessed the horrifying consequences of e-waste dumping as I have, the question becomes: how does this e-waste get into Ghana?

The responsibility for monitoring shipments that enter the ports lies with Ghana's Department of Trade and Industry – it should presumably be scrutinising any cargo that comes ashore and instituting far stricter controls to prevent e-waste from entering the country. The department was contacted some time ago for their side of the story and promised to respond ... but it's yet to release a statement on the matter.

One thing is clear when observing containers of e-waste being transported from Ghana's Tema Port to Agbogbloshie: syndicates have local contacts that receive and dump the shipments. Are the contacts using bribery to encourage port officials to turn a blind eye? It's probable. Of course, the truck drivers and assistants, and many other workers along this murky supply chain, are probably simply doing their jobs – unaware of the bigger picture. The syndicates' kingpins, however, are clearly willing to go to any lengths to hide their toxic cargo.

With illegal shipments rolling in, the Agbogbloshie e-waste site has become an environmental disaster zone. Its toxic reach is also spreading over the rest of Accra, often in unforeseen ways. Large quantities of fresh produce sold at Agbogbloshie market, for instance, are contaminated by high levels of toxins originating from air pollution or the poisoned water from the nearby Donsu River. This tainted produce is making its way to smaller fruit and vegetable stands all across Accra.

So what is the solution? Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) claims it's made all possible efforts to discourage the dumping and burning of e-waste here. Significantly, it also says it's fighting a losing battle against a loophole in the Basel Convention.

The loophole makes allowances for the exportation of e-waste on provision of what's called an offer and acceptance agreement. It goes something like this: if a company in the UK makes a formal offer to donate 'usable secondhand' computers to an NGO in Ghana and that NGO accepts the offer (and all supporting export/import documentation backs up the agreement) then port authorities and the EPA cannot intervene. With no complaints from the supposed NGO regarding the state of the items imported, the importation continues unexamined and unabated.  

Of course, in a some cases, this may actually be a legitimate transaction ... which makes it all that much harder to clamp down on the illegal cases without depriving genuine schools and NGOs of much-needed electronic equipment. To stem the flow of e-waste, the loophole needs to be recognised by the signatories to the Convention as well as the Ghanaian government, and remedied through tighter legislation and prosecution.

And what about those of us who sit at the source of the e-waste trail? We all need to start demanding accountability from our governments and major IT and electronics producers. More importantly, we need to consider the life cycle of our electronic gadgets, and remember that what we throw away today is still around tomorrow. It might not be in your dustbin, but it will be polluting the environment somewhere else in the world. 

Read the first part of the Agbogbloshie story here.

On Saturday March, 29, 2014 at 8:30pm, millions of people across the globe are switching off their lights for one hour to celebrate their commitment to the planet. At Earth Touch, we're turning off and letting nature provide the soundtrack.

Good news from America's Pacific coast – at least for one endangered seabird species. A new agreement this week between the Center for Biological Diversity and the California Department of Parks and Recreation will significantly increase protections for the marbled murrelet, a chubby-looking seabird with a pretty unusual avian lifestyle.

In a press release this week, the Center explained that visitor garbage in campgrounds and picnic areas in Big Basin Redwoods State Park – as well as two other redwood national parks, Portola and Butano State Parks – has led to unnaturally high densities of ravens and Steller’s jays, birds that love to feast on murrelet eggs and chicks. Scientists have found that high nest predation is a primary factor driving the declines of murrelets in the region, the press release said.

The equation is simple, according to the US National Park Service: more human food available to jays in an area = more jays in that area = more murrelet eggs eaten and more dead chicks.

The marbled murrelet is listed as endangered under the California Endangered Species Act and threatened under the US Endangered Species Act, with only about 450 individuals surviving in the Santa Cruz Mountains today (the most endangered and southernmost population on the West Coast).

But what's so unusual about the murrelet's lifestyle? The reclusive birds have always been shrouded in mystery ... they even earned the title 'enigmas of the Pacific'. Why? It all comes down to their strange nesting habits. As recently as 1974, scientists didn’t really have a clue where the seabirds reared their young. And that's not really surprising ... nobody expected birds that spend their lives at sea to be nesting many kilometres from water, high up in the branches of ancient redwoods. When the first nest was accidentally discovered by a maintenance worker, the find allowed scientists to finally crack one of the biggest remaining bird-science riddles in the US.  

We now know that murrelets fly as far as 80 kilometres (50 miles) inland to lay a single egg high in the old-growth forest canopy, on which the species depends for survival. (This great clip by the US Fish and Wildlife Service gives a nice background to the species and some of the threats it faces.) When incubating and feeding their chick, the adults will cover the distance between nest and coast on countless back-and-forth journeys.

Sadly, commercial logging has decimated 95% of the birds' nesting habitat, leaving mainly just the three redwood state parks in which the birds can rear their young. But even with these supposedly protected areas, at‐sea population monitoring surveys over the past ten years indicate an overall population drop of about 29%. Additional studies linked this decline to a high rate of nest predation, which is compounded by the increase of predator populations that thrive on trash left by visitors to the parks.

That's why this week’s settlement is "great news for murrelets in the Santa Cruz Mountains," said Shaye Wolf, a biologist at the Center for Biological Diversity. "These remarkable seabirds are dangerously close to extinction, and many park visitors would be shocked to learn that their trash adds to this decline. The new protections will help make sure murrelets have a safe place to nest in our state parks again."

The agreement calls for better trash management systems in the parks, requiring animal-proof food-storage lockers at all campsites, installation of indoor dishwashing stations, and increased trash pickup to prevent dumpster overflow. It also stipulates annual monitoring of the bird’s status and predator numbers, and a comprehensive assessment every three years requiring further action if the murrelet status does not improve.

Finally, an extensive public outreach programme will be launched, making the murrelet a focal point of the parks, and including signs, displays and videos in English and Spanish in all visitor areas to inform the public about how to avoid harming murrelets.

To support or donate to the Center for Biological Diversity’s efforts to protect the marbled murrelet, click here.

To header image: Guy Monty, Flickr 

Microbeads are tiny polystyrene particles less than 5mm in diameter. They’re small enough to be washed down the drain, where you may promptly forget about them ... but they go on to wreak havoc in the water systems into which they flow.

Studies in North America’s Great Lakes, for example, have found alarmingly high concentrations of small plastic particles in the lakes, suspected to be microbeads from personal hygiene products.

Because of their small size and buoyancy, microbeads escape treatment by sewage plants and are discharged into rivers, lakes and oceans. Mistaken for food, they’re ingested by small fish and other aquatic life. But the problem isn’t just the obvious belly-aching threat of swallowing plastic. The plastic beads also accumulate toxic chemicals that may be found in the water, poisoning the fish. 

These fish, of course, are then eaten by larger fish, birds and other animals. Fast-forward down the food chain, and humans may also be affected by the chemicals in the meat that we eat.

This week, the 5 Gyres Institute, a non-profit California-based environmental activist group, introduced ground-breaking legislation with New York’s Attorney General to prohibit the sale of personal care products containing plastic microbeads in the eastern state.

According to a press release, the Microbead-Free Waters Act will prohibit the production, manufacture, distribution and sale in New York of beauty and cosmetic products that contain tiny plastic particles marketed as microbeads. The beads, which were recently found in alarmingly high levels in the New York waters of Lake Erie, can persist in the environment for centuries and accumulate toxic chemicals on their surface, threatening fish, wildlife and public health.

Similar legislation is also on the cards in California. If passed, it would make the state the largest in the US to ban microbead-laced cosmetics. 

“I never met anyone who has wanted plastic on their face or in their fish,” commented Robert K. Sweeney, Chair of the Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee. “When people learn more about this issue,” he continued, “they will be unwilling to sacrifice water quality just to continue to use products with plastic microbeads.”

The crazy thing is that beauty buffs needn’t even sacrifice their skin. According to cosmeceutical company Natural Sourcing, you can get great glowing face results from organic exfoliants made from nuts, fruits and grains, or even sugar or salt.

Major beauty product manufacturers Proctor and Gamble, Unilever and Colgate-Palmolive have already committed to phasing out the use of microbeads in their products, and we can only hope that others will follow – quickly. If you want to take a simple, sanctioned stand against the microbead threat, avoid products containing the ingredients 'polyethylene' or 'polypropylene'.

Top header image: Lizzie Pridmore, Flickr