The country’s fisheries and the health of its seas still rely on a method practised for nearly 1,000 years – catching skipjack tuna one fish at a time
Photographs and video by Ibrahim Bassam
At 3.04am, most of the residents of the northern Maldivian island village of Kanditheemu are fast asleep. Only the faint sound of waves lapping against anchored boats and the crunch of sand under weathered sandals breaks the silence. Carrying buckets and small bags, 14 fishers emerge and move quietly towards the harbour, crossing a narrow wooden plank to board a 24-metre-long dhoni boat named Mas Vaali.
For captain Ibrahim Hamid, 61, this routine has been the same for decades: rise before dawn, steer a dhoni across the Indian Ocean, and oversee a crew hauling in silvery skipjack tuna using single poles and lines – in a process that is often unchanged from how they fished as boys.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
09/04/2025 - 02:00
09/04/2025 - 00:00
Scientists say ozone is warming Earth by 40% more than expected but that repair is still right thing to do
The repair of the Earth’s ozone layer has been a success, but a new study reveals a downside: ozone is warming the planet up to 40% more than originally anticipated.
Bill Collins from the University of Reading and his colleagues used a computer model to project the amount of warming associated with changes in ozone between 2015 and 2050, taking into account changes in humidity, clouds and surface reflectivity. If we continue to implement the air pollution controls mandated by the Montreal protocol in 1987 their results, which are published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, suggest that the healing of the ozone layer will create more warming, cancelling out most of the climate benefits from stopping production of ozone destroying chemicals such as CFCs and HCFCs.
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09/03/2025 - 23:00
Wildfires were 30% more intense than would have been expected without global heating, scientists say
The extreme weather that fuelled “astonishing” blazes across Spain and Portugal last month was made 40 times more likely by climate breakdown, early analysis suggests.
The deadly wildfires, which torched 500,000 hectares (1.2m acres) of the Iberian peninsula in a matter of weeks, were also 30% more intense than scientists would have expected in a world without climate change, according to researchers from the World Weather Attribution network.
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09/03/2025 - 23:00
Review says ministers have only ‘small chance’ of wiping out bovine tuberculosis by 2038 without more investment
Labour can end the badger cull but only with a Covid-19 style focus on testing and vaccinating, the author of a government-commissioned report has said.
Ministerial plans to stop the shooting of the animals can be achieved but at a cost to the Treasury, the report warns.
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09/03/2025 - 06:30
US schools were built for a cooler climate that no longer exists. Now they face record-high temperatures
As schools are returning to session following one of the hottest summers ever recorded, districts are faced with a new problem: how to handle increasingly extreme heatwaves, both in and outside the classroom.
Unbearably hot days are no longer just a summer problem. In the US districts from the north-east to the mountain west to the deep south are shortening days, delaying openings, and reworking calendars as temperatures spike during August and September, the typical back-to-school months.
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09/03/2025 - 04:32
BYD overtakes Mitsubishi after nearly quadrupling sales in past year, according to official figures, as GWM, MG and Chery also surge
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Australians bought more than 20,000 Chinese-made vehicles in August, putting four Chinese brands into the top 10 for the first time, while Tesla sales have slumped by more than a third.
BYD came in sixth for the month, overtaking Mitsubishi, after its sales nearly quadrupled compared with August 2024, while GWM, MG and Chery each outsold Isuzu Ute in the month to round out the top 10.
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09/03/2025 - 02:56
Oil firm, which paused project in 2024, will not restart work because facility deemed ‘insufficiently competitive’
Shell has axed the construction of its biofuels plant in the Netherlands, ending what would have been one of the biggest converters of waste into green jet fuel in Europe.
The oil company, which paused construction at the site in July last year to tackle technical problems, said it had decided not to restart building after it found the plant would be “insufficiently competitive” to meet demand for “affordable, low-carbon products”.
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09/03/2025 - 02:36
The hole – about 100 metres deep – was not visible from the surface – and there could be thousands more like it
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A study of one abandoned coal exploration borehole in a Queensland paddock has found it was leaking the same amount of greenhouse gases in a year as about 10,000 cars – and there could be thousands more just like it.
Scientists at the University of Queensland also monitored a second coal exploration bore that was emitting about the same amount of methane and was forcing groundwater several metres into the air like a geyser.
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09/03/2025 - 02:00
A future of extreme heatwaves, drought and collapsing habitats awaits if we continue to ignore the danger signs
What does British summertime mean to you? Blackberries? Picnics? Festivals? Ticks? This summer has been the hottest on record in the UK. As human-caused climate breakdown intensifies, the outdoor areas we spend time in are changing – and so, too, are our relationships with the land and the ecosystems we live in.
My home is in the south of England, near beautiful woodlands. Since moving there in 2016, the number of ticks my family has picked up in the woods has increased each year, but this summer has been astonishing. For a few weeks, our four-year-old came home from nursery with a tick almost every day. I’ve had many: some tiny nymphal ones that could be easily missed. We spend time in Scotland, too, and find ticks often when we go there now.
Lucy Jones is a journalist and the author of Losing Eden and The Nature Seed
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09/03/2025 - 00:00
Hundreds of billions of dollars invested in extractive mining for green transition with few safeguards, research finds
The financing of transition mineral mining is driving widespread environmental destruction and human rights abuses, according to a report.
Banks and investors have ploughed hundreds of billions of dollars into companies mining for minerals for the manufacture of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, energy grids and electric vehicles in the past decade, according to the research.
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