Breaking Waves: Ocean News

03/29/2024 - 06:00
Analysis finds majority of paraquat, banned in 60 countries, is used in counties where Latinos make up 75% of the population or higher Low-income Latinos living in California are disproportionately threatened by paraquat, a highly toxic herbicide widely used on US cropland, a new analysis of state data finds. The notorious weedkiller is banned in more than 60 countries and for some uses in the US, like golf courses, because it is so dangerous. But the US government still allows its use on crops, putting agricultural workers or those living in communities near where it is spread at risk. Continue reading...
03/29/2024 - 06:00
Vivien Sansour, founder of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library, believes biodiversity will save the planet in the climate crisis The first year that the Hudson Valley Seed Company tried growing yakteen at their farm in upstate New York, the heirloom variety of Palestinian gourd quickly spread until its vines were sending their tendrils across a full acre of land. Born of a partnership with the artist, researcher and conservationist Vivien Sansour, that pilot plot was just one of many pieces of evidence supporting Sansour’s thesis: that saving Palestinian heirloom seeds could benefit not just Palestinians, but could help feed an entire planet in crisis. Sansour is the founder of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library, a project that began in 2016 to conserve Palestinian heritage and culture by saving heirloom seed varieties and telling the stories and history from which they emerged. Continue reading...
03/29/2024 - 05:48
Germans want to ban ‘torture breeding’ for extreme characteristics. Plus: don’t even think about swimming in British waters this Easter I’ll say this for the Germans: when they’re right, they’re so right. Word reaches us that dachshunds are to be banned in Germany. Continue reading...
03/29/2024 - 04:30
Descendants of enslaved miners who dug up gold, silver and emeralds worth billions call on Colombia to halt plan to lift cargo Indigenous communities in Bolivia have objected to Colombia’s plans to recover the remains of an 18th-century galleon believed to be carrying gold, silver and emeralds worth billions, calling on Spain and Unesco to step in and halt the project. Colombia hopes to begin recovering artefacts from the wreck of the San José in the coming months but the Caranga, Chicha and Killaka peoples in Bolivia argue that the excavation would rob them of their “common and shared” heritage. Continue reading...
03/29/2024 - 04:00
Exclusive: Satellite analysis revealed to the Guardian shows farms devastated and nearly half of the territory’s trees razed. Alongside mounting air and water pollution, experts says Israel’s onslaught on Gaza’s ecosystems has made the area unlivable In a dilapidated warehouse in Rafah, Soha Abu Diab is living with her three young daughters and more than 20 other family members. They have no running water, no fuel and are surrounded by running sewage and waste piling up. Like the rest of Gaza’s residents, they fear the air they breathe is heavy with pollutants and that the water carries disease. Beyond the city streets lie razed orchards and olive groves, and farmland destroyed by bombs and bulldozers. Continue reading...
03/29/2024 - 03:00
When the research team at Vernadsky base are not defending their homeland, they are on the frontline of the climate crisis When Ukraine’s Antarctic research and supply vessel Noosfera left Odesa on its maiden voyage on 28 January 2022, it passed Russian warships in the Black Sea. A month later, Vladimir Putin launched Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour. Noosfera has not been back since. “A few weeks later, and Noosfera would have been an important symbolic target for Russia,” said Vadym Tkachenko, a biologist who recently completed his second Antarctic winter at Ukraine’s Vernadsky base. The ship now supplies both Ukrainian and Polish Antarctic bases from Chile and South Africa twice a year, at the start and end of the winter. Continue reading...
03/29/2024 - 03:00
The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...
03/29/2024 - 00:00
Poor harvests in extreme weather conditions have led to a tripling of cocoa prices – but farmers have seen no benefit Around the world this holiday weekend, people will consume hundreds of millions of Easter eggs and bunnies, as part of an annual chocolate intake that can exceed 8kg (18lb) for every person in the UK, or 5kg in the US and Europe. But a global shortage of cacao – the seed from which chocolate is made – has brought warnings of a “chocolate meltdown” that could see prices increase and bars shrink further. This week, cocoa prices rose to all-time highs on commodity exchanges in London and New York, reaching more than $10,000 a tonne for the first time, after the third consecutive poor harvest in west Africa. Ghana and Ivory Coast, which together produce more than half of the global cacao crop, have been hit by extreme weather supercharged by the climate crisis and the El Niño weather phenomenon. This has been exacerbated by disease and underinvestment in ageing plantations. Continue reading...
03/28/2024 - 10:13
A process called biofortification puts nutrients directly into seeds and could reduce global hunger, but it’s not a magic bullet In 2004, Donald Davis and fellow scientists at the University of Texas made an alarming discovery: 43 foods, mostly vegetables, showed a marked decrease in nutrients between the mid and late 20th century. According to that research, the calcium in green beans dropped from 65 to 37mg. Vitamin A levels plummeted by almost half in asparagus. Broccoli stalks had less iron. Continue reading...
03/28/2024 - 07:19
Experts are trying everything from drums to whale calls to lure kʷiisaḥiʔis – or Brave Little Hunter – out of the Canadian lagoon she has been trapped in since the stranding death of her mother As a two-year-old orca calf circled a lagoon off the west coast of Canada on Monday, she heard a comforting sound resonating through the unfamiliar place in which she found herself: the clicks and chirps of her great-aunt. But the calf, named kʷiisaḥiʔis (pronounced kwee-sahay-is, which roughly translates as Brave Little Hunter) by local First Nations people, could not locate another whale in the shallow waters. The calls, broadcast from speakers placed underwater, were part of a complex and desperate operation still under way to try to save the stranded calf. Continue reading...