Our Pacific Political Advisor Seni Nabou reports back from the first few days of meetings at the UN's Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD), in Nagoya, Japan.
Trying to save the planet can sometimes mean you have to spend hours in hot, stuffy meeting rooms listening to complex discussions that often go nowhere.
It is without a doubt that our oceans are an integral part of human survival and crucial to how Mother Nature goes about her business on a day-to-day basis and maintains. After all, 80% of all the life on Earth lies beneath the surface of our seas.
Last week, treasured Australian writer Tim Winton delivered this powerful speech (read the full transcript here) to parliament in Canberra calling for protection of our vital oceans.
For many people the Antarctic is little more than a far-away frozen region, literally at the edge of the world; with sterile glaciers, icebergs and colonies of not-so ‘Happy Feet’ penguins, buffeted for much of their lives in the extreme Antarctic wind.
Australia is about to have one of the world’s biggest fishing vessels – from a fleet that has a track record of obliterating fish stocks around the world – enter its shores.
Imagine a world, not very far in the future, where families shun the idea of a seaside holiday because the sea is too unpleasant to visit, perhaps even dangerous. The beach is heaped with rotting green seaweed and bodies of jellyfish litter the strand. Getting in the water you risk illness; even the air might be poisonous. If this sounds unlikely, think again: it is all happening somewhere, right now.
We Australians love a local link. When big news happens around the world, instinctively the first thing we check is whether an Aussie was involved. But, this time around, the story is coming to us in the form of the imminent arrival of the 142 metre long Margiris super trawler.