Humans have helped save the great apes from extinction, but are now the biggest threat to their survival as they compete for land in east Africa’s Virunga mountains
• Photographs by Badru Katumba for the Guardian
It is sunrise on mount Muhabura, an inactive volcano on the Ugandan-Rwandan border, and Dr Benard Ssebide is in a rush to find a family of mountain gorillas before the tourists arrive. A mass of ferns, vines and thistles encroaches on the path, and the guides hack through brambles with machetes. Above, the forest whistles in the wind, glowing in the morning light.
“The higher you go, the more the mountain pushes back,” Ssebide says, pausing for breath.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
09/27/2025 - 06:00
09/27/2025 - 00:00
Consider the annihilation of agricultural land alongside the genocide – and grasp the chilling totality of this attempt to eliminate all life
A landless people and a peopleless land: these, it appears, are the aims of the Israeli government in Gaza. There are two means by which they are achieved. The first is the mass killing and expulsion of the Palestinians. The second is rendering the land uninhabitable. Alongside the crime of genocide, another great horror unfolds: ecocide.
While the destruction of buildings and infrastructure in Gaza is visible in every video we see, less visible is the parallel destruction of ecosystems and means of subsistence. Before the 7 October atrocity that triggered the current assault on Gaza, about 40% of its land was farmed. Despite its extreme population density, Gaza was mostly self-sufficient in vegetables and poultry, and met much of the population’s demand for olives, fruit and milk. But last month the UN reported that just 1.5% of its agricultural land now remains both accessible and undamaged. That’s roughly 200 hectares – the only remaining area directly available to feed more than 2 million people.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
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09/26/2025 - 10:00
Murray Watt says ‘it’s not the government’s intention to stop old growth logging’ as Greens and academics press for total halt
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The Albanese government is being urged to end old growth logging “at a minimum” in order to meet a 2035 emissions reduction target recommended by the Climate Change Authority.
One of Australia’s most respected forest scientists, Prof David Lindenmayer, of the Australian National University, has also written to the authority questioning why it did not go further in its advice and recommend an end to all native forest logging.
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09/25/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 26 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00147-0
Assessing fishing gear disposal practices in coastal communities from the Gulf of Guinea and the implications on the sustainability of the blue economy
Six key policy recommendations to advocate for marine conservation that matches the ocean’s dynamism
09/25/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 26 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00151-4
Marine ecosystems face threats from human-induced stressors like climate change, pollution, and habitat loss. Despite international endeavors, significant gaps remain in understanding ocean dynamics. This article presents six policy recommendations to integrate plankton populations into conservation frameworks. These could be leveraged in the process approved at CBD’s COP16 in Colombia to update criteria for defining ecologically or biologically significant marine areas (EBSAs) and supporting science-based Marine Protected Area (MPA) designations.
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | [email protected] +12077011069
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