Sinking Islands
In the south of Bangladesh, one of the countries most at threat from climate change, entire islands are being washed away by tidal surges and storms leaving their inhabitants in increasingly desperate straits. A IRIN video documentary.
No Refuge: Tons of Trash Covers The Remote Shores of Alaska
A marine biologist traveled to southwestern Alaska in search of ocean trash that had washed up along a magnificent coast rich in fish, birds, and other wildlife. He and his colleagues found plenty of trash – as much as a ton of garbage per mile on some beaches.
Australian Surfer Sent Flying by Visiting Whale
A huge whale made an appearance among the wave riders at Sydney’s famed Bondi Beach early Sunday and sent one of them flying with its tail. Whales are a common sight off Sydney’s coast at this time of year as they migrate north, but it is very rare for them to swim so close to beaches.
Sustainable Energy On Sinking Islands: United Arab Emirates Puts Wind Turbines In Seychelles
The project links a pair of strange bedfellows: One is an oil-rich Persian Gulf state of 8 million ruled by a dynastic monarchy, and the other is a democratically governed island nation of 86,000 where tropical beaches and hotels lure more than 200,000 well-heeled tourists every year.
Scientists Discover Thriving Colonies of Microbes in Ocean ‘Plastisphere’
Scientists have discovered a diverse multitude of microbes colonizing and thriving on flecks of plastic that have polluted the oceans—a vast new human-made flotilla of microbial communities that they have dubbed the “plastisphere.”
Sand Thieves Are Eroding World’s Beaches For Castles Of Cash
The pillaging of sand is a growing practice in the world. Taken by hand, three or four meters deep in the Maldives archipelago, or transported on a donkey, or sucked up by huge sand boats in Asia, coastal sand mining, authorized or unlawful, is exploding.
How Should We Respond When Humans and Sharks Collide?
With more and more people using the ocean, the way we talk about shark attacks and the methods governments use to reduce the risk of shark bites have evolved over time. A study of how the public and governments respond to shark bites in North America, Australia, and Africa.
Simultaneous Disasters Batter Pacific Islands
High tides have surged over sea walls defending the capital of the Marshall Islands, adding to the crisis situation in this tiny Pacific nation, where a state of emergency was declared only last month because of a devastating drought in the scattered northern atolls.
Chinese Beaches Overwhelmed by Algae
The seas of China have been hit by their largest ever growth of algae. A large quantity of non-poisonous green seaweed, enteromorpha prolifera, hit the Qingdao coast in recent days. More than 20,000 tons of such seaweed has been removed from the city’s beaches.