Last < week I attended the Second African Marine Debris Summit, which although focused primarily on the African pollution problem, provided valuable insights into waste on a global scale. Serious and sobering statistics were bandied about such as the 30 to 40 billion tonnes (one million tonnes every 15 minutes) of waste produced annually on a worldwide scale, beaches being major plastics and other waste sinks. But what particularly struck me (and brought tears to my eyes), was a presentation about the rehabilitation of turtles like gentle Bob, a green turtle rescued by the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town, who had ingested a large amount of plastic and deflated balloons, as Bob's story "humanised" the whole awful garbage debacle. Of the world's seven sea turtle species, two are vulnerable, two are endangered, two are critically endangered and one is data deficient, which means that there is not enough data to provide an accurate picture of its status. Within just three generations there has been an overall decline of over 80% in sea turtle populations due to factors like beach pollution and the catching of turtles as by-catch. According to Helen Lockhart, Communications and Sustainability Manager of the Two Oceans Aquarium, only one in 1000 hatchlings will survive to adulthood, which makes each one of these little chaps incredibly important.

Sea turtles play a valuable role in two important ecosystems, the beach or dune system and the marine system, wherein they maintain the health of sea-grass beds and coral reefs, benefiting commercial fisheries like shrimp, lobster and tuna. Because turtle nestings deliver nutrients to beaches, they also help terrestrial vegetation growth, limiting erosion.

For the sake of gentle Bob and other marine creatures we must take better care of our marine environment, for without a healthy ocean there will be no life on land.

On World Oceans Day, this is what you can do to help preserve the marine environment:

• Join < environmental groups that will give voice to your particular concerns. • Consider the environmental impact of each of your lifestyle choices. • Do everything possible to reduce your carbon footprint. • Try and limit your car journeys and/or join a car pool. • Switch to cleaner technologies such as hybrid vehicles and solar energy. • Products don’t litter, people do. Beach litter spoils beaches and finds its way into the sea to kill sea creatures. Use litterbins or take litter home with you. • Don’t carelessly discard cigarette butts. Besides potentially starting fires they are not biodegradable as the filters are made of a type of acetate that never fully breaks down. • The largest component of waste is organic matter. Start a compost heap. • Plant trees to improve air quality and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which would otherwise be taken up by the ocean, the planet's carbon sink. • Help in the restoration of wetlands as they act as natural traps for nutrients like nitrogen, which they sponge up before it can damage aquatic systems. • Use environmentally sensitive cleaning products, buy in bulk, use concentrates and opt for refill packs that use up to 70% less packaging material. • Between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year with less than 1% of the bags being recycled. Plastic bags are made from both high-density (HDPE) and low-density (LDPE) polyethylene, a thermoplastic made from oil that photodegrades over time breaking down into smaller, more toxic petro-polymers that eventually contaminate soils and waterways and find their way into the ocean. One cloth bag saves six plastic bags a week, 24 a month, 288 bags and year and 22 176 bags in an average lifetime. By using cloth shopping bags you will help to reduce foreign oil dependency, while reducing litter and the amount of plastic bags in our landfills. Ingested plastic causes bowel obstructions, leading to fatalities in whales, birds and sea turtles.
• 35% of the world’s food ends up in landfills which is a shocking waste. Buy what you need and use what you buy.
• Throw less away by re-using household items e.g. plastic bags can be used as bin liners, plastic food containers as seed trays, plastic ice-cream containers as freezer and/or storage containers and soft drink bottles as portable water bottles for the car or at the beach.
• By recycling just one plastic bottle you can save enough energy to power a 60W light bulb for six hours. By recycling one soft drinks can you can save enough energy to run a television set for three hours and by producing glass from recycled glass, air pollution can be reduced by 20% and related water pollution by 50%. Drop recyclable items like soft drink cans, plastic bottles, glass bottles and waste paper off at supermarket collection points, municipal garden drop-off sites and charities’ paper banks. Also make use of kerbside collection services.
• When buying personal or corporate gifts support waste art initiatives and waste craft outlets. And avoid buying non-essential party items like balloons, drinking straws etc as these plastic items find their way into the ocean, causing blockages in the digestive systems of sea creatures, killing them – one 66g sea turtle hatchling was found with 1 gram of plastic in its gut!
• Become creative when wrapping gifts by making use of outdated calendars, discarded magazines, brown paper and read newspapers. Tie parcels with biodegradable string.
• Substitute reusable items for single use products. By using washable cotton swabs in the kitchen for example, instead of paper towels, some 27 million trees can be saved each year.
• Start an office recycling initiative by providing staff members with separate containers for office paper, cardboard, glass, cans and plastics bottles, as well as cartridges and electronic waste. Make use of office paper pick-up programmes.
• In the office make double-sided copies, use email for memos and other inter-office communications and use shredded paper for packing material.
• In terms of e-Waste buy electronics that are rechargeable.
• Buy energy-saving electronic devices e.g. LCD television sets use less energy than plasmas.
• When electronic devices are not in use pull plugs out or put electronics and chargers on a power strip, simply flipping the power strip off when the electronics are not in use.
• Make use of collection points for items like compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) as they contain an average of 4mg of mercury sealed within the glass tubing that would be released to the environment in a landfill or find its way into the ocean.
• Make use of supplier take-back programmes for unwanted equipment.
• Donate old electronics to organisations and charities that will recycle and reuse them.

We < all know that there have never been as many people on the planet as there are now, but here are some mind-boggling statistics to put our numbers into perspective: In the 17th Century there were half-a-billion people. By the beginning of the 19th Century this figure had doubled to one billion. By 1940 there were three billion people and at the end of the last century, despite the attrition of a world war and a number of regional conflicts, there were six billion people. Every year we are adding 80 million people to the global population, the equivalent of 10 New York cities, which by 2030 is likely to take us to almost eight-and-a-half billion people. And by the half-century, within just two generations, there could be nearly 10 billion people on the planet. Until the modern era, less than 3% of the world’s population lived in communities of 5000 people. However, in 2008 the global urban population exceeded the rural one for the first time in history and today half of the world’s people live in urban areas with nearly one-quarter living within 100 km of the coast and 13% living less than 10 metres above sea level.

By 2025 the number of urban dwellers is expected to increase to 60% or five billion people and by 2050, 70% of the global population will be urbanised, most of the urban demographic transformation taking place in Asia and Africa (by 2050 one-third of all urban dwellers will be concentrated in Asia.) An estimated 62% of new development will consist of slums. Such wholesale urbanisation will drastically alter the world’s physical landscape, with new cities being spawned and older ones abandoned. Urban land-use and land-cover changes will also have considerable impacts on climate brought about through phenomena such as the urban heat island effect.

Unless we take care to preserve terrestrial and marine environments our children’s children could have an “extinction of experience”, meaning that tomorrow’s children could be denied the wonder of connecting to and interacting with the natural world. This disconnection would render future generations increasingly out of touch with what is wild and free.

On < World Hunger Day I went to bed with a comfortably full stomach, while many millions around the world didn't. One of the Millennium Development Goals was to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by 2015. This hasn't been achieved even with our present model of huge monoculture holdings. Perhaps the answer to eliminating world hunger lies in going small and changing what we eat and how we grow the food that we eat. With our current agricultural model it takes at least 2 000 litres of water to produce enough food for one person for one day. Irrigation currently accounts for 70% of all water withdrawals worldwide, with some countries already using more than 40% of their renewable water resources for irrigation. By 2030 when the world needs 55% more food, we may have eaten our way to a thirsty future. In terms of what we eat consider this - it takes 7 kgs of grain to add 1 kg of live weight to beef; 4 kgs of grain for 1 kg of pork; and 2 kgs of grain for 1 kg each of fish and poultry. People in the affluent West are eating the equivalent of 800 kgs of grain per year, mainly eaten indirectly in the form of beef, mutton, pork, poultry, milk, cheese and ice cream. While people in some undeveloped countries are eating less than 100 kgs of grain a year, eaten directly. This is disproportionate in terms of global agricultural carrying capacity. More worrying, however, is how the world will feed itself as we are currently appropriating 40% of Net Primary Production (NPP) on land and within 60 years this figure could rise to as much as 80%, which means there will be little space for the plants that produce food. By going small and utilising whatever resources are at hand and whatever space is available, people can take responsibility for their own food security.

Amazingly this is being achieved on the Cape Flats of South Africa, a crime-ravaged area beset by apathy, unemployment and substance abuse. It is an area characterised by underprivileged communities who live in grim housing blocks pockmarked by gunfire, or in shacks packed tightly together in the unmistakeable press of poverty. Yet from this unpromising environment, people who are being mentored by a Western Cape food growing initiative, Soil for Life, are growing food and in the process, food gardening is changing their lives.

By getting back to the basics of caring for the soil and growing the plants that feed us, it is possible for each of us to take matters into our own hands, ensuring that we have at least a measure of food security. This could be vital for survival in the time ahead. For more information about Soil for Life you can go to their website at www.soilforlife.co.za.

Living < as I do under a 350 million year old mountain facing the stormy Atlantic Ocean, I am all too aware of the vagaries of Nature. Thankfully I do not live on a fault line as doing so would be a very risky business indeed, as has recently been demonstrated by the tragic Nepalese earthquakes. Owner-building our own house in a UNESCO-registered biosphere reserve in what has to be one of Nature's most spectacular settings, had long been a dream of my husband and I. However, nothing in our previous urban lifestyle in upcountry Johannesburg could have prepared us for what we would face in the "Cape of Storms". Nature is neutral but it sure didn't feel like it during our owner-building years. At times the wind felt like a demented presence that wanted to blow us off the mountain! Our house has been built to withstand the ferocious winds and fierce winter weather that give this southern Cape its name, and consequently most of our walls are double-skinned brick walls. This five meter long wall, however, was blown down like a handfull of children’s blocks thrown about in a childish tandrum during a big wind and we had to rebuild it, this being just one of a long list of trials and tribulations we faced during that testing time.

With the world’s people populating more and more of the Earth’s surface, sadly we can expect an increase in the number of tragic incidences like the Nepalese earthquakes. There is no way around it. Because as the planet breathes and sighs, sputters and coughs, it can’t help but disrupt and displace humanity. The only anwer lies in mitigation and preparation with regard to natural forces, which are likely to increase in both number and intensity this century.

With the recent earthquake and avalanche in Nepal and the resultant tragic loss of life, we are reminded once again that we are but travellers on Planet Earth and not its masters. Earthquakes, volcanoes, mudslides, tornadoes, hurricanes, avalanches, impacts, drought, fire, flood, upheaval, subsidence, folding, faulting, crumbling – these phenomena are evidence of planetary changes as the Earth’s mantle breathes and sighs. These massive geological rips and tucks are gargantuan forces that have pushed up mountain ranges and transformed continents over aeons of time, from ancient Pangaea to even more ancient, Rodinia. In the face of this primal planetary evolution we are but small and transitory…

Since then much has changed with many people around the world taking up the baton of conservation in the realisation that if our children and their children are to avoid an “extinction of experience”, a loss of connecting to and interacting with the natural world, the responsibility for strengthening the fragile tapestry of life on the planet rests with us. Long may their efforts continue….

I am deep into the mysteries of Antarctica and the logistics and challenges of Antarctic science for my current project, with input from eminent researchers on three continents. This is proving to be exceptionally interesting to research and write, not least because of the complexity and sensitivity of Antarctica as a living system, one that is enabling scientists to probe the origins of life on the planet from the perspective of deep-time and Antarctica’s central role in the assembly and dispersal of multiple supercontinents and repeated ice ages. I have long been fascinated with the icy continent of Antarctica and so will be putting heart, mind and soul into writing the very best chapter I can…

The resilience of life never ceases to amaze me! I have been following the story of Thandi, a rhino who survived the harrowing experience of having her horn chopped off and being left for dead. Well, now there is a wonderful new twist to Thandi’s story as on 13 January she gave birth to a calf. Last year more than 1200 rhinos were poached in South Africa – this is beyond criminal and is in fact a terrible indictment on the human race. I hope that Thandi’s story inspires people around the world to fight for rhino conservation because we cannot stand by and let this magnificent species dwindle into extinction to satisfy humankind’s greed!!

“The < sea shapes the character of earth, governs climate and weather, regulates temperature, and comprises much of the biosphere – yet it remains largely unknown. It is not, however, untouched. Everywhere, the changes brought about by humankind are evident.” – Oceanographer, Dr Sylvia Earle

The ocean is the very foundation of Earth’s life support system for the sea shapes the character of the planet. Always in motion and responsive to the immense forces of the Earth’s rotation and the gravitational pull of the sun and moon, the sea exerts its influence far and wide.

For more than four billion years, the sea has controlled the destiny of life on the planet. It is the very foundation of Earth’s life support system, not only powering the climate and weather patterns of the continents, but supplying up to 80% of the globe’s oxygen and storing and cycling some 93% of its carbon dioxide.

Climate and weather patterns are powered in a continuous, interactive cycle of energy exchange between the atmosphere and the ocean. In summer heat is absorbed and in winter heat is released by the sea with ocean currents evening out air temperatures to a global mean temperature of 15°C.

The sea plays a vital role in planetary chemical cycles such as the carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and oxygen cycles. It drives other important fundamental cycles such as the rainfall cycle, without which all life on the continental plates would perish. It shapes land configurations and the character of land formations. It holds much of the Earth’s biomass and is a reservoir of biodiversity. The sea is also a heat sink capable of maintaining the Earth’s temperature for a period of time.

Far from being featureless interlocking expanses of water held in vast uniform basins like tea in a smooth porcelain cup, the ocean represents one of the most diverse and extreme environments on the planet. Comprising 90% of global habitats, marine environments are inhospitable worlds of perpetual darkness; near freezing water temperatures; and water pressures that can crush a man to soup within seconds.

On the other side of the coin, or the blue divide, marine environments are also warmly benign and abundantly rich in colourful plant and animal life. The sea is immensely powerful, capable of generating tsunami waves that race along its surface at speeds of up to 800 kilometres per hour in wave lengths of over 150 kilometres. Geography of the ocean floor is in many places more spectacular than that of the continental plates, with mid-ocean trenches plunging further below sea level than Mount Everest soars above it. Yet it is a fragile realm vulnerable to external influences.

(Excerpt from the book Miracles of Hope: Surviving and Thriving in the 21st Century by Carole Knight)