Ocean Glories
Issue 345 • July/August 2024
The July/August issue sets out to really inspire people to think about ‘Ocean Glories’ and the marvels that we lose when we don’t take better care of our oceans. We celebrate why we love the ocean and marine life and share stories about people who are taking positive action to halt its destruction.
From the excerpt from ethologist Jonathan Balcombe’s wonderful book What a Fish Knows to ocean writer and regular contributor Melissa Hobson talking to marine scientists, this is a theme designed to get us all geared up for action, and the Making Waves feature in this issue has some suggestions for where to start.
With so many doing so much – yet it is still not enough. It feels as if we are in the last chance saloon, and still most people are not listening. What will it take?
In March 1968, the Senegalese forestry engineer and environmentalist Baba Dioum, shared the following wisdom in a paper presented at the triennial meeting of the General Assembly of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature: “In the end, we will conserve only what we love, [and] we will love only what we understand.”
If we don’t understand anything else, we surely by now understand that our ocean is dying, as are the creatures that live in the sea, that they need our help, and that the time to step up and act is now.
Highlights
- Movement Power: Brendan Montague
- The rights of nature: Becca Blease
- United we can thrive: Caroline Lucas
- The mysterious root people: Paul Evans
- Celebrating a cultural tipping point: Helen Moore
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Contents
Key
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Welcome
Last chance saloon… • Susan Clark
The time to step up and act is now
Regulars
Resurgence Ripples • Susan Clark
News from our community - inspiring people to take positive action
Letters to the Editor
A selection of letters to our editor
Ecologist
Editors' Picks • Yasmin Dahnoun
We share our top three stories from the news website focused on environmental, social and economic justice
Movement power • Brendan Montague
Introducing a new Ecologist online series exploring a hybrid model of activism and campaigning
The Rights of Nature • Becca Blease
What we do to nature, we do to ourselves
Connected Life
The magic of stargazing • Charlotte Ina Sterland & Mark Gough
Relating two different experiences of stargazing
Sprouting alternatives • Katie Dancey-Downs
The story behind the creation of eco-friendly toilet paper Naked Sprout
We Feed The UK
A nationwide storytelling initiative showing the potential of food systems to solve the big issues
Feature Articles
United we can thrive • Caroline Lucas
An extract from Caroline Lucas' new book Another England
Ocean Glories
Still so much we just don't know • Melissa Hobson
Sharing the big question marine biologists are asking
Making Waves • Susan Clark
Some ways we can get involved to take better care of our ocean
What remains is fading quickly • Beatriz Chachamovits
Artist's statement from a Miami-based coral conservation artist
The misunderstood fish • Jonathan Balcombe
Reason after reason to stop thinking of fish an anything less than extraordinary and conscious
Praise Song for Oceania • Craig Santos Perez
A poem for World Oceans Day
Wisdom and Wellbeing
The mysterious root people • Paul Evans
Exploring the history of rhizotomi
River maps • Annea Lockwood
Introducing the nature-inspired work of a composer
The meaning of love • Satish Kumar
Offering a very personal manifesto and promise of love
Art and Culture
In the dark woods… playing • Alexander Chapman Campbell
A new work inspired by Scottish woodland
Melting Ice | Rising Tides • Anna Souter
An interview with artist Emma Stibbon
Celebrating a cultural tipping point • Helen Moore
ECOPOETIKON is building a network of solidarity and highlighting the voices of ecopoets from across the globe
Listening to an-other • Rachel Marsh & Briony Hughes
Joining poet Suzannah V. Evans to listen to the beings under the sea
Reviews
R is for realism • Adam Weymouth
Review of H is for Hope
Radical Change • Ros Coward
Review of Change Everything: How We Can Rethink, Repair and Rebuild society
Private sufficiency and public luxury • Russell Warfield
Review of The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism
Rebalancing the role of the wolf • India Bourke
Review of Hunt for the Shadow Wolf: The Lost History of Wolves in Britain and the Myths and Stories that Surround them
Dancing in the Rain • Kate Blincoe
Review of In All Weathers: A Journey through Rain, Fog, Wind, Ice and Everything in Between
Rebalancing to reach neutral • JP O'Malley
Review of Possible: Ways to Net Zero
Power to the People • Diyora Shadijanova
Review of If I Ruled the World (podcast)