Lava is destroying much of La Palma but the last eruption in the Canaries appears to have ‘fertilised’ the surrounding seasThe eruption of the volcano on La Palma in the Canary Islands is a vivid reminder of the destructive power of nature but, as it l…
‘False choice’: is deep-sea mining required for an electric vehicle revolution?
Deep sea mining firms claim their rare metals are necessary to power clean tech – but with even major electric car firms now backing a moratorium, critics say there is an alternative• More from this series: Race to the bottom – the rush to mine the dee…
Race to the bottom: the disastrous blindfolded rush to mine the deep sea
One of the largest mining operations ever seen on Earth aims to despoil an ocean we are only barely beginning to understandA short bureaucratic note from a brutally degraded microstate in the South Pacific to a little-known institution in the Caribbean…
Deep impact: the underwater photographers bringing the ocean’s silent struggle to life
Kerim Sabuncuoğlu – just one winner in this year’s Ocean photography awards – tells the story behind his picture of a moray eel that also shows the wider perils of ‘ghost fishing’In July, off the Turkish port city of Bodrum, Kerim Sabuncuoğlu stepped f…
Horror at the Faroes dolphin slaughter is only human – but it risks hypocrisy | Philip Hoare
Our response to a mass cetacean hunt reveals man’s duplicitous attitudes to animalsWitnessing the mass movement of wild animals can seem to be a rebuttal of the disastrous news we hear, daily, of our natural environment. We know they are threatened, in…
Australian bushfire smoke caused massive phytoplankton bloom in Southern Ocean
Scientist compares bloom caused by iron particles in smoke aerosols to ‘the entire Sahara desert turning into a productive grassland’Get our free news app; get our morning email briefingSmoke from the 2019-20 bushfires in Australia caused a bloom of ph…
A flying great white shark: Chris Fallows’ best photograph
‘Adolescent great whites lurk in the depths waiting for seals. Then they launch themselves at the surface – and their sheer power takes them clear of the water’There is no more iconic species on the planet than the great white shark. Everybody knows wh…
Licence to krill: the destructive demand for a ‘better’ fish oil
Industrial fishing of the tiny crustacea in a dietary supplements gold rush is threatening the very base of the food chain• This article was produced with the Environmental Reporting Collective, whose full report is part of the Oceans Inc collaborative…
River of life: zoo’s yearly count finds seals thriving on Thames
Hundreds of dozing seals show how much cleaner the river is since it was declared dead in the 1950s“This is a sushi conveyor belt,” says the boat’s skipper, Stuart Barnes, as we watch the customers, dozens of harbour seals slumbering on sandbanks at th…
Is deep-sea mining a cure for the climate crisis or a curse?
Trillions of metallic nodules on the sea floor could help stop global heating, but mining them may damage ocean ecologyIn a display cabinet in the recently opened Our Broken Planet exhibition in London’s Natural History Museum, curators have placed a s…