Month: March 2020

The question many people are asking themselves: When will the outbreak end and life get back to normal? Here are three different responses from trusted sources: the BBC, ScienceNews and VOX.

But the real questions should be: What will come afterwards? Will we wake up to the realities that have brought us to this juncture? Will we (in the rich, industrialised countries) finally face the facts of our perilous, unsustainable and exploitative neoliberal lifestyles? Read George Monbiot’s thought-provoking essay on it all and whether we have a chance finllay to overcome destructive neoliberalism through this crisis (after the end of capitalism has been touted for some years) and have governments govern again, not corporations. Will we even learn, finally, how to tackle the climate crisis properly and respect nature and the planet again for what they are: the very bedrock of our existence.

 

First of all, the pandemic is leading to a huge drop in air pollution, showing what’s possible if we scale down.

Secondly, with the situation being what it is and with many of us marooned at home, here are some options for virtual expeditions, citizien science, conservation and learning or helping from the comfort of your home:

Online citizen science and home projects

You can  help our local scientists with projects such as analysing coral reef quadrant, camera trap or whale fluke photos from home or other citizen science-based jobs. If this is something that interest you, please get in touch and we will connect you with our scientists.

You may also want to look at the list of home projects we offer on our website, although many of them help with our operations, rather than being citizen scientist-based.

Finally, Wikipedia has a great list of all sorts of citizen science projects you can take part in from home.

Reading

For lighter reading to get you started, you can browse through our annual Magazine or the expedition diaries on this blog. Or have a look through our media coverage archives, delight in our achievements, find out about our history and people, our mission and policies, or read through some personal stories and testimonials.

You can also study our campaigns on how to be (radically) greener, how to do more for the planet, yourself and Biosphere Expeditions, and how to beat the charlatans in volunteering.

Delve deeper into things via our expedition reports or our publications in the scientific literature.

Our social media channels are full of news, views and updates.

Viewing

Our YouTube channel has hours worth watching on it, including lots of videos for each expedition and other themes such as trailers & expedition summaries; vlogs and diaries; TV coverage; testimonials, reviews & feedback; our scientists and more.

We also have thousands of pictures from our expeditions in our Facebook picture archive and in our Google photo albums (current expeditions: Armenia, Arabia, Azores, Costa Rica, Germany, Kenya, Maldives, Malawi, South Africa, Sweden,  Thailand, Tien Shan; formers expeditions: Altai, Amazonia, Australia (marsupials), Australia (turtles), Brazil, Caprivi, Honduras, Musandam, Malaysia, Namibia, Oman, Poland, Romania, Scotland, Slovakia (summer), Slovakia (winter), Sri Lanka, Spain, Sumatra, Ukraine.

Elsewhere on the internet, there are excellent virtual museum tours such as the one of the London Natural History Museum and others. There are also channels on wildlife conservation, science & conservation, citizen science, science and of course thousands of TED talks on all sorts of subjects.

Learning

There is a myriad of distance learning opportunities nowadays ranging from full degree to short courses.  There is a wide range of online learning sites and portals to find the course you want. Many of them are free and there is lots of choice amongst topics such as citizen sience, biodiversity, ecology and conservation. Portals include FutureLearn, StudyPortals, Class Central and MOOC list. There’s even an online happiness class.

Teaching

If you are an educator and need support for virtual teaching, we can help. Topics include any number of talks, presentations and online teaching materials centered around expeditions, citizen science, biodiversity conservation, community-based conservation intiatives. We can cater for all ages and provide phone-ins, chats, pictures, presentations, talks, Q&A sessions and more. If this is of interest, please get in touch to discuss your requirements.

 

Interesting, thought-provoking article in the Guardian’s “Age of Extincion” series. Time to reassess how humankind treats nature.

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been characterized by the World Health Organization as a pandemic. As the virus spreads, so too does misinformation about its origins.

Rumors that COVID-19 was manufactured in a lab or that we know with full certainty which animal host passed the disease to humans are unfounded.

China, where the outbreak originated, said the peak had passed as it reported just eight new cases in Hubei province on Thursday. More businesses reopened as authorities cautiously eased containment measures.

Beijing’s senior medical officer, Zhong Nanshan, an epidemiologist renowned for helping to combat the Sars outbreak in 2003, told a news conference that the pandemic could be over within a matter of months if countries mobilised properly to fight it and were prepared to take firm measures.

Zhong said that “my advice is calling for all countries to follow WHO instructions and intervene on a national scale”, and further, “if all countries get mobilised, it could be over by June … But if some countries do not treat the infectiousness and harmfulness seriously, and [do not] intervene strongly, it will last longer.”

Let us all work together to prove him right!

With the WHO declaring the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic and countries increasingly going into lockdown and closing borders on the one hand, but also signs that the rate of new infections and deaths is continuing to fall in China and South Korea  and of China beginning to return to a new normal, the situation remains fluid.

We continue to monitor the situation daily, but our intention remains to run all expeditions, because conservation efforts must continue and because local partners rely on our support in collecting data and running projects. This includes the next three forthcoming expeditions to the Azores in April, and to Costa Rica and Armenia in May.

For some expeditions this may mean running them with a skeleton local staff and with citizen scientists who are willing and able to attend.

We will continue to update everyone via this blog. Because the situation is so fluid at the moment, we will make final decisions and announcements a few days prior to the start of an expedition only, but will of course continue to supply regular updates via this blog.

There are no confirmed cases of Coronavirus on the Azores so far and the archipelago remains open for flights, with things continuing as normal. Contingency plans have been announced and one report even goes as far as saying that the Azores is one of the safest destinations to go on holiday.

Our plan at the moment is to run the expedition as planned, but please note the following:

• If you are planning to use hand sanitiser or a face mask, please bring your own
• If you are showing any symptoms, do not come on the expedition
• If you have been to a risk area within the last month, do not come on the expedition
• If you belong to a group at high risk of serious illness from COVID-19 (the illness caused by coronavirus), then you may want to consider staying at home too
• Make sure you have adequate health insurance cover (EU citizens should carry their EU health insurance card)
• On the expedition, we will brief everyone on risks and behaviours during the expedition, and follow accepted guidelines

Obviously the situation is quite fluid at the moment. We will keep everyone informed.