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‘I’ll run until there’s no sea left’: the gas-mask wearing ultramarathoner circling the Salton Sea

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Sunday, March 17, 2024

On an otherwise desolate horizon, a black dot materialized along the dramatic shoreline of California’s Salton Sea one recent Saturday afternoon. Beachgoers shielded their eyes against the midday glare and watched as the mirage became 49-year-old William Sinclair, an ultramarathon runner and activist who goes by the self-given nickname “Irondad”.The runner’s sudden appearance felt apocalyptic: he wore an ominous full-face gas mask to block out dust, and a pair of snowshoes strapped wing-like to his back, to traverse the area’s expansive mudflats. He dressed all in black, with the exception of neon orange sneakers that were already caked in dirt from running and hiking the past 16 miles, a remote stretch of both cracked and swampy earth that very rarely sees any other human activity.His girlfriend, Larissa Olenicoff, ran up to greet him, wielding a bag of snacks, water and sunscreen. “I don’t know what you need, but I have everything,” she promised.“I don’t know either, but I’m tapped,” he said, briefly stripping off his bulky mask.But after the short break, he still had roughly 76 more miles (or the equivalent of nearly three full marathons) and 38 hours to go: a grueling route spanning the entire circumference of the Salton Sea, which would also require a night of no sleep and the possibility of minor hallucinations from extreme fatigue. Irondad, who requested that he be referred to by his runner name, hopes that his unusual annual pilgrimage will rally people around the plight of the dwindling Salton Sea, an issue that has long been called an “environmental and public health crisis”.A former dock is seen on a Salton Sea beach, with the water much further away, in 2021. Photograph: Aude Guerrucci/ReutersThe runner-turned-activist’s effort may be the most unique advocacy attempt to save the sea yet, but it’s certainly not the first.The Golden state’s largest lake has been steadily receding for decades, exposing more and more of an underlying lakebed laced with arsenic, lead and pesticides from nearby agricultural runoff. As the mud dries, toxic dust rises into the air, leading to high rates of respiratory issues in surrounding communities, such as severe asthma and allergies. Over the years, hundreds of millions of dollars have been allocated towards cleanup and restoration work, to varying effect. Some past environmental projects are still littered around the sea’s edge, like seemingly endless rows of hay bales intended to suppress the dust, which stood symbolically on the dried lakebed next to the starting line of Irondad’s run.But for those who don’t live near the arid shoreline and choking dust of the Salton Sea, the scale of the problem can be easily forgotten – if they’re aware of it in the first place.“It’s absolutely shocking to me how many Californians have never heard of the Salton Sea,” Irondad said. “Much less have any idea about the ecological crisis that the locals here are facing.”By the end of this decade, the Salton Sea could lose more than half of its volume, some researchers have predicted. Irondad’s goal is to run around the sea’s entire perimeter annually and to capture specific data about the sea’s decline, including GPS coordinates in regular intervals to measure its approximate size, year over year.“The plan,” he said, “is to run until there’s no sea left to run around.”Living among environmental ruinTen hours after his first water break, Irondad plodded down the western side of the sea, passing ghostly clumps of dead trees, previously hidden under the water and now re-emerging as the water recedes. There was very little moonlight and the temperature had dropped by 20F overnight. The sea was still.“It’s a little eerie, to be honest,” he said over the phone, the sound of his footsteps on the salt-encrusted beach audible in the background. “And there’s something about that I really like.”The first time the activist laid eyes on the Salton Sea a few years ago, he didn’t know anything about it. He was struck by the giant desert lake’s sheer, otherworldly beauty – and the sense of abandonment. There wasn’t a single boat in the distance, nor any swimmers in the water.‘It’s a little eerie, to be honest,’ Irondad said as he took a break from his run. Photograph: Amanda UlrichHe quickly realized that “something terrible had happened here”. Irondad, like other activists who have taken on long runs to raise awareness about global water issues, decided that a physical feat of endurance might grab people’s attention. In the past, he’s run several Ironman triathlons and different ultramarathons around the world. Last year, he ran around the Salton Sea continuously for the first time.Irondad, whose day job is in software engineering in the Bay Area, now spends half the year in Bombay Beach, one of the tiny, tight-knit communities that sits on the periphery of the Salton Sea.And to live in Bombay Beach is to live among environmental ruin – and to create art from it. On the exposed lakebed (often called “the playa”) where Irondad started and finished his run, dozens of large-scale art installations made from found materials dot the landscape. One wooden sign, topped by a metal pelican, reads: “Bring us back!” Not far away, a giant fish made from rusted sheet metal and driftwood crests a wave of sand, its mouth agape. At the sea’s edge, big punched-out letters simply say “SOS”.In recent years, the town’s unique blend of renegade public art and environmental justice advocacy has drawn visitors from around the world, particularly through an annual arts festival called the Bombay Beach Biennale that takes place every spring – the exact dates of which are now only spread via word of mouth.“We have always had an ecological focus here, almost by necessity. With contextualized art, we’re actually saying things in a much more articulate way, because that is the unique voice the Bombay Beach has,” Irondad said. “This run itself is also intended to be a work of art and activism.”Art installations are spread across the lakebed. Photograph: Amanda UlrichThe runner plans to share data from this year’s journey around the sea at an upcoming Bombay Beach Environmental Day, where other activists, residents and members of environmental groups will gather to discuss the future of the region. Already, Irondad has found some interesting differences between his run this year and last, including changes in the shoreline and vegetation, and a four-mile reduction in the run’s total length – a sign of the shrinking lake, he said.But in a place like the Salton Sea, there are always unforeseen challenges.As Irondad neared the end of his 92-mile trip, the mud along the shore – typically a “pudding”-like consistency – got about thigh-deep. At another point, he was forced to swim across a narrow river and worried that he might be swept out into the wider sea. Eventually, his phone died and the battery of his headlamp waned. After a few hours of radio silence, Olenicoff, his girlfriend, and a friend had to track him down themselves. They eventually found him slowly trekking forward in the pitch dark.At 1.53am on Monday, nearly two full days after he first set out, Irondad finally crossed his makeshift finish line in Bombay Beach.“How do you feel?” Olenicoff asked him as he lightly staggered away from the route, his black clothes turned to light gray by a thick layer of mud.“I feel happy that this is over,” he said, smiling.

The California landmark is shrinking, exposing a toxic lakebed that threatens neighbors. ‘Irondad’ is running 92 miles to highlight the crisisOn an otherwise desolate horizon, a black dot materialized along the dramatic shoreline of California’s Salton Sea one recent Saturday afternoon. Beachgoers shielded their eyes against the midday glare and watched as the mirage became 49-year-old William Sinclair, an ultramarathon runner and activist who goes by the self-given nickname “Irondad”.The runner’s sudden appearance felt apocalyptic: he wore an ominous full-face gas mask to block out dust, and a pair of snowshoes strapped wing-like to his back, to traverse the area’s expansive mudflats. He dressed all in black, with the exception of neon orange sneakers that were already caked in dirt from running and hiking the past 16 miles, a remote stretch of both cracked and swampy earth that very rarely sees any other human activity. Continue reading...

On an otherwise desolate horizon, a black dot materialized along the dramatic shoreline of California’s Salton Sea one recent Saturday afternoon. Beachgoers shielded their eyes against the midday glare and watched as the mirage became 49-year-old William Sinclair, an ultramarathon runner and activist who goes by the self-given nickname “Irondad”.

The runner’s sudden appearance felt apocalyptic: he wore an ominous full-face gas mask to block out dust, and a pair of snowshoes strapped wing-like to his back, to traverse the area’s expansive mudflats. He dressed all in black, with the exception of neon orange sneakers that were already caked in dirt from running and hiking the past 16 miles, a remote stretch of both cracked and swampy earth that very rarely sees any other human activity.

His girlfriend, Larissa Olenicoff, ran up to greet him, wielding a bag of snacks, water and sunscreen. “I don’t know what you need, but I have everything,” she promised.

“I don’t know either, but I’m tapped,” he said, briefly stripping off his bulky mask.

But after the short break, he still had roughly 76 more miles (or the equivalent of nearly three full marathons) and 38 hours to go: a grueling route spanning the entire circumference of the Salton Sea, which would also require a night of no sleep and the possibility of minor hallucinations from extreme fatigue. Irondad, who requested that he be referred to by his runner name, hopes that his unusual annual pilgrimage will rally people around the plight of the dwindling Salton Sea, an issue that has long been called an “environmental and public health crisis”.

A former dock is seen on a Salton Sea beach, with the water much further away, in 2021. Photograph: Aude Guerrucci/Reuters

The runner-turned-activist’s effort may be the most unique advocacy attempt to save the sea yet, but it’s certainly not the first.

The Golden state’s largest lake has been steadily receding for decades, exposing more and more of an underlying lakebed laced with arsenic, lead and pesticides from nearby agricultural runoff. As the mud dries, toxic dust rises into the air, leading to high rates of respiratory issues in surrounding communities, such as severe asthma and allergies. Over the years, hundreds of millions of dollars have been allocated towards cleanup and restoration work, to varying effect. Some past environmental projects are still littered around the sea’s edge, like seemingly endless rows of hay bales intended to suppress the dust, which stood symbolically on the dried lakebed next to the starting line of Irondad’s run.

But for those who don’t live near the arid shoreline and choking dust of the Salton Sea, the scale of the problem can be easily forgotten – if they’re aware of it in the first place.

“It’s absolutely shocking to me how many Californians have never heard of the Salton Sea,” Irondad said. “Much less have any idea about the ecological crisis that the locals here are facing.”

By the end of this decade, the Salton Sea could lose more than half of its volume, some researchers have predicted. Irondad’s goal is to run around the sea’s entire perimeter annually and to capture specific data about the sea’s decline, including GPS coordinates in regular intervals to measure its approximate size, year over year.

“The plan,” he said, “is to run until there’s no sea left to run around.”

Living among environmental ruin

Ten hours after his first water break, Irondad plodded down the western side of the sea, passing ghostly clumps of dead trees, previously hidden under the water and now re-emerging as the water recedes. There was very little moonlight and the temperature had dropped by 20F overnight. The sea was still.

“It’s a little eerie, to be honest,” he said over the phone, the sound of his footsteps on the salt-encrusted beach audible in the background. “And there’s something about that I really like.”

The first time the activist laid eyes on the Salton Sea a few years ago, he didn’t know anything about it. He was struck by the giant desert lake’s sheer, otherworldly beauty – and the sense of abandonment. There wasn’t a single boat in the distance, nor any swimmers in the water.

‘It’s a little eerie, to be honest,’ Irondad said as he took a break from his run. Photograph: Amanda Ulrich

He quickly realized that “something terrible had happened here”. Irondad, like other activists who have taken on long runs to raise awareness about global water issues, decided that a physical feat of endurance might grab people’s attention. In the past, he’s run several Ironman triathlons and different ultramarathons around the world. Last year, he ran around the Salton Sea continuously for the first time.

Irondad, whose day job is in software engineering in the Bay Area, now spends half the year in Bombay Beach, one of the tiny, tight-knit communities that sits on the periphery of the Salton Sea.

And to live in Bombay Beach is to live among environmental ruin – and to create art from it. On the exposed lakebed (often called “the playa”) where Irondad started and finished his run, dozens of large-scale art installations made from found materials dot the landscape. One wooden sign, topped by a metal pelican, reads: “Bring us back!” Not far away, a giant fish made from rusted sheet metal and driftwood crests a wave of sand, its mouth agape. At the sea’s edge, big punched-out letters simply say “SOS”.

In recent years, the town’s unique blend of renegade public art and environmental justice advocacy has drawn visitors from around the world, particularly through an annual arts festival called the Bombay Beach Biennale that takes place every spring – the exact dates of which are now only spread via word of mouth.

“We have always had an ecological focus here, almost by necessity. With contextualized art, we’re actually saying things in a much more articulate way, because that is the unique voice the Bombay Beach has,” Irondad said. “This run itself is also intended to be a work of art and activism.”

Art installations are spread across the lakebed. Photograph: Amanda Ulrich

The runner plans to share data from this year’s journey around the sea at an upcoming Bombay Beach Environmental Day, where other activists, residents and members of environmental groups will gather to discuss the future of the region. Already, Irondad has found some interesting differences between his run this year and last, including changes in the shoreline and vegetation, and a four-mile reduction in the run’s total length – a sign of the shrinking lake, he said.

But in a place like the Salton Sea, there are always unforeseen challenges.

As Irondad neared the end of his 92-mile trip, the mud along the shore – typically a “pudding”-like consistency – got about thigh-deep. At another point, he was forced to swim across a narrow river and worried that he might be swept out into the wider sea. Eventually, his phone died and the battery of his headlamp waned. After a few hours of radio silence, Olenicoff, his girlfriend, and a friend had to track him down themselves. They eventually found him slowly trekking forward in the pitch dark.

At 1.53am on Monday, nearly two full days after he first set out, Irondad finally crossed his makeshift finish line in Bombay Beach.

“How do you feel?” Olenicoff asked him as he lightly staggered away from the route, his black clothes turned to light gray by a thick layer of mud.

“I feel happy that this is over,” he said, smiling.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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Egg prices hit record highs. Are you ready to try a vegan egg?

Bird flu has apparently done what environmentalists have long dreamed of: made Americans curious about egg alternatives.

Sometimes, Josh Tetrick will quiz strangers in the dairy aisle. He’ll strike up a conversation with a fellow grocery store patron and ask if they’ve heard about “this egg that’s made from plants?” He might point out the golden-yellow boxes shaped like milk cartons sitting on refrigerated shelves, not too far from the egg cartons. Generally, he finds that people don’t know what he’s talking about. “Most people will be like, ‘What?’” The product Tetrick is referring to — which, not coincidentally, he manufactures — is called Just Egg. It’s a liquid vegan egg substitute made from mung beans, a member of the legume family, and it’s designed to scramble just like a real chicken egg when cooked over heat. (The company also sells frozen omelette-style patties that can be heated up in a toaster oven and frozen breakfast burritos.) Along with his best friend Josh Balk, Tetrick cofounded the company Eat Just, formerly known as Hampton Creek, which developed Just Egg over years of testing. On a recent call with Grist, Tetrick described the products — which are meant to look, taste, and cook like real eggs — as “definitely, definitely weird.” But lately, Tetrick says the team at Eat Just has been hearing from restaurant owners and chefs overcoming the weirdness to inquire about becoming new customers — in part because avian influenza has sent egg prices soaring in January and February in the United States. Nationally, the average cost of a dozen large eggs rose to about $5.90 last month, up almost 100 percent from a year before, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In expensive cities like New York and San Francisco, a dozen eggs could cost $10 or more. The pressure has raised prices at some bakeries, brunch spots, and bodegas slinging bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwiches — and has made some buyers and consumers more open to alternatives.  Tetrick has said that Just Egg’s sales are now five times higher than at this time last year, and that a majority of its customers are omnivores. The latest outbreak of avian flu has apparently done what environmentalists and animal rights activists have long dreamed of: made Americans curious about vegan eggs. It’s a development that could indicate how consumers may learn to gradually embrace more environmentally sustainable options. The environmental benefits of not eating meat or dairy have long been documented. A quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the way we grow and produce food; within that, livestock — which includes raising animals for eggs and dairy — is responsible for about a third.  But brands that have tried to capitalize on the climate case for eating plant-based protein have failed to win over customers. Beyond Meat has struggled to reach profitability, while the CEO of Impossible Foods says the industry has done a “lousy job” of appealing to consumers.  Producing eggs has a lower environmental impact than raising beef and other forms of animal protein — but growing feed for laying hens still requires a significant amount of land and resources. Eat Just claims that making its mung bean-based alt-egg uses significantly less land and water than the conventional chicken egg. But Tetrick said its most effective marketing strategy is highlighting the benefits of eating a “healthier protein” for breakfast. For instance, Just Egg contains zero milligrams of cholesterol per serving, while one large chicken egg contains about 180 milligrams.  Josh Tetrick, CEO of the food tech company Eat Just, said sales of its vegan egg substitute are five times higher than last year. Eat Just Over the years, Tetrick’s company, which also houses the cultivated meat subsidiary Good Meat, has received criticism for allegedly exaggerating its environmental claims and sales figures. In 2016, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that the company — then called Hampton Creek — removed the climate benefits of its vegan mayonnaise product, Just Mayo, from its website after an external audit found they were inaccurate. Previously, Bloomberg reported that Hampton Creek had instructed contractors to buy back its vegan mayo from stores. Tetrick said that the buybacks were for quality assurance purposes only, but in 2016 both the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission launched inquiries into the company for potentially inflating its sales numbers. The following year, both investigations were dropped.     Those in the plant-based industry say that once vegan alternatives taste as good as real meat and cost the same or less, then sales will go up. Entrepreneurs and advocates have focused on developing the technology, supply chains, and economies of scale needed to lower the price of animal-free protein products. But the current situation with vegan eggs suggests that change can also happen when the animal-based option becomes much more expensive. Prices vary from store to store and region to region, but on the online store for the Manhattan West location of Whole Foods, one 16-ounce carton of Just Egg, the equivalent of about 10 small eggs, costs $7.89. Meanwhile, a dozen eggs, depending on the brand, run from about $7 to up to $13.  Tetrick said that the newly interested potential customers currently talking to Eat Just aren’t motivated by climate change or animal welfare. Their point of view, in his words, is that they’re tired of the unpredictability of egg prices going up and down. That exasperation, he added, “is probably the most effective lens for change.” Earlier this month, Eat Just launched a campaign in New York City advertising its vegan breakfast sandwiches, sold at bodegas, as a “Bird Flu Bailout.” The company’s website cheekily boasts, “We’re in stock.” Founders of vegan egg companies argue that the root cause of price volatility for meat, eggs, and dairy is not any one disease or policy, but the way the United States raises animals. “When you cram animals together in really tight spaces, they’re gonna get sick,” said Tetrick. “It’s not Trump’s fault. It’s not MAGA’s fault. It’s just biology.”  A 2023 report by the United Nations Environmental Programme cited alternative proteins — meaning plant-based foods, as well as cultivated meat and fermentation-derived products — as a way to reduce the risk of zoonotic disease outbreaks. Raising animals for human consumption requires a lot of antibiotics, which raises the risk of creating antibiotic-resistant pathogens. It also creates ideal conditions for viruses to spread, evolve, and cross over to new species. Lowering the global demand for animal protein could greatly reduce those risks. Or as Tetrick put it, “You can pack mung beans into tiny little spaces all you want. They’re not getting the flu.” Hema Reddy, who developed the vegan hard-boiled egg brand WunderEggs during the COVID-19 pandemic, offered a similar critique of industrial animal agriculture. “If the chickens are crowded together, then disease will follow,” she said. “The only solution,” she posited, “is to change the way we farm. And that’s a big step. It’s like moving the Titanic.” WunderEggs are made from almonds, cashews, and coconut milk and are currently sold in stores and online. Like Tetrick, Reddy says she has heard from plenty of newly interested restaurants in the last few months. But she is reluctant to draw long-term conclusions from it, arguing that consumer behavior doesn’t change that quickly. Many people, she argued, “probably want to eat eggs, they’re missing eggs,” and “they’re going to wait for things to get better.” Nationally, the average cost of a dozen large eggs rose to about $5.90 in February, up almost 100 percent from a year before. Zeng Hui / Xinhua via Getty Images But for some adoptees of vegan egg substitutes, the upsides of ditching chicken eggs is obvious. Chef Jason Hull, director of food services at Marin Country Day School in the Bay Area, has been using Just Egg for years. “They have nailed the delicious flavor of egg,” said Hull. He swaps out regular eggs for the plant-based version in baked goods like cookies, muffins, and quick breads, as well as in dishes like fried rice. There’s virtually no difference, he said. While he’s a longtime fan of the brand, the uptick in egg prices has validated his decision. “Especially with egg prices right now, I’m not going to use chicken eggs for baking or fried rice or things like that any time soon,” he said. Hull said some of his peers, especially those in other parts of the country, are potentially less open-minded about vegan egg substitutes. But rising costs may have them reconsidering. Other chefs are “warming up to it, absolutely,” he said. “And the high egg prices are kind of forcing that warm-up.” Wholesale egg prices are trending downward as of March, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data, so this momentum could be short-lived. But it may only be a matter of time before the next price hike happens. “Because the virus is so ubiquitous in so many different environments … it’s hard to imagine the virus ever completely going away at this point,” said Maurice Pitesky, an associate professor in cooperative extension at University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. Reddy insisted that taking advantage of a cost-of-living crisis to promote her product does not sit right with her, and she prefers to let consumers come to their own conclusions about what’s right for them. But if avian influenza continues to upend egg production in the U.S., that might mean the economic case for going dairy-free could become more and more evident with time. Regardless of what happens in the future, Reddy said, “I really think that now is the time for egg alternatives to shine.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Egg prices hit record highs. Are you ready to try a vegan egg? on Mar 31, 2025.

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Agriculture
Animals

California suspends environmental laws to speed rebuilding of utilities after L.A. fires

Gov. Newsom waived CEQA and the California Coastal Act for utilities working to rebuild, and move infrastructure underground, in the Palisades and Eaton fire areas.

In a continued effort to expedite rebuilding after Los Angeles’ devastating firestorms, Gov. Gavin Newsom this week suspended California environmental laws for utility providers working to reinstall key infrastructure. His latest executive order eliminates requirements to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act, commonly known as CEQA, and the California Coastal Act for utilities working to rebuild “electric, gas, water, sewer and telecommunication infrastructure” in the Palisades and Eaton fire burn zones. Newsom also continued to encourage the “undergrounding” of utility equipment when feasible, which he said will help minimize the future fire risk in these communities. “We are determined to rebuild Altadena, Malibu and Pacific Palisades stronger and more resilient than before,” Newsom said in a statement. “Speeding up the pace that we rebuild our utility systems will help get survivors back home faster and prevent future fires.” The move builds on Newsom’s prior executive orders that exempted work rebuilding homes and businesses destroyed or damaged by the fires as well as wildfire prevention efforts from the two environmental laws. CEQA requires local and state agencies to identify and mitigate environmental impacts of their work. The California Coastal Act, which made permanent the California Coastal Commission, lays out regulations for coastal development and protection. While the laws have been heralded by environmentalists, their processes have long been considered onerous by developers, and residents and officials have urged their requirements be lessened or waived to expedite fire recovery. The Trump administration has also taken issue with the California Coastal Commission — which typically regulates any coastal development as enumerated by the state’s Coastal Act — and has indicated further federal aid could have stipulations that target the commission’s work. “The key now is to make sure that we move quickly to address the needs to underground not just traditional utilities for electricity but also water and sewer lines, and do it concurrently,” Newsom said in a video posted on social media this week. Joshua Smith, a spokesperson for the Coastal Commission, declined to comment on the latest executive order.Previously, the commission’s executive director had clarified that coastal development permits are typically waived after disasters like the L.A. fires, as long as new construction won’t be 10% larger than the destroyed structure it is replacing. That statement, however, has since been removed from the commission’s website. In a letter sent last month, Newsom urged Southern California Edison, the area’s largest electricity provider, to do all it can to rebuild lines underground in these areas.“SCE has the opportunity to build back a more modern, reliable and resilient electric distribution system that can meet the community’s immediate and future needs,” Newsom wrote, adding that he welcomed information and suggestions that would ease such efforts and keep costs down. Installing utilities underground is much more expensive than typical above-ground construction, which has limited the practice. David Eisenhauer, an Edison spokesperson, said waiving CEQA and the Coastal Act will help the utility’s ongoing efforts to rebuild and move lines underground.“We appreciate Gov. Newsom’s action to help expedite permitting,” Eisenhauer said. “This will help us continue this process of undergrounding and help the communities rebuild stronger.”Eisenhauer said SoCal Edison is already in the process of reestablishing and moving some of its electrical wires underground in the areas affected by the fires. Some of this work had been planned — and permitted — beforehand, including moving 40 miles of line underground in Altadena and doing likewise with 80 miles in the Palisades area, he said. However, this executive order will help ease the permitting process for future work. It wasn’t immediately clear how other utilities might benefit from the executive order, if at all. Representatives for Southern California Gas Co. and the L.A. Department of Water and Power didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Newsom has previously said his executive orders waiving these environmental laws do not signal a shift in California’s support of such efforts, though many environmental activists worry such broad exemptions could have serious consequences down the road. Bruce Reznik, executive director of Los Angeles Waterkeeper, a nonprofit that advocates for clean waterways, said he understands the urgency to rebuild but those efforts need a balance that considers important environmental protections — not blanket waivers and exceptions.“We all want to see the rebuilding happen as quickly as we can … but we also have to be smart about it,” Reznik said. “We have to build recognizing the reality of today’s climate change.”He said the natural space in Altadena and Pacific Palisades was a big part of why people loved living there, and it’s important to protect those areas — as CEQA and the California Coastal Act do. “These laws play a really critical role in making sure as we rebuild we’re doing it with an eye toward climate resilience, protecting against further natural disasters … [and] the health of our waterways and ecosystems,” he said. “Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the way the governor has operated, and you have to worry about what that will mean.”Susan Jordan, executive director of the California Coastal Protection Network, said Newsom’s continued exemptions build on concerning environmental practices she’s seen in the fires’ aftermath, including the decision not to test soil in affected areas.“I hope that the governor will one day recognize that the Coastal Commission is a willing partner and one of the best tools he has in his toolbox to ensure a quick, informed and coordinated response to establish future long-term resiliency along the coast,” Jordan said in a statement.

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Business
Climate

Biden Administration Offshore Oil and Gas Lease in Gulf Coast Is Unlawful, Federal Judge Says

A federal judge has ruled that more than 109,000 square miles of Gulf Coast federal were unlawfully opened up for offshore drilling leases

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An expanse of Gulf Coast federal waters larger than the state of Colorado was unlawfully opened up for offshore drilling leases, according to a ruling by a federal judge, who said the Department of Interior did not adequately account for the offshore drilling leases' impacts on planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and an endangered whale species.The future of one of the most recent offshore drilling lease sales authorized under the Biden administration is in jeopardy after District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Amit Mehta’s finding on Thursday that the federal agency violated bedrock environmental regulations when it allowed bidding on 109,375 square miles (283,280 square kilometers) of Gulf Coast waters.Environmental groups, the federal government and the oil and gas industry are now discussing remedies. Earth Justice Attorney George Torgun, representing the plaintiffs, said one outcome on the table is invalidating the sale of leases worth $250 million across 2,500 square miles (6,475 square kilometers) of Gulf federal waters successfully bid on by companies.The leases in the Gulf Coast were expected to produce up to 1.1 billion barrels of oil and more than 4 trillion cubic feet (113 billion cubic meters) of natural gas over 50 years, according to a government analysis. Burning that oil would increase carbon dioxide emissions by tens of millions of tons, the analysis found.The agency “failed to take a ‘hard look’” at the full extent of the carbon footprint of expanding drilling in the Gulf Coast, the judge wrote. The auction was one of three offshore oil and gas lease sales mandated as part of a 2022 climate bill compromise designed to ensure support from now-retired Sen. Joe Manchin, a leading recipient of oil and gas industry donations. Another of the mandated oil and gas lease sales, in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, was overturned by a federal judge last July on similar grounds.“If federal officials are going to continue greenlighting offshore drilling, the least they can do is fully analyze its harms,” said Hallie Templeton, legal director at Friends of the Earth, a nonprofit that is of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. “We will keep fighting to put a full stop to this destructive industry, and in the meantime, we will keep a close watch on the government to ensure compliance with all applicable laws and mandates.”The drilling would also threaten the Rice’s whale, a species with less than 100 individuals estimated to remain and which lives exclusively in the Gulf Coast, according to court records filed by environmental advocacy groups.A Department of the Interior spokesperson said the agency could not comment on pending litigation.The process did not meet the standards of the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, which requires federal agencies analyzes the environmental impacts of their actions prior to decision-making around federal lands.The American Petroleum Institute, or API, an oil and gas trade association representing more than 600 firms and a party to the Gulf Coast case, said it is evaluating its options after this week's ruling.API spokesperson Scott Lauermann said the case is an example of activists “weaponizing” a permitting process, “underscoring how permitting reform is essential to ensuring access to affordable, reliable energy.” Chevron, a defendant in the lawsuit, declined to comment and referred The Associated Press to the API's statement.Three offshore oil and gas lease sales are scheduled over the course of the next five years.Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Brook on the social platform X: @jack_brook96.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

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Love Motels and Converted Ferries: Brazil Gets Creative to Host COP30

By Manuela Andreoni and Lisandra ParaguassuBELEM, Brazil (Reuters) - Environmental activists from around the globe have eagerly awaited Brazil's...

By Manuela Andreoni and Lisandra ParaguassuBELEM, Brazil (Reuters) - Environmental activists from around the globe have eagerly awaited Brazil's turn hosting the United Nations climate summit, known as COP30, after three years where the conference of world leaders tackling global warming was held in countries without full freedom for public demonstrations. But the so-called "People's COP" may not be as welcoming as they hoped.  Sky-high accommodation costs are threatening Brazil's stated goal of inclusion, and the government is racing to multiply the 18,000 beds now available in the Amazonian host city of Belem, turning to motels aimed at amorous couples, ferries that normally ply the rivers, and school classrooms to host visitors.  President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said his goal in bringing COP30 to the Amazon was to focus the world's attention on a forest that both offers unique solutions to climate change, by locking away planet-warming carbon, and suffers some of its gravest consequences, in the form of wildfires and drought. While many climate change campaigners have celebrated that focus, some have also expressed fears that hosting such a major event may strain the fragile region and compromise the success of the conference. Belem, a port city of 1.3 million on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, is speckled with construction sites. The Brazilian government is pouring some $1 billion into new infrastructure. But much work remains to accommodate an expected 60,000-plus visitors.Two global advocacy groups who declined to be named told Reuters that scouts they hired had found accommodation prices for the November conference were several times higher than what they paid last year in Baku, Azerbaijan. Even the cheapest rooms are going for $400, and they are averaging around $1,500 a night.Lula shrugged off the hotel crunch in a recent visit to Belem, suggesting those who cannot find accommodation should sleep "looking at the sky – it will be wonderful."At the heart of the problem is a question that has become more acute as the annual COP has grown from a gathering of world leaders and diplomats to a sprawling conference mixing activists, businesses and government officials: Who is the U.N. climate summit really for? "It feels like a mundane thing, but it's actually politically very important," said Tasneem Essop, executive director of the Climate Action Network. "The ability to address the accommodation problems can make or break a COP."Civil society groups say their access is key to keeping pressure on negotiators, citing the role of public advocacy in breakthroughs such as the creation of the Loss and Damage Fund in 2022 to channel resources from wealthy nations to address destruction caused by climate change in poorer countries."Everybody's been waiting for the Brazil COP," Essop said. "For civil society, it is that point where once again we're going to be at the COP with space for our actions."FEW HOTELS, PLENTY OF CREATIVITY Brazil has already shifted the dates for heads of state to attend the summit to the week before the main event, trying to ease pressure on Belem's thin hotel supply. Two hotels are being built and two cruise ships for attendees will be docked in a nearby harbor.Entrepreneurs are hard at work figuring out other creative ways to accommodate the visitors. Businesses are looking to refurbish ferries with high-end suites. Developers plan to use idle land to put up refurbished shipping containers. Schools and churches have been earmarked to serve as hostels. Love motels that usually rent rooms by the hour are being advertised as options for full national delegations. Yorann Costa, the owner of Motel Secreto, said he can tone down the "more sensual mood" of his establishment by removing erotic chairs."But the poles, for example, I can't take out," he said, adding that the ceiling mirrors would also have to stay. Setting the right price was also tough, he said, because of the fierce speculation around what people were willing to pay. Valter Correia, Brazil's special secretary for COP30, said his office is planning to launch an official booking website within weeks to organize the market. He said his office is also looking for ways to discourage price gouging. Correia said the government expects around 45,000 people to attend COP and that the government has planned enough new accommodation to meet that demand.However, the People's Summit, a side-event run by activist groups, says it expects an additional 15,000. Organizers say they are planning to help with accommodation, for example by building campsites.City and state officials are also encouraging residents to travel and rent out their homes. That has unleashed a gold rush of sorts in Belem. Ads charging hundreds of thousands of dollars to rent apartments and houses for the month of COP have become common. Interviews with landlords, tenants and a building manager revealed dozens of cases of people who were refused renewal of their rental lease so landlords could prepare apartments for COP visitors paying ten times or more the usual rate. Rafaela Rodrigues, a businesswoman who says she was refused renewal of her rental, said she later found the apartment advertised for several times what she used to pay."It was chaos," she said. "I had 10 days to look for a new place, rent it, move and give back my other apartment."(Reporting by Manuela Andreoni in Belem and Lisandra Paraguassu in Brasilia; Editing by Brad Haynes and Rosalba O'Brien)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

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The most important part of the ocean you've never heard of

The Saya de Malha Bank is one of the world's largest seagrass fields and the planet's most important carbon sinks. It faces incalculable risks that threaten the future of humanity.

The most important place on earth that virtually no one has ever heard of is called the Saya de Malha Bank. Among the world’s largest seagrass fields and the planet’s most important carbon sinks, this high-seas patch of ocean covers an area the size of Switzerland. More than 200 miles from land, the submerged bank is situated in the Indian Ocean between Mauritius and Seychelles. It has been called the world’s largest invisible island as it is formed by a massive plateau, in some spots barely hidden under 30 feet of water, offering safe haven to an unprecedented biodiversity of seagrass habitats for turtles and breeding grounds for sharks, humpback and blue whales.Researchers say that the bank is one of the least scientifically studied areas of the planet partly because of its remoteness. The area’s unpredictable depths have also meant that, over the centuries, merchant ships and explorers tended to avoid these waters. It has long been the type of fantastical realm so uncharted that on the old maps, it would be designated “Here Be Monsters.” More recently, though, the bank is traversed by a diverse cast of characters, including shark finners, bottom trawlers, seabed miners, stranded fishers, starving crews, wealthy yachters and libertarian seasteaders.The tragedy, however, is that since the Saya de Malha Bank is mostly located in international waters, where few rules apply, its biodiversity is being systematically decimated by a huge fleet of industrial fishing ships that remain largely unchecked by government oversight. The bank remains unprotected by any major binding treaties largely due to an anemia of political will by national authorities and a profits-now, costs-later outlook of fishing interests. The question now: Who will safeguard this public treasure? Mowing down an eco-systemMore than 500 years ago, when Portuguese sailors came across a shallow-water bank on the high seas over 700 miles east of the northern tip of Mauritius, they named it Saya de Malha, or “mesh skirt,” to describe the rolling waves of seagrass below the surface. The Saya de Malha bank, which means “mesh skirt” in Portuguese, was named to describe the rolling waves of seagrass just below the surface. It is part of the mascarene plateau in the Indian Ocean and is one of the largest submerged banks in the world. (James Michel Foundation) Seagrasses are frequently overlooked because they are rare, estimated to cover only a tenth of 1% of the ocean floor. “They are the forgotten ecosystem,” said Ronald Jumeau, the Seychelles ambassador for climate change. Nevertheless, seagrasses are far less protected than other offshore areas. Only 26% of recorded seagrass meadows fall within marine protected areas, compared with 40% of coral reefs and 43% of the world’s mangroves.The Saya de Malha Bank is existentially crucial to the planet because it is one of the world’s biggest carbon sinks. Much like trees on land, seagrass absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stores it in its roots and soil. But seagrass does it especially fast — at a rate 35 times that of tropical rainforest. What makes the situation in the Saya de Malha Bank even more urgent is that it’s being systematically decimated by a multinational fleet of fishing ships that virtually no one tracks or polices.Often described as the lungs of the ocean, seagrasses capture about a fifth of all its carbon and they are home to vast biodiversity. Seagrass also cleans polluted water and protects coastlines from erosion. At a time when ocean acidification threatens the survival of the world’s coral reefs and the thousands of fish species that inhabit them, seagrasses reduce acidity by absorbing carbon through photosynthesis, according to a 2021 report by the University of California. Seagrasses provide shelters, nurseries, and feeding grounds for thousands of species, including endangered animals such as dugongs, stalked jellyfish and smalltooth sawfish. Seagrass meadows like the Saya de Malha bank absorb about a fifth of all oceanic carbon. They also clean polluted water. Acting as a dense net, they trap microplastics and lock them away in the sediment. (Greenpeace / The Outlaw Ocean Project) But the Saya de Malha is under threat. More than 200 distant-water vessels — most of them from Sri Lanka and Taiwan — have parked in the deeper waters along the edge of the bank. Ocean conservationists say that efforts to conserve the bank’s seagrass are not moving fast enough to make a difference. “It’s like walking north on a southbound train,” said Heidi Weiskel, director of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.On May 23, 2022, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution to declare March 1 as World Seagrass Day. The resolution was sponsored by Sri Lanka. Speaking at the assembly, the Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the UN, Ambassador Mohan Pieris, said seagrasses were “one of the most valuable marine ecosystems on earth,” highlighting, among other things, their outsize contribution to carbon sequestration. But recognition is one thing; action is another. As the ambassador gave his speech in New York, dozens of ships from his country’s fishing fleet were 9,000 miles away, busily scraping the biggest of those very ecosystems he was calling on the world to protect. VIDEO | 05:54 Saya de Malha: Robbing the bank Share via Plumbing seafloor wealthFor the past decade, the mining industry has argued that the ocean floor is an essential frontier for rare-earth metals needed in the batteries used in cellphones and laptops. As companies eye the best patches of ocean to search for the precious sulphides and nodules, dubbed “truffles of the ocean,” the waters near the Saya de Malha Bank have emerged as an attractive target. Black, potato-sized polymetallic nodules scattered on the seafloor in 2019 drew prospectors for their cobalt, nickel, copper and manganese. (Southeastern U.S. Deep-sea Exploration / Office of Ocean Exploration and Research / NOAA) To vacuum up the treasured nodules requires industrial extraction by massive excavators. Typically 30 times the weight of regular bulldozers, these machines drive along the sea floor, suctioning up the rocks, crushing them and sending a slurry of pulverized nodules and seabed sediment through a series of pipes to a vessel above. After separating out the minerals, the mining ships then pipe back overboard the processed waters, sediment and mining “fines,” which are the small particles of the ground-up nodule ore. This 2020 animation demonstrates how a collector vehicle launched from a ship during deep-sea mining would travel 15,000 feet below sea level to collect polymetallic nodules containing essential minerals. (MIT Mechanical Engineering / The Outlaw Ocean Project) Most of the bank is too shallow to be a likely candidate for such mining, but cobalt deposits were found in the Mascarene Basin, an area that includes the Saya de Malha Bank, in 1987. South Korea holds a contract from the International Seabed Authority, the international agency that regulates seabed mining, to explore hydrothermal vents on the Central Indian Ridge, about 250 miles east of Saya de Malha, until 2029. India and Germany also hold exploration contracts for an area about 800 miles southeast of the Saya de Malha Bank.All of this activity could be disastrous for the bank’s ecosystem, according to ocean researchers. Mining and exploration activity will raise sediments from the ocean floor, reducing the seagrass’ access to the sunlight it depends on. Sediment clouds from mining can travel hundreds or even thousands of miles, potentially disrupting the entire mid-water food web and affecting important species such as tuna. Research published in 2023 found that a year after test seabed mining disturbed the ocean floor in Japanese waters, the density of fish, crustaceans and jellyfish in nearby areas was cut in half.Proponents of deep seabed mining stress a growing need for these resources. In 2020, the World Bank estimated that the global production of minerals such as cobalt and lithium would have to be increased by over 450% by 2050 to meet the growing demand for clean energy technology.However, skeptics of the industry say that because of the long transport distances and corrosive and unpredictable conditions at sea, the cost of mining nodules offshore will far outstrip the price of doing so on land. Other critics contend that technology is changing so quickly that the batteries used in the near future will be different from those that are used now. Better product design, recycling and reuse of metals already in circulation, urban mining and other “circular” economy initiatives can vastly reduce the need for new sources of metals, said Matthew Gianni, co-founder of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition.More recently, though, the Metals Company, the largest seabed mining stakeholder, has shifted away from talking about batteries and instead claimed that the metals are needed for missiles and military purposes.The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, a group of nongovernmental organizations and policy institutes working to protect the deep sea, reports that over 30 countries have called for a moratorium or a precautionary pause on deep-seabed mining. Still, government officials in Mauritius and Seychelles seem to be eager to take advantage of the financial opportunity that seabed mining appears to represent. In 2021, Mauritius hosted a workshop with the African Union and Norad, the Norwegian agency for developmental cooperation, to look into seabed mining prospects.That year, Greenpeace, a member of the conservation coalition, chose the Saya de Malha Bank as the location for the first ever underwater protest of deep-seabed mining. As part of that protest, Shaama Sandooyea, a 24-year-old marine biologist from Mauritius, dove into the bank’s shallow waters with a sign reading “Youth Strike for Climate.” She had a simple point to make: that the pursuit of minerals from the seafloor, without understanding the consequences, was not the route to a green transition. She said: “Seagrasses have been underestimated for a long time now.” Scientist and climate activist Shaama Sandooyea boarded a ship for the first time to carry out an underwater protest at the world’s largest seagrass meadow at the Saya de Malha Bank in the Indian Ocean in March 2021, as a part of Greta Thunberg’s Friday for Futures movement. (Greenpeace / The Outlaw Ocean Project) Raking the watersIn 2015, an infamously scofflaw fleet of more than 70 bottom trawlers from Thailand fished in the Saya de Malha Bank. Their catch would be turned into protein-rich fishmeal that gets fed to chickens, pigs and aquaculture fish. At least 30 of them had arrived in the bank after fleeing crackdowns on fishing violations in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, according to a report from Greenpeace. The Thai government was not yet a member of the Southern Indian Ocean Fisheries Agreement, so none of the vessels were approved to fish in the bank by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission. Thus, the Thai ships skirted international oversight bodies meant to protect this area of water. Thailand’s director-general of the Department of Fisheries later confirmed the vessels were “operating in an area free of regulatory control.”The impact of the Thai fishmeal fleet was “catastrophic” to the Saya de Mahla Bank, according to researchers from Monaco Explorations. “It seems remarkable that the Thai government permitted its fishing fleet to commence trawl fishing,” the organization said in its final report. “Even a cursory glance” at the existing literature should have dissuaded any trawling, the researchers added, questioning whether the Thai government’s decision to approve trawling was a “case of complete negligence” or a “deliberate policy to trawl the bank prior to joining Southern Indian Ocean Fisheries Agreement.” The Thai fishmeal trawlers have continued to return annually to the Saya de Malha Bank but typically with fewer vessels than in 2015. In 2023, only two trawlers were still authorized by the Southern Indian Ocean Fisheries Agreement.More recently, the bigger fishing presence in the Saya de Malha Bank consists of Taiwanese tuna longliners and Sri Lankan gillnetters. More than 230 vessels fished in the vicinity of the Saya de Malha Bank between January 2021 and January 2024. Most of these ships (over 100) were from Sri Lanka and were gillnetters, according to data from Global Fishing Watch. The second-largest group were from Taiwan (over 70). At least 13 of these ships from Taiwan and four from Sri Lanka have been reprimanded by their national authorities for illegal or unregulated fishing, with transgressions including the illegal transport of shark fins or shark carcasses with their fins removed, the falsification of catch reports, and illegal fishing in the waters of countries including Mauritius and Seychelles.The presence of these ships poses a dire threat to biodiversity in the bank, according to ocean scientists. Jessica Gephart, a fisheries-science professor at the University of Washington, explained that the Saya de Malha Bank is a breeding ground for humpback and blue whales that can be injured or killed by ship collisions. The worry is that fishing vessels may not just cut down the seagrass, warned James Fourqurean, a biology professor at Florida International University. These ships also risk causing turbidity, making the water opaque by stirring up the seafloor, and thereby harming the balance of species and food pyramid.There aren’t really any laws or treaties that protect the Saya de Malha Bank. International institutions known as regional fisheries-management organizations are supposed to regulate fishing activities in high seas areas such as the bank. They are responsible for establishing binding measures for the conservation and sustainable management of highly migratory fish species. Their roles and jurisdictions vary, but most can impose management measures such as catch limits. These organizations are often criticized by ocean conservationists, however, because their rules only apply to signatory countries and are crafted by consensus, which opens the process to industry influence and political pressure, according to a 2024 Greenpeace report.The Saya de Malha, as an archetypal example of these limitations, is governed by the Southern Indian Oceans Fisheries Agreement. Sri Lanka, the home of the bank’s largest fleet, is not a signatory. Far away from human rightsWith near-shore stocks overfished in Thailand and Sri Lanka, vessel owners send their crews farther and farther from shore in search of a worthwhile catch. That is what makes the Saya de Malha — far from land, poorly monitored and with a bountiful ecosystem — so attractive. But the fishers forced to work there live a precarious existence, and for some, the long journey to the Saya de Malha is the last they ever take.Sri Lankan gillnetters make some of the longest trips in the least equipped boats. In October 2022, a British American couple encountered a Sri Lankan gillnet boat in the bank. The crew had been at sea for two weeks and had only caught four fish, so they begged the couple for supplies. After the encounter, the Sri Lankans remained at sea for another six months.Some vessels also engage in transshipment, offloading their catch without returning to shore, which can lead to prolonged periods at sea and increased risks. In 2016, six Cambodian crew members died from beriberi, a preventable disease, onboard a Thai fishmeal trawler. The Thai government linked the deaths to hard labor, long hours and poor diet, while Greenpeace found evidence of forced labor.Today, fewer vessels from the Thai fleet are traveling to the Saya de Malha Bank, but questions about working conditions on Thai vessels persist. In 2023, a crew member named Ae Khunsena died under suspicious circumstances, with his family suspecting foul play, while officials ruled it a suicide. VIDEO | 06:36 Saya de Malha: Far from shore Share via Creating a new nationVast and sometimes brutal, the high seas are also a place of aspiration, reinvention and an escape from rules. This is why the oceans have long been a magnet for libertarians hoping to flee governments, taxes and other people by creating their own sovereign micronations in international waters.The Saya de Malha Bank has been a prime target for such ambitions. Covered with seagrass and interspersed with small coral reefs, the bank is among the largest submerged ocean plateaus in the world — less than 33 feet deep in some areas. Near the equator, the water is a balmy 73.4 degrees to 82.4 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the season. Waves are broken in the shallower areas. But the biggest allure is that the bank is hundreds of miles beyond the jurisdictional reach of any nation’s laws.On March 9, 1997, an architect named Wolf Hilbertz and a marine biologist named Thomas Goreau sailed to the bank. Launching from Victoria, the capital of the Seychelles, the voyage took three days. With solar panels, metal scaffolding and cornerstones, they began constructing their vision for a sovereign micronation that they planned to call Autopia — the place that builds itself.In 2002, the two men returned to the bank in three sailboats with a team of architects, cartographers and marine biologists from several countries to continue building. They intended to erect their dwellings on top of existing coral, reinforcing steel scaffolding using a patented process that Hilbertz had developed called Biorock, a substance formed by the electro-accumulation of materials dissolved in seawater. This involved sinking steel frames into the shallow waters, then putting these steel poles under a weak direct electrical current. Little by little, limestone is deposited on the steel poles and at their base, creating an ideal habitat for corals and other shellfish and marine animals.Rushing because a cyclone was headed their way in a matter of days, the team built in six days a steel structure five by five by two meters high, anchored in the seabed and charged by a small onboard battery. In later interviews, Hilbertz, who was a professor at the University of Houston, said he hoped to use building materials with a lower carbon footprint and create a self-sufficient settlement in the sea “that belongs to the residents who live and work there, a living laboratory in which new environmental technologies are developed.” His plans ultimately stalled for lack of funds.Two decades later, a 58-year-old Italian businessman named Samuele Landi began promoting a new vision for a micronation in the Saya de Malha Bank. He planned to park a massive barge near the seagrass patch far from the reach of extradition and police. A gifted computer programmer, avid skydiver and motorcycle racer, Landi had been a man on the lam for roughly a decade. Accused of fraud after his company, Eutelia, declared bankruptcy in 2010, Landi and some of its executives were tried and convicted in Italy. Landi was sentenced in absentia to 14 years, which led him to relocate to Dubai where he dabbled in crypto, hid money in Switzerland and skated around extradition treaties.While living comfortably in Dubai, he registered companies in bespoke tax-free zones, and eventually procured diplomatic credentials from Liberia, according to a New York Times profile.As he prepared this plan for moving to the Saya de Malha Bank, Landi purchased an initial 800-ton deck barge that he named Aisland. Anchoring it roughly 30 miles off the coast of Dubai, he lived on the vessel with three sailors, a cook and five cats. In 2022, Samuele Landi bought an initial 800-ton deck barge that he named Aisland and anchored roughly 30 miles off the coast of Dubai, where he lived with three sailors, a cook and five cats. (The Legend of Landi by Oswald Horowitz / The Outlaw Ocean Project) Aisland’s deck was fitted with six blue shipping containers bolted in place—living quarters, equipped with solar-powered air conditioners and a desalination system. Landi stayed there for over a year as he raised money to buy another barge twice as large as the Aisland. He even hired an architect named Peter de Vries to help design plans for the refit of the new barge so that it could sail to the Saya de Malha Bank and survive there. Landi hoped to eventually create a floating city consisting of about 20 barges, which would, by 2028, house thousands of permanent residents in luxury villas and apartments. Since the Saya de Malha Bank has been known to entice pirates and other sea marauders, Landi also planned to mount a Gatling gun on the Aisland. “That’s one of these guns that fires 1,000 rounds a minute — very heavy-duty stuff,” De Vries said in an interview with the Times.The movement to create sovereign states on the high seas has a colorful history. Typically such projects have been imbued with the view that government was a kind of kryptonite that weakened entrepreneurialism. Many held a highly optimistic outlook on technology and its potential to solve human problems. The founders of these micronations — in the 2000s quite a few dot-com tycoons — were usually men of means, steeped in Ayn Rand and Thomas Hobbes. Conceptualized as self-sufficient, self-governing, sea-bound communities, the vision for these waterborne cities was part libertarian utopia, part billionaire’s playground. Fittingly, they have been called, in more recent years, seasteads, after the homesteads of the American West.In 2008, these visionaries united around a nonprofit organization called the Seasteading Institute. Based in San Francisco, the organization was founded by Patri Friedman, a Google software engineer and grandson of Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize–winning economist best known for his ideas about the limitations of government. The institute’s primary benefactor was Peter Thiel, a billionaire venture capitalist and the co-founder of PayPal who donated more than $1.25 million to the organization and related projects. Thiel also invested in a startup venture called Blueseed. Its purpose was to solve a thorny problem affecting many Silicon Valley companies: how to attract engineers and entrepreneurs who lacked American work permits or visas. Blueseed planned to anchor a floating residential barge in international waters off the coast of Northern California. Never getting beyond the drawing-board phase, Blueseed failed to raise the money necessary to sustain itself.The reality is that the ocean is a far less inviting place than architectural renderings tend to suggest. At sea, there is plenty of wind, wave and solar energy, but building renewable-energy systems that can survive the weather and corrosive seawater is difficult and costly.On Feb. 2, 2024, Landi and his crew tragically learned this hard lesson. The Aisland was slammed by a rogue wave, which breached the hull, breaking the barge in two. Two members of Landi’s crew survived by clinging onto pieces of wood until a passing vessel rescued them the next day. Landi and the two remaining seafarers died. According to Italian news reports, Landi put out a call for help, but it didn’t come in time. His body was found several days later, when it washed up on the beach about 40 miles up the coastline from Dubai. Vanishing protectors and predatorsIn November 2022, a research expedition by the environmental nonprofit Monaco Explorations took one of the largest and most advanced research vessels in the world to Saya de Malha. The goal was to document a seafloor famously lush in seagrass, corals, turtles, dugongs, rays and sharks. However, during the three weeks that the research team combed the waters of the Saya de Malha Bank, they spotted not a single shark. 1/3 Researchers investigating the Saya de Malha Bank in 2022.  (Monaco Explorations) 2/3 Researchers investigating the Saya de Malha Bank in 2022.  (Monaco Explorations) 3/3 Researchers investigating the Saya de Malha Bank in 2022.  (Monaco Explorations) The likely culprit, according to the scientists, was a fleet of more than 200 fishing ships that have in recent years targeted these remote waters.Sharks play a critical role in the ecosystem as guardians of the seagrass, policing populations of turtles and other animals that would mow down all the seagrass if left unchecked. Catching sharks is not easy, nor is it usually inadvertent. In tuna longlining, the ship uses a line made of thick microfilament, sometimes stretching as long as 40 miles, with baited hooks attached at intervals. Many tuna longliners use special steel leads designed not to break when the sharks, bigger and stronger than the tuna, try to yank themselves free.To offset poverty wages, ship captains typically allow their crew to supplement their income by keeping the fins to sell at port, off books. To avoid wasting space in the ship hold, deckhands usually throw the rest of the shark back into the water after they cut off the fins, which can sell for a hundred times the cost of the rest of the meat (except in countries such as Sri Lanka and Ecuador where there is a market for the meat). It’s a wasteful process and a slow death, as the sharks, still alive but unable to swim, sink to the seafloor. When the Imula 763 returned to Beruwala port in Sri Lanka in August 2024 after fishing in the Saya de Malha Bank, another vessel, the Imula 624, was in the same port where fishermen were cutting up sharks. (Amazing Fish Cutting / The Outlaw Ocean Project) In 2015, more than 50 Thai fishing vessels, primarily bottom trawlers, descended on the Saya de Malha Bank to drag their nets over the ocean floor and scoop up brushtooth lizardfish and round scad, much of which was transported back to shore to be ground into fishmeal. Two survivors of trafficking who worked in the Saya de Malha Bank on two of the vessels — the Kor Navamongkolchai 1 and Kor Navamongkolchai 8 — told Greenpeace that up to 50% of their catch had been sharks. Since then, the Thai presence in the Saya de Malha Bank has diminished, and in 2024 only two Thai vessels targeted the area.The Sri Lankans have continued to fish the bank intensely. Of the more than 100 Sri Lankan vessels that have fished in the Saya de Malha since January 2022, when the country’s fleet first began broadcasting vessel locations publicly, about half use gillnets, according to vessel data from the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission. Gillnetters hang wide panels of netting in the water, keeping them attached to the surface via floating lines. These particular gillnetters operate across the Indian Ocean, and a number of the vessels were observed at the bank by the 2022 Monaco Explorations expedition. Sharks are especially vulnerable to gillnets, which account for 64% of shark catches recorded by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission. Sri Lankan vessels have historically targeted sharks in the country’s national waters, but as domestic stocks of sharks have been decimated, the Sri Lankan fleet moved into the high seas, areas including the Saya de Malha Bank. (The Fishcutter) Historically, Sri Lankan vessels have targeted sharks in domestic waters. Between 2014 and 2016, for example, 84% of reported shark catches came from domestic vessels, according to research into the Sri Lankan shark and ray trade published in 2021. But as domestic populations declined, vessels, among them the fleet of gillnetters, moved to the high seas, leading to a new boom in the fin trade. Sri Lanka’s annual exports of fins quadrupled in the last decade, according to UN Comtrade data, with 110 tons exported in 2023, primarily to Hong Kong, compared with just 28 tons in 2013. VIDEO | 04:32 Saya de Malha: The vanishing predators Share via Tracking data also show that more than 40 of the Sri Lankan vessels do not publicly broadcast their location while in the bank, making it impossible for conservationists to fully understand what’s going on.In August 2024, a Sri Lanka vessel that fished in the Saya de Malha between March and June 2024 was detained by Sri Lankan authorities with over half a ton of oceanic white-tip shark carcasses aboard, all with their fins removed. Catching oceanic white-tip sharks is prohibited under Sri Lankan law, as is the removal of shark fins at sea. This was not an isolated incident: Sri Lankan authorities have seized illegally harvested shark fins on at least 25 separate occasions since January 2021, according to press releases from the Sri Lankan Coast Guard.Why should anyone care about the disappearance of sharks in the Saya de Malha Bank?Ernest Hemingway once described going bankrupt as something that happens gradually ... and then suddenly. The extinction of species is like bankruptcy, and when it finally occurs, there’s no going back. If we keep draining the bank of one of its previous riches, a “sudden” reckoning may be soon. Additional reporting and writing by Outlaw Ocean Project staff, including Maya Martin, Joe Galvin, Susan Ryan and Austin Brush.

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