Robert D Sluka, Ph.D. leads A Rocha’s Marine Conservation Programme. He is a curious explorer, applying hopeful, optimistic and holistic solutions to all that is ailing our oceans and the communities that rely on them. Robert’s research focuses on marine biodiversity conservation, plastic pollution, and fisheries, particularly marine protected areas. The ultimate goal is to glorify God through oceans and communities being transformed using holistic marine conservation.
Despite the importance of the topic that ‘Seaspiracy’ addresses, the solution it advocates – ending the consumption of seafood – is not an option nor a desirable solution to ocean health. It is just not that simple.
As I scrolled through the Facebook updates from my friends in the area, I heaved a deep sigh of frustration and lament. Again!? How could a thousand-year rain event happen every other year? Something was amiss.
I have been playing “Biodiversity Jenga” for over a decade. Players take turns to remove bricks, providing me with the opportunity to talk about the ecological role of individual species, and whether they are threatened with extinction. And, as everyone knows, ultimately the whole thing will come crashing down.
Do you remember the early weeks of lockdown, the ‘great pause’ when there was no road traffic and very little human noise? Taking a walk along a usually busy road. I felt like I was walking back in time to the days before motorized vehicles.
David Attenborough’s latest BBC documentary, ‘Extinction: the facts’ makes shocking but deeply compulsive watching. Viewers have spoken of being so overwhelmed as to switch off and return later, and being moved to anger and sleeplessness. I wasn’t as depressed as many, and will come back to why.
Between 1 September and 4 October, churches around the world will be participating in the Season of Creation. Our Director of Theology, Dave Bookless, has been on the global planning group for the past couple of years, and here he explains more about the concept and this year’s theme, ‘Jubilee for the Earth: new rhythms, new hopes.’
The love of stuff justifies consuming people in the name of production, progress, and the maintenance of privilege. It also justifies the voracious plunder of our planet with no regard for the delicately balanced web of life, its most vulnerable members, or for the living conditions of future generations. And it eats away at our very soul.
Our mobility, freedom and security put on hold… Our health and our lives threatened… Our wealth plummeted… Our temples of consumerism closed. All because of an almost invisible virus. Amidst very real fear and grief, this gives us an opportunity to rethink ‘flourishing’, and how our economic systems can be regenerative and restorative rather than unstable, unjust, and unsustainable.
COVID-19 has stopped us in our tracks. It is as though the whole globe has been put on a time out. We could fill the unnerving silence with bread-baking, Zoom meetings and Netflix bingeing. Or we could take this rare opportunity to reflect, reconsider and reboot.
As the COVID-19 coronavirus makes its relentless way across the world, it is not the only thing that is going viral. Fear, panic-buying, stock-market slumps, and fake news stories are also infectiously spreading like viruses, making the situation so much worse. In this context, I want to ask two key questions.
