1 . After a decade of negotiations, nearly 200 countries have agreed to a new United Nations treaty(条约)to protect the world’s oceans, the first of its kind in 40 years. The High Seas Treaty aims to protect 30% of the open oceans by 2030, setting a plan in motion to preserve this vast area.

Oceans cover about 71% of the Earth’s surface and are home to countless species of animals and plants. They play a crucial role in maintaining a healthy planet. However, overfishing and pollution from ships and other sources have severely impinged on many marine (海洋的)species and ecosystems.

The last major UN sea treaty in 1982 described the “high seas” — the parts of the oceans that aren’t controlled by any country — but it did not protect them. The high seas, which account for two-thirds of the ocean, currently have only 1.2% of their massive area protected. A marine protected area(MPA)is an area in the sea with strict rules about fishing and other activities. While more and more countries have established MPAs in their waters, most are not connected, limiting their effectiveness for migratory(迁徙的)species.

Last December, over 110 countries committed to protecting 30% of their land and ocean areas by 2030．The High Seas Treaty now enables the extension of this goal to the entire ocean. It aims to make 30% of the high seas become protected areas by 2030 and requires that proposed activities on the high seas undergo assessment for their potential impact on the ocean environment.

Reaching the agreement was challenging due to differing views on ocean protection among countries, such as limits on fishing or pollution. Disagreements also arose over sharing resources between rich and poor nations, with the latter seeking an assurance that resources benefit everyone, not just those in wealthy countries.

The treaty is not yet final and must be officially accepted at a UN meeting. Then it must be approved and signed by enough countries before it takes effect.

2 . Recycled, reused and renewable textiles (纺织品) only go so far in solving the fast-fashion crisis, writes Alexandra Carlton. The answer may lie in consumption.

Australia is the world’s second-largest consumer of clothing, generating 800,000 tonnes of textile waste yearly. Individuals consume about 27 kilograms of new clothes annually and cast 23 kilograms of waste. Globally, the situation is even more severe, with an estimated 92million tonnes of clothing waste produced each year. This equates to a truckload of clothes entering landfills every second.

If you want to stop our unwanted clothes from jamming the planet, you’d assume that reusing and recycling would lead the discussion. However, full clothes recycling — breaking clothes down to their base fibres to create new ones — is no simple task. Clothes consist of various fibres, fasteners, and decorations that traditionally require painstaking manual (手工的) separation. Yet, innovation is underway, such as the Swedish large-scale sorting facility Siptex, where textiles can be sorted by color and material using infrared (红外线) technology.

Brands like Adelaide’s Autark focus on minimizing output. “I keep my collections tightly designed and production numbers slim,” says designer Sophia McMahon. Sometimes this means she doesn’t have the exact clothes someone wants in store, but customers are patient while she makes items to order because they understand her brand’s essence.

Startups like AirRobe are giving clothes a second life and could be part of the solution. The clothing resale market is currently worth 49 billion and is expected to reach 103 billion by 2025．AirRobe lets customers add new purchases to their digital wardrobe so they can be resold later without uploading photos or descriptions. “The ‘re-economy’ — the reuse and recycle market sector — will be a real opportunity for us,” says Erica Berchtold, CEO of The Iconic.

Researchers Samantha Sharpe and Taylor Brydges from the University of Technology Sydney advocate a widespread shift among consumers towards buying fewer, higher-quality clothes besides these innovations.

3 . Time is running out for coral reefs as the climate gets hotter. So scientists are searching the globe for corals that are better at enduring heat, Now, new research shows how those “super corals” can survive: less roommate drama.

Reefs depend on a crucial partnership between the corals and the algae (海藻) that live in the corals’ tissue, The algae make food for the corals using sunlight and in exchange, get a nice spot to live. But when oceans heat up, that relationship goes bad, and the corals kick the algae out, Without their roommates, corals can die, turning a ghostly white, bleached (白化) color.

Still, some corals seem to resist bleaching better than others, A new study shows that those corals depend on algae that are better at tolerating heat. Researchers hope that pinpointing these abilities will help develop new conservation tools to preserve the world’s reefs as temperatures rise. About 1/4 of all marine life rely on coral reefs in some way, along with half 1 billion people around the world also depend on reefs for their food and livelihoods.

“Heat stress can kill a lot of corals really fast,” says Kate Quigley, a research scientist at James Cook University and the Minderoo Foundation in Australia. “I hope that nature does have some mechanisms to get us through the next few years while we get our act together.”

While the hope is that those algae could also aid in reef conservation in the future, researcher Patrick Buerger says it’s likely that it wouldn’t help all coral species. And even the toughest corals can only endure so much. Currently, the world is on track for just under 3degrees Celsius of warming by 2100, a level that would wipe out nearly all coral reefs.

“The action has to be on climate change,” he says. “This is a short-term solution that might buy some time for corals to adapt. But the main focus has to be on climate. There’s not a silver bullet to the problem.”

When you look at the map of the Tengger Desert (腾格尔沙漠), you will see a “green wall” in the southwest. It products Wuwei City of Gansu Province from sandstorms.

With an area of over 8,000 mu, the “green wall” was planted by Wang Tianchang and his family. They have done this great job for over 20 years.

In his seventies now, Wang Tianchang is an ordinary farmer from Gansu Province. He and his family live in a small village close to the Tengger Desert. People there once suffered a lot from sandstorms for a long time. They destroyed their farms and houses. To hold back sand, Wang Tianchang decided to do something. In 1999, Wang planted his first plant in the desert and started his life of sand control.

It is never easy to bring life on the desert. In the beginning, Wang had no experience with desert plants. The sand covered the holes he dug very soon. The wind rooted out the seedlings he planted even on the second day he had done. It was challenging, but he never gave up.

His family helped him a lot, especially his son Wang Yinji. To plant more trees, the two of them even lived in the desert for about six years. They found grass to sleep on as their beds.

Thanks to Wang’s “green wall”, Wuwei City sees much fewer sandstorms. Wang has brought back not only green to the desert but also hopes to the people there. He is our hero!

7 . Every week, Angela looked at her recycling bin, filled with shampoo bottles and plastic containers, with mixed feelings. Sure, it was a lot of plastic, but it was going to be recycled. Or so she thought. Then, her husband sent her some articles revealing that less than 6% of the country’s plastic gets recycled. She was shocked.

Determined to cut back on her plastic consumption, Angela got a starter kit from a company selling refillable household cleaners (家用清洁器). In it were tablets, containing concentrated hand soap as well as glass and bathroom cleaners, and four empty containers. She filled each one with tap water, then dropped in a tablet and watched it dissolve. If she was happy with the cleaners, she would order more tablets but reuse the containers. No new plastic required.

Given plastic’s harmful effects on the environment, nearly three quarters of Americans say they are trying to reduce their reliance on single-use plastic, according to Pew Research Center. Since plastic is everywhere and avoiding it altogether is extraordinarily difficult, some, like Angela, have revived a once-customary practice: refilling containers. Household cleaners seem particularly prepared for a refill revolution, for many can be easily concentrated and reconstituted (with water. If just 10% to 20% of plastic packaging are reused, a report from the World Economic Forum estimates, the amount of plastic waste entering the ocean will be cut in half.

Not everyone is as enthusiastic, though. Jan Dell, a chemical engineer, noted that many cleaning products are packaged in PET or HDPE, two types of plastic with relatively high recycling rates. So she is less concerned about them but far more concerned about the packaging of other products. “What companies should be focusing on is everything else that isn’t recyclable, that is single use and that often becomes plastic pollution,” she said, pointing to plastic bags and cups. “This is just a classic example of big corporations doing something to attract people’s attention over here on something that’s not the main issue to distract from all the single-use plastic they’re pushing out.”

8 . For Vishwanath Mallabadi from Bangalore, India, there is no such thing as a useless object or “waste”. Give him anything—abandoned metal or plastic items, old devices, dysfunctional printed circuit boards — and he’ll create art out of it.

Vishwanath’s passion is particularly relevant in the current age, where India generates more e-waste than it can recycle. From 2019 to 2020, the country generated a total of more than 1 million tonnes of e waste. Of this, only 22.7 percent was collected, taken apart and recycled. The eco-artist has upcycled and transformed nearly 200 kg of e-waste into usable products and proposes eco-art as a means to deal with waste management.

Vishwanath’s father, D M Shambhu, was a famous sculptor and painter, but he wanted his son to choose medicine and become a doctor. However, Vishwanath, who was interested in upcycling second-hand objects right from childhood, decided to pursue a BFA in Applied Art. He later went on to work in a company as a high-level administrator and retired two years ago. “In my free time and during the weekends. I used to conduct experiments in e-waste and try to develop something unique,” he recalled.

So far, the eco-artist has created more than 500 objects. These include a six-foot tall sculpture made from upcycled computer keyboard keys, and a painting inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, using upcycled resistors (电阻器) on wood. Among his other artworks are a 42×38 inch figure statue created from upcycled keyboard keys on a sun board finished with plastics, a deer made of colorful used wires, plants and flowers from computer parts, and eco jewellery from upcycled digital wrist watch parts.

“The work involves selecting the e-waste objects—the texture, shape, and colour etc, and visualising and conceptualising the final product. It might take weeks and months for sculptures. However, sustainable initiatives and upcycled art are nowadays in demand in multinational companies opting for a sustainable culture,” he said.

Inside the world of Buy Nothing

David Stahl did not need leftover(剩下的) pickle juice(腌黄瓜汁). But a few months ago, he decided     1    (ask) for some just to see if it was possible, posting a request to a New York chapter of Buy Nothing, a local Facebook group.

It turns out, people are willing to give away just about anything, if you ask. A week     2    (late), Stahl walked 10 blocks to a stranger’s apartment lobby and retrieved(取回) a 1-gallon Mt. Olive jar of the pale green liquid.

Welcome to the wild world of Buy Nothing, a network of social media groups, mostly on Facebook,     3     people give and receive things, treating the stuff     4    (take) up space in their homes as gifts meant to be shared and treasured.     5    (create) in 2013 by two women in Bainbridge Island, Washington, it has grown to 6,700 independent Buy Nothing Facebook groups in 44 countries.

Giving away the stuff that you no longer want     6    (be) nothing new. But Buy Nothing turns the act of decluttering(清除杂物) into a way to meet and befriend your neighbors. Because each group is     7    (geographical) limited, sometimes encompassing(包含) only a few city blocks,     8     active group can become a tightknit(紧密联系的) trading post.

“We have plenty right here within each of our local communities to sustain(支援) us,” said Liesl B. Clark, one of the     9    (found) of the Buy Nothing Project. “If we can reuse and refurbish and fix and repair and just keep recycling these items, nothing needs to     10    (discard)(丢弃).”