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| This week, we travel to the Mediterranean Sea, where the hunt for illegal fish traps is under way. Alice Pistolesi and Monica Pelliccia joined the marine conservation non-profit Sea Shepherd Italy to report on their efforts to combat this environmental crime. Plus: how bacteria and viruses can alter the weather. | |
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CLIMATE CONVERSATION | Unravelling Italy's illegal web of fish traps |
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|  | The Sea Shepherd ship hunts illegal fish traps in the Mediterranean (Credit: Sea Shepherd) | Off the coast of Sicily, a group of volunteers work tirelessly to extract dangerous fish traps out of the Mediterranean Sea.
The sea is littered with fish aggregating devices (FADs), man-made plastic structures used to attract fish. These plastic FADs wreak havoc on marine life, entangling turtles and sharks and damaging coral reefs. They are illegal in Italy.
"We are witnessing the biggest marine environmental disaster ever. The sea is like a minefield," says Andrea Morello, president of Sea Shepherd Italy, the non-profit working with Italian authorities to hunt down these devices.
Click the button below to find out why fish are drawn to plastic rubbish – and discover how volunteers are helping to save the Mediterranean's marine life. |
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THE BIG PICTURE | The bacteria that thrive in the clouds |
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|  | Studies show that bacteria and other microbes can alter the weather (Credit: Getty Images) |
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| | We're so used to seeing clouds above us we may not even notice them – but they are actually floating islands of life, home to trillions of bacteria, fungi, viruses and single-celled organisms. This invisible ecosystem is called the aerobiome. Scientists are now discovering that the microbes living in clouds play a vital role in the weather and even our health. Click the button below to find out how. | | |
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CLIMATE QUIZ | When 32 rivers in the UK were tested for the "forever chemical" trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), how many were found to be free of the pollutant? | A. One | B. Five | C. Eight | Scroll to the bottom of this newsletter for the answer. |
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| MORE CLIMATE FROM THE BBC |
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| The race to save tropical rainforests | Tropical forests are rapidly shrinking around the world. Colombia's former environment minister tells The Climate Question how to save them. | Listen here > |
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| EV batteries threaten 'Amazon of the Seas' | Stark images show how nickel mining has polluted waters in Indonesia's Raja Ampat archipelago, one of the most biodiverse habitats on Earth. | Keep reading > |
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| Reviving Florida's sea turtle haven | The number of turtle nests in Melbourne Beach, Florida, has more than tripled over the past 40 years due to strict development laws and education. |
Keep reading > |
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And finally... | A clever baby otter has been captured using a rock to open a mussel. Sea otters are one of the few animals to master tool use, smashing open molluscs and shellfish on rocks they bring up to the surface. Watch here as Limpet the otter pup learns to fend for himself and retrieve food from the seabed. | |
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