Fabulously flotsam, the latest Captain's Log from the Story Ark journey. Read it now on storyark.co.za 🌞 www.storyark.co.za/captains-log...

Story Ark was featured on Sarah Kent's Substack, A Field of Dreams: open.substack.com/pub/sarahlke... “My dream is that every woman listening here can be fired up to push back against the social norms that try to tell them to dress, groom, think, behave and comport themselves in certain ways.”

Then this happened. Just in case anyone thought #StoryArk is #ElizabethGilbert doing an #EatPrayLove tour of Rome's pizzeria, it most certainly isn't. Far more gritty, living extreme weather while reporting on it. @coveringclimatenow.org #daillymaverick #storyarkdiaries #climatejournalism

Story Ark has been on the road for a year. What a triumph, what a trailblazing opportunity for climate journalism at a time when we’ve never needed it more urgently. Full recap video on YouTube now: youtu.be/NjAwrYu81y4

One year and 20,000km in. #StoryArk is still 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years, all the stories. But now, with a stowaway. #climatecrisis #mobilejournalism @henrynxumalofund.bsky.social #schoolforclimatestudies @TEDx #TEDxCountdown @coveringclimatenow.org

Traditional healer Malibongwe Ndovela collects plants for medicines and mystical charms that grow in the grasslands and forests at the Mtentu River mouth, a popular overnight stop for hikers. Read: news.mongabay.com/2024/08/ever...

Mouse has a sister-by-another-mister. How do you weigh a kitten to work out their formula needs, when one is in the middle of nowhere? Kitty in the left hand, 400g of beans in the right. Meet Birdie. #vanlife #adventurecats #storyark #storyarkdiaries

When trees have navels. Story Ark: 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years... all the stories 🌍 #StoryArk #storyarkdiaries #sciencejournalism

Xolobeni’s rusty titanium-rich coastal dunes are synonymous with the amaMpondo’s 20-year battle to keep extractive mining out of their ancestral lands. Read: ‘Everything is a being’ for South Africa’s amaMpondo fighting to protect nature. news.mongabay.com/2024/08/ever...

Story Ark's unique take on pollution will feature at #TEDxJohannesburg. Part of #TEDCOUNTDOWN to UN climate summit. What we achieve in next years, to slow carbon pollution, will determine outcome of life for thousands of years to come. Every. Second. Counts. www.tedxjohannesburg.com/2025-countdown

When an elder dies, it’s like a library burning down, said Malian writer/intellectual Amadou Hampâté Bâ re keepers of culture thru oral trad. What are we doing to ensure next gen of Africa's libraries retain knowledge? Fano Tembe, carries Thonga fishing culture. www.instagram.com/reel/DO6GmS2...

In the presence of the elders. #Emkhuze #mkhuze sycamore fig forest, KZN. #storyarkdiaries #storyark #climatecrisis #climatejournalism #SchoolforClimateStudies @henrynxumalofund.bsky.social

Trade in your cute little kitty heels for some no-fun flats. They’ll take you places your city shoes never could. Story Ark: 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years... all the stories 🌍 #StoryArk #storyarkdiaries #sciencejournalism

The amaMpondo want economic development, but on their own terms, with many preferring light-touch tourism over extractive mining. news.mongabay.com/2024/08/ever...

One person’s whimsy is another’s weed. Aliens, everywhere! We shipped them around the world, now they’ve gone feral. Our bad, not theirs. Now are we counting the tally. Story Ark: 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years... all the stories 🌍 #StoryArk #storyarkdiaries #sciencejournalism

Herbalists burn imphepho, African sage (Helichrysum odoratissimum), as an incense during prayer. This fragrant herb grows wild in the Mpondoland grasslands. Read: ‘Everything is a being’ for South Africa’s amaMpondo fighting to protect nature. news.mongabay.com/2024/08/ever...

When a professional recording studio is nowhere to be found, and the wifi is slower than early dial-up (cue: that dialup sound), find a kindly hotel and hire their board room when you patch through to the BBC’s Wales office. Story Ark: 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years... all the stories 🌍

When traditional healer Mamjozi Danca was born into a violent apartheid state that tried to dispossess her people of their land and culture, the amaMpondo fought back. Now, they are fighting to protect their heritage from mining corporations. Read: news.mongabay.com/2024/08/ever...

Who profits from pollution—and who pays the price? #TangelicTalks and #SouthAfrica #sciencejournalist #LeonieJoubert talk on how #pollution, #foodsystems, #plastics are interconnected crises. An African take on a global systems problem. www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUnu...

When a professional recording studio is nowhere to be found, and the only place to get good phone signal is parked under a tree on a side road in #Hluhluwe, do your live radio interview thusly. With chief navigator and plucky comic relief, the Cat Called Mouse, supervising.

A spiritual connection with “the land” fuels the amaMpondo’s resistance to extractive mining on South Africa’s Wild Coast, and it is this same force that fuelled a peasant revolt against the apartheid government in the early 1960s. Read: news.mongabay.com/2024/08/ever...

There’ve only been three times in the past year where I’ve thought I might have to throw in the towel on the Story Ark voyage. Each time, because of fear. Fear, brought on by heat. Read the full story: www.storyark.co.za/captains-log...

A Free State of mind: Clarens, where the cosmos is wild, well feral-wild. One person’s whimsy is another’s weed. Aliens, everywhere! Set feral by us, having shipped them around the world. Only now are we counting the tally. Story Ark: 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years... all the stories 🌍

Always have a second pair of eyes check your copy before you go to print. Lest you find yourself in the lingerie drawer, when you’re actually reaching for the coffee in the bleary-eyed dawn. Look close. No, closer still. Story Ark: 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years... all the stories 🌍

Have a place for everything, and keep everything in its place. Meticulously. Entropy is snapping at your heels. Story Ark: 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years... all the stories 🌍 #StoryArk #storyarkdiaries #sciencejournalism

Recent research shows that airborne microplastics are likely blowing in over the Katse Dam, one of the largest reservoirs in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project which feeds water to South Africa, Botswana and Namibia. Read more here: bit.ly/4mmgHnd

Plastic poisoning is the new ‘passive smoking’ and we’re all soaking up this toxic sludge. What's a lethal dose of plastics poisoning? Don't know yet, but we'll soon find out. www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/...

Young people like Tukulo Mtshayelo can protect their neighbourhood from the fallout of pollutants such as invasive trees or disposable nappies. But how to they safeguard themselves against airborne plastic pollution blown in from tens or hundreds of kilometres away? For more: bit.ly/4mmgHnd

#BBC #UnexpectedElements: journalists #CarolineSteele, #ChhaviSachdev, #LeonieJoubert find they're thrill seekers according to chill-seeking prof Ken Carter #EmoryUniversity. Advice to thrill-seekers, when feel urge to leap before looking: ask 'What Would Ken Do?' www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w...

It's a wrap: 5-part @dailymaverick.co.za series on #plasticpollution in S Africa. Take-home re corporate disinterest in issue: they're happy to spend a king’s ransom on wooing us as consumers with lavish marketing campaigns. But when they have to engage with...👇 omny.fm/shows/mid-mo...

Moeketsi Makhoali and his dogs tend to his flock (Mahlasela Pass, Lesotho, 3,222m ASL) at the headwaters of the Orange-Senqu River Basin. Recent research shows that airborne microplastics are probably settling in these remote high-altitude areas and polluting water courses. More: bit.ly/4mmgHnd

Tukulo Mtshayelo restored a spring on the outskirts of his village, one of three main sources that locals draw on for water. More here: www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025...

Tukulo Mtshayelo is one of many in rural Matatiele who are cleaning up pollution, such as invasive trees and soiled nappies in communal grazing areas. This has restored a spring on the outskirts of his village, one of three main sources that locals draw on for water. Read more here bit.ly/4mmgHnd

As countries fail on plastics treaty, story of SA herders tackling scourge of throwaway nappies exposes new form of #pollution across region. Airborne #microplastics may be to #SADC water factory what acid rain was to G North in 1980s @coveringclimatenow.org www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025...

Clouds blow over Clarens. Air and sediment samples from a wetland in this protected area show that airborne microplastic pollution is blowing in across great distances and settling over the Drakensberg and Lesotho mountains, important water factories for the region. Read more: bit.ly/4mmgHnd

This might explain the mysterious eddies of sand dunes in the bedroom part of the tent, which I thought was hermetically sealed against them. Mouse needs to learn to shower after taking a dust-spa treatment, and wipe her paws on the mat. #StoryArk #storyarkdiaries #sciencejournalism

When life gives you lemons, go looking for wild guava. Just let the Vervets have first dibs. Story Ark: 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years... all the stories 🌍 #StoryArk #storyarkdiaries #sciencejournalism

When South Africa proposed a tax on sugary drinks (following Mexico's 10% tax, 2014), it was met by strong opposition from the beverage industry. Recent findings show that Coca-Cola submitted misleading “evidence” to Treasury to influence government decision making. For more: www.storyark.co.za/shit

After reading #climate news today, I'm reminded of this post from Jan, when Story Ark was berthed on a cattle farm in the E Cape highlands. ... stay calm... @coveringclimatenow.org @henrynxumalofund.bsky.social @dailymaverick.co.za #storyarkdiaries #storyark youtu.be/8AgjANVk75g

Roll up, roll up! Coming soon, to Woordfees festival. How writers survive. Or not, as case may be. Teaser: it's going to be provocative. There'll be at least 1 ungroomed human female - anyone conditioned to expectations of male gaze may need smelling salts. woordfees.co.za/program/hung...

Escapee from Jurassic Park. How they roll, up here in #Hluhluwe #KZN Story Ark: 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years... all the stories 🌍 #StoryArk #storyarkdiaries #sciencejournalism

Washable cloth nappies are the quickest, easiest and most viable solution to address the immediate problem of single-use nappy pollution that continues to despoil South Africa’s grasslands and waterways. Read more here: bit.ly/4lYvSTp

New evidence shows micro plastics being blown in over headwaters of 1 of SADC's most NB water catchments. It is to region what acid rain was to Europe in '80s. #DailyMaverick @dailymaverick.co.za @coveringclimatenow.org #plasticpollution #microplastics #plastictreaty

Sugary drinks like Coke also pollute people’s bodies. The corporation has amassed huge wealth from selling an addictive product, but consumers are left to pay for the cost of their polluted and damaged bodies. Read more in the Photo Essay live on storyark.co.za: www.storyark.co.za/shit

Story Ark is berthed in KZN, in time for Hilton Arts Fest, after two muddy months in Zululand wilderness. Will be seeing #andrewbuckland performing Ugly Noo Noo, and #johnmaytham bringing #mikevangraan's To life, with love to the stage here. #hiltonartsfestival #storyark #storyarkdiaries

If every South African infant wore disposable nappies, using on average four to five a day, parents would be tossing out nearly 10.5 tonnes of indestructible plastic every day, according to the SA Cloth Nappy Users association. Read more here: bit.ly/4lYvSTp

Embrace the cappuccino. Nothing that self-identifies as ‘white’ will stay that way for long. PS: please send memo to Tr*mp and the MAGAites (proper noun, pronounced Mag-Ites). There is no white. There’s only different and continually changing shades-of-skin. #StoryArk #sciencejournalism

Coca Cola is one of the most recognisable personalities on the planet. But once the consumer’s short-lived hit of dopamine has faded, that bottle of Coca Cola throws a long shadow. Read more: www.storyark.co.za/shit

Plastic pollution in communal grazing lands doesn’t just undermine the local livestock-based economy. It threatens the country’s critical water catchments and reduces the veld’s ability to clean carbon pollution from the atmosphere and help stabilise the climate. Read more here: bit.ly/4lYvSTp

A critter was here. #Hluhluwe Story Ark: 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years... all the stories 🌍 #StoryArk #storyarkdiaries #sciencejournalism