This week, the phenomenal team here has been learning first hand what I’ve been discovering more and more since first coming here 12 years ago: that the frozen North is an unpredictable, uncontrollable, unforgiving place.

The North Pole is a mathematical construct, an imaginary convergence of lines of longitude. But the North Pole — a stationary point — happens to be in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, and its shifting pack ice is subject to the forces of wind, current and tide. This ice movement is known as drift.

We have been living on this frozen ocean for the last week, and like any other team that comes here, we are trying to play mastermind with the drift, moving across an ever-shifting surface to reach the top of the world. Each day we’ve pushed north only to find ourselves back w... Read more >

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The end of 2012 and first months of 2013 have seen a remarkable change in the fight to protect the Arctic from risky and dangerous oil exploration.    Three oil “majors” –  Total,Statoil and Conoco-Phillips - have withdrawn from drilling projects in the far North.    Shell of course has also famously “paused” its drilling in the Chukchi in the Alaskan Arctic after a series of “costly and embarrassing accidents”, though thankfully at least without a major oil spill or loss of life.  This “pause” though allegedly voluntary, would surely have been imposed upon the subsequent publication of the US Department of the Interior assessment of Shell’s 2012 Arctic operations – published just days later, which highlighted inadequate performance in 5  of 7 key areas identified by Interior Department a...

I'm writing this inside a small yellow tent on the frozen Arctic Ocean, while shoveling snow into a kettle. I'm on my way to the North Pole with a group of young people to declare it protected and call for a sanctuary there. Today was hard, with giant pressure ridges of blocky ice barring our way and a strong southeastern wind pushing us backwards. But we're not alone -- we have millions of people behind us, and instant satellite communications. Where past explorers faced the utter strangeness of this great wilderness, I can now reach any other person on the planet in seconds.

It's easy to think that we have overcome nature, that we have mastered the art of survival and will never look back. Meanwhile, the earth on which we live is once again announcing its supreme relevance. Since the inv... Read more >

Today is love DOC day. It is a day where we give thanks to the guys and girls who are out there, knee deep in mud and tip-toeing through the trees, looking after our treasured land.

Day after day, come rain, shine or high winds DOC staff are out there, safeguarding our heritage, our wildlife and our identity to ensure that New Zealand remains clean and green. They are the bastions of conservation, the protectors of our most fragile species like the Kiwi and the Kakapo and the guardians of our tramping trails. We owe them a lot.

Yet, like many of our iconic birds, they are under threat.

As the National led Government looks to roll back our environmental laws to suit big business, now more than ever we need a strong, well -resourced conservation department. But Nick Smith and Steven Joyc... Read more >

This morning, two polar bears scaled the Statoil oil rig West Hercules bound for the world’s northernmost drilling sites in the Arctic. Just a few hours later the Norwegian state-owned oil company announced that these frontier drillings will not take place this year. And just now, ConocoPhillips announced that they too will be cancelling 2014 drilling plans north of Alaska due to 'regulatory uncertainties.'

That’s fantastic news for the Arctic environment and the almost 3 million strong global movement demanding a total ban on industrial fishing and oil drilling in this fragile region. The good news from Statoil and ConocoPhillips of course doesn’t go far enough, but any setback the oil industry is suffering in their plans to exploit the Arctic is one step closer to making it permanent.

O...

When nobody was watching over Easter, our Government did something very shady. No, they didn’t nick your Easter eggs. What they did was much, much worse.

Simon Bridges, Minister of Energy and Resources, tried to nick your right to protest in an embarrassing and clumsy attempt to suck up to to foreign oil companies. The new minister, who appears to be fumbling with his new job, and with the concept of democracy, has proposed a law change designed to crack down on peaceful protest at sea.

According to SImon Bridges, if you stand up and defend our oceans and beaches from an oil spill, you should face jail or a heavy fine.  

This new law won’t even be checked for breaches of the Bill of Rights -- it's the type of law-making that is more suited to Soviet-era Russia, not New Zealand.

Bri...

Picking up an old magazine can transport you back to a time littered with embarrassing fads and fashions.

A colleague of mine, Sam, experienced this recently in downtown, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, where he is a campaigner. He picked up an old 2011 copy of New Zealand produced Good magazine and came across an advert we ran urging Sealord to change to more sustainably caught tuna.

The full page ad was modelled on the old school seafood poster that used to be a feature of every fish ‘n’ chip shop in New Zealand. We’d altered it so it looked like a load of different sea animals were called ‘tuna’. We did it to show that the boats that Sealord buys its tuna from use a destructive fishing method that can’t tell what’s tuna and what’s not. Tuna? In the net. Sharks? In the net. Turtles? I... Read more >

The Frame: The capsule’s frame is made of titanium, a very long-lasting, inert material. All the bolts and nuts are made from titanium as well. Inscribed on the inert titanium ring that encircles the capsule are the words: Project Aurora 2013 | Save the Arctic | and a quote from award-winning author Arundhati Roy: “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” 

The Anchor:  The anchor is made of iron. Iron is ever-present in the environment of the Arctic seabed. After many years, in roughly 2050, the iron will rust, and the time capsule will surface. By this time we’ll know how humans have responded to the threat of climate change. Scientists say that by this date, human civilisation needs to have reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by a... Read more >