The Hidden World Beneath Antarctica

Early this year, the Greenpeace ship, the Arctic Sunrise, arrived in Antarctica for a three-month expedition to an extraordinary place beyond imagination. It was a journey of hope and adventure—and determination, because we have a very real chance in 2018 to create an Antarctic Ocean Sanctuary. At 695,000 square miles, it will be the largest marine protected area on earth, and its waters will be off-limits to an expanding krill-fishing industry sucking up the tiny shrimp-like creatures on which nearly all Antarctic life depends, including whales, penguins, and seals.

What a thrill it was to explore what’s hidden in the dark depths on the seafloor, to see firsthand and up close the rich, colorful garden of ocean life and how the creatures interact in their natural environment—and to watch creatures many scientists have never before seen alive.

The Diversity and Abundance of Marine Life is Astounding

Spectacular gardens of corals, sponges, anemones, and brittle stars. Dancing feather stars, enormous sea spiders with spindly legs, and “disco jellies” and “comb jellies” flashing with colorful bioluminescence to attract tiny prey into their sticky tentacles. In a phenomenon that has been described as the Rise of Slime, gelatinous creatures like ctenophores, salps, and jellyfish appear to be increasing in numbers due to overfishing of their predators and warming waters. This can create a dangerous feedback loop, as they eat the larvae and eggs of already-depleted fish.

It is too cold for most fish on the seafloor, but we saw crocodile icefish, a species that has an anti-freeze in their blood, on every dive, and they’re quite fascinating and really fun to watch. We saw one that had apparently swallowed another icefish whole, with just the tail sticking out of its mouth. Another swam right at us with its mouth gaping menacingly. This fish must be used to being able to eat just about anything it sees move, and we imagined its confusion as it realized how big our submarine was compared to anything it had ever seen before.

The seafloor of the Antarctic Ocean is a great place for spiny-skinned echinoderms. The group includes sea stars and their relatives, and they have A LOT of relatives down here. Wily brittle stars crawl quickly across the bottom, eating detritus as they go. Giant predatory sun stars (that might be better named “death stars”) always seemed to be devouring something when we saw them. Urchins, feather stars, and bright red sea stars were common sights on our dives. Sea cucumbers–attached, crawling, and even swimming varieties–were always around, quietly and efficiently eating the marine snow that slowly settles down from the waters above.

But perhaps the best thing we found was what we didn’t see. While the shallow areas are periodically scraped clean by glaciers and giant icebergs, the deeper regions we visited were lush and pristine. In comparison to other coastal waters, very little of the Southern Ocean has ever been fished. None of the initial micro-plastic surveys we have conducted so far in Antarctic waters turned up any plastic particles, an encouraging and striking difference from what we have seen elsewhere.

It’s not too late to save this spectacular, wondrous place!

Each time we dropped down in the two-person submarine we never knew what we’d see 2,000 feet below at the bottom of the sea. Most of what is known about Antarctic marine life at the seafloor comes from what was pulled up in trawl surveys or fishing gear. Instead of causing destruction for the sake of science, Greenpeace’s submarine-based research allows us to softly and non-invasively glide above the bottom. The sub is equipped with powerful lights so we can see in the darkest ocean depths where no sunlight can penetrate, and film what we find in high-definition images to show the world what is at stake.

Once we get back on shore, the real analysis began—identifying the more mysterious creatures we encountered, going through the video data and quantifying the relative abundance of what we saw, and sharing our results with the Commission for Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.

This scientific work is important for providing a strong foundation for the Antarctic Ocean Sanctuary proposal the Commission will consider later this year in October, but it is equally important that people around the world join together in calling for protection for this unique and wonderful place.

Learn more at: greenpeace.org/usa/antarcticlife

After a wave of mass demonstrations in March, Kinder Morgan announced in April it is putting its Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion on life support and may kill the project altogether. If built, this pipeline would ship almost one million barrels of tar sands oil, one of the world’s dirtiest sources of oil, every day from Canada’s interior into the Pacific Northwest.

This and other pipeline projects risk water supplies, threaten Indigenous human rights, and endanger all of us by intensifying the climate crisis. And if Kinder Morgan goes through with the pipeline expansion, giant oil tankers would ship the dirty fuel through an endangered orca habitat every day for the next 50 years.

Indigenous land defenders are leading the resistance to tar sands pipelines. In solidarity with the more than 150 Indigenous groups of the Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion, Greenpeace is supporting the grassroots movement to stop this and other dirty tar sands pipelines.

Alongside Indigenous communities, Greenpeace supported individuals who took a series of actions over eight days to peacefully block the entrance to a Kinder Morgan construction site in Coast Salish territory near Vancouver, Canada. The bold action delayed the construction of the tar sands oil pipeline that would violate Indigenous rights and threaten clean water for thousands of people. More than 200 people were arrested during the peaceful blockade, including Indigenous land defenders, students, grandmothers, doctors, nurses, teachers—and even a former pipeline engineer.

But the blockade was just one in a series of powerful and inspiring acts of courage opposing Kinder Morgan’s destructive pipeline. More than 10,000 people joined the Indigenous-led “Protect the Inlet” mass mobilization in Vancouver against the company’s Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion and sent a clear message of resistance to the oil industry.

While Kinder Morgan stopped short of announcing it is outright canceling the project, this is a huge victory for Indigenous rights, our communities, and climate. And it energizes our campaign to stop other dirty, dangerous pipelines.

Because despite the proven threats, oil companies still want to build more and more pipelines through other people’s homes. But those projects won’t get anywhere without funding. Greenpeace is putting U.S. banks, like JPMorgan Chase, on notice: They must not provide loans or other financial services to fund oil companies and their destructive pipeline projects.

Find out more at greenpeace.org/usa/kindermorganaction