Biodiversity

KJ devoted the entirety of issue 75 to supporting the efforts of the delegates from 130 nations to the historic United Nations-sponsored conference (COP10) on the preservation of biological diversity that was held in October 2010 in Nagoya. In his call for contributions, John Einarsen wrote:

A meeting of this scale builds massive expectations, but as Copenhagen demonstrated, no conference is too big to fail. What can be done to help ensure a successful outcome (verifiable and binding) in Nagoya? 

KJ staff and contributors responded with an issue of striking beauty replete with deeply researched articles on such topics as satoyama, the Japanese form of land use management in which human habitation boosts the biological diversity of the landscape. Eight hundred copies of KJ 75 were transported to Nagoya and handed out free of charge by KJ staff to the delegates. One delegate emailed a friend saying he thought the best thing at the conference was this beautiful magazine that had somehow found its way into his hands…

The outcome of COP10 exceeded expectations with the adoption of the heavily debated Nagoya Protocol. 

The issue featured the stunning photos of Wayne Levin, who free dives in Hawai’i to capture amazing images of schooling fish, in particular the Akule (Big Eyed Scad, Selar crumenophthalmus):      

“The Akule, about six inches in length, are found in miraculously formed clusters of from several hundred fish to one hundred thousand. These tightly packed clusters move with astounding coordination. Viewed as a whole, the school appears to be living sculpture, constantly changing shape as predators approach and interact with it. When photographing these schools, I came to wonder what is the individual? The Akule school appears to be one huge being, with amazing uniformity in its movement. It almost seems that the individual fish are like cells in the larger organism. I wonder what this may imply about all life, and our interconnection.”