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EDITOR’S LETTER

VANESSA BAIRD for the New Internationalist Co-operative newint.org

COVER PHOTO: TOMMY TRENCHARD AND AURÉLIE MARRIER D'UNIENVILLE/PANOS

SEA FEVER ‘I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,’ we would belt out, in ragged unison, aged 10. ‘And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.’

Our teacher’s idea of imparting English literature was to get the class to learn by heart her favourite poems. This was one of our favourites too, judging by the decibel level at which we would deliver it.

John Masefield’s lines speak to the pull of the sea, that elemental compulsion that makes the time it takes between spotting that distant stretch of blue and getting into it or riding its waves far too long.

My great-grandfather most likely felt it – running away to sea not once but twice during his teens, according to family lore. He carried on charting his own course through life, becoming a vegetarian and, when forced to be on land, wearing only suits of green tweed. His fiery temper gave him a fearsome reputation, but I remember him as a salty dog with an aura of the sea’s freedom about him, good to four-year-olds and no trouble at all.

The romance of the freedom of the seas is so potent that a question like ‘Who owns the sea?’ might seem absurd. But as this edition’s Big Story shows, it is of profound relevance in times of accelerated resource grabbing, militarization of the seas, plastics pollution and climate destruction. And so is the follow-on question: ‘How can we save the sea?’

Elsewhere in this issue, Roshan De Stone and David Suber investigate the scandal of domestic slavery in Lebanon, and poet Blake Morrison searches for what it is to be English.

THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE:

Aïda Grovestins is a Senegal-based journalist and filmmaker covering West Africa and beyond. Her latest co-produced documentary film, The Trial of Hissène Habré, will appear in 2020.

Diva Amon is a deepsea scientist and marine biologist from Trinidad and Tobago. She is currently a research fellow at the Natural History Museum, London.

Grace Blakeley is a political economist and the author of Stolen: How to save the world from financialisation, published by Repeater Books in September 2019.

Bruno Carachesti is a journalist and photography professor at the University of the Amazon and specializes in documenting everyday life in Belém do Pará, Brazil.

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SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019