Welcome

to the thirteenth issue of the annual Biosphere Expeditions Magazine.

We are all tired of the pandemic, about to come back with an omicron vengeance as I write this at the beginning of December 2021. We were poised to re-start expeditions in 2022, but this may all be about to change. After almost two years of a persistent pandemic that is destroying lives and livelihoods around the world, all but the wilfully ignorant must by now understand that humanity has put our planet in dire straits.

So we decided that this 2022 Magazine will be about the crucial decade that we have entered. Because the issues we face with climate change and humanity’s impact on our planet, make the current pandemic – as tired as we all are of it – seem like child’s play.

On last year’s magazine welcome page, I said that it was “live or die, boom or bust” for Biosphere Expeditions. Well, we are still here, hanging on – thanks to your support. However, what I said also holds true for the planet as a whole: This decade will show what humankind wants to do with all the knowledge we now have about our destructive impact on the planet and the degradation of Earth’s life support systems that we as a species are solely responsible for.

This greater crisis, of which the pandemic is but an offshoot, is now much bigger than a single organisation, country or continent. It is a global challenge that needs a global response. I do hope we can turn this supertanker around and that we will be here to take stock with pride and relief in a decade. The next few years will tell and, as always, Biosphere Expeditions will play its small part in trying to avoid a terrible crash landing. Thank you for working with us on this.

Dr. Matthias Hammer Founder & Executive Director