Two months ago, in the middle of the night, I was in a boat above Australia's Great Barrier Reef — the largest living structure on Earth that happens to be larger than all of Italy.
I was there, trying not to vomit, to report on the world's largest project aimed at helping corals breed. Warming seas are killing off corals, and if they can make more babies — a process that starts late at night, when they release vast quantities of sperm and eggs — the reef will be more likely to survive, researchers say.
I wanted to write about this work, not only as an excuse to travel to Australia but because the stakes of losing this ecosystem are so unfathomably high. Reef tourism is a $5.3 billion industry that supports thousands of jobs. It's home to more than 1,600 fish species, many of which are fished out and consumed. And the reef offers near-endless opportunities for scientific discovery, from identifying new species to finding compounds that might help fight cancer.
I'm telling you this because it helps explain what I try to do at Vox: reveal the loss of biodiversity and what that means for our collective well-being, while also investigating solutions that might help. We're one of the only national news organizations that has dedicated resources to cover biodiversity loss. And I think it's one of the most underreported stories of our time. While often fairly depressing, my beat also allows me to share stories of the world's most wondrous creatures and ecosystems, from freshwater mussels that trick fish to the glory of grasslands.
A decade ago, before I was a reporter, I was in a PhD program, studying ecology. I dropped out in pursuit of a journalism career; I felt like I could be more helpful as a writer rather than a researcher, and I was better at it, too. A decade before that, I was a high school student in what Oprah has called America's most unusual town.
If you have feedback on my stories or ideas about what I should cover, I'd love to hear from you. Email me at benji.jones@voxmedia.com, or reach me confidentially on Signal at Benji.90.
