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Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · 3d

Story Ark has been on the road for a year. What a triumph, what a trailblazing opportunity for climate journalism at a time when we’ve never needed it more urgently.

Full recap video on YouTube now: youtu.be/NjAwrYu81y4

Story Ark: one year and 20,000km down; many more to go

YouTube video by Story Ark Diaries

youtu.be

Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · 8d

One year and 20,000km in. #StoryArk is still 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years, all the stories. But now, with a stowaway.
#climatecrisis #mobilejournalism @henrynxumalofund.bsky.social #schoolforclimatestudies @TEDx #TEDxCountdown @coveringclimatenow.org

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Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · 16d

Traditional healer Malibongwe Ndovela collects plants for medicines and mystical charms that grow in the grasslands and forests at the Mtentu River mouth, a popular overnight stop for hikers.

Read: news.mongabay.com/2024/08/ever...

Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · 17d

Mouse has a sister-by-another-mister. How do you weigh a kitten to work out their formula needs, when one is in the middle of nowhere? Kitty in the left hand, 400g of beans in the right. Meet Birdie. #vanlife #adventurecats #storyark #storyarkdiaries

Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · 20d

When trees have navels.

Story Ark: 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years... all the stories 🌍
#StoryArk #storyarkdiaries #sciencejournalism

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Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · 21d

Xolobeni’s rusty titanium-rich coastal dunes are synonymous with the amaMpondo’s 20-year battle to keep extractive mining out of their ancestral lands.

Read: ‘Everything is a being’ for South Africa’s amaMpondo fighting to protect nature.

news.mongabay.com/2024/08/ever...

Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · 22d

Story Ark's unique take on pollution will feature at #TEDxJohannesburg. Part of #TEDCOUNTDOWN to UN climate summit. What we achieve in next years, to slow carbon pollution, will determine outcome of life for thousands of years to come. Every. Second. Counts. www.tedxjohannesburg.com/2025-countdown

2025 | Countdown — TEDxJohannesburg

www.tedxjohannesburg.com

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Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · 22d

When an elder dies, it’s like a library burning down, said Malian writer/intellectual Amadou Hampâté Bâ re keepers of culture thru oral trad. What are we doing to ensure next gen of Africa's libraries retain knowledge? Fano Tembe, carries Thonga fishing culture. www.instagram.com/reel/DO6GmS2...

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Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · 22d

In the presence of the elders. #Emkhuze #mkhuze sycamore fig forest, KZN. #storyarkdiaries #storyark #climatecrisis #climatejournalism #SchoolforClimateStudies @henrynxumalofund.bsky.social

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Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · 23d

Trade in your cute little kitty heels for some no-fun flats. They’ll take you places your city shoes never could.

Story Ark: 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years... all the stories 🌍
#StoryArk #storyarkdiaries #sciencejournalism

Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · 24d

The amaMpondo want economic development, but on their own terms, with many preferring light-touch tourism over extractive mining.

news.mongabay.com/2024/08/ever...

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Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · 27d

One person’s whimsy is another’s weed. Aliens, everywhere! We shipped them around the world, now they’ve gone feral. Our bad, not theirs. Now are we counting the tally.

Story Ark: 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years... all the stories 🌍
#StoryArk #storyarkdiaries #sciencejournalism

Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · 28d

Herbalists burn imphepho, African sage (Helichrysum odoratissimum), as an incense during prayer. This fragrant herb grows wild in the Mpondoland grasslands.

Read: ‘Everything is a being’ for South Africa’s amaMpondo fighting to protect nature.

news.mongabay.com/2024/08/ever...

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Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · 29d

When a professional recording studio is nowhere to be found, and the wifi is slower than early dial-up (cue: that dialup sound), find a kindly hotel and hire their board room when you patch through to the BBC’s Wales office.

Story Ark: 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years... all the stories 🌍

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Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · Sep 16

When traditional healer Mamjozi Danca was born into a violent apartheid state that tried to dispossess her people of their land and culture, the amaMpondo fought back. Now, they are fighting to protect their heritage from mining corporations.

Read: news.mongabay.com/2024/08/ever...

Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · Sep 12

Who profits from pollution—and who pays the price?
#TangelicTalks and #SouthAfrica #sciencejournalist #LeonieJoubert talk on how #pollution, #foodsystems, #plastics are interconnected crises.

An African take on a global systems problem.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUnu...

Pollution, Power and Storytelling: Leonie on Climate Journalism and Community Resilience | S03E04

YouTube video by Tangelic

www.youtube.com

Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · Sep 9

When a professional recording studio is nowhere to be found, and the only place to get good phone signal is parked under a tree on a side road in #Hluhluwe, do your live radio interview thusly. With chief navigator and plucky comic relief, the Cat Called Mouse, supervising.

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Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · Sep 8

A spiritual connection with “the land” fuels the amaMpondo’s resistance to extractive mining on South Africa’s Wild Coast, and it is this same force that fuelled a peasant revolt against the apartheid government in the early 1960s.

Read: news.mongabay.com/2024/08/ever...

Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · Sep 5

There’ve only been three times in the past year where I’ve thought I might have to throw in the towel on the Story Ark voyage.

Each time, because of fear.

Fear, brought on by heat.

Read the full story: www.storyark.co.za/captains-log...

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Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · Sep 4

A Free State of mind: Clarens, where the cosmos is wild, well feral-wild. One person’s whimsy is another’s weed. Aliens, everywhere! Set feral by us, having shipped them around the world. Only now are we counting the tally.

Story Ark: 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years... all the stories 🌍

Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · Sep 3

Always have a second pair of eyes check your copy before you go to print. Lest you find yourself in the lingerie drawer, when you’re actually reaching for the coffee in the bleary-eyed dawn. Look close. No, closer still.

Story Ark: 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years... all the stories 🌍

Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · Sep 2

Have a place for everything, and keep everything in its place. Meticulously. Entropy is snapping at your heels.

Story Ark: 1 van, 2 crew, 3 years... all the stories 🌍
#StoryArk #storyarkdiaries #sciencejournalism

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Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · Sep 1

Recent research shows that airborne microplastics are likely blowing in over the Katse Dam, one of the largest reservoirs in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project which feeds water to South Africa, Botswana and Namibia.

Read more here: bit.ly/4mmgHnd

Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · Aug 27

Plastic poisoning is the new ‘passive smoking’ and we’re all soaking up this toxic sludge. What's a lethal dose of plastics poisoning? Don't know yet, but we'll soon find out.

www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/...

Plastic poisoning is the new ‘passive smoking’

We’re only just beginning to realise how serious long-term exposure to microscopic plastic particles is likely to be for our health. While plastic polluting corporations lobby for business as usual, n...

www.dailymaverick.co.za

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Leonie Joubert @leoniejoubert.bsky.social · Aug 26

Young people like Tukulo Mtshayelo can protect their neighbourhood from the fallout of pollutants such as invasive trees or disposable nappies. But how to they safeguard themselves against airborne plastic pollution blown in from tens or hundreds of kilometres away?

For more: bit.ly/4mmgHnd