“The More You Know, the More You Hurt”: Environmental Researchers Share Their Wounds

In his second essay for The New Climate, investigative photojournalist Neal Haddaway visits the front lines of environmental research in Australia.

Masters student, Michelle Feenstra, pauses over the body of a dead chick found on a morning beach walk at Ned’s Beach, Lord Howe Island. © Neal Haddaway

I really do try not to fly. In my second language, Swedish, flygskam means ‘flight shame’ — and I feel particularly guilt-ridden today. I have 14kg of camera equipment crammed into a precariously thin bag and my pockets stuffed with lithium batteries and underwear. I am waiting for research scientist and senior curator of birds, Dr Alex Bond, in a busy domestic terminal at Sydney airport. He’s meeting me along with two research students for the 2 hour flight 600km into the Pacific Ocean to a tiny dot of land called Lord Howe Island.

I’ve been told to expect palm trees, sun and sand. But this isn’t a holiday. I’ve also been told to expect death, suffering, and a lot of tears.

Members of the Adrift research group will be working on this isolated island in the Tasman Sea conducting seabird research. But the reality is not cute or fluffy (well, maybe a little bit) — they spend much of their time struggling to come to terms with the worsening impacts of marine plastic pollution on a bird called the sable shearwater…