As the first South African female reporter to oversummer in Antarctica, I work at the leading edge of issues shaping Far South — and North.

My polar reporting has appeared in PBS, Daily Maverick’s Our Burning Planet, the American Polar Society’s Polar Times, the Lonely Planet Guide to Antarctica, the Sunday Times and more. The 2023 South African protests that followed in the wake of my work on Russian Antarctic ‘prospecting’ and marine noise were covered by Asian, European, Russian, South African and UK press, as well as AFP, Reuters and Associated Press. Global experts and peer-reviewed papers have cited these investigations, such as GIGA Focus Global, 2022; Chatham House, 2022; the Royal Australian Navy, 2022; and The Polar Journal, 2023.

Covering subjects as diverse as defence cargo hauls, the lives of tardigrades and ocean science cruises, my field assignments have helped animate life at both poles.

This work includes:

• My ongoing investigations have shown that Russia has been searching Antarctica for fossil fuels despite a 1998 mining ban. Published by PBS and Daily Maverick.
• No more Mr Ice Guy – China accused of striking down penguin protections.
• The moment when Russian LNG vessels crossed paths on the Arctic’s Northern Sea Route for the first time in winter without icebreakers.

In the words of law expert Donald Rothwell, ‘The issues playing out in front of us in the Arctic must — subject to challenges like available markets — come home to roost in the Southern Ocean.’

‘All’ Antarctic governments ‘know’ Russia is ‘violating’ iconic mining ban

For Daily Maverick’s Our Burning Planet unit

The Akademik Alexander Karpinsky, the Kremlin’s seismic blaster, returns to Cape Town after another summer season of looking for oil and gas in Antarctica’s Southern Ocean, despite an international 1998 mining ban. Source: Nic Bothma

In the first public rebuke of Russian ‘exploration activities’ by a senior figure long active within Antarctic diplomacy, the American lawyer James Barnes says a Kremlin oil and gas seismic vessel set to arrive in Cape Town is ‘violating’ the mining ban he fought to introduce. Read the full story

‘It’s a moral disgrace’: Cape Town mayor spits fire as Russian seismic ship sails to Antarctica

For Daily Maverick’s Our Burning Planet unit

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis in Antarctica. Source: Daily Maverick

A non-profit coalition of about 30 organisations has called on South African authorities to refuse re-entry to the Kremlin’s Antarctic mineral ‘explorer’ — a regular visitor in Table Bay. Meanwhile, Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis, who was in Antarctica, told Our Burning Planet that Russian state vessels should not berth anywhere near Table Mountain. Read the full story

It’s snow joke — Russia’s noisy Antarctic seismic ship is coming to Cape Town

For Daily Maverick’s Our Burning Planet unit

The Akademik Alexander Karpinsky — the seismic vessel that has conducted most of Russia’s Antarctic oil and gas seismic surveys — in Cape Town. Source: Daily Maverick

A Kremlin oil and gas research vessel — exposed by Our Burning Planet for activities that resemble Antarctic prospecting, and may have traumatic impacts on marine life — arrives in Cape Town in 14 days. This, even as SA’s environment minister, Barbara Creecy, hits the ice to inspect ‘zero emissions’ tech. Read the full story

Revealed: Inside Antarctica’s brutal, lingering noise war on marine life

For Daily Maverick’s Our Burning Planet unit

Southern Ocean ecosystems, and individual species — from krill to whales — are impacted by vessels that fish, conduct seismic research, transport tourists and more. Source: Daily Maverick

For decades, state officials, tourists, scientists and fisheries have noisily pushed into a sound-sensitive, ice-bound wilderness where some of Earth’s most endangered and iconic animals seek refuge. As the world’s polar vessels descend on the Southern Ocean for yet another summer of scientific research, fishing and sightseeing, Antarctica’s protected species may again have to pay the ultimate price. Read the full story

Ukraine should lead, but marine parks may have to wait, says former head of Kremlin’s Antarctic programme

For Daily Maverick’s Our Burning Planet unit

Emperor penguins, an ambassador species severely threatened by climate change. Source: Daily Maverick

In a rare in-depth interview, Valery Lukin — who executed Russia’s Antarctic interests for decades until 2017 — told Our Burning Planet he did not see why Kremlin officials would object to Ukraine’s pending chairship of the Southern Ocean’s hotly contested fisheries body, meeting in Australia. But he was less buoyant on the matter of marine protected areas. Read the full story

Battleground Antarctica II: Despite mining ban, Russia scours Antarctica for massive fossil fuel deposits

For Daily Maverick’s Our Burning Planet unit

Potential exploitation of Antarctic mineral resources appears to be hardwired into Russia’s current natural resources action plan. Source: Daily Maverick

The Kremlin’s mineral explorer says it has found a stunning 500 billion barrels of oil and gas below the Southern Ocean’s climate-threatened waters. Tapping these mooted reserves would not only hamper global efforts to fight the climate crisis. Known for flouting major agreements, a defiant Russia in the Antarctic could destroy the decades-long protected status of Earth’s last unmined frontier. Read the full story

Battleground Antarctica I: Using Cape Town as launchpad, Russia boasts of supergiant oil fields in Antarctic wilderness

For Daily Maverick’s Our Burning Planet unit

There are 500 billion barrels of Southern Ocean oil and gas, says Russian geological exploration holding company Rosgeo. Source: Daily Maverick

As Antarctic Treaty nations release the Paris Declaration, a new climate manifesto, Daily Maverick can reveal this international investigation: Russia has combed the fragile Southern Ocean for oil and gas on a staggering scale after Antarctica’s mining ban formally entered into force more than two decades ago. Read the full story

Exclusive: ‘Young people are in big trouble’ if the future is gas — James Hansen, father of climate change awareness

For Daily Maverick’s Our Burning Planet unit

Hansen is a proponent of modular fourth-generation nuclear power. Source: Daily Maverick

A Russian LNG mission has congratulated itself on smashing through the melting Arctic for the first time in January, raising temperatures within the science community. Read the full story

Breaking: For the first time in an Arctic winter, commercial vessels traverse Far North from opposite sides

For Daily Maverick’s Our Burning Planet unit

The shipping demonstration — entirely without ice-breaking help — marks a watershed moment in climate politics. Source: Daily Maverick

Gas tankers meet at New Siberian Islands in a historic Russian test voyage, as polar mercury hits record highs. Read the full story

Antarctica: A mysterious continent filled with teeming life in need of our protection

For Daily Maverick’s Our Burning Planet unit

The Ahlmanryggen of Queen Maud Land, Antarctica. Photo: Tiara Walters

A major conservation study on Antarctica urges polar powers to stop, collaborate and listen — but will resource-hungry governments care enough about seals, penguins and whales to do so? Read the full story

Historic climate expedition shatters polar records

For Daily Maverick’s Our Burning Planet unit, with the Alfred Wegener Institute

The icebreakers Polarstern (Germany) and Kapitan Dranitsyn (Russia) on the Arctic ice for the multi-country, year-long MOSAiC polar expedition. Photo: Ernst Stürmer

Taking its blueprint from Fridtjof Nansen’s ‘Arctic Drift’ mission 130 years ago, a new quest for science ventures farther north in winter than ever before. Read the full story

Other polar highlights

Download ‘Lava at first sight’, SAA’s inflight magazine

Inside South Africa’s Prince Edward archipelago in the sub-Antarctic and the environmental challenges facing this relative geological newcomer.

Download ‘The silence of the sirens’, House and Leisure

During this expedition to the world’s ‘driest, windiest, coldest and highest’ wilderness, I found Antarctica’s soul in its all-encompassing quiet.

Download ‘A feeling for snow’, Sunday Times

Braais, 18-ton old ladies and nude slumber parties in mummy bags — I explore the nuances of a South African expedition to Antarctica, and my place in it.

Download ‘Sailing to the sirens’, Sunday Times

On becoming the first South African female journalist to spend a summer at the bottom of the world.

PLUS:

ENGINEERING NEWS: ‘An inside account of the trials behind building South Africa’s emergency Antarctic base’

TIMES LIVE: ‘Warm welcome for an ice maiden: South Africa takes delivery of its R1-billion polar vessel’

DAILY MAVERICK: Peer-reviewed study in Nature sounds alarm about new ways in which humanity’s favourite material, plastic, is spreading to Earth’s remotest oceans

Banner image: Tiarawalters.com