Red Sea corals off the coast of Eilat, Israel. (Professor Maoz Fine)

⛵ All aboard! The 33-meter Swiss ketch, Fleur de Passion, weighed anchor at the end of April, departing from the port of Seville onto the port of Aqaba, in Southern Jordan. From there, a team of scientists led by the EPFL will embark on an expedition to study the heat-resistant corals of the Red Sea, while trying to foster cooperation between bordering nations.

🏞️ Quality, not quantity. Despite major strides in expanding protected areas in the last decade and practically reaching the 2020 goal of protecting 17 per cent of land and inland water and 10 per cent of marine areas, governments have still much work to do to ensure that these sites are well managed, according to a new report.

🐝 We’re doing it all wrong. Bee populations are declining fast because of pesticides, habitat destruction and other factors. This has prompted many people to try and save these tiny vital pollinators. Experts say however that this has put too much attention on honey-bees, when the ones that are in real trouble are wild bees, which are as important, if not more, for our food security.

A-76 Iceberg breaking off. (ESA/Copernicus Sentinel-1 imagery)

World’s largest iceberg calves from Antartica. A 4320 square kilometre chunk of ice larger than the island of Majorca, known as A-76, broke off a week ago from the Ronne Ice Shelf in the Weddell Sea, according to the European Space Agency. Bergs calving is a natural occurrence that has been accelerated by climate change, particularly in the poles, where temperatures are rising twice as fast as the rest of the world. In November, another gigantic iceberg that had broken off was on a path to collide with the Island of South Georgia, threatening to cut off the local penguins and seals from their food supply.

20-23 May | Global Biodiversity Festival. To celebrate International Day for Biological Diversity, scientists, explorers, conservationists, filmmakers and policy makers from all over will be exploring every angle of biodiversity.

21 May | Grève pour l’Avenir. The Swiss youth climate movement takes to the streets of Switzerland to call for climate action. Several demonstrations will be held in different parts of Geneva.

📅 Much has happened last month, and we're rounding it up. Check out our monthly newsletter coming out next week.