AFP

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who blasts off for the International Space Station this week, is an irreverent space enthusiast who has made headlines for splashing the cash on modern art.

The 46-year-old tycoon is the founder of Japan’s largest online fashion mall and is the country’s 30th-richest person, according to business magazine Forbes.

But he is far from the traditional image of a staid Japanese businessman, with more than 10 million people following his Twitter account, its handle a play on his first name: @yousuck2020.

And he’s a big spender, particularly when it comes to his twin passions: modern art and space travel.

He hit the headlines in 2017 when he forked out a whopping $110.5 million for Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1982 painting “Untitled”, a skull-like head in oil-stick, acrylic and spray paint on a giant canvas.

It was a record price, but Maezawa insists he is just an “ordinary collector” who buys pieces “simply because they are beautiful”.

On December 8, Maezawa will become the first space tourist to travel to the ISS with Russia’s space agency Roscosmos since Canadian Guy Laliberte, co-founder of Cirque du Soleil, in 2009.

He will be accompanied on the 12-day mission by his assistant Yozo Hirano, a film producer who will be documenting the journey for Maezawa’s YouTube channel and its 754,000 subscribers.

How much Maezawa has spent on his upcoming space adventure is unclear, as the price tag has been kept a secret, though similar trips have cost millions of dollars.

But the cost is unlikely to make much of a dent in the $1.9 billion net worth Maezawa is estimated to have accumulated through his firm Zozo, previously known as Start Today, which operates the hugely popular ZOZOTOWN online fashion site.

Maezawa arrived in Kazakhstan for space training in November, and has said he is “not afraid or worried” about the voyage.

– ‘Buy big dreams’ –

He has been soliciting ideas for things he should do in space and asking questions including: “Do you move forward when you fart in space? What happens when you play Pokémon GO in space?”

In Japan, Maezawa’s exploits are often fodder for gossip magazines, with a particular focus on his love life over his space exploits.

The ISS trip won’t be Maezawa’s last space odyssey, as the businessman has also booked out an entire SpaceX rocket for a trip around the Moon scheduled for 2023 at the earliest.

Maezawa originally said he planned to invite six to eight artists on the trip, asking them to create “masterpieces (that) will inspire the dreamer within all of us”.

But in March, he announced he was broadening the search beyond artists, and claims to have received one million applications for eight spots on the rocket made by Elon Musk’s firm.

Maezawa has made a habit of holding online competitions, creating a Twitter frenzy in 2020 when he said he would give away $9 million to 1,000 people as a “social experiment”. 

But he backed out of a separate competition seeking candidates to be his girlfriend… after attracting nearly 30,000 applicants.

As a young man, Maezawa had aspirations in the music world and was a drummer with a band named Switch Style, which made its debut in 2000.

But he came to feel the business world was more creative than music, and has said writing and performing eventually become a frustrating routine.

He began dabbling in business even before the band’s debut, and has attributed Zozo’s success to the fact he and his staff were “doing what we enjoy”.

“Work hard, make people happy, earn money, buy big dreams, visit amazing places, meet people, experience great things, grow as a person, and work again,” he wrote in May on his Twitter account, explaining his philosophy.

“The cycle repeats. The cycle of making dreams come true. We can even go to space.”

Russia on Wednesday will send Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to the International Space Station in a move marking Moscow’s return to the now booming space tourism business after a decade-long break.

One of Japan’s richest men, Maezawa, 46, will blast off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan accompanied by his assistant Yozo Hirano. 

On Sunday morning, their Soyuz spacecraft with a Japanese flag and an “MZ” logo for Maezawa’s name was moved onto the launch pad in unusually wet weather for Baikonur, an AFP journalist saw.

The mission will end a decade-long pause in Russia’s space tourism programme that has not accepted tourists since Canada’s Cirque du Soleil co-founder Guy Laliberte in 2009.

However, in a historic first, the Russian space agency Roscosmos in October sent actress Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko to the ISS to film scenes for the first movie in orbit in an effort to beat a rival Hollywood project.

Maezawa’s launch comes at a challenging time for Russia as its space industry struggles to remain relevant and keep up with Western competitors in the modern space race. 

Last year, the US company SpaceX of billionaire Elon Musk ended Russia’s monopoly on manned flights to the ISS after it delivered astronauts to the orbiting laboratory in its Crew Dragon capsule.

This, however, also freed up seats on Russia’s Soyuz rockets that were previously purchased by NASA allowing Moscow to accept fee-paying tourists like Maezawa.

Their three-seat Soyuz spacecraft will be piloted by Alexander Misurkin, a 44-year-old Russian cosmonaut who has already been on two missions to the ISS.

The pair will spend 12 days aboard the space station where they plan to document their journey for Maezawa’s YouTube channel with more than 750,000 subscribers.

The tycoon is the founder of Japan’s largest online fashion mall and the country’s 30th richest man, according to Forbes.

“I am almost crying because of my impressions, this is so impressive,” Maezawa said in late November after arriving at Baikonur for the final days of preparation.

Maezawa and Hirano have spent the past few months training at Star City, a town outside Moscow that has prepared generations of Soviet and Russian cosmonauts.  

– ‘Hardest training ever’ – 

Maezawa said that training in the spinning chair “almost feels like torture”. 

“It’s the hardest training ever done,” he tweeted in late November.

So far Russia has sent seven self-funded tourists to space in partnership with the US-based company Space Adventures. Maezawa and Hirano will be the first from Japan.

Maezawa’s launch comes at the end of a year that became a milestone for amateur space travel. 

In September, SpaceX operated a historic flight taking the first all-civilian crew on a three-day journey around the Earth’s orbit in a mission called Inspiration4.

Blue Origin, the company of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, completed two missions beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. The passengers included 90-year-old Star Trek star William Shatner and Bezos himself. 

Soon after, billionaire Richard Branson travelled aboard his Virgin Galactic spacecraft that also offered a few minutes of weightlessness before coming back to Earth.

Those journeys mark the beginning of space opening up for non-professionals with more launches announced for the future. 

In 2023, SpaceX is planning to take eight amateur astronauts around the moon in a spaceflight that is bankrolled by Maezawa, who will also be onboard. 

Russia has also said it will take more tourists to the ISS on future Soyuz launches and also plans to offer one of them a spacewalk. 

For Russia, retaining its title of a top space nation is a matter of national pride stemming from its Soviet-era achievements amid rivalry with the United States. 

The Soviets coined a number of firsts in space: the first satellite, first man in space, first woman in space, first spacewalk, to name just a few. 

But in recent years Russia’s space programme has suffered setbacks, including corruption scandals and botched launches, and faced a cut in state funding.

The industry remains reliant on Soviet-designed technology and while new projects have been announced, such as a mission to Venus, their timeline and feasibility remain unclear.

Boxes of roses, lilies and carnations pile up as influencer Caicai speaks into her smartphone from a small studio at Asia’s biggest flower market — with thousands of customers eagerly awaiting her view on the best deals.

E-commerce is big business in China and influencers and livestreamers have made their fortunes showcasing products for luxury brands and cosmetics firms.

Now the nation’s horticulture industry, worth an estimated 160 billion yuan ($25.1 billion), is getting in on the action. And where once people visited markets and florists themselves, they are increasingly shopping for blooms via their smartphones. 

Online retail now represents more than half the sector’s turnover.

“Five bouquets, only 39.8 yuan (6.25 dollars) for those that order right away,” the 23-year-old says — a sales pitch she hones for eight hours a day delivered at lightning speed.

“When you sell something for a long time, the words come naturally,” she tells AFP.

Earnings can be unreliable, however.

“Flower sales vary in busy and slack seasons, so a livestreamers’ daily income is very variable. All I can say is that the more you work, the luckier you will be,” she explains, as colleagues next to her put the bouquets in cardboard boxes ready to be shipped.

Demand for cut flowers has soared in China as standards of living have risen, with the southern province of Yunnan at the epicenter of that boom thanks to its all-year mild climate.

Provincial capital Kunming boasts the biggest flower market in Asia — the second biggest in the world after Aalsmeer in the Netherlands. 

– ‘Flowers are vital’ –

Everyday at 3 p.m., a rose auction starts in a huge room where over 600 buyers share the day’s supply behind their screens.

“Yunnan represents around 80 percent of flower production in China and 70-80 percent of the flowers on sale pass through our auction room,” says Zhang Tao, responsible for the market’s logistics — a crucial role when the goods are so perishable. 

“That represents on average more than four million flowers sold every day. For Chinese Valentine’s day, we sold 9.3 million in a day.”

They are shipped across China within 48 hours.

On the retail side of the market, another influencer, Bi Xixi, showcases flowers and bouquets from stalls to sell on to her own online subscribers. 

Wearing a traditional Chinese dress known as a hanfu, passing from one stand to another with her phone at the end of a cane, the 32-year-old has racked up around 60,000 subscribers.

She picks up flowers, shows them on her screen while followers hurry to place their orders. 

Bi Xixi started livestreaming early last year, when China was paralysed by the Covid pandemic. That’s when she realised people were eager to see online the flowers they could no longer buy outside.

Now, on a good day, she says she manages to sell 150,000 yuan ($23,500) worth of flowers in three hours of livestreaming.  

She takes around ten percent commission and is optimistic about the future of the trade.

“People appreciate rituals more and more. Flowers give them a feeling of being happy and young people are beginning to like buying flowers,” she says. 

The market is still very far from saturation, says Qian Chongjun, head of the Dounan Flower Corporation, one of the largest entities on the market.

“Buying flowers every week has become a habit in many families,” says Qian. “I think that one day they will become a vital need, like air and water”.

Toads are a symbol of prosperity and good fortune in Taiwan, but the unexpected discovery of an invasive species has officials and environmentalists scrambling to contain their spread.

With flashlights in hand and shielded by protective gloves, dozens of volunteers from the Taiwan Amphibian Conservation Society worked through the night searching rice fields and vegetable plots for their quarry — the cane toad.

There should be no reason for these large and highly toxic amphibians to exist in Chaotun, a township in the foothills of Taiwan’s central mountain range.

Cane toads are indigenous to South and Central America and while they have wrought a famously destructive path through places like Australia and the Philippines they had not been recorded in Taiwan.

That was until a few weeks ago when a local resident discovered some large amphibians hanging out in her community vegetable garden and uploaded a photograph online, a move that sparked an immediate toadhunt.

“A speedy and massive search operation is crucial when cane toads are first discovered,” Lin Chun-fu, an amphibian scientist at the government-run Endemic Species Research Institute told AFP as he explained why conservationists have since rushed to find and remove any cane toads. 

“Their size is very big and they have no natural enemies here in Taiwan,” he added.

– Fingertip search –

Soon after the photo was uploaded Yang Yi-ju, an expert at National Dong Hwa University, sent a group of volunteers from the Amphibian Conservation Society to investigate. 

They arrived at the vegetable garden and were shocked to find 27 toads in the immediate vicinity. 

She quickly identified the interlopers as rhinella marina thanks to the tell-tale large partoid glands behind the ears where cane toads secrete a dangerous poison.

“I was shocked and worried when they found more than 20. This is not going to be an easy thing to tackle,” she recalled.

“We began to notify and mobilise everyone to act,” she said, adding the presence of juveniles showed the toads were breeding.

Cane toads are a dangerous invasive species for three key reasons. 

They are voracious predators, they are hugely successful at breeding and they are poisonous. That latter quality, a defence mechanism, is especially dangerous to dogs who might lick or bite one.

Local farmers told conservationists they had noticed the arrival of these burly toads but never reported it.

“Taiwanese farmers generally ignore toads and even look favorably at toads when they find them because they help rid the land of pests and are also a good luck symbol,” explained Yang. 

“It never occurred to them that this is an invasive species from a foreign land.”

Conservation officials and environmental volunteers have been working non-stop to do a painstaking search.

“We have divided (the township) into 200 by 200 meters square grids to investigate one by one if there are marine toads present,” field researcher Lin Yong-lun said, pointing to a series of colour-coded maps.

The search perimeter has since been expanded to a 4-kilometer radius.

– Symbols of fortune –

So far more than 200 marine toads of various sizes have been captured and housed at the Endemic Species Research Institute.

Cane toads are among the world’s ‘100 Invasive Alien Species’ list compiled by the Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG), an international advisory body of scientists and policy experts.

Also known as marine toads, their most common English name came from the fact that it was used in sugar plantations to hunt cane beetles. 

They were introduced into plantations in Australia, the Philippines, Japan, the Caribbean as well as Florida and Hawaii where they have caused damage to the local ecosystems.

Despite their warty appearance, toads are a symbol of wealth, longevity and good luck in Chinese culture. They are also used in Chinese medicine and their totems are common in feng shui to ward off bad luck.

“In store fronts you can find toad totems, drawings and even real live toads. It’s a symbol of fortune and good luck,” amphibian scientist Lin said.

Until 2016 it was legal to import cane toads into Taiwan as pets where they can fetch between NT$3000 to NT$4000 ( US$107-US$142).  

Conservationists believe since imports were banned, people have started breeding cane toads locally and some have since escaped or abandoned by their masters.

So far there have been no other reported sightings in Taiwan and Yang is cautiously optimistic about stopping the spread.

“Next spring during mating season is when we truly know for sure if we have contained it,” she said. 

Toads are a symbol of prosperity and good fortune in Taiwan, but the unexpected discovery of an invasive species has officials and environmentalists scrambling to contain their spread.

With flashlights in hand and shielded by protective gloves, dozens of volunteers from the Taiwan Amphibian Conservation Society worked through the night searching rice fields and vegetable plots for their quarry — the cane toad.

There should be no reason for these large and highly toxic amphibians to exist in Chaotun, a township in the foothills of Taiwan’s central mountain range.

Cane toads are indigenous to South and Central America and while they have wrought a famously destructive path through places like Australia and the Philippines they had not been recorded in Taiwan.

That was until a few weeks ago when a local resident discovered some large amphibians hanging out in her community vegetable garden and uploaded a photograph online, a move that sparked an immediate toadhunt.

“A speedy and massive search operation is crucial when cane toads are first discovered,” Lin Chun-fu, an amphibian scientist at the government-run Endemic Species Research Institute told AFP as he explained why conservationists have since rushed to find and remove any cane toads. 

“Their size is very big and they have no natural enemies here in Taiwan,” he added.

– Fingertip search –

Soon after the photo was uploaded Yang Yi-ju, an expert at National Dong Hwa University, sent a group of volunteers from the Amphibian Conservation Society to investigate. 

They arrived at the vegetable garden and were shocked to find 27 toads in the immediate vicinity. 

She quickly identified the interlopers as rhinella marina thanks to the tell-tale large partoid glands behind the ears where cane toads secrete a dangerous poison.

“I was shocked and worried when they found more than 20. This is not going to be an easy thing to tackle,” she recalled.

“We began to notify and mobilise everyone to act,” she said, adding the presence of juveniles showed the toads were breeding.

Cane toads are a dangerous invasive species for three key reasons. 

They are voracious predators, they are hugely successful at breeding and they are poisonous. That latter quality, a defence mechanism, is especially dangerous to dogs who might lick or bite one.

Local farmers told conservationists they had noticed the arrival of these burly toads but never reported it.

“Taiwanese farmers generally ignore toads and even look favorably at toads when they find them because they help rid the land of pests and are also a good luck symbol,” explained Yang. 

“It never occurred to them that this is an invasive species from a foreign land.”

Conservation officials and environmental volunteers have been working non-stop to do a painstaking search.

“We have divided (the township) into 200 by 200 meters square grids to investigate one by one if there are marine toads present,” field researcher Lin Yong-lun said, pointing to a series of colour-coded maps.

The search perimeter has since been expanded to a 4-kilometer radius.

– Symbols of fortune –

So far more than 200 marine toads of various sizes have been captured and housed at the Endemic Species Research Institute.

Cane toads are among the world’s ‘100 Invasive Alien Species’ list compiled by the Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG), an international advisory body of scientists and policy experts.

Also known as marine toads, their most common English name came from the fact that it was used in sugar plantations to hunt cane beetles. 

They were introduced into plantations in Australia, the Philippines, Japan, the Caribbean as well as Florida and Hawaii where they have caused damage to the local ecosystems.

Despite their warty appearance, toads are a symbol of wealth, longevity and good luck in Chinese culture. They are also used in Chinese medicine and their totems are common in feng shui to ward off bad luck.

“In store fronts you can find toad totems, drawings and even real live toads. It’s a symbol of fortune and good luck,” amphibian scientist Lin said.

Until 2016 it was legal to import cane toads into Taiwan as pets where they can fetch between NT$3000 to NT$4000 ( US$107-US$142).  

Conservationists believe since imports were banned, people have started breeding cane toads locally and some have since escaped or abandoned by their masters.

So far there have been no other reported sightings in Taiwan and Yang is cautiously optimistic about stopping the spread.

“Next spring during mating season is when we truly know for sure if we have contained it,” she said. 

Boxes of roses, lilies and carnations pile up as influencer Caicai speaks into her smartphone from a small studio at Asia’s biggest flower market — with thousands of customers eagerly awaiting her view on the best deals.

E-commerce is big business in China and influencers and livestreamers have made their fortunes showcasing products for luxury brands and cosmetics firms.

Now the nation’s horticulture industry, worth an estimated 160 billion yuan ($25.1 billion), is getting in on the action. And where once people visited markets and florists themselves, they are increasingly shopping for blooms via their smartphones. 

Online retail now represents more than half the sector’s turnover.

“Five bouquets, only 39.8 yuan (6.25 dollars) for those that order right away,” the 23-year-old says — a sales pitch she hones for eight hours a day delivered at lightning speed.

“When you sell something for a long time, the words come naturally,” she tells AFP.

Earnings can be unreliable, however.

“Flower sales vary in busy and slack seasons, so a livestreamers’ daily income is very variable. All I can say is that the more you work, the luckier you will be,” she explains, as colleagues next to her put the bouquets in cardboard boxes ready to be shipped.

Demand for cut flowers has soared in China as standards of living have risen, with the southern province of Yunnan at the epicenter of that boom thanks to its all-year mild climate.

Provincial capital Kunming boasts the biggest flower market in Asia — the second biggest in the world after Aalsmeer in the Netherlands. 

– ‘Flowers are vital’ –

Everyday at 3 p.m., a rose auction starts in a huge room where over 600 buyers share the day’s supply behind their screens.

“Yunnan represents around 80 percent of flower production in China and 70-80 percent of the flowers on sale pass through our auction room,” says Zhang Tao, responsible for the market’s logistics — a crucial role when the goods are so perishable. 

“That represents on average more than four million flowers sold every day. For Chinese Valentine’s day, we sold 9.3 million in a day.”

They are shipped across China within 48 hours.

On the retail side of the market, another influencer, Bi Xixi, showcases flowers and bouquets from stalls to sell on to her own online subscribers. 

Wearing a traditional Chinese dress known as a hanfu, passing from one stand to another with her phone at the end of a cane, the 32-year-old has racked up around 60,000 subscribers.

She picks up flowers, shows them on her screen while followers hurry to place their orders. 

Bi Xixi started livestreaming early last year, when China was paralysed by the Covid pandemic. That’s when she realised people were eager to see online the flowers they could no longer buy outside.

Now, on a good day, she says she manages to sell 150,000 yuan ($23,500) worth of flowers in three hours of livestreaming.  

She takes around ten percent commission and is optimistic about the future of the trade.

“People appreciate rituals more and more. Flowers give them a feeling of being happy and young people are beginning to like buying flowers,” she says. 

The market is still very far from saturation, says Qian Chongjun, head of the Dounan Flower Corporation, one of the largest entities on the market.

“Buying flowers every week has become a habit in many families,” says Qian. “I think that one day they will become a vital need, like air and water”.

Rescuers in Indonesia raced to find survivors in villages blanketed by molten ash Sunday after the eruption of Mount Semeru killed at least 14 people and left dozens injured.

The eruption of the biggest mountain on the island of Java caught locals by surprise on Saturday, sending thousands fleeing and forcing hundreds of families into makeshift shelters.

At least 11 villages of Lumajang district in East Java were coated in volcanic ash, submerging houses and vehicles, smothering livestock and leaving at least 1,300 evacuees seeking shelter in mosques, schools and village halls.

“We did not know it was hot mud,” said Bunadi, a resident of Kampung Renteng, a village of about 3,000 people. “All of a sudden, the sky turned dark as rains and hot smoke came.”

Dramatic footage showed Semeru pumping a mushroom of ash into the sky that loomed over screaming residents of a nearby village as they fled.

“The number of victims who died until now is 14 people,” national disaster mitigation agency spokesman Abdul Muhari told a press conference Sunday.

Two of the victims have been identified, he said in an earlier statement.

At least 56 people including two pregnant women were injured in the eruption, health officials said, and most suffered serious burns.

President Joko Widodo on Sunday ordered a rapid emergency response to find victims after the scale of the disaster became clear, said state secretary Pratikno, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name.

As many as 10 trapped people were rescued from areas surrounding Lumajang, Muhari said, as villagers and rescuers worked through the night to find anyone alive or retrieve bodies.

But the rescue efforts were hindered by hot ash and debris, with evacuations temporarily suspended on Sunday due to ash clouds, Indonesia’s Metro TV reported, highlighting the difficulty of the operation.

The country’s geological agency said rain is expected in the next three days that could further hinder rescue work.

There is also a risk of the rain causing ash sediment to form a new river of hot lava, the country’s top volcanologist Surono told the TV station.

– ‘Mud flow’ –

Many people who sustained burns had mistaken the hot mud flow for floods so stayed in their villages, said Lumajang Public Order Agency spokesman Adi Hendro.

“They did not have time to run away,” he told AFP.

Authorities said they are still trying to confirm the whereabouts of at least nine people. 

Lava mixed with debris and heavy rain destroyed at least one bridge in Lumajang, preventing rescuers from accessing the area.

Emergency services footage showed a desolate scene in the village of Kampung Renteng, with rescue workers toiling surrounded by buckled buildings and fallen trees.

“There were 10 people carried away by the mud flow,” said Salim, another resident of the village.

“One of them was almost saved. He was told to run away but said, ‘I can’t, who will feed my cows?'”

– Wrecked homes –

In other areas, villagers desperately tried to salvage their belongings from wrecked homes, carting mattresses and furniture on their shoulders while others carried goats in their arms.

Locals have been advised not to travel within five kilometres (3.1 miles) of Semeru’s crater, as the nearby air is highly polluted and could affect vulnerable groups, Muhari said.

Ash spewed by the volcano travelled up to four kilometres away, Indonesia’s geological agency reported, reaching as far as the Indian Ocean in the southern part of Java.

The volcano’s alert status has remained at its second-highest level since its previous major eruption in December 2020, which also forced thousands to flee and wrecked villages.

The head of Indonesia’s centre for volcanology said it warned officials on Thursday about increased volcanic activity.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where the meeting of continental plates causes high volcanic and seismic activity, and the country has nearly 130 active volcanoes.

In late 2018, an eruption in the strait between Java and Sumatra islands caused an underwater landslide and tsunami that killed more than 400 people.

Hundreds of environmentalist demonstrators gathered on South African beaches Sunday to protest against oil and gas exploration by energy giant Shell.

In Cape Town protesters held up the peace symbol, banners reading “Shell in Hell” and a giant model snoek fish to highlight their concerns about the potential impact of the project on sea life.

Under a dull, rainy sky, protesters in Gqeberha waved signs showing a Shell logo altered to resemble a hand showing its middle finger and calling for a boycott of the group’s petrol stations.

Activists say Shell’s plans to search for oil and gas deposits off South Africa’s beloved Wild Coast — a key tourist attraction — pose a danger to marine animals.

Shell plans to use seismic waves emitted from boats equipped with air cannon to analyse the geological structure of the ocean floor, hunting for spots likely to contain hydrocarbons.

“We don’t know what impact seismic blasting will have on a very rich marine life which has here for hundreds of thousands of years,” said Div de Villiers, a local wildlife crime official.

“Has sufficient research been done on all our fish species? Has Shell done the research on the impact on the livelihoods of people?”

Ecologists say the exploration technique could upset animals’ behaviour, feeding, reproduction and migration patterns, with many sea creatures such as whales relying heavily on their sense of hearing.

But a court on Friday rejected their request for an emergency injunction against Shell’s plans.

“In a time when all accepted science points towards us not using fossil fuels anymore, and our Northern Hemisphere neighbours are dead set against seismic surveys, I find it puzzling that these new ‘colonisers’ feel justified in moving their unwanted activities to Africa,” said Alan Straton, a sailor and member of the Ocean Stewards development project.

The Wild Coast includes several nature reserves and protected marine areas stretching along some 300 kilometres (180 miles) of unspoiled Indian Ocean shoreline.

Shell plans to spend four to five months exploring in the region over an area of 6,000 square kilometres.

“We take great care to prevent or minimise impacts on fish, marine mammals and other wildlife,” a company spokesman told AFP last month.