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'Living Seawalls' Bring back Biodiversity to Sydney Harbor

Harbor waterfront seating is devoid of people at sunset in front of the Sydney Harbor Bridge during a lockdown. (Reuters)
Harbor waterfront seating is devoid of people at sunset in front of the Sydney Harbor Bridge during a lockdown. (Reuters)
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'Living Seawalls' Bring back Biodiversity to Sydney Harbor

Harbor waterfront seating is devoid of people at sunset in front of the Sydney Harbor Bridge during a lockdown. (Reuters)
Harbor waterfront seating is devoid of people at sunset in front of the Sydney Harbor Bridge during a lockdown. (Reuters)

In sight of Sydney's iconic Harbor Bridge, marine scientist Mariana Mayer Pinto gingerly steps into the dark waters to examine a seawall covered with hexagonal concrete panels marked with divots that are thronged with kelp, seaweed and barnacles.

About 50% of the natural shore of the harbor has been transformed by seawalls and pilings, which do not support biodiversity the same way a natural coastline would.

Sydney's Institute of Marine Science (SIMS) with the help of scientists from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Macquarie University have crafted a solution using three-dimensional concrete panels in what they call the "Living Seawalls" project.

Specifically designed panels can be retrofitted onto existing seawalls, simulating the natural shoreline ecosystem that provides habitats for organisms such fish, algae and invertebrates that flat seawalls cannot.

"We have seen a total of more than 90 species colonizing these diverse panels and we see 30 to 40 percent more species on the panels in the living seawalls then on the unmodified parts of the seawall," said project co-leader Mayer Pinto, a professor at UNSW.

In just several months, the panels are colonized by marine life, and since many of the organisms are filter feeders like oysters and barnacles, the water quality of the harbor improves, Mayer Pinto said.

Popular in Australia, the panels have also been installed in Wales and Singapore.

The project has also been selected as one of 15 finalists for the Earthshot Prize by the Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Mayer Pinto said that she hopes coastal structures built in the future would be ecologically sustainable, designed not only for humans, but also for nature.

"I grew up on the ocean, the ocean's my happy place so I really want my kids to be able to enjoy the ocean as I did growing up and for that we really need to take a bit more care of it."

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119-year-old Brazilian Woman Stakes Claim as World's Oldest Person

Deolira Gliceria Pedro da Silva, 119, sits in her house in Itaperuna, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, January 14, 2025. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes
Deolira Gliceria Pedro da Silva, 119, sits in her house in Itaperuna, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, January 14, 2025. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes
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119-year-old Brazilian Woman Stakes Claim as World's Oldest Person

Deolira Gliceria Pedro da Silva, 119, sits in her house in Itaperuna, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, January 14, 2025. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes
Deolira Gliceria Pedro da Silva, 119, sits in her house in Itaperuna, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, January 14, 2025. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes

Two months away from what she says is her 120th birthday, Deolira Gliceria Pedro da Silva, a great-grandmother from the state of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil is rushing to be recognized as the world’s oldest living person by the Guinness World Records.

The institution currently features another Brazilian, Inah Canabarro Lucas, a nun from the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul as the oldest living person at 116 years, but Deolira’s family and doctors are confident that she will soon take the religious woman’s title.

“She is still not in the book, but she is the oldest in the world according to the documents we have on her, as I recently discovered,” said Deolira’s granddaughter Doroteia Ferreira da Silva, who is half her age, Reuters reported.

The documents show that Pedro da Silva was born on March 10th 1905 in the rural area of Porciuncula, a small town in the state of Rio. She now lives in a colorfully painted house in Itaperuna, where her two granddaughters Doroteia, 60, and Leida Ferreira da Silva, 64, take care of her.

The grandmother is also supervised by doctors and researchers who are interested in how she outlived the average life expectancy in Brazil, which currently sits at 76.4 years, by more than four decades.

“Mrs. Deolira, in 2025, will be 120 years old. She is in a good general state of health for her condition, she is not taking any medication,” said geriatric doctor Juair de Abreu Pereira, who checks up on Pedro da Silva frequently and is assisting her family in the process with Guinness World Records.

In a statement, Guinness said it couldn't confirm receiving Pedro da Silva's application, because it receives many from people around the world who claim to be the oldest living person.

Major floods in the region almost twenty years ago destroyed most of Deolira’s original documents, her doctor said. That may pose a challenge for the official recognition of her age.

Even if her age is not precise, Pedro da Silva is certainly older than 100 years, according to Mateus Vidigal, a researcher at the University of Sao Paulo who has studied her case as part of a project to understand the super elderly population of Brazil.

“Mrs. Deolira has not been excluded from the study, but there is this fragility which is the lack of documentation that is approved by those organizations,” Vidigal said, referring to vetting institutions such as the Guinness World Records.

Pedro Silva’s healthy diet and sleeping habits are key to her longevity, according to Dr. Pereira. To this day, she has a good interaction with her family and likes eating bananas.

“I wish I could get to her age and be like that,” Ferreira da Silva, her granddaughter, said. “While we have high blood pressure and diabetes, she does not have any of that.”