Mission Blue – Greg Stone
Aboard the Mission Blue voyage, Greg Stone tells the story of the establishment of the Phoenix Island Protected Area in the island nation of Kiribati. Working with the government of Kiribati, Greg helped to conserve ocean biodiversity, protect sea life, and encourage continued local economic development. This enormous protected area in the middle of the Pacific measures 158,543 square miles and shelters one of the richest and most pristine marine areas in the world.
He first visited the Phoenix Islands with an expeditionary team to survey the islands in 2000. The condition of the reefs and the quantities of fish and invertebrates mesmerized these seasoned scientists, left them in awe, and gave them the inspiration to protect such a remarkable place. Their surveys of the Phoenix Islands yielded 10 new species of fish and formed the basis for identifying a baseline for a pristine coral reef. The Phoenix Islands Protected Area is a critical laboratory for monitoring the recovery of coral reefs from bleaching events in an undisturbed ocean environment. One of the amazing things we envision for the future is that it will become a large-scale laboratory for the study of marine life on coral atolls, reefs, and the study of the ecology of seamounts and pelagic species.
Mission Blue Galapagos Voyage
A Galapagos sea-voyage of 100 people, including Sylvia Earle, 30 of the world’s leading marine scientists, Leonardo DiCaprio, Edward Norton, Glenn Close, Elizabeth Banks, Steve Case, Ted Waitt, Bill Joy, Jackson Browne, Damien Rice, Chevy Chase, and Jean-Michel Cousteau, turned into an epic event that will have significant impact on global efforts to save our oceans. It began with Sylvia Earle’s “one wish to change the world”, and it happened because the individuals and organizations on board chose to engage in a process of emergent collaboration. All of the participants were asked to consider becoming an “Idea champion” by proposing an idea around which a group could form to plan specific action for the oceans. They ended up with eight ambitious ideas and funds to begin implementation:
$1m – complete a package to protect the waters around Galapagos Islands
$1.1m – launch a plan to protect the Sargasso Sea
$2.5m – see the Sargasso Sea plan through to success
$350k – boost ocean exposure in schools
$3.25m – commence a campaign to end fishing subsidies
$10m – kickstart a new partnership to fund longer-term ocean projects
These commitments were not pre-planned, but emerged organically from the discussions on board. The quality of these discussions was boosted by the fact that each of the idea champions had extensive experience of oceans work, and often had an organization in place already working on their chosen issue. Participating organizations, included WildAid, Conservation International, Oceana, National Geographic, the Nature Conservancy, NRDC, and IUCN. By bringing together leading marine scientists, and philanthropists, and thoughtful celebrities, the goal was to boost understanding of, and passion for, the oceans. Real change with real people dreaming big and then acting to make those dreams possible.
Mission Blue
Mission Blue started with a wish by Sylvia Earle. “I wish you would use all means at your disposal – films, expeditions, the web, more – to ignite public support for a global network of marine protected areas, hope spots large enough to save and restore the ocean, the blue heart of the planet.” Simply put… Mission Blue’s purpose is to explore and care for the ocean. Healthy corals are the heart of a healthy ocean, and marine protected areas can help corals recover from any damage that has occurred. Mission Blue is committed to inspiring change in public awareness for marine protected areas worldwide, ranging from the deepest ocean to sunlit reefs, and from the seamounts of the high seas to coastal seagrass meadows. These Hope Spots don’t just benefit marine life, they benefit humans too.
Hope Spots are special places that are critical to the health of the ocean, Earth’s blue heart. Some of these Hope Spots are already protected, while others are important enough that it is imperative that they be protected. About 12% of the land around the world is now under some form of protection (as national parks, world heritage sites, monuments, etc.), while less than one percent of the ocean is protected in any way. Mission Blue is committed to changing this. Marine protected areas maintain healthy biodiversity, provide a carbon sink, generate life-giving oxygen, preserve critical habitat, and allow low-impact activities like ecotourism to thrive. They are good for the ocean, which means they are good for us.
The Mission Blue team has embarked on a series of expeditions to further this vision and shed light on these ocean Hope Spots. One was a sea voyage to the Galapagos Islands in April 2010, gathering some of the world’s most renowned ocean experts – marine scientists, deep sea explorers, technology innovators, policy makers, business leaders, environmentalists, activists, and artists – for an epic adventure into the blue.
Marine Conservation Biology Institute
“In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we are taught.” This quote from a scientist fuels The Marine Conservation Biology Institute to increase the understanding of the living sea, why marine life is disappearing, and how we can save it. They continue to advance marine conservation biology because they believe people will not conserve what they don’t love and understand.
The ocean is not just one uniform expanse of water, there are many diverse and unique places in the ocean that are different than any other place in the world. There are forests where algae grow as tall as redwood trees, deep sea coral reefs living hundreds of years, and seamounts providing foraging hotspots for whales, turtles, and fishes.
The Institute helped establish Papahanaumokuakea, the first Marine National Monument in US waters. Their continued efforts resulted in the Pacific Marine Island Marine National Monuments – including Palmyra Atoll, Kingman Reef, Howland, Baker, Wake and Jarvis Islands and Johnston Atoll; the Rose Atoll National Marine Monument; and the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument. This has established 355,000 miles of islands and surrounding waters, protecting fish, coral reefs and other significant wildlife from threats ranging from over fishing to climate change.
The concept of marine conservation biology and protecting areas in the sea is relatively new. It draws on a diversity of longstanding scientific disciplines of oceanography, marine ecology, biogeography, veterinary medicine, zoology, botany, genetics, toxicology, fisheries biology, anthropology, economics, political science, ethics, and law, and aims at protecting, restoring, and sustainably using marine biodiversity.
Hero For The Planet
Sylvia Earle is a dedicated advocate for the world’s oceans and the creatures that live there. Her voice speaks with wonder and amazement at the glory of the oceans and with urgency to awaken the public from its ignorance about the role the oceans plays in all of our lives and the importance of maintaining their health. For over five decades her actions say loud and clear: “The planet earth is blue and I am going to make sure it stays that way!”
Sylvia Earle is an oceanographer, explorer, author, and lecturer with a deep commitment to research through personal exploration. She has been called “Her Deepness” by the New Yorker and the New York Times, “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress, and “Hero for the Planet” by Time. Her work has been at the frontier of deep ocean exploration for four decades. She was captain of the first all-female team to live underwater. She walked untethered on the sea floor at a lower depth than any other woman before or since. She started companies to design and build undersea vehicles that allow scientists to work at previously inaccessible depths.
She was former Chief Scientist of NOAA under President George W. Bush. The unprecedented Marine Sanctuary that President Bush established in the Pacific Ocean was due in large part to a personal encounter that Sylvia Earle had with our President. After the 2006 screening of a Jean- Michel Cousteau film at the White House, Sylvia sat at the President’s dinner table with a half dozen other people, and soon after, President Bush decreed 140,000 square miles of ocean in Northwest Hawaii as a marine sanctuary. At the end of his second term in 2008, President Bush designated almost 200,000 additional square miles of the Pacific Ocean as Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.
Sylvia has led over 70 expeditions, logging more than 6500 hours underwater in connection with her research. Today, she is Explorer in Residence at the National Geographic Society. And, she led the Google Ocean Advisory Council, a team of 30 marine scientists providing content and scientific oversight for the Ocean in Google Earth. Among the more than 100 national and international honors she has received is the 2009 TED Prize for her proposal to establish a global network of marine protected areas. She calls these marine preserves “hope spots, to save and restore, the blue heart of the planet.”
The World Is Blue
The World Is Blue by legendary marine scientist Sylvia Earle portrays a planet teetering on the brink of irreversible environmental crisis. In recent decades we’ve learned more about the ocean than in all previous human history combined. But, this eloquent, urgent, and fascinating book reveals how just 50 years of swift and dangerous oceanic change threatens the very existence of life on Earth. Modern overexploitation has driven many species to the verge of extinction, from tiny biota to magnificent creatures like tuna and whales.
In the book, she articulates, through personal experiences and scientific documentation, how the decline of the oceans is happening parallel to, and delicately intertwined with the fate of the atmosphere and what is happening on land. Sylvia argues passionately and persuasively to find responsible, renewable strategies that safeguard the natural systems that sustain us. Fortunately, there is reason for hope, but what we do (or fail to do) in the next ten years may well resonate for the next ten thousand. Her book is more than a wake up call.
Sylvia Earle is a former NOAA chief scientist. She is a National Geographic Explorer in residence, a woman who led a five year sea voyage and participated in almost 75 other expeditions, lectured in 70 countries, and authored more than 170 publications. She has been scuba diving for over half a century, walked the ocean floor some 1,250 feet below the surface, and utilized 30 different types of submarines. She was named “Her Deepness” by the New Yorker and the New York Times, a “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress, and Time Magazine’s first “Hero for the Planet.” Sylvia Earle is also a key reason why Google Earth developed Google Oceans – a phenomenal learning tool to help protect and maintain the ocean’s health.
She is the most qualified individual on earth to promote saving it. She understands that the ocean is the source of most of the oxygen we breath, most of water we drink (rain water) and a large part of the food we eat. She systematically outlines what man has done to the ocean over the last 100 years and the implications if we continue on this path. Dr. Earle has a wish in The World Is Blue: How Our Fate and the Ocean’s Are One
