Happy Earth Week, everyone!
This week, we’re looking at MADM in the opposing direction to previous posts. Instead of spotlighting a champion of ocean conservation (well, OK, we ARE doing that, and you’ll see how, below), we’re examining some issues that need champions to get behind them in order to reverse their effects and promote healthier oceans and ocean animals.
We can’t think of a better way to start the week that includes Earth Day than by getting minds churning about ways to make a difference, and O4E wants to know – when you’re done reading, what you might do about one of these issues in need of a fix. How can you make a difference?
We’re doing this through the eyes of a relative newcomer to the ocean community: Emily Fisher, online editor fellow of the online presence of Oceana – the largest international organization devoted solely to ocean conservation.
Emily Fisher, online editor of Oceana.org
When we first talked about Emily guest-posting on O4E, of course, we wanted to know “how it all started.” But sometimes, what we learn is as, or more, important than how long we’ve been involved with oceans. Fresh eyes can be a great thing.
Read on.
What I’ve Learned at Oceana: The Big Five
Hi everybody!
I arrived at Oceana as online editor a little less than a year ago. Before I got here, I considered myself an environmentalist – concerned about climate change, deforestation, sustainable agriculture – you get the idea. But I rarely thought much about what was happening to the seas. After all, what could possibly do serious damage to such a vast place? If we know less about some parts of the sea than we do about the moon, then how could we screw it up?
Human ingenuity, that’s how. People, as it turns out, can and are damaging the seas from whence we came. Here are the five most striking examples of this that I’ve learned during my first year at Oceana:
1. CO2 emissions are changing the chemistry of the oceans.
Ocean acidification is one of the scariest things I’ve ever heard of, and it’s happening now; it’s real. As the ocean becomes more acidic, coral reefs have trouble forming skeletons. Coral reefs provide habitat to a quarter of ocean species. Without them the ocean would be a very desolate place.
2. Fisheries bycatch is depleting the oceans and killing wildlife.
It’s not an exciting word, but bycatch – the fishing catch that is untargeted or discarded — is an enormous problem. Millions of pounds of fish are thrown back, dead or dying, every year, and sea birds, marine mammals and sea turtles are also injured and killed. (And despite my last name, I’m not in the pocket of the commercial fishing industry, I promise. My middle name is actually “sustainable”…)
3. Without better protection, sea turtles could go extinct.
Sea turtles have been around forever. Okay, not forever, but more than 100 million years. They survived the extinction of the dinosaurs, but they might not survive the slew of threats they’re under today: commercial fishing gear, plastic pollution, climate change and habitat destruction, to name a few.
4. Some seafood is dangerously high in mercury.
Mercury is poison, and it’s traveling up the ocean food chain into the big fish we eat like tuna and swordfish. I used to make tuna salad all the time – my mother’s recipe, in fact. But as a female entering my child-bearing years (scary thought!), I hardly ever eat tuna – it could damage the brain development of a child. Considering that more than a billion people around the world rely on seafood for protein, this has to change.
5. Sharks are beautiful and increasingly fragile creatures.
I’m not saying I want to hang out with sharks during feeding time, but look at it like this: a shark is like a stern school principal: you don’t want to be sent to the principal’s office, but if he/she suddenly disappeared, the school would be a wreck. Many shark species – the apex predators in the ocean food chain — are in danger of going extinct because they are caught as bycatch and killed for their fins. That’s a terrifying thought for the future of our oceans.
Well, that was a depressing list. But here’s the good news: at Oceana we’re working to reverse all of these problems using a policy-based approach – we want to improve and implement laws to protect our ocean resources, for our sake and theirs. You can learn more about these campaigns and more at http://oceana.org.
Oh, and one more thing — I just want to say thank you to Alexa. We need more young ocean champs like you! I didn’t grow up saying I wanted to save the oceans, but after learning what’s happening, I officially amend my statement: when I grow up, I want to save the oceans.
And thank YOU, Emily! I am getting a hat just like yours! ~Alexa
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