Celebrate the Wins, Get Ready for the Hangover

Time to assess the battle for ocean conservation over the past 365 sunsets. Let's celebrate the wins but get ready for the hangover.

We're batting even, five for five, according to esteemed Blue Frontier Campaign founder David Helvarg. His editorial in the Huffington Post summarizes five major wins in 2010 that are worthy of celebration: New Oceans Policy; Census of Marine Life Completed; New Shark Protections; New Marine Reserves; Medium Offshore Drilling Protections.

He also notes five significant losses to sober us up: BP's Massive Disaster; Bluefin Tuna Condemned to Extinction; Plastic Waste Everywhere; More Fishing Down the Food Web; Big Time Climate Change Failures.

Climate change losses could be at the top of the list of losses since it has the potential to adversely impact the whole of the oceans as the atmospheric changes acidify the seas. But no need to be completely grim on a day of celebration.

In that spirit, Oceana's Tatiana Marshall points out four 2010 wins: Belize's trawling ban (trawling is a fishing method that drags massive fishing gear along the bottom of the ocean, which kills mostly everything in the way), the aforementioned passing of the Shark Conservation Act, and getting the Olin Corporation of Cleveland, Ohio, to spit much less mercury into the air.

Here is Helvarg's editorial reprinted from the Huffington Post.

WINS

• New U.S. Ocean Policy: President Obama issued an executive order in July to implement conservation-based management of our public seas -- based on marine spatial planning, or what former Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen calls, "urban planning into the water column." It would try to coordinate everyone (government agencies, ocean industries, environmentalists) to better manage our public seas for healthy ecosystems and sustainable development of our coastal economies.
• Census of Marine Life completed: A decade long exploration of the world's seas; "an international observational program to assess and explain the diversity, distribution and abundance of life in the oceans" was conducted by several thousand scientists between 2000 and 2010. It found there's still new and amazing critters and habitats out there.
• New Shark Protection Laws: First Hawaii banned the trade in shark fin that endangers a 600 million year old keystone predator of the sea in order to sell soup to rich people in Asia. Then, just before recessing, our Lame Duck Congress lent a hand (or wing) and passed a bill that all but prevents any new shark finning in U.S. waters.
• New Ocean Wilderness Parks created: California established new no-take protected areas off southern California in December, part of a network of marine wilderness parks under its Marine Life Protection Act. In doing so California joins a number of nations including the U.S. Britain, Kiribati and Australia who have set aside vast areas across the Pacific, Indian, Atlantic and Southern oceans to protect and restore the seas natural bounty. Still, only about one percent of the world's oceans have been given wilderness status. Scientists suggest 20-25 percent ought to be.
• Some offshore drilling protection: In the wake of the BP disaster, the Obama administration walked back the dogfish saying there will be no new drilling off the Atlantic seaboard or in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. While that's an advance from the President's pre-Gulf blow out proposal to open extensive U.S. waters to oil development, it's still less than what was protected under the drilling moratorium in effect for a quarter century until rescinded during the Bush administration. 

 LOSSES

• BP Disaster: Flying over the Gulf of Mexico in June seeing oil spills out to the horizon and 100 dolphins and a whale trapped and dying in the slicks, even as the oil blowout continued, it was hard to believe this would not have profound impacts on U.S. energy policy, but it doesn't seem to have. Still, few Gulf locals I continue to talk to believe the government's claim that most of the 200 million gallons of oil released, "went away." Likely impacts will be in the water column, fisheries and wildlife reproduction and bottom habitat for years to come.
• Bluefin condemned to extinction: Japan served endangered Bluefin Tuna sushi at the Convention on Endangered Species meeting in March where it blocked attempts to protect this top ocean predator whose population is collapsing, with 80 percent of the biomass fished out since the 1970s. In the wake of the CITES failure, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas was expected to take bold action in November, but it also failed to act.
• New study says nowhere left to fish: A new scientific study by the University of British Columbia and National Geographic found that we're now overfishing everywhere from the deep ocean to Antarctica, stripping the last previously unfished populations of marine wildlife out of our seas. Few nations appear willing to constrain this global buffalo hunt.
• Plastic waste now found everywhere in ocean: The 2010 '5 Gyres' expedition launched by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation is finding plastic refuse and debris in all ocean gyres or whirlpool currents, while in the central Pacific gyre the amount of plastic has gone from 6 pounds per pound of plankton to over 40 pounds in just the last decade.
• Climate failures mean rough seas ahead: The failure of the U.N.'s 2009 Climate Meeting in Copenhagen and token progress in Cancun this year on addressing fossil-fuel fired climate change means continued trouble for the world ocean including Arctic melting, sea level rise and more destructive storm surges, coral bleaching, shifting wildlife populations and ocean acidification that's changing the very chemistry of the sea, none of which is good for man or fish.

image credit: uploadimages4free.com

Sharks Get Some Protection

Another reason to celebrate -- shark finning is now illegal in the US. Congress took the lame out of lame duck and passed the Shark Conservation Act. It's actually difficult to believe there's good news coming out of that legislative body these days but we'll take this one good step in a great direction.

Thank your Representative and Senator via Oceana and read more about the Shark Conservation Act.

Shark finning kills millions of these great and important apex predators essentially for soup prized by many Asians. But pop the top and toast the small victory for now.

Energy Independence Saves the Seas & Americans

Face it, some people need reasons other than biodiversity and beauty and common sense to move to a clean energy economy. Here's two words for them: Energy independence. Don't sell it as anything but that. Except for maybe saving American lives. The US military agrees and they're already looking furiously for better ways to power their armies.

"In 2008, we sent $386 billion overseas to pay for oil — much of it going to nations that wish us harm...It puts us in the untenable position of funding both sides of the conflict and directly undermines our fight against terror," said Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, retired Deputy Chief of Naval Warfare Requirements and Programs10 in a recent National Wildlife Federation report on offshore wind. 

Energy independence frees us from having to send anymore young Americans to die simply so we can control our access to that precious black gold, the source of our addiction.

Holiday with the Tortuga

Holiday greetings from Nicaragua. On the Caribbean coast in a sleepy fishing town called Pearl Lagoon, inspiration thrives. Here, where green sea turtles are fished for food and have been for years, the Wildlife Conservation Society is making small but important gains. With the friendly people, the palm trees swaying, and the reggae beat riding the tropical breezes, it does not feel like the front lines for marine conservation.

The WCS has a two room office here on a dusty street, painted a refreshing pale blue. The brass gate in front has images of two turtles or tortuga, swimming on it. I stopped by today but like most places they have Christmas day off. But their pamphlets in English and Spanish are posted in every restaurant hut and store.

It looks like their program to compensate fishermen for live turtles, which are tagged and released, is working. Hopefully it's having a positive impact on the active but unsustainable turtle fishery here. The message of conservation, especially for the hawksbill, is out there. If I'm lucky, I'll have an opportunity to talk to and most importantly, thank those invovled with the program, those on the front lines fighting the good fight.

On the panga, or water taxi, out here from Bluefields, speeding through the back estuaries and openings in the jungle, I could not help imagine when the waters were filled with hundreds of thousands of sea turtles. It will never be that way again but it would be really sad if they were gone altogether.

Take the Bite Out of Finning

Definitely the more the merrier. Another celebrity, Kristin Bauer of True Blood, implores people to take the bite out of shark finning. Hopefully she can hit a vein with those millions of vampire lovers.

With a hundred million sharks killed annually, mainly for their fins for soup, sharks need all the help they can get. She's calling for people to act now -- contact your senators and tell them you support the Shark Conservation Act. If Congress could pass it, that would take some of the lame out of those ducks.

Her last line in the editorial has a nice, well, bite: I suspect sharks aren't here just to be an appetizer.

Read the full editorial from the Huffington Post here.


Soup Sucks



Green Drinks a Tonic for the Bad News

On a really frigid night in the city, Green Drinks NY recently threw their holiday party in New York City. The event was packed and people were in good spirits. Green Drinks monthly puts "green" people in the same room to network, mingle, and hear what some people and organizations are doing in and around the green world. It's highly recommended for anyone.

The theme this month was ocean conservation so I was particularly excited. Many exemplary organizations attended including Oceana, Shark Savers, and Plant a Fish. We heard from Fabian Cousteau, grandson of the one and only, and from David De Rothschild, who built and sailed the Plastiki to bring attention to the disgusting onslaught of plastics in the ocean environment. He highlighted the 5 Gyres, which alone should make anyone reconsider their use of single use plastics.

If you don't like the words "network" or "mingle" try "inspiration" because one of the best things about Green Drinks is the opportunity to be inspired by what other people are doing. It is also easy to come away deeply encouraged -- despite all the bad news out there around green issues -- by all these generally like-minded people fighting the battles on land and sea that need to be fought. There's camaraderie in the air, like one big team.

Wave Energy Facilities in Marine Reserves

Two marine scientists object to citing wave energy facilities in marine reserves off the Oregon coast, citing protection of ecosystems. Seems right -- the activity to build and maintain the infrastructure for a wave energy facility seems incompatible with a sanctuary for marine life. However, the other side of the story needs to be told because wave energy, and offshore wind, are two ways to fight climate change and move us toward energy independence.

This is also an interesting glimpse into the future. We will likely see more of these "disagreements" going forward where the two parties seem to be on the same team. If sound research, clear communication, and cooler heads prevail, successful solutions should follow.

Read the opinion piece from OregonLive.com here.