MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

I hear the ocean in my conch as I rest it by my ear. It once had life within it. If we are not careful and we do not come together to revive the blue’s breath and beat, I fear the earth too shall hollow out like this empty shell and be filled with nothing but the memory of the pulse it once contained.  

Asher Jay, Artist, National Geographic Explorer

We are the ‘environment.’ The world is literally one biological process. The trees are our lungs. Look at the Amazon River system next to a human cardiovascular system, look at corals or trees and look at our lungs, you literally cannot tell the difference. They’re the same. So when we destroy our environment, we’re effectively destroying ourselves.

 Ian Somerhalder, Actor, Founder of ISF

There’s no panacea, there’s no one solution. There are as many solutions as there are people on the planet. We have to bring ourselves to the solution and care for one another and our earth.

We are the first species that has dominion over our own evolution. We are homo-evolutis. We can effect our own fate. What an awesome yet, delicate responsibility. 

We must give ourselves permission to be better, to do better, to be more caring and compassionate. To be more human, and to show the leadership we are capable of as the most evolved species on the planet. We can transform ourselves to be environmental stewards of our shared earth.

Adrian Grenier, Actor, UNEP Goodwill Ambassador, Producer, Director and Musician

Like many others, I have often fantasized that the ocean was once my home. Be it as a sailor, a whaler or naval officer aboard some great ship, I once spent a lot of time at sea.

On land you admire God's handiwork. On the sea, you meet God and, ultimately, submit to God.

Alec Baldwin, Actor  

I am the ocean. I'm most of this planet. Every living thing here needs me. Humans take more than their share. If nature isn't kept healthy, humans won't survive. Simple as that. 

Harrison Ford as The Ocean

The Voice of the Ocean in Conservation International's "Nature Is Speaking" film series. 

I can’t do better than Frank Herbert, Author of Dune, “This is the bond of water. A man’s flesh is his own, the water belongs to the Tribe.”

Kristin Bauer, Actress, Conservationist, Filmmaker. 

The reason I chose to be a voice for dolphins and whales is twofold. First, dolphins and whales are beautiful, intelligent, charismatic creatures. Second, they are like canaries in the coalmine, telling us that something is seriously wrong with our oceans. I truly believe that as go the dolphins and whales, so go our oceans, as go the oceans, so goes all life on earth so you see its easy - if we save the dolphins and whales, we will save our oceans and ultimately our planet and ourselves!

Hayden Panettiere, Actress, Model, Singer.

Those of us who spent our childhood summer days playing atop the pristine ocean - we thought all was well beneath the surface.  We saw trouble only in the form of sharks, but now we know that sharks are a vital link in the circle of submarine life that we humans have ignorantly trashed and slaughtered.

David Rockefeller Jr.  Chairman of Rockefeller & Co, Philanthropist.

We must protect what we love. For those who appreciate the beauty, bounty and mystery of our oceans comes a responsibility to help save them.

Susan Rockefeller, CEO and Founder of Protect What Is Precious.

Turtles have been around since before the dinosaurs, over 200 million years and today over half of all turtles are threatened with extinction.  Turtles are the most threatened group of vertebrates on earth.

Turtles and tortoises have been around for over 200 million year as crucial ecosystem engineers, building tunnels, dispersing seeds, and grazing sea beds. They are also important indicator species of the health of our environment. 

They are important indicator species as to how humans are changing this planet. They are the new canaries in the coalmine as to how humans are changing the planet.

Eric Goode, Founder of Turtle Conservancy

Our ocean is a singular source of health, wealth, sustenance, oxygen and joy. Surely we should be smart enough to protect such a valuable asset. 

Sven-Olaf Lindblad, Founder & President of Lindblad Expeditions

Penguins are an indicator species, alerting us to the health of the ecosystems they inhabit. Humans have always been the greatest threat to penguins and our oceans - but we are also their greatest hope.  

Dyan deNapoli  Penguin Expert, Author, TED Speaker

Inside of us, there is a place that longs to be in nature.

Jody Allen, Founder of Wild Lives Foundation, businesswoman and philanthropist.

As the circulatory system of our planet, the ocean world offers the gift of life and enchantment of spiritual wellbeing. It is therefore only fitting that we strive to express our love and respect for her as if our life depended on it … because it does.
 

Fabien Cousteau, Aquanaut, Oceanographic Explorer and Conservationist

Mind Body & Nature are a unified activity in consciousness. Knowing this, feeling this, perceiving this truth, is the experience of love as ultimate reality. It is a return of the deep memory of wholeness in which we are holy and healed. 

Deepak Chopra MD, Author, Alternative Medicine Advocate, Speaker, Spiritualist.  

Our oceans are in immediate need of protection. Industrial fishing, pollution and marine debris, habitat destruction, coastal development, global warming, and ocean acidification, are all threatening to irreversibly destroy the ocean’s delicate ecosystems. I believe art can be an essential tool in halting this destruction of ocean life. By reconnecting people with the beauty and vulnerability of threatened marine species, I intend to ignite a new level of curiosity and passion for marine conservation.

Shawn Heinrichs, Photographer, Filmmaker, Founder of Blue Sphere Foundation

We can produce imagery to share the beauty of the oceans and what is there to protect. We can also expose the truths about overharvest, climate change, and habitat loss to give oceans a voice.

David Doubilet, National Geographic Photographer, Avid Diver, Ocean Enthusiast

Literally every creature in the sea, whether it swims, slithers or just stays put, is a true work of art, shaped by eons, to perfection. Large and small, they sizzle, hiss, groan, bubble, sing and whistle, reminding us that the time is now to pay attention, and cherish, each and every one. After all, as they go, so do we.

Joel Sartore, Founder, National Geographic Photo Ark, Photographer

More has been learned about the ocean since the middle of the 20th century than during all preceding history.

At the same time, more has been lost. Global warming, ocean acidification, calving ice sheets, receding glaciers, sea level rise and shifting weather patterns are stressing natural systems above and below the ocean’s surface. Many commercially exploited species of fish have declined by 90%; about half of the coral reefs have disappeared or experienced serious decline; hundreds of coastal “dead zones” have developed. Destructive deep-sea mining activities are moving forward. The good news is that 10% of the sharks, swordfish, tunas and other depleted species remain. Half of the coral reefs are in reasonably good shape. Many coastal areas have been spared lethal pollution, some with healthy marshes, mangroves, and sea grass meadows.

It isn’t too late to shift from the swift, sharp decline of ocean systems in recent decades to an era of steady recovery. There is time, but not a lot. The next ten years may be the most important piece of time in the next ten thousand years. Opportunities to save the ocean, and ourselves, are slipping away.  

Sylvia A. Earle Oceanographer, Explorer, Author, Founder of Mission Blue and Explorer in Residence National

Having the ocean close by as I grew up as a child in Southern California was a blessing.  It was my escape, my connection to nature, a place to ponder our past, present and future for myself, my friends, my family, and our place in it. 

Gary Knell, President & CEO National Geographic Society.

I am a patriot. I fight for spacious skies. For amber waves of grain. For purple mountains majesty.  I submit to you that we the people have an inalienable right not just to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness but to clean air, clean water, and a stable climate.  Our survival demands it. Our children deserve it."

James Balog, National Geographic Photographer (2017)

1.  

An Arctic without ice is like a garden without soil.  Ice is the foundation of the entire polar ecosystems.  If we lose ice, we stand to lose an entire ecosystem.

Paul Nicklen, Biologist and Photographer, Co-Founder of SeaLegacy

When you trap more energy in the narrow envelope of atmosphere where we reside, everything gets amped up: evaporation and hence drought; rainfall and hence flooding. The wind can blow harder than we've ever seen it blow before. It's a new planet, with a new physics.

Bill Mckibben, Founder of 350 Org

With only 10% of the World Ocean explored there are wonderful career opportunities for future explorers.  Join me in investigating oceanspace.  Exploration is merely curiosity acted upon.  Be curious, learn and teach others. And think deep! (In 1960, the US Navy Bathyscaph Trieste dove nearly seven miles into the deepest place in the World Ocean.  Jacques Piccard and Lieutenant Don Walsh USN were the pilots. 

Don Walsh, Explorer, Submarine Pilot

Seabirds don’t get much cuter than the clown-like puffin, but these feathered footballs aren’t just apt entertainers. They also carry an urgent message about our changing earth and oceans—recovered from overhunting, they are now threatened anew by a changing climate.

David Yarnold, CEO, The Audubon Society

Cage-diving with great white sharks is like meeting a procession of great movie stars - having seen these enigmatic, awe-inspiring creatures in films, on television, in newspapers and on the covers of magazines for years, suddenly there they are in the flesh. ‘How on earth can you top that?’ I once asked a fellow diver. ‘What can we possibly do next?’ He thought for a moment. ‘I dunno’, he said eventually. ‘Maybe space travel?’

Mark Carwardine, zoologist, best selling author, TV host, radio presenter, columnist.

Sharks are the gateway drug to the ocean. 

Jessica Cramp, Marine Conservationist, National Geographic Explorer. 

For me, diving in an ocean teeming with life is like floating in space with the most extraordinary of aliens. Except those aliens happen to be terrestrials that share our planet with us.

When people talk about the images from your life that flash before you as you are about to die, I have always known for sure that amongst those flashing images, there would be this memory: underwater off the coast of Fiji, the sight of five giant manta rays, like the most perfectly designed spaceships, slicing through the water right above, below, to the side of me. But at the current rate of destruction, by the time I die, they will likely be gone, plundered for Chinese 'medicine', for something as tragically absurdly inconsequential as their gills. 

Nick Brandt, Photographer, Conservationist.

Jaws brought the beauty and the challenges facing the ocean into my life—forever. Forty years later momentum and new solutions abound. Love working with WildAid’s brilliant campaign to change attitudes in China and dramatically reduce shark fin demand.

Wendy Benchley, Board Member of WildAid, Host of Benchley Awards.

Out of sight, out of mind. That is the essential tragedy of the ocean. Home to the most exquisite ecosystems of our planet, its waters are the veil which make these systems invisible to most humans most of the time. So in a generation, we are wantonly destroying majestic creatures, exquisitely designed by nature over hundreds of millions of years. The first step to a solution: open your eyes.

Chris Anderson, TED Curator

 If we're destroying our trees and destroying our environment and hurting animals and hurting one another and all that stuff, there's got to be a very powerful energy to fight that. I think we need more love in the world. We need more kindness, more compassion, more joy, more laughter. I definitely want to contribute to that.

Ellen DeGeneres, TV Host, Actor, Comedian, Conservationist, Social Good Advocate

Asher Jay makes our ugly profligate waste beautiful because that is the only way she can get us to look at it long enough to realize that it deserves reincarnation.

Captain Charles Moore, Founder of Algalita Marine Research Institute, Co-Author Plastic Ocean

We all have heard the bad news, time and again, about the state of our oceans. Overfishing, pollution, invasive species, habitat destruction, warming, and acidification – is there anything that can be done about any of these, much less all of them?
We used to think the ocean was too big for humans to have any impact on its health, while now we assume that the problems are too big for any individual to make a difference. As serious as the problems are, and they are serious – we have lost 80% of the living corals of the Caribbean, for example – we will never make progress if we don’t move “Beyond the Obituaries.”
There are still healthy parts of the ocean, where only a few marine species have gone extinct. We know that protection from local stressors helps build resilience, allowing ecosystems to recover from some of the stressors we can’t easily control. In some places marine mammals, turtles, fishes, sharks, and shellfish are coming back, and even reefs are slowly recovering when given protection. In many cases these successes stem from the activities of a one or a few individuals determined to make a difference.
So while there is no room for complacency and no excuse for doing nothing, there is room for hope!
 

Nancy Knowlton, Coral Reef Biologist, Sant Chair for Marine Science, Smithsonian Institution.

I spent days flying over the beauty of the oceans during my around-the-world flights in a balloon and in a solar airplane. Protecting the oceans is not only important for the environment, but assures the quality of life for humankind.

Bertrand Piccard, Explorer, Balloonist, Psychiatrist, Pilot of Solar Impulse

'Ice ice baby' resonates through my head as lie flat on my belly in the cold, connecting with a harp seal pup to get an image that would touch hearts. No ice, no pups, sadly a given for the last two years. But I keep singing because the world is a better place with seals. Balance make the world go around...just another song!

Ellen Cuylaerts, Underwater & Wildlife Photographer

If we could send a message in a bottle back 50 years it would read — It’s true. We do have the power to change oceans; its height, temperature, even acidity and with it we forever alter the fate of humans and millions of species … so knock it off! 

 Dr. M. Sanjayan, CEO of Conservation International.

The vast bodies of water that surround us are amazing places where innumerable fascinating species live. We cause an incredible amount of harm to the animals who live 'beneath the surface' but it goes unnoticed because these awesome beings are hidden from view to the vast majority of people. We need to enhance our understanding and appreciation of the world's oceans and their magnificent inhabitants and seriously curtail the innumerable ways in which we redecorate their homes. We must rewild our hearts and expand our compassion footprint and stop ignoring nature as we go about our lives with little concern for the other animals with whom we share our planet. 

Marc Bekoff, Ethologist and renowned author. 

The ocean isn’t a barrier to other people and places — it’s what connects us all. We have to think local and make sure the actions we take are global in order to create a world where all the oceans are sustainably managed and allowed to flourish.

Aulani Wilhelm, Senior VP, Center for Oceans, Conservation International

  The World is sacred,

       It can’t be improved.

If you tamper with it,

       You will ruin it.

If you treat it like an object,

       You will lose it.

                 Laozi  Chinese philosopher, sixth century BCE

Hiking in a veil of heat across barren desert mountain in Pakistan, I suddenly realized that I was on an ancient ocean floor.  Stems of crinoid lilies and delicate scallop shells had been trapped in the somber rock, and an occasional sea urchin gleamed like marble.  Gusts of wind pounded me like waves of the sea.  This place was a reminder that the earth is unstable, always changing, everything dependent on everything else for survival.  Humankind may have emerged from the ocean long ago.  We are now bound to land, though we continue to use the sea, just as tigers do today in the mangrove swamps of India and the polar bears on the northern ice.  And some species, such as the intelligent dolphins and whales, returned from land to the water.

In these desert mountains with their sparse vegetation and wildlife, I wondered if this is how our whole planet will ultimately look as we mindlessly continue to destroy it.  We tend to forget that everything we have, want, and need comes from nature and that we are wholly dependent on a healthy environment for survival.  We don’t have two earths, one to squander and one to treasure.  This is the only home we shall ever have, and we must strive to keep it beautiful. Everyone of us.  We all hold the future of the earth in our hands.  Look closely at nature and discover your place in it.

As the ecologist Aldo Leopold wisely said in his 1949 book A Sand County Almanac: “When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect “

George B. Schaller, VP Panthera and Wildlife Conservation Society

The Polar seas: Filled with mystery, uncharted depths, and an intelligence we are only beginning to comprehend.
Swimming with dolphins and whales, I see, we are maybe not the smartest creatures on this planet- we just have hands.
Care for the great frozen waters.

Wade McCollum - Actor/Composer

Played Ernest Shackleton in the Broadway show, Ernest Shackleton Loves Me.

My love of the wider world, both human and untrammeled, largely grew out of my love of the sea. Inspired by the work of Jacques Cousteau, as a boy I donned a mask and snorkel (my favorite bar mitzvah present!) and shriveled like a prune as, hour after hour, I probed for clams and followed blue crabs and dancing blue-eyed scallops in beds of undulating sea grass. After college, I was lucky to stumble onto the crew of a circumnavigating sailboat for 17,000 of its blue miles. The sea is with me every day and hour, even as I type this on a wooded hill 800 feet above the Hudson River tide line.

Andrew C. Revkin, Journalist,  writer, New York Times Dot Earth Blogger, and Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding at Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies

The oceans and forests give us the air we breathe. 50% of our oxygen comes from forest - the other 50% from the oceans. We can protect our major ecosystems, by protecting the main predators sustaining them. 75% of our fresh water comes from forests and grasslands. Forests also pull carbon from the atmosphere and slow down climate change, and they give a home to the wildlife that lives within them, including some of my favorite animals, big cats. We can protect our critical ecosystems by protecting the apex predators that keep these places healthy.

Steve Winter, National Geographic Photographer.

Sailors for the Sea is a global conservation organization that engages, educates, inspires and activates the sailing and boating community toward healing the ocean. This community is millions strong. By uniting these water lovers, we are creating one of the most significant ocean conservation movements of our time through high impact, results oriented programs. The ocean can live without us, but we cannot live without the ocean.

Mark Davis, Founder of Sailors For The Sea.

For Over 30 years I  have walked across the Great Ice Shelves of the Antarctic,  which float on the Mighty Southern Ocean . These Iceshelves are now melting, which means the sea level will rise. From November 20th 2017 until January 20th 2018 my Son Barney and I will walk again to the South Pole,600 miles on foot, surviving only renewable energy it has never been done . We hope to inspire people through action to change their energy use. 

Robert Swan, Found of 2041, the first person to walk to the North and South Poles. 

The Araguaian river dolphin (Inia araguaiaensis), best know by its distinguished pink color, is endemic to the Araguaia-Tocantins basin, in Brazil. This species populates the imagination of the Amazonian people, and it is at the heart of several folklore legends. Unfortunately, the pink river dolphin faces many threats. They are targeted by illegal bait fisheries, and are also susceptible to pollution and contamination of watersheds [rivers], and the loss of habitat to dam construction. The Araguaian river dolphin is one of the species that are in dire need of conservation efforts. It is critical to preserve them for the generations to come. This pink diamond is essential to this region and we must do everything to protect it. 

Renata Emin, Biologist, Project Leader for GENAM Project for Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi.

On natural rafts they were blown out to sea. They touched shore on Madagascar, the only place in the world where they are found. But after surviving their long, arduous journey, they now face a much more dire fate. More than 90% of their original habitat is gone and they are considered the most critically endangered mammal in the world. Lemurs, some with eyes as blue as the ocean they arrived on, need our help to survive. Consider this an SOS.

Mireya Mayor Ph.D, National Geographic Explorer, TV Host, Author.  

The ancestors are speaking, can you hear them?  The OCEAN is our planet’s life support system.  Respect it; protect it, because mankind’s very existence depends on it!

Patty Elkus Board Member Mission Blue, Scripps Institution of Oceanography - Directors Council

The ruby seadragon, only discovered and named in 2015, is the third species of this magnificent group of Australian fish, which also includes the common and leafy seadragons. It highlights how much of our marine biodiversity remain to be discovered. 

Greg Rouse, Scripps Oceanography, UCSD

One night we were getting ready to launch underwater robots with cameras off the back deck of Nautilus, and green and blue flashes started to light up the waves in the dark. As the robots started to dive, we realized the light was coming from flurries of pyrosomes these tubular tunicates made of thousands of individual clones that were falling like snow around us. The name pyrosome literally means "fire body" in Greek, and to give you a perfect visual, they're also known as "sea pickles. 

Samantha Wishnak, Digital Media Coordinator, Ocean Exploration Trust.

Individually you can make a difference. Together we can make an impact.

Jeff Kirschner, Founder of Literatti

Elegant and graceful creatures in the sea of cortez. Thousands of threatened, high flying, mobula Munkianas, Munk’s Devil Rays, jump for the joy of it. Slapping the water with acrobatic, bellyflop landings, it sends an acoustic message of welcome, inviting, awarding, and resonating for miles.

Walter Munk, physical oceanographer, professor of geophysics emeritus, Secretary of the Navy/Chief of Naval Operations Oceanography, and Chair at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

The flow of water, from land to sea, from glaciers to springs, channeled as rivers into lakes and swamps, connects all habitats and ecosystems on earth. It reminds us that we all have an effect on each other. For example even if poaching could be eliminated entirely, elephants in Kenya and across Africa face many other threats.  According to Kenya Wildlife Service statistics, elephant deaths this century peaked in 2009, when the principle cause of death was not poaching but ‘natural causes’.  Many of these deaths were undoubtedly caused, directly or indirectly, by the prolonged drought that affected Kenya that year. Our interconnectedness should be reason enough to respect this life giving substance, and to use our energies to care, nurture, love, and protect everyone and everything, both human and wild.

Paula Kahumbu, National Geographic Explorer, Executive Director of Wildlife Direct. 

In my animal post-hurricane/flood disaster rescue work-I've witnessed first hand the immense power of our seas. They are fighting back. To preserve themselves.

It is estimated that there are at least 10 million species of plants and animals inhabiting our oceans.

Our oceans= life

I would do anything to save a life... Would you?

Our oceans depend on us. They need our love and care. Let's do it.

Missy Hargraves, Search and Rescue Emergency Rescuer, Wildlife Rescue of The Hamptons

The earth’s oceans are at once humankind’s history, and our future. The chemical source of all life on earth. We are all connected by our salt ocean make up.

Tara Ruttley, Associate Program Scientist, International Space Station, NASA

The frogs would show up, like clockwork, every spring behind my grandparents’ house to honk and quack and writhe in murky water, leaving behind floating parcels like bubble wrap. And then, like magic, tadpoles transformed from denizens of water to denizens of the land. Such mystical creatures. I never imagined back then that one day they might disappear. Forever. Their loss is our loss, for we are all in this pond together. 

Robin Moore, National Geographic Photographer, Communications Director for Global Wildlife Conservation.

I'm a storyteller; that's what exploration really is all about. Going to places where others haven't been and returning to tell a story they haven't heard before. I am hopeful that we will be able to study and tell the story of the ocean before we destroy it.

James Cameron, Filmmaker, Explorer, Diver

Reefs sustain life in our oceans and the oceans sustain us. Get it? The reefs need our conservation efforts now more than ever. 

Jimmy Chin, National Geographic Photographer

The environmental problems that our generation has left to those that will follow are beyond imagining.  That our choices and behaviors are actually changing ocean chemistry boggles the mind.  Paradoxically, in the face of such gloom and doom, the most valuable tool we need to be passing on to our children is optimism.  It is only the optimists that will see the solutions and recognize that if it was our choices and behaviors that brought us to this environmental precipice then their choices and behaviors can pull us back from the brink.

Edith Widder, CEO, President & Senior Scientist of ORCA

The moment at which the last passenger pigeon died is known to the hour, but with most species it is otherwise. We usually only realize in retrospect that it was a farmer, returning late one evening on his tractor who was last to see such-and-such a species as it flashed through his lights. But the visual presence of a species is not all that we will miss when it is gone.  I care more for the howl of the wolf than for its merely dog-like look, and when the last howl of the last wolf has filled the night, echoed and died out, something of us all will pass with it into a kind of mute invisibility. 

It is much the same with whales.  There may come a time when, in some remote ocean glade, deserted of humanity, the last call of a humpback whale will start, spread out, and then vanish, until those who heard its distant sound will wonder if they heard it at all. It is in this way that each whale species will make its final exit, until the blind continents, banked in their beds of silent ooze, and moving like slow clouds across the molten face of the earth, will no longer have whales to cheer them on, but will take their way in silence and alone.

Roger Payne, President of Ocean Alliance, and author of Among Whales. 

Every animal needs space —healthy habitat. In the marine realm there is a certain logic and appeal in starting with the whales, for so many years denied the right to live at all on the open ocean, and reduced to tiny fractions of their original numbers. This ethical consideration of the right to a safe home, with healthy ocean ecosystems, underpins the drive for whale and dolphin conservation and marine protected areas. I feel that those of us who are alive today must work to create a world in which it is possible to share our space with whales and dolphins. To do this, we need to create effective Homes for Whales and Dolphins in the sea.

Erich Hoyt, Research Fellow and Head, Global Marine Protected Areas Program, Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society

When diving beneath its mysterious blue surface, we are stunned by the ocean’s complexity and beauty. Likewise, when we dive beneath human facades we find similar riches, realizing humans are capable of doing great things, like saving the imperiled sea.

Mimi and Mike DeGruy, Conservationist legendary storyteller and Filmmaker.  

To touch wild spotted eagle rays is profound. Ocean spirit flows into you – electric; allowing a rebirth. Our pinnacle is to touch the world around us – in profound, lasting ways with honor, intent and integrity. Spotted eagle rays remind us. 

J. Bruce Neill PhD, Executive Director of Sanibel Sea School.

Studying the ocean is like receiving deep and intimate knowledge for the earth's wisest elders. Each submergence connects me deeper to myself, others and to the four billion years of life's swirling and interconnected history.

I am working on using modern technology to connect us deeper to marine life and to understand ocean animals from their perspective.  This includes projects such as "shark-eye cameras" and "squishy robots" for delicate undersea exploration.

David Gruber, National Geographical Explorer, Professor of Biology City College

The ocean is present in the Amazon rainforest, its evaporated water falling as rain and becoming a part of all who drink it: animals, plants, and planet. Even some of the Boiling River’s waters were once ocean—and they will be again, as they flow to the sea.

Andres Ruzo, Director of The Boiling River Project

The ocean is the cradle of life on earth and for three billion years of evolution it has nurtured the biodiversity that sustains us.

John Ogden, USF Professor Emeritus, Integrative Biology

Like other species have done before us, we must make the transition from the parasitic species we are to the symbiotic species we can be. We can look to marine wildlife mutually beneficial relationships for inspiration, like foraminifera and algae or anemone and the clown fish.

Ief Winckelmans Ocean Impact Alliance. 

Before Melville's Moby Dick, the Bowhead or Greenland right, without one rival, was regarded as "the monarch of the seas."  We know now the Bowhead can live to two centuries, longer than any other mammal.  They are keen listeners who do not interrupt each other and have encouraging empathy for the chirping white Beluga.  We still have much to learn from this magnificent monarch of the Arctic. 

Scott McVay Organizer and leader of expedition that led to In Search of the Bowhead Whale documentary film. Co-author of discovery & description of the six-octave song of the Humpback whales

It is amazing to watch the Goliath Groupers while living in the Aquarius underwater habitat. It's as if we are in the fish tank as the Groupers come to the viewport and watch us!

Mark Hulsbeck, FIU Field Operations Manager

Next time you’re strolling on the beach and you feel the sun bleached sand beneath your toes, you can thank a parrot fish. Let’s commit to safeguarding the health of our coral reefs in Jamaica and the Caribbean by protecting the parrot fish. Like I would say, Alligator Head is committed... to keeping the parrot fish alive… committed... for the big blue oceans in Jamaica.  Remember, healthy oceans, healthy planet,  one love.

Stephen Cat Coore, of Third World, Ocean Ambassador with the Alligator head Foundation, Reggae Musician

1.    Have you ever wanted to un-see something you've seen? To be able to erase an image from your mind? This is the feeling I get when I think back on seeing coral bleaching. How can we be so thoughtless to believe that dumping almost ten million billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year won't have an effect on our earth? Our carbon dioxide pollution is causing ocean temperatures to rise, causing corals to bleach -- throwing out the microscopic algae that give them life. The result is the death of millions of corals around the world, destroying the beauty of coral reefs and robbing fish of their homes. I can't forget some of the scenes of bleaching I've scene from around the world, but I can use them to show people why we need to stop the pollution.

C. Mark Eakin, Ph.D. Coral Reef Watch Coordinator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

I made my living being in the ocean when I was shooting Baywatch in the Santa Monica Bay. The TV series gave viewers an impression of idyllic beaches, but the water is so dirty there you cannot see more than a foot in a front of you, and we had to shoot the underwater scenes in a tank. One day, after a rain when the dog poop, fertilizer and trash from city streets flows into the ocean, we went out in a boat to shoot some rescue scenes. We had to keep going out farther and farther, because there was so much styrofoam debris on top of the water. I think we ended up cancelling the shoot that day.
Some people think that "the solution to pollution is dilution" when it comes to our oceans. That is such BS. The solution is a world population at 3 billion. It is the only way the ocean will survive our overfishing, our drilling and our polluting. 

Alexandra Paul, Actor, Director, Activist

Agglutinated Foraminifera: There it was, through the eye of the binocular, a one cell microscopic organism pebbled with vibrant, circus-colored nano particles of plastic, imbedded in its organic cement exoskeleton--the same cement that evolved nearly a half billion years ago to efficiently protect and encaspule this clever tiny critter. I looked and understood--every corner of the planet is our responsibility, from the size of the atmosphere to the tiniest corner of the deepest ocean. Everything is vulnerable and everything is at risk--ourselves included.

Beverly Goodman, National Geographic Explorer, Marine Geoarchaeologist.

What I find extraordinary about our use of the oceans is that it has all the features of a giant Ponzi scheme, where fish stock can be equated to money in the bank, and the ability of fish populations to replenish their numbers represent the generation of interest on money left in the bank.  Instead of skimming off this interest, i.e., drawing fabled “maximum sustainable yield” (MSY), we have enthusiastically pillaged the bank, and then moved on by assuring ourselves with wholly fictional assets. Thus, industrial fisheries that were earlier harvesting only along the shores of industrialized nations, mainly in the northern hemisphere, are now conducting their operation in all the world’s oceans, offshore from developing countries, all the way to Antarctica, the ultimate frontier. But the frenetic search for new fish stocks cannot halt the global decline of fish catches, which we – in the wealthier countries – do not notice because our relentless demand is now met by seafood that is caught in and imported from elsewhere. It is not clear how this will play out, but it will probably involve more than buying ‘sustainable’ fish to reduce the considerable stress we have placed on the blue marble to aggressively advance local economies.  

Daniel Pauly, Professor of Fisheries at UBC Fisheries Centre. 

The cry of the albatross: save our oceans to save ourselves.

Chris Jordan, Director of “Midway” and Environmental Artist

We are at a crossroads and what we know or fail to learn from the ocean, this largest of all ecosystems, will determine our ability to survive into the future. As important as the ocean is to our survival, we still know so little about it. Perhaps it is because it so vast, so deep and so unreachable that it is not until now that we are turning our gaze into serious ocean exploration. We must work harder and faster to understand the sea, and we must realize that understanding doesn’t mean merely to catalogue it.  Understanding will come when we can sense the ancient rhythms of earth and sea that have sculpted the continents and have produced the rock and sand on which we stand.  Understanding will come when we can see with our eyes and hear with our ears the surge of life beating at its shores – clawing blindly and always pressing for a new foothold. 

Cristina Mittermeier, Photographer, President of Sea Legacy.

As a journalist, I have traversed the seas from the coasts of Africa to the Caribbean shores…from Antarctica to the Indian Ocean. And, I have witnessed the damage mankind has done to them – painful destruction that is not always easy to see. The “High Seas” belong to no one nation. They belong to all of us. We must ALL do everything we can to protect them. For, without our oceans, we are all in peril.

John Quinones, ABC News, host of “What Would You Do”

As an avid diver, I decided to devise a cleanup plan utilizing the power of technology after seeing more plastic bags than fish while diving in Greece.

Boyan Slat, Founder of Ocean Clean Up

Growing to over 20 ft in length and distinguished by the stripes on their backs and serrated corkscrew-like teeth, tiger sharks are the largest predators in tropical seas. Having the opportunity to dive with this magnificent animal is truly life-changing. 

Neil Hammerschlag Ph.D, Predator Ecologist

The sea has always fascinated me as an artist and a storyteller because theres so much to work with. From a scientific perspective, it’s still largely unknown, and what we do know – the variety of life and the range of environments – is more interesting than anything in science fiction.  

James Toomey, Cartoonist, author of Sherman’s Lagoon

1.    Declaration of Cetaceans Rights

No life can measure what we have achieved
By whaling and slaughtering, so much to be grieved
It¹s time to support the Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans
Protect dolphins, whales and porpoises as "non-human persons"
Intelligent beings should have a legally enforceable right to life
How can anyone not support this glorious plight?

We have the same intelligence and we are self-aware
This is why we should all care
They recognise themselves in a mirror in a short blink
Lori Marino has found that dolphins also think
Whales are very clever ­ and they sing beautiful songs
Listen to David Rothenberg's interspecies communication
Try to sing along

But we also know cetaceans are suffering ­ something is wrong
They have chronic stress ­ shipping traffic is to blame
With military nuclear breaching ­ whales end up beaching
Whales and dolphins captured for Sea World tortures
Nature¹s intelligence - massacred in Taiji by ignorance
If you want to know more ­ watch ³The Cove² and see all that gore
Japanese whaling in the name of research, whales are left in the lurch
It¹s irresponsible and only for business gain
Save beautiful beings like dolphins and whales
Stand up and fight for the Declaration of Cetaceans Rights

We know that when we disrespect and harm nature
We diminish ourselves and impoverish our future
³Mother Earth is a living being²
We¹re part of her indivisible breathing
Intrinsically interlinked complex ecosystems
We need them for resilience and our future existence
³All life forms have the right to exist²
That¹s what the Declaration insists

³A human right to life and dignity
Is meaningless without water and wilderness²
Remember, what your life means to you
And give back that love to our Earth Mother too
For cetaceans to thrive like you and me
I wrote this song for you to see
Imagine a world with peace and no crime
We could all be having a whale of a time!

Irene Schleining, Director of Whale of A Time Community

Following the sunray lit highway to the inky below, jellyfish tumbling in their wake as sea lions whiz by in the passing lane ... flippers clearing the path into the unknowable depths.  

Kenny Broad, Cave Diver, National Geographic Explorer, Curiologist

For me the ocean is luminous prismatic leaps – moving poetry of life that inhabits liquid darkness. These moments of discovery feel like a special secret, revealed to me by the planet. Once discovered, I want to share these indelible moments – through a whispered glow, and a shadowy leap from the sea.

Kristin McCardle, Dancer, Ocean Conservationist, Diver.

The ocean has so much to tell us. Swim more, explore more, learn more, care more. Act on the wishes in her waves. We are the voice of the ocean, and it’s time for us to be loud. #TheOceanTalks

Alexandra Rose, Founder of Blue Ring, Science Editor of Ocean Geographic, Underwater Photographer.

Growing up, my family lived on Long Island

and we'd go to the beach often.

My mom never let me pick up trash bottles like this one.

I was little and YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE THAT BOTTLE HAS BEEN!

Now I'm the mom.  And when I go to the beach with my daughter...

I don't let her pick up trash bottles like this one.

She is little and I still have no idea where those bottles have been.

But she watches while I pick it up.

And we talk about it as we trudge through the sand to a garbage can.

Amy Breyer, Founder and Executive Director, Animal History Museum

Freedivng is like entering the ocean in its own terms. A rich immersive experience that transports you back in evolutionary time challenging your mind, body and soul. Veritas In Profundum Mare, means The Truth Lies in the Deep Sea and it is my professional ethos.

Kirk Krack, Founder and CEO of Performance Freediving International

Let us create an ocean finance architecture that addresses ocean risk and funds a global ocean observation infrastructure. That way we can all contribute to ocean innovation solutions!

Torsten Thiele, Founder, Global Ocean Trust

A hungry mamma pelican out looking for food spots and eats a shiny object floating in the ocean mistaking it for food, it is a string attached to a deflated balloon. Unable to return to it's nest, the mother of three, is now choking in distress on the beach, unable to move because of a balloon. Remnants discarded on the beach by humans celebrating birthdays, the lives, of their young, ironically taking the lives of sea creatures also trying to nurture their young. Unaware that one of their balloons has caused this bird's distress and inevitable death, Johnny and his mom giddily watch as they let go of the remaining balloons, each adrift aloft the sky over the ocean. Johnny runs along the beach, he squeals and points in delight at the pelican on the beach that he is so happy to be able to get so close to, unaware of the bird's plight caused by one of his discarded balloons. His mom snaps a picture of Johnny next to the mother bird who will never see her young again and posts it on social media. #Happy birthday Johnny!

Penni Ludwig, Designer, Diver, Captain, Conservationist.

Our seas are home to so much more than most of us know. At the margins: frogs, hidden in the mangroves, and salt-splashed skinks and lizards on hot inter-tidal rocks. And probing the corals and gliding through the water: sea snakes, taking gulps of air from the surface above, to remind us of their land-based origins. They all tell us the truth- that the land and sea are connected.

Christopher J. Raxworthy, Associate Curator of Herpetology, Associate Dean of Science for Exhibition and Education, Department of Herpetology, American Museum of Natural History

Crystal clear water from ocean to tap!

Merijn Everaarts, Founder and Owner Dopper

King Salmon are incredibly beautiful fish. They’ve got sparkly shiny scales of pinks, greens and blues, and they are an extremely important species to various coastal indigenous communities in their native range, from Alaska all the way up to my home in BC. They are the life-blood of these communities; they feed the tribes’ children, and nourish the souls of the elders. These fish are their medicine. We should do everything to preserve them in the wild.

Dr. Anne Salomon, Pew Fellow, Coastal Marine Ecology and Conservation Lab Director. 

My connection to the ocean, I believe, began when I was in my mothers womb. 

When I swim and play in the sea, I feel free. I feel home… an inner peace comes over me. With what we now know about the many threats to the ocean, how can I not feel the urgency to protect something so sacred to me. As a writer, I hope that through my children’s picture books: “All the Way to the Ocean” and “Sea Change”, children and adults that read them will feel my connection to the ocean –– a layer shed from deep within my being –– a call for a mass awakening to the desperate need to protect our mother ocean; the womb that gave birth to life on earth –– We have no choice but to fight like hell to protect her and all of the beauty and family that dwell beneath the sea.  

Joel Harper, Author, Musician, Conservationist

The connectivity, the life, the rain, diversity, wilderness, mystery, intrigue and passion. Indispensable, nonnegotiable.

Pete Oxford, Photographer, Conservationist.

Conservation of the oceans and its creatures is paramount to life on earth for humans. The phytoplankton harvest energy from the sun which contributes to the vast web of life in the oceans. From tiny organisms up the food chain to the iconic whales, sea turtles, walruses, penguins, birds and polar bears, the oceans form the largest part of our planet. The BLUE Planet. Yet the oceans are in jeopardy. If we undo this web of life, we undo our own.

Elise Boeger, Principal, Cultural Platinum Network, Travel Ad Director, Smithsonian Magazine

I fell in love with a small bobtail squid no bigger than the end of my thumb in 1982. We had a connection and played together in the early morning hours for almost an hour. Every morning for a week, I looked for it and was greatly disappointed not to find it. I miss it still.  SEA LIFE – all life must be respected and loved.  

Charlotte Vick, Google Content Manager of The Sylvia Earle Alliance

Pteropods are tiny planktonic snails whose thin fragile shells are very sensitive to Ocean Acidification. Ocean acidification is caused by CO2 (from burning fossil fuels) dissolving in the ocean and creating carbonic acid, which makes the water more acidic. Pteropod shells in the California current are already showing pitting - areas where they are being eroded away.

Judith S. Weis, Ph.D. Professor Emerita of Biology, Rutgers University

Majestic sea turtles, mariners of our blue oceans should thrive on jelly fish, their favorite food, and not on plastic bag lookalikes.  

Lily Venizelos, Founder and President,  MEDASSET, MAVA Foundation

 I think the most important thing people should know is that it's OK to protect something - even if you're afraid of it. Sharks are not the mindless killing machines that most people believe them to be. Not only are they an apex predator - they are also in grave danger. Science claims there may not be any more fish in the ocean within the next 40 years. What most people don't understand is that many species of sharks could possibly be extinct within the next 10-20 years. With 90 % of the world's shark species in danger right now, humans can't afford to look the other way. Everyone knows you need an apex predator to keep the food chain healthy. Today, well over one billion people on the planet rely on the ocean for food. If that food source goes away, imagine what problems will exist.
There are also over 400 species of sharks in the world, with only a handful ever posing a threat to humans. However, sharks are always lumped in to one category. It's the same as lumping all the cats in the world into one category - even though the danger levels of a household cat are nothing like that of an African lion.
I don't think it's proactive to tell people what they can and can't or should or shouldn't eat. But, I do think it's important that people are educated and make the right decision before they consume certain products. Sharks need our help - and it's time the world started to care.
I love all the creatures in the sea (and on land), but sharks have always made me feel differently when I swim with them. I love their stealthiness, their power and their graceful movements. I fell in love with swimming with sharks many years ago and now want to spread the word to help change the image that sharks have virtually everywhere in the world. Most people seem to fear the unknown. When they have their first opportunity to swim up close with a shark, most minds seem to change.  

Tre' L. Packard, PangeaSeed Founder and Director, PangeaSeed.com

Human societies across the globe have been greatly influenced by the inhabitants of the sea, which can be seen in the poetry we write, films we make, stories we share, medicines we consume and lessons we learn. To lose oceanic biodiversity would mean losing one of the biggest sources of inspiration in our culture: the oceans and those who call it home.

Carolyn Merino Mullin Founder, National Museum of Animals & Society

I am of the Chesapeake Bay, same as the Crabs, Oysters and Rockfish. My father bought and returned live female Blue Crabs to our river, feeding life to the Bay as it fed us, and the Ocean, for generations.

Buffy Redsecker, President of the SunLight Time Foundation & Board Chair of ILCP

Confession of a Coral-lover

I know there’s plenty of fish in the sea

But there’s only one true love for me

                 He has no scales,

                  Not even a tail,

But he is built so impeccably

Yea, it’s coral reefs that do it for me 

And a quarter of all marine life - apparently

             Reefs can protect us all

             If we don't drop the ball

And just learn to treat them appropriately.

Melanie McField, Director, Healthy Reefs Initiative, Smithsonian Marine Biologist

Submerging through packice leads off St. Lawrence Island, the darkened sympagic realm underneath sea ice belies only a hint of the living universe within a crystalline labyrinth of briny channels throughout the ice. Microcreatures occupy this tiniest frozen niche –  released in spring melt to inoculate the Arctic foodweb explosion. 

Leah Michelle Ridgway, Alaskan Marine Ecologist

Ocean

Without seeking it,

I found divinity in you.

Discovered the discoverer.

Go on,

and hold my heart.

Ann Luskey, Founder of A SeaTime, Sailor, Philanthropist.

The Ocean is simultaneously familiar the origin of all life....the womb of our shared planet and she yet fantastical and mysterious still undiscovered like outer space on Earth.

Mara G Haseltine, Artist, Ocean Conservationist.

We need to think creatively about our resources, and explore radical new ideas for ocean management. Our oceans are powerful and resilient, and have surprised us by thriving in the most unlikely of places, beneath offshore oil and gas platforms. 

Emily Callahan and Amber Jackson, Co-Founders, Blue Latitudes

When seahorses mate they face each other and form a heart shape as the female passes her eggs to the male's pouch.

It is an incredible sight to see a male seahorse giving birth as hundreds of babies suddenly emerge from his pouch!

Leslee Matsushige Director of Seahorse Propagation Program at the Birch Aquarium

In a world where so much that is wild and free has already been lost to us, we must leave these beautiful dolphins free to swim as they will and must. They do us no harm and wish us none, and we should let them be. 

Richard O Barry, founder of Dolphin Project Inc and Director of Earth Island Institute’s Save Japan Dolphin’s campaign. 

Nature wisdom harmony community compassion consciousness peace
To me, this is what the whales symbolize.
They are creatures that somehow embody the essence of being present.
So when we talk about saving whales, we are not just talking about "saving whales", we are talking about saving these aspects of humanity, and ultimately saving ourselves.

 Natalie Fox, Co-Founder of Women For Whales, and Founder of Chicks with Sticks

If our goal is to eliminate sharks from the ocean we are doing a great job.  Next up, larger dead zones and ecosystem failures.  We’re on a roll.

Kip Evans Director of Photography, Ocean Explorer

No Fish, No Blackfish. This simple message was originally "No Blackfish, No Fish", with meaning for the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest - no point fishing until the blackfish (killer whales) arrive because they are the spirit beasts that bring the bountiful salmon runs to the region. The reverse is now the message that our society must understand - the blackfish will not arrive if there are not sufficient salmon for their survival. Unfortunately, both wild salmon and Pacific Northwest icon killer whales are in dramatic decline in recent years. The consensus of professional salmon managers is that wild salmon will be extinct by 2100, and I estimate the southern resident killer whales will be gone before then. Can't our society do something to mend our ways with respect for the natural world? Ultimately, human survival is also at stake.

Kenneth Balcomb, Founder of Center for Whale Research.

When I was a graduate student, I tried to weave the science of emotion into my dissertation on the relationship between sea turtle ecology and coastal communities. No luck. My advisors steered me to other departments, another career, even. "Keep that fuzzy stuff out of your science, young man," they counseled. Emotion wasn't rational. It wasn't quantifiable. It wasn't science.

But, the deep human-ocean connection, "BLUEMIND," as we've dubbed it, held me in its grip even as my career as a scientist blossomed. Eventually, I shaped my general philosophy and ideas into an effort called "The Mind and Ocean Initiative." Today, I think -- actually, I know -- it is time for a new kind of ocean science.

Economists, marketers and politicians recognize that deep-seated, inscrutable emotions, not rationality alone, rule human behavior. Aided by neuroscientists, these fields have begun to understand how our deepest, most primordial emotions drive virtually every decision we make, from what we buy to the candidates we elect. To my way of thinking, if the lessons of the cognitive sciences can be used for the crass purposes of influencing what people buy and how they vote, why not use such knowledge for the urgent task of ocean protection and restoration? 

I believe we can. And, I believe we should.

Wallace J. Nichols, PhD, Author of Blue Mind. 

Corals are the first real estate developers of planet Earth.

Colin Foord, Co-Founder Coral Morphologic. 

Everything we learned as kids about the deep sea was wrong. We learned the deep sea was void of vibrant sea life, that nothing could possibly survive way down there. I've seen just the opposite from my tiny submersible thousands of feet below the surface of the Bering Sea. In those dark, cold waters I have stared in disbelief at a mesmerizingly rich and colorful tapestry of life, including the oldest living animal on the planet: Corals. Deepwater corals can live for more than four thousand years!
Yet, in the blink of an eye, mammoth trawl nets dragged along the bottom by huge factory fishing ships tear these corals from their moorings, killing the heart of an ancient ecosystem. The technical term is 'by-catch,' a term that is wholly inadequate to express the tragic implications for some the ocean's most important ecosystems, let alone the waste and senselessness of such a destructive practice. We can and must do better. That is the deep sea lesson for the kids of today. 

David Guggenheim, Ocean Doctor

No plastic belongs in the ocean!
Is that such a radical notion?
We’d say, “Problem solved”
If plastic dissolved—
Right now! Not in super slow motion

For billions of years there was none.
For animals, plastic’s no fun
They grimace and bear it
And drown when they wear it
But we make it ton upon ton

It washes to sea ‘cause we let it
We let it because we forget it
Then animals die
There’s no reason why
They suffer while we just don’t get it

I wish they could bring it ashore
And drop it right at our front door
And how we’d deserve it
If they could just serve it
And say to us, “Do this no more!”

Carl Safina,  Founder of Blue Ocean Institute, Author of Beyond Words

1.    Corals are model communities, they require diversity in order to survive, they live in close proximity with many species often in symbiotic relationship but they can stand very little temperature change. They are the canary in the coalmine of the oceans.
And whilst we are working out what we might do as individual countries about climate change, warming sea surface temperatures in the world’s oceans have the potential to wipe out the entire coral community. The evolutionary tactics that corals have worked out to continue their diversity is to send all their potential offspring up into the water column on one night a year. It’s an underwater galaxy. The moon orchestrates that event like clockwork. So today our voices are being sent up and out together, to float up towards the surface hopefully to find a global community, a community that believes it’s possible to co-operate beyond the weathervane of the politics of the day, a community that is prepared to think beyond its own life span, a community that is prepared to act in unison, like the corals.
I think it should be as impossible to imagine a world without corals as it is to look up and imagine a sky without stars.
Lynette Wallworth, Visual Artist, Film Maker, Director of Reefs As Never Seen Before, Venus Rekindling

We are endlessly tied to the ocean, with every single breath we take.
Over half of the oxygen in our atmosphere is produced by the phytoplankton in the ocean. The health of our planet and all the amazing creatures that call it home - whether they live on land or in water - is dependent on the health of the sea. If our oceans die, we all die.

Leilani Munter, Race car driver and environmental activist.

I hope my work will help people all over the world appreciate the beauty of sharks. If we don t do something now to protect and respect the Ocean and the sea life, they will be gone and we will follow in their wake. 

Victor Douieb, Sculptor

--------

ABOUT SAWFISH 

Sawfishes, also known as carpenter sharks, are a family of rays characterized by a long, narrow, flattened rostrum, or nose extension, lined with sharp transverse teeth, arranged in a way that resembles a saw. Sawfish use a sixth sense based in their snouts to hunt and dismember their prey, new research shows for the first time. Pristis perotteti, the largetooth sawfish, is one of most endangered elasmobranchs because of fisheries and habitat degradation. Its commercialization in Brazil is prohibited, but fresh or salted fillets of this fish can be found in markets, labeled as “sharks”.

Fluid Universe

In this world there is nothing softer

or thinner than water

But to compel the hard and unyielding,

It has no equal.

That the weak overcomes the strong,

That the hard gives way to the gentle –

This everyone knows,

Yet no one acts accordingly.

                                                                                                                                         —Lao Tzu 6th c. B.C.

The simple truth known to the brokenhearted, the mystic, and the physicist: what we think solid is not. What most of us believe constitutes the “real” material world – the stuff we can reach out, touch, hold, buy, and see – physicists all agree is actually not solid at all.  In fact, what appears “solid” or material in our world is really 99.999999999999 percent empty space made “solid” by a miniscule fraction of matter that may not even be matter but wavelets of energy. Light is a particle that when we try and measure by passing it through a narrow opening behaves just like an ocean wave passing through a narrow harbor. Once through the slender opening, light wave and water wave fan out, each forming a crescent pattern. A far more accurate characterization of our universe would be “fluid.”

       Even our human bodies are far more fluid than they are solid. Like earth we are mostly water—both in the range of 70%. Even human bones that feel so substantial are themselves 30% water and on close examination reveal pockmarked patterns of tiny rhythmic holes that mimic the flow of water that pits flow patterns into seabed rock. Our eyeballs, the very same by which we read these words, are washed 25 times a minute by water squirted from tiny ducts. Aquatic by nature, we begin life in a fluid mix, are nurtured in womb waters, born to suckle milk, and continue to take in fluids to survive. As the Koran sura 21.30 puts it, “We are made from water every living thing. 

Rebecca Hoffberger Founder and Director of The American Visionary Art Museum

Marine mammals are the most polluted animals on earth - they are "hazardous waste" when they strand on our beaches. Why? Because the oceans are the final sinks for all the man-made pollutants we are using. Our oceans are in a rapid decline and we have less than 10 years to change this. Saving our oceans is not a political issue – it’s a survival issue for all of us. How many oil spills do we have to endure before off shore drilling is regulated? Congress has not passed a single piece of legislature since the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill - and the industry is not showing any signs of self-regulation either.  We are poised to drill in the Arctic next summer - with no assurance that a disaster will be averted - and no meaningful containment planning for drilling in an even more challenging environment.   

Dr. Susan Shaw, Director of Meri Research Foundation

I heart uncharismatic micro-fauna. I'm fighting for the plankton. Micro-plastic shed from clothing kills everything that eats plankton, aka, everything.

Stiv Wilson, Director of Campaigns The Story of Stuff Project.

We are known to have the same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean. It is the life blood of our Earth. We are connected so effortlessly to the planet, and it is our responsibility to keep it protected. 

Christine Evangelista, Actress

Charismatic symbols of seagrasses, mangroves, reefs and estuaries, seahorses are flagship species for a wide range of marine conservation issues such as overfishing, by-catch and habitat degradation. We truly believe if we save seahorses, we can save the seas.

Lily Stanton, Project Seahorse, Institute of Oceans and Fisheries, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Devastation can be brought by trillions of individual actions, each as trivial as a thrown out bottle or a cross-town car ride, but collectively harmful. Recovery can also be brought by trillions of individual actions - reduce, reuse, recycle. Snorkeling, I looked up at the surface of the ocean to see a shoal of squid, arrayed in a semi-circle around me, eyes dazzling, gazing. An alien life form. Me.

Sarah Otto, Professor, University of British Columbia

Until we see no difference between any living being, whether it be with wings, fins, or different appendages we will be at war with ourselves and the environment.  Only through unity with nature can we find real peace.  

Louie Psihoyos, Director of The Cove, Exec. Director of OPS

The ocean is life. Nature at her purest, her most serene, her most powerful. From the primordial stirrings of civilization to the exploration of the deepest subterranean landscapes, there is mystery and discovery.

Take a deep breath. Over half of that oxygen came from the ocean, the lungs of our blue planet. The fact that our own lives depend on the ocean’s health is a compelling reason to protect her. But I believe that the ocean—and every animal who calls her home—has an intrinsic value. Each living being, no matter how tiny, is important. Each life is worthy of our protection and deserving of equal consideration—simply because it exists. If we as a species can begin to act in accordance with this belief, the rest will fall into place. If we cannot, then there isn’t much to live for, anyway.

Kim McCoy, Executive Director Big Life Foundation

In 2016 alone, 289.92 million* Americans used liquid hand soap. We can no longer ignore the environmental impact of plastic waste from soap. As the founder of Soapply, a luxury soap startup, I made a choice to bottle our liquid soap in recycled glass bottles. This may seem like a small action, but as we continue to grow it has the opportunity to make a huge difference in limiting the amount of plastic packaging entering our fragile marine ecosystems. 

Mera McGrew, Founder / CEO of Soapply

We are just beginning to grasp the vast complexities of the natural world, but our story may already be past tense. Only love save us now

– Love of the sea, of wild places, of exploration, discovery and achievement.

- Love of life in all of its strange, exquisite incarnations, from the Angler fish swimming in the deepest ocean to the possibilities waiting for us among the stars in the sky.

Lauren Oliver Quellete, Artist, Designer, Ocean lover.

If you're in the Museum of Natural History, LOOK UP. The model of the blue whale (which I designed) represents all that is great and wonderful about nature. Could there possibly be a more dynamic symbol of the need for conservation?

Richard Ellis, Artist, Author.

Beautiful ocean, wrap your bountiful currents around my borders and teach me: we are borderless but need boundaries. With your pain, we suffer.

Our largest asset on earth. From you, unparalleled source of food, electricity, climate control, resources. Unconditional generosity.

From us, boundless gratitude. Eternal reverence. Can we get to know each other? Hold me, and I’ll open my eyes.

Kristin Hettermann, Photographer, Writer, Ocean Activist. 

Nassau groupers are a charismatic and important reef fish species, but unsustainable fishing practices and illegal fishing are threatening their continued existence. Coordinated research and conservation efforts are needed to help protect this endangered species and ensure that it continues to support healthy reefs and fisheries.

Krista Sherman, Marine Scientist, The Bahamas

I remember returning home from a dive trip to the remote Eastern Fields between Australia’s Cape York Peninsula and Papua New Guinea. Foggy in jetlag I emerged from the subway onto the sunny, teeming streets of mid-town Manhattan. I kept flashing on the thousands of silvery grunts dappled with a thousand points of light I had just seen streaming across those pristine reefs and laughing to myself because our streaming city streets are connected to those teeming coral reefs on the other side of the world -- it’s just that all these people running around here in New York City don’t know that yet! We are all teeming and streaming together here on Planet Earth!

Anne Doubilet, Underwater photographer, writer, explorer and ocean advocate.

Seafood. How many species suffer those two mean English syllables? Other languages are no kinder. Romance European cultures use the expression “sea fruit,” while Slavs say “sea gifts.” So-called vegetarians rue the killing of farmed terrestrial animals but regularly eat wild fish. Kosher laws mandating merciful animal slaughter don’t apply to any animal living underwater.

 Paul Greenberg, author of Four Fish writer for New York Times. 

We must guard against the pillage of our beautiful green sea

So our grandchildren will be free to harvest tuna sashimi. 

Baba Brinkman, Rapper and Founder of Lit Fuse Records

Art can bring the beauty and peril of reefs above the surface and into view and can inspire us to protect the ocean.

Courtney Mattison, Artist & Ocean Advocate

So vast but so fragile. Life in the ocean is connected to life on land – to us. Increased carbon emissions not only cause climate change and increased ocean temperatures; they also make the ocean more acidic. Only recently do we know about this, at first invisible stressor, namely CO2, and the chemical changes it causes in the ocean. Ocean acidification harms the development of calcareous species such as coral reefs and may have larger impacts on ecosystems functions and the food web. If the case wasn’t already strong enough, here we have another reason why urgent carbon emission reductions are needed.

Dorothée Herr, Marine Programme Officer, IUCN

Imagine if you could pull powerful stinging cells from jellies and tuck them onto your back to use as your own badass weaponry? Now imagine you could delicately extract working chloroplasts from algae and place them into your own skin so that you could become a photosynthesizing animal able to eat sunshine for breakfast? Lastly, imagine being some of the most garish, psychedelically-awesome, soft-bodied creatures in the world ocean. No need to imagine--just check out the nudibranchs!!

Tierney Thys, National Geographic Explorer, Biomechanical Zoologist.

We have injured the source of life itself, our ocean, and it’s time to heal her. It can’t be done without all voices rising – it will take all of us, whether we can see the ocean or not. Our every breath depends on our collaborative success. The time is now for an Inland Ocean Movement!

Vicki Nichols Goldstein, Founder of the Colorado Ocean Coalition

Warming seas and ocean acidification from absorbing excess CO2 is threatening all life in the ocean, and therefore all life on earth, however, the ocean is both the victim and the hero of climate change. If we continue to protect and restore the ocean systems that sequester carbon and produce oxygen we can reduce the amount of Co2 in the atmosphere, while we transition to renewable energy and reduce our output of carbon. The ocean has the potential to save us from ourselves, but we must save it first.

Shari Sant Plummer, President of Code Blue Foundation

We are on the brink of severe change. Mankind should approach life with a learner's mind, and the first place we can go to learn about how to survive and thrive is our World’s oceans. 

Christen Lien, Musician, Conservationist

A la Marsopa Vaquita “Silvestre”. El Golfo de California, no volverá a ser igual, ya que esta por perder parte de su esencia salvaje.

Patricio Robles Gil, Artist, Photographer

There are so many creatures to love – and protect – in our oceans. I had the good fortune to get to know a sociable orca, Luna, in the wild. If you think about wild animals, how often do they come to us for friendship? Almost always the relationship is based on food. But many cetacean species come to humans for social contact, which shows that these amazing sentient beings have complex brains and social needs, which may be far beyond anything we currently understand.  

To quote Matthew Scully – "Animals have this way of constantly confronting us with ultimate questions about truth and falsehood, guilt and innocence, God and sanctity and the soul."

Suzanne Chisholm, Filmmaker

Something doesn't add up. We treat the ocean as both an inexhaustible provider of food and as a rubbish dump. We wage war on the ocean and marine life and then expect it to be our ally and friend. It's time to change our relationship with the ocean and treat it with the respect and care it deserves. The ocean is remarkably resilient if given a chance. It deserves this, as do we.  

Joanna Benn, Concerned Citizen, Senior Officer, International Policy, Pew Environment Group

We live in a world where the health of humans, animals, and the environment are interrelated. Veterinarians International, is a non profit organization committed to protecting the earth’s precious resources, both land and water, for the well being of all life on earth. 

Scarlett Magda, ER Veterinarian and Founder of Veterinarians International.  

Blissful blue weightless flight, in life giving liquid love

mesmerizing memories of awe inspiring encounters

floating in harmony with creatures of sentient intelligence

melting away my fears

washing away my ills

dissolving my pain

connecting me to this beautiful blue globe

I AM. WE ARE.. 

Caretakers of

PLANET OCEAN

Hannah, Mermaid

My mom was a huge penguin fan before it was cool but was killed in 1986. My gift to her is to ensure that these heroic creatures survive. Doing so means we need healthy oceans.

Susan McPherson, Founder & CEO of McPherson Strategies, Corporate Social Responsibility expert.

The Belize Barrier Reef provides food, livelihoods and physical protection to Belize’s populace. Without it, we would be in real trouble…with it, we are safeguarded. We must thus work tirelessly to be great stewards of this universally important natural wonder.  

Nadia Bood, Mesoamerican Reef Scientist, World Wildlife Fund

Vegan Seafood! Huh? It is not a paradox: it's a delicious revolution! We learned our daughter Sophie was seriously allergic to seafood at about the same time that we realized that a beach famous for jellyfish had no jellyfish! The realization of the vulnerability of the ocean hit us hard. We had to do something! We chose a traditional, sustainable Asian food, konjac, and combined it with our 22 years experience in developing vegetarian foods to create our delicious line of vegan 'seafood' products. The message in our bottle is 'love for future generations' and their relationship to the enigmatic, beautiful oceans of the world. 

Sophie’s Kitchen, Vegan Food Company

This is the Ocean planet and the oceanic biodiversity is the life support system of this Spaceship Earth. Within the rich dark depths live and work the humble crew that maintains this life support system. We humans are merely dangerous passengers intent upon the mass murder of these hard working species from the plankton to the whale that make it possible for us to survive. When we diminish biodiversity, we weaken our life support system, and if it is diminished below a certain threshold, it will collapse, and when that happens the oceans will die, and if the oceans die – we die! 

Captain Paul Watson, Founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Groupers are the engineers of our tropical and subtropical seas, mid level predators who at the higher end can reach the size of a Small SUV and tie in higher and lower levels of the food chain. They use several habitats throughout their life cycle from open sea, to shallow seagrass beds and mangroves to complex coral reef communities (if in the tropics) where they can form huge spawning aggregations. An Important fisheries resources for small scale fishers, they are also a big draw for marine tourism due to their coloration along with their curious and personable nature. 

Dr Rachel Graham, Founder MarAlliance

Blue whales are an incredibly iconic species. The intrigue and excitement this animal generates is fabulous. I believe that by making people care for the largest animal that has ever lived on the planet, through exciting science and by rousing awareness, we will be able to engage more people in the active protection of the species and ultimately inspire people to become more curious about the secrets of the deep blue sea.

Asha De Vos, National Geographic Explorer, Marine Biologist and TED fellow.

Since the Monterey Bay Aquarium first invited visitors to peek below the surface of the ocean and discover the marvels of the sea, we’ve opened the eyes — and hearts — of millions of people to the incredible marine life found in our oceans. Sadly, ocean life today is threatened as never before. Human activities are taking their toll, and nothing exacts a greater price than the scope and scale of fishing to feed our growing appetite for seafood. Still, there are many reasons to be optimistic. Yes, the state of ocean life is still in decline; yes, we have reached a point when urgent action is needed to reverse declines in ocean wildlife populations —and to restore what we’ve lost. The good news is that fishermen and consumers, businesses and governments are charting new courses and cooperating in new ways to address the problems our oceans and fishing communities face. I believe we are truly turning the tide, and I’m confident that together we can — and will — create a future with healthy oceans. 

Julie Packard, executive director, Monterey Bay Aquarium

If all we do is clean-up, that’s all we’ll ever do.

Rarely has such a huge environmental issue had such a simple solution.

Plastic marine pollution starts with what YOU buy and what YOU do with it.

We need to start consuming with care – the life of our oceans depends on it.

Heidi Taylor, Managing Director of Tangaroa Blue Foundation

The parrotfish is one of the most important species on our coral reefs. It consumes algae that is overpowering our corals and reducing the resilience of the reefs to protect our coastal areas. Parrotfishes also produce sand that builds our beaches. We must protect this parrotfish as it is one of nature's gifts to human wellbeing, especially in small island developing states.

Dayne Buddo PhD, Marine Ecologist

We are pressed to find effective responses to change and the escalating challenges we face. The essential lesson I’ve learnt over my career is: speak up, challenge status quo, and explore new avenues with courage, even if these may fail.

Rod Salm, Coral Reef Ecologist, Ph.D.

Plastic pollution causes the deaths of over 100,000 marine mammals and over 1-million sea birds each year and it can totally be prevented.  Please educate yourself and others about the harms of plastic pollution and encourage schools to bring in more environmental education programs so the next generation of leaders will have the knowledge needed to be the solution.

Carter Ries, Co-Founder of One More Generation

Just as recently as a month ago, I witnessed a dead 56 feet long Blue whale off the coast of Sri Lanka - due to a collision with one of the many cargo ships in the international shipping lane. Increasing the number of shipping vessels on the high seas is the number one enemy of the largest living organism on our planet, the Blue whale.

The migration of the Blue whales and the all other whales are very well documented these days. From the mid 80s up until last year, shipping lanes were regulated by the protection agencies of USA and Canada and they modified the international shipping lane routes to include the migratory patterns of these giants of the ocean, as part of the Marine Mammals’ law. This conservation measure allowed Blue whale numbers along the cost of the Mexico, USA and Canada to recuperate dramatically, to over 2,500 bringing up the global count to 12,000.

However, last year this ruling was reversed and six Blue whales have been reported dead this year. In Sri Lanka we are also facing resistance from the government as they are concerned about the loss of income from pushing setting shipping lanes at a standard 20 miles off shore mark, as this might possibly reduce profits for them. People slaughter seals, whales and dolphins under the banner of research and because they feel like these big animals deplete fish stock in the wild when in fact it is us who are depleting the sea’s inventory of biodiversity. There has also been a serious spike in the finning industry, as per a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society census we kill over 90 million sharks a year. Manta rays, another big animal I enjoy photographing, are also being slaughtered in large numbers to satiate the Chinese demand for exotic preparations.

In short there are more people on our planet and therefore more ships crowding our seas. 1 in 4 people rely on fish as their staple protein; this turns into a high head count for the ocean to sustain when it comes to under developed coastal settlements with high birth rates. However, we already know that this is not a sustainable model, and it is our responsibility to act on what we have come to know, as the solutions are embedded in the problems we perpetuate. It is possible to practice sustainable fishing, or aquaculture, people just need to be willing to steer away from the path we are on toward one that is more inclusive.

Amos Nachoum, Founder of Big Animals.

Tunas swim like meteors.  

Chuck Pell Co Founder of Physcient and Co Founder of Nekton

Nearly all of the marine ornamental fish sold in the aquarium trade are harvested directly from coral reefs and surrounding habitats, whereas 90% of freshwater ornamental species are farm-raised. The Philippines and Indonesia supply more than half of the global marine ornamental fish trade. The United states, United Kingdom, European Union and Hong Kong are among the largest consumers of these species. A recent report by the United National Environmental Programme established that the marine trade is composed of 20 to 24 million individual ornamental fish, 11 to 12 million pieces of coral, and 9 to 10 million invertebrates from 1,471 different species. Valued between $200 and $300 Million annually, the industry creates the highest value-added product that comes from the reef. In the Maldives, for example, one kilogram of fish collected for the aquarium trade can fetch up to $500, whereas fish caught for food fetches only $6 per kilogram. IN the future this added value may provide an incentive to protect reefs and create a sustainable harvest for marine ornamentals.

Gaelin Rosenwaks, CEO at Global Ocean Exploration Inc.

It is due time that we stop justifying the desecration of Mother Earth and ALL of her children for the man-made concept of culture and profit. We are simply foolish to believe that any one species takes precedence or should have authority over another. The Ocean is an abundant life force that needs to be consciously nurtured and protected in order for man to truly co-exist with all the magnificent species that dwell within this fragile planetary womb. Until humanity recognizes that LIFE cannot flourish under the current system of dominant rationale, we will continue to cause great suffering and threaten the very survival of our living ancestors and the future generations.

 Deborah Bassett, Non Profit Consultant, Environmental Journalist and Activist

We are the Ocean. The Ocean is us. Our tears and blood are salty. We grow in our Mother’s bodies in utero in a salty sea sack placenta and then are born.
The sea is our home and from there came all life on our blue earth planet.
And what is Plastic? Carbon, made from petro-chemicals. Petroleum is a blood that runs through the veins of our planet: extracted, heated and combined with phthalates and Bisphenols, toxic endocrine disrupting chemicals and transformed into Plastic, among other things, and a multitude of colorful objects, many useful and some designed as throw away, single use and disposable items, but made from a material which will never go away.
As a Visual artist, I have played with, deconstructed and reconstructed the ubiquitous and omnipresent plastic bag for 25 years so far and what have I discovered in working with this material?
That it must go, we must begin to value plastic and stop using it in this irresponsible disposable manner.
Yes, I agree with the ACC, “plastic is too valuable to waste”, so why are we using it to make single use objects.
When a plastic bag or bottle will last more than 5 human life spans, littering our landscapes, our Ocean, consumed by the marine chain and terrestrial animals and leaching toxins into us and into our bodies, we arrive to the realization that enough is enough. It is time to get real.
This plastic pollution must end. We can bring about this change, by refusing to choose disposable plastics.
We can bring our own reusable water bottle, ceramic mug, stainless steel or glass reusable straw, and our own canvas bag.
I rise to the challenge of living disposable plastic free each day. It’s fun! And my passion and strong drive to raise awareness and bring about change have become inextricable from my artwork. Each 2D and 3D work, each installation and sculpture is a visual attempt to create a consciousness. I ask viewers to reevaluate our throwaway society of over consumption.
Plastic Pollution Coalition embodies this desire to bring a global community together and address this crisis of Plastic Pollution on all fronts simultaneously and harmoniously to bring about the change, which is needed.
Will you join me?

Dianna Cohen, Visual Artist and Creative Advocacy Director/co-founder of Plastic Pollution Coalition. www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org

  "I don't understand a lot of things

Climate Change out the scope of my thinking

But I do know something

My Friend the Ocean is really crying

That is why in my country sea level is rising"

A verse from "The Sea is Crying" by Emeline Siale Ilolahi

Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins have been picked off one by one by gill and trawl nets for over three decades. Because they are a little known species, few people are aware of the tragedy that is playing out off of New Zealand’s coast. It just doesn’t sit well with New Zealand’s self-image and the perception of the country abroad, but it is true nonetheless.
Anonymity has been a killer for these amazing but forgotten animals because people, who don’t know, can’t care about whether they are there or not. That’s why building awareness and a strong, global lobby for them is so important. And we’re getting there - finally – after years of shouting for help.
We – and by ‘we’ I mean all of us - have a unique opportunity to right a monumental wrong that is inflicted on these beleaguered animals. And from what I’ve learned from working on this issue for the past 11 years, Maui’s and Hector’s dolphins won’t make it without our help. Please get involved, find out more about them and learn to love and care about them by visiting our website: www.hectorsdolphins.com. One thing’s for sure. What happens to Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins will say a great deal more about our own species than about theirs.

Barbara Maas, Head of International Species Conservation at NABU.

As a freediver I feel a close affinity to dolphins. It's clear from my own experiences, and from the way they are known to protect swimmers from sharks or interact with snorkelers and surfers, that these mammals reciprocate this kinship. Intrinsically it's impossible to argue that any one species is more valuable than another, and it's true that we anthropomorphize dolphins a lot and are fond of them in part for their unfailing smile and playful mirth. However they are also the most intelligent order of beings after man, and offer us not just another statistic of biodiversity, but also a chance to learn about ourselves through the ineluctable inspiration that is granted just by being in the presence of creatures in such perfect harmony with their world.

Should we lose such a rare example of the life's wonders for ever it would be a black mark on our name as stewards of this planet. The first and only dolphin to become extinct so far due to human influence was a fresh water dolphin: the Yangtze River Dolphin. While they inhabited a tiny stretch of water in the most populated country of the planet (still no excuse for their extinction of course), the same cannot be said for New Zealand's Dolphins. It is only through the rampant greed and malpractice of a government-pampered fishing industry that their species have been strangled to close to extinction. The imperative and only course of action is incontestable: trawling and gill-netting must be made illegal across the dolphins' entire territory. Should the government be uncertain of the exact territory then all areas under suspicion must be protected until it can be proven that dolphins aren't found there. Benefit of doubt must be given to a crippled species, not to a belligerent fishing industry. 

William Trubridge, World Champion Free Diver.

In America, we are using over 500-million single use plastic straws every single day and none get recycled.  That is enough to fill over 127 school busses full of straws every single day.  These straws will stay in our landfills for hundreds of years or end up in our waterways and oceans where animals eat them and die.

Please 'Say No" the next time someone offers you a disposable straw.  Don't just do it for the animals or the environment, do it for your next generation as well. 

Olivia Ries, Co-Founder of One More Generation

Have you ever gone through a medical surgery? Have you ever received a vaccine, flu shot, or IV? Well, you can thank horseshoe crabs for keeping you pathogen free through those procedures! Horseshoe crabs are harvested by the biomedical industry for their unique, quick-clotting, blue blood. Once a harvested crab has donated a portion of its blood, it is released back into the wild. A derivative of horseshoe crab blood, called Limulus Amebocyte Lysate, is used as a screening agent to detect contaminants on medical instruments and devices before they are used on people. So, the next time you go through any type of medical procedure, be sure to thank horseshoe crabs for keeping you healthy through the process!

Michael Long, University of Massachusetts

Life below the waterline is separated from the noise above, unseen and unknown to many; I photograph these wonders so all may benefit from loving, restraining from killing, and helping oxygen-providing waters become trash free to continue sustaining life.

Jennifer Idol, The Underwater Designer

Sea Hope, Sea Change. Sea Future
The TerraMar Project

It is not enough to stand against oil, stand against pollution, stand against the degradation of the planet or stand against the status quo. We must not become victims of illusionment. We must never pretend that we embody all the things we stand against. Instead, we must stand for change - however small, however incremental. Standing for even the smallest action is more powerful than standing against the world as it may be.

Josh Tickell, Filmmaker

Humanity can learn a lot from the gentle, patient sea turtle. Their slow explorations take them around the world, adapting to different habitats. They flow with the currents, saving their energy for the important things like food and mating. With instincts honed over a hundred million years, humanity would be smart to listen to their teachings.

Brad Nahill, Billion Baby Turtle Project c0-founder of SeeWild, SeeTurtle.

Plastic pollution is a symptom of failed design, we've created a toxic eco-system that simply should not exist, global adoption of green reusable packaging and effective reverse logistics are key to ending the plastictide.

Paul Sharp, Founder of Two Hands Project

A whale killed by fishing line, seabirds impaled with hooks and seals swimming in garbage. Right now this is our legacy if we do not begin to respect the ocean and our planet. All creatures need the ocean to survive.

Michelle Harris, TV Host, Producer, Actor, Writer, Activist

You can't love what you don't know, and it's unlikely that you will want to conserve anything that you don't love.  At SANCCOB we speak Penguinese and we urge you to join us in our fight to save wild African penguins that live at the tip of Africa.  This charismatic species has declined by 90% over the past 100 years and is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red Data List.  In the past 30 years, which is measured as 1 human generation, the African penguin population in South Africa and Namibia has declined by 63%.  Figures don't lie.  Over the past 44 years SANCCOB (Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds) in Cape Town, South Africa has saved more than 90 000 ill, injured oiled and abandoned penguins and threatened seabirds....  and if we are going to win this war, we need you to care.  

Margaret Roestorf, Development Director  SANCCOB, South Africa

Sharks were here before dinosaurs roamed the earth, before our continents took their current shape. They not only help keep the ocean’s natural balance, they do their job better than most people on the planet. We are better off living with them in the sea—and in large numbers—than without them. I remain confident that we’ll figure this out just in time.

Juliet Eilperin, Author of Demon Fish, Journalist for Washington Post, Environmental advocate

I have dived with thousands of sharks, but there is something truly remarkable about tiger sharks. They make eye contact with you and when you look in their eyes, you actually see an incredible soul. They are not mindless eating machines, but in fact are intelligent, social and absolutely fascinating creatures.

Jillian Morris Brake, Founder & President at Sharks4Kids and Executive Director Oceanicallstars.

We cannot continue to kill tens of millions of sharks just for a soup.

Jupp Kerckerink, President of the Shark Research Institute

Whale songs are the longest songs of any animal and the only ones that can travel thousands of miles under the sea.  We should keep the ocean quiet enough so they can still hear each other and sing the music that needs to be sung.

David Rothenberg, author, musician and philosopher.

(The other side of this bottle portrays a breaching Humpback.)

I am constantly reminded that there are two kinds of people: those who say that we should do something about the problems facing our planet and those who just do it. When it comes to preserving and protecting our oceans, the time has passed for looking around for help. Overfishing, ocean acidification, dying coral reef systems, the killing of keystone predators under the recreational banner of sport fishing…. There’s no question that we are the problem. Make today the day you become part of the solution.

 Mark J. Lukes, Board Chair, International League of Conservation Photographers

 Imagine there’s no dolphins
 Or turtles swimming by
 The end of whales and tuna
 The sea lion’s final cry
 A giant blue-green graveyard
 Handiwork of man...

 Imagine there’s no fish left
 The reefs dissolved away
 An ocean full of toxins
 The predators our prey
 Imagine all the seal pups
 Choking on our trash...

 You may say it doesn’t matter
 That there’s nothing you can do
 But the future of our planet
 Depends on people just like you

 Imagine pristine waters
 Repair the damage done
 The silvery flash of salmon
 Gleaming in the sun
 Imagine all the fishes
 Swimming wild and free...

 You may say it doesn’t matter
 That there’s nothing you can do
 But the future of our oceans
 Depends on people just like you
            * * * * *
Synte Peacock, Ocean and Climate Scientist, National Center for
Atmospheric Research

Rivers connect almost 90% of our terrestrial lands to the oceans.  In the US, 70% of the population resides on or close to our estuaries.  Most industry and ports, as well as 80% of our largest cities, are near and dependent on our estuaries, which provide fresh water, food, transportation and recreation. They nurture cultural and spiritual traditions, as well as a wealth of biodiversity

Earth’s estuaries are filled with fresh water that has traveled downstream from high mountain ice-fields and underground aquifers.  These reservoirs, filled with rain, ice, vapor, fog, and snow, slowly drain via rills and streams into rivers and finally estuaries, where fresh water first mingles with salt water before spilling into the ocean.  Our estuaries, deltaic wetlands, shorelines and bays are a very dynamic element of the hydrologic cycle.

But most of our estuaries are now often sick or dead.  
Industrial and agricultural pollutants and human sewage degrade our estuaries, causing eutrophication and coastal hypoxic zones.  Extreme climate events such as droughts and floods significantly alter the water flow into our estuaries.  Deforestation presents a double whammy - it exacerbates destructive flooding and causes erosion and sedimentation of rivers and wetlands.  Urban development with its solid cover of impermeable surfaces produces storm-water runoff of agricultural and industrial pollutants, as well as raw sewage overflows. Predicted rises in sea level rise will raise estuaries’ salinity levels, thus drastically altering their ecological functions.

We must control carbon emissions.  We must more sustainably manage our upstream, freshwater resources in order to protect downstream estuaries and oceans.  Some estuaries are now either completely or nearly gone due to heedless upstream water consumption and damming that ignores downstream needs or rights.  Since agriculture consumes 70% of our freshwater resources, we must put in place more efficient irrigation techniques and plant more drought-tolerant crops.   

Many glacial deposits, accumulated over the eons, are predicted to melt away forever within a few decades due to global warming.  Likewise, our aquifers are being drained much faster than they can ever be re-filled.  Human disregard for the important of these critical “savings banks” of our fresh-water reserves puts the health of our rivers and oceans at alarming risk.  We can and must reduce water consumption and institute aggressive plans for water recycling.

We must protect the estuarial exchanges of fresh and salt-water nutrients, abetted by tides, migratory birds, seasonal floods and anadromous fish such as salmon, alewives and sturgeon. We must preserve our estuary wetlands so they can continue to naturally cleanse riverine pollutants that would otherwise be washed into our oceans.  Loren Eiseley wrote, “If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. We cannot lose that magic.  No Water No Life!

Alison M. Jones, Director of No Water No Life ®

What would our oceans be without a dugong or a manatee? 

They are the only vegetarian marine animals of the sea.

Enigmatic, graceful yet clumsy, their yearly numbers have been steady, 

This can only make the world happy.

Damien Leloup, Marine archaeologist & Wildlife defender.

Fossil evidence of the humble Cambrian origins of the Cephalopoda gives little indication of the elaborate lifeways and behaviors that would come to define the surviving genera of this class, which today are the most complex of all known invertebrates.  Of the four living groups of cephalopod molluscs, the octopus may be the most elaborate in its cognitive and behavioral adaptations.  But the facts—nervous systems in some species that contain more cells than those of many rodents, eyes that are in many ways convergent with the vertebrate eye, the ability to change skin color and texture rapidly to match background, boneless arms that can form elbows to solve biomechanical problems in much the same fashion that the vertebrate arm does—are poor preparation for one’s first ‘up close and personal’ encounter with an octopus. 

Octopuses look and move like nothing else we’re accustomed to observing on land or in the ocean. Yet, despite a truly alien countenance—which, by the way, can hit one like a ‘ton of bricks’—there’s something strangely familiar—a reassuring presence—in the way these animals comport themselves; the presence, perhaps, of thought, albeit an inscrutable, otherworldly flavor of thought that’s well beyond our grasp. 

David Edelman PhD, Neurobiologist, The Neurosciences Institute

In space you are able to see the Earth as an organism at a distance and realize that it is living and breathing. You also realize that it is damaged on parts of its surface from pollution and ecological razing- all results of human civilization. This vantage point makes you comprehend that everything that seems so vast when viewed from the ground is not infinite after all; it has to be managed and renewed for future generations.

Richard M. Linnehan, Veterinarian, NASA astronaut, and Marine Conservation advocate

When we share the gift of a blue marble with someone, something positive always happens. A physical presentation of gratitude feels very good to give and to receive. Hope for the future of our little blue planet lies in loving its beauty and saying thank you often to those who are working to restore it.  

BLUE MARBLE Initiative, BlueMarbles.org

While space may be the final frontier and there are clear benefits of exploring beyond our home planet, the oceans may be the greater mystery. This new era of ocean exploration can yield discoveries from critical medical advancements to sustainable energy.

Every day, I seek groundbreaking science and technology for the International Space Station and I believe some of the most important discoveries and opportunities for scientific and technological innovations may actually lie beneath what covers more than 70 percent of our planet – our oceans.

Jennifer Lopez, Technology Lead, International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory

We see so many siphonophores during the summer plankton blooms in Howe Sound! Those tiny zooids must be reproducing like wild and then they find each other, and attach to each other, and then differentiate into all the types of cells a siphonophore needs to grow! Once they change into a stomach cell, or a mouth, or part of a flagella, they can never return to being independent. All for one, and one for all! It's also really cute when they bounce off the sphere of our submarine...

Erica Bergman, Host of We’re Wired That Way, Submarine Pilot

As a‭ ‬sailor‭, ‬I know the immensity of the ocean‭. ‬As a diver‭,‬ her profundity is clear‭. ‬And only when I am with the sea do I know the role I play in the universe‭, ‬that I am simultaneously part of the immensity‭, ‬and nothing at all‭.‬‭ ‬

Captain Eric Wartenweiler Smith‭ ‬–‭ ‬Mariner‭, ‬diver and Aqua Survey research vessel captain

Water is the ultimate essence - of great force and great beauty.   Healing us with it’s touch, calming us with it’s grace.  The oceans always demand our own reflection.  

Leena Patidar, Mother, Daughter, Sister, Founder of Coin Up.

California’s coastal prairies flanked by the Pacific Ocean, blanketed by fog – most species rich grasslands of North America – with biodiversity that boggles my mind. Wildflowers festooning badger mounds, sparkle-eyed voles, waving blades of prairie grasses, snakes, lizards, beetles: so beautiful!

Greg Hayes, Ecologist

Survival of our Saltwater crocodiles, largest living reptiles, will be about P's -  local People, Poverty-stricken, avoiding Predation, Paid for their tolerance, through sustainable use. Protectionist Philosophies of Passionate People in distant Places is no Pathway for avoiding extinction.

Grahame Webb, Professor Columbia University, Managing Director Wildlife Management International.

The coastal zone may be the single most important portion of our planet. The loss of its biodiversity may have repercussions far beyond our worst fears.

Carleton G. Ray, Researcher, Author, Professor at Colombia University. 

I'm waging a personal war against single-use disposable plastics. From the tummies of sea life, to beaches all over the Earth, to bioaccumulation in human fat cells... plastics & toxins are turning up in all sorts of places they shouldn't be. We're choking on our own garbage.
Post-consumer anthropogenic waste has indiscriminately infiltrated both terrestrial and marine ecosystems, threatening the breath of life in every nook & cranny of the planet. Even the most remote regions of this planet are not off limits.

Kris Krug, Photographer at TED.com

85-90% of all the plants and animals that live in Australia'a southern oceans are endemic. To put this into perspective, if we lost the whole of the Great Barrier Reef - as tragic as that would obviously be - we would only lose 10% of the species that only live there. Compare that to 90% in Australia's temperate waters! Seadragons are just one of a multitude of unique species that would be forever lost if their fragile marine environment was disturbed too greatly from casual destruction and human indifference.
We are at the tipping point right now for the world's oceans - the decisions we make now and over the next 10 years will determine not only the future of our world's marine ecosystems but the very future of human species. For those that don't care about our future - and sometimes I think that the world would be better off without us too - you need understand that if we go so will the majority of the world's mammal population! Everything is inter-related and we cannot continue to think that our actions don't matter - they do, for good as well as bad!! 

Richard Wylie, Co-Founder and Director of Eukafa Island Research Center

My inspiration was the realization that the future is a community effort and we as individuals must be Land Air Water abiding citizens and good stewards of the earth. If we all do our part and find an opportunity to be mindful of our environment we can, as a community, make a difference.

 Justine Kawas, Founder of Green Changes

Sea urchins, or as I like to call them, Sea hedgehogs, are despised, yet consumed in unsustainable quantities by humanity. They are both an invasive species and critically endangered on account of over-harvesting. Without striving for balance, there is no hope for ecosystem resilience or for species to recuperate. We need to curb our tongues, unless it is to speak out to save marine wildlife.

Marissa Feinberg, Co- Founder, Green Spaces

We all live in the oceans; some of us on the earth that arose from them and some in their waters. They sustain all of us. They are our heart beat, our breath, and our circulation. If they are in danger, so are we. 

Bonnie Wyper, Co-Founder of Thinking Animals Inc. 

5 000 NURSING seal pups are beaten to death each year in Namibia for their fur. Their lives have been trivialized to pander to the whims of vanity dictated by a greedy fashion industry.

6 000 adult bull seals are shot at point blank range so that their penises can be used to make ineffective aphrodisiacs. They are butchered in order to satisfy the lusty carnal urges of the adult entertainment industry.

What civilized, compassionate human being can possibly justify these iniquitous acts of barbaric savagery?

Pat Dickens, Seals of Nam

The Hawaiian monk seal is a species in crisis. With fewer than 1,150 seals remaining and a population that is continuing to decline by 4% per year, they now face the very real threat of extinction. We cannot let this species go extinct under our watch, and this is a critical time to be able to make a difference for Hawaiian monk seals and their status as an indicator species of the health of our oceans. 

Pat Wardell, President, Monk Seal Foundation

It is overwhelming to think about saving the world.
It is very easy to sit down and believe that one person's actions cannot change the situation.

What we need to do is pick one little part of our world and make that our quest, and start our crusade there, exhibit our desire to understand it so we can interact with it, use it and protect it at the same time. We need to grow a mutual relationship of respect and survival because whatever you do; regardless of where you are has an impact on our Ocean. Take charge and your efforts will bring about a solution.

Cristina Zenato Diving Supervisor at UNEXSO. Shark and technical programs.

In the oceans we find clues to the past and the keys to understanding the future of life on earth.  If we learn to listen to the sea we will hear a story of our own origins, evolution, and destiny. 

David Gallo, Director of Special Projects WHOI. 

An Island paradise that is so richly blessed with teeming terrestrial diversity that it is now also home to the largest animal that ever lived on earth - Blue Whales! Sri Lanka is also home to several other species of cetaceans and marine mammals. This once hidden treasure trove now exposed to the world will shed new light on the blue whale, a creature that has been a mystery to science until recent times. Be responsible visitors, and help us protect and preserve this magical marine realm as a world heritage for generations to come…

Chitral Jayatilake - Head of Eco Tourism John Keells hotels group Sri Lanka

The acoustic pollution of our marine environment kills cetaceans. Acutely  dangerous  are powerful underwater sonar tests  conducted by  international Navies which have driven whales into deadly panics and mass strandings, and hinders their ability to gather food and communicate.  "Whale song"-- the   complex sounds of music these creatures can send 1,000 miles under the ocean-- is under unprecedented threat.

Eric Nadler, Director, Filmmaker

Eco Friendly Printer is passionate on protecting our water. We look to eliminate chlorine from entering our waterways. Chlorine, mixed with other chemicals in paper making, will create Dioxin and Dioxin can poison our fish, our wildlife and us.
We go out of our way to encourage our clients to switch to 100% Processed Chlorine Free (PCF) bleached paper to avoid contaminating our streams, our lakes, our rivers and our oceans. I look forward to clean waterways and being able to swim in non-contaminated Oceans, and I look forward to not worrying about poisoning our Fish and our wildlife and each and every one of us.

 Greg Barber, President, Eco-Friendly Printer

From a tiny coral 

In the big, blue sea, 

To a majestic bonobo,

In the giant, green tree.

Every creature must be free

to simply just be.  

Ashley Stone, Founder & President, The Bonobo Project

Everything on our planet are bound together and connected. Be bold. Be a courageous warrior to support and honor your right to the environment.

Mariette Hopley, Entrepreneur/Environmental Activist and Ambassador Lets Do It World.

The health of our oceans and freshwater systems directly affects all life on Earth.
We know this now. Our futures are one.
Protection of our oceans and aquifers and restoration of degraded areas are necessary for our own survival and that of every other species on Earth.
It is the great work of our time.
It will be difficult.
But the fact that it is necessary makes the fact that it is difficult irrelevant.

Dee Eggers, Ph.D. Environmental Studies Department, University of North Carolina Asheville

Natureneedshalf.org for the Big Blue…. all the oceans, seas, & their creatures. Respecting and protecting their space, place, and spirit starts a needed, new relationship between people and nature.

Vance G. Martin: President, WILD Foundation and Wilderness Foundation Global

The ocean supports nearly 50% of all species on Earth, and affects global climate and local weather. The ocean commands respect and deserves preservation for the life force that it is; as it contains 97% of the planet’s water! Its currents and upwellings recycle organic waste and bring nutrient rich waters that result in plankton blooms. The circulatory system of our planet pumps life along its migratory routes. And as we know most of the earth’s beauty thrives on water, including animals, plants and people, yet 95% of the ocean’s underwater world remains unexplored. The next time that you go to the ocean, give thanks to the blue and do what you can every day to keep the ocean alive - for earth's sake!
We are all stewards of the sea. 

Wendy Diamond, Author and TV Personality.

Man versus Ocean? The oceans will always win. We are drowning in a polluted sea of ignorance.

James Costa, Animal Rights Activist, PCRM Member

Parrot fish... parrot fish... the good-old parrot fish… Growing up never really fully understanding parrot fish, but loving the parrot fish anyway. Shooting them, eating them, but after understanding them, I  just love to watch them grow; watch them feed understanding that they are the cleaners of the reef and makers of sand. Man, I just love them… all types of parrot fish.

Calrick Kettle, Fisherman, Portland, Jamaica

Part human and part fish, I speak on behalf of the creatures of the sea to the dwellers of the land who impact our oceans so profoundly. Open your eyes, heart and soul to the sea...and she will show you how to see.

Linden Wolbert, Professional Mermaid Entertainer

We are one of many intelligent life forms sharing this blue planet. Like us, dolphins are highly social and self-aware but our species continues to allow them to be hunted and brutally killed in the dolphin drives in Japan and captured for our use. We need global protection for these societies in the seas and their ocean homes.

Diana Reiss, PhD, Professor, Psychology Department, Hunter College and author of, The Dolphin in the Mirror

The time has come to go beyond just raising awareness—we must take action to protect our planet’s precious ocean! By working together, as a connected, informed, and strategic ocean community, we can turn the tide for the health of our blue planet.

Alyssa Isakower, WOD Coordinator, The Ocean Project

Single use plastics are killing our oceans. It is something we can address right now, all we have to do is stop using plastics. It is the lowest hanging fruit!

Martha Shaw, Founder of Earth Advertising.

We are surrounded by opportunities to observe, engage and act in ways that have a positive and collective shift toward more conscious consumption and more inspired and involved community. All of us should be working to bring information and opportunity to our communities close to home and beyond…..the ocean connects us all in the breaths we take and in the exhalations of our souls, we are empty in spirit without her nurturing and selfless gifts….

Joe Chisholm, Creator of the Waves of Action educational program

Through Green Mapmaking, people around the world draw attention to local natural, cultural, activism and green living resources. Like Sea Speak, we seek to motivate social change on a massive scale. Many of us live in coastal communities and have charted coastal and aquatic habitats, beaches and low impact non-motorized boat launches as we highlight the richness of the waters that surround and support us. Significantly, Green Maps have charted and protected mangroves across South China warded off the threat of tideland development in Ise Bay Japan and helped Santa Monica’s children realize that littering on land is a form of ocean dumping. Using these and other Green Maps, each of us can be guided toward making a personal commitment to help ensure the health of the oceans, locally and globally. 

Wendy Brawer, Founder of Green Map

It is another medium, a place where our normal senses of position no longer work. It is the undiscovered country; a place of fear and wonder.

And then The Whale comes, sometimes dead, sometimes alive, delivering messages:

He unbalances our internal and spiritual compass, the needles of which spin wildly, frantically, uncontrollably.

He is every one of his brethren. His song is their hymn, now a quiet chorus beneath our incessant drone

He appears, sharing our space and breathing our air, peddling a hope and a warning.

He is maker of myths, model of idols, subject of songs and totem of our stewardship of the planet

Suddenly, desperate to share a language, to give reassurance, to say sorry, but finding ourselves shackled by our differences, He’s gone

And, unable to go with Him, we rely on the briefest of thousand-channel experiences, left in the blood like an antibiotic.

Colin Williams, writer, guide, conservationist and cetacean enthusiast. 

Right now we’re on the brink of either bringing back the Sea Turtle population to a sustainable level or losing them forever. Threats facing them range from the obvious like habitat lose, poaching and death as by-catch in fishing nets to the not so obvious like lighting on the beach, climate change and plastic. Almost all the threats to them are human caused which means we have the ability to stop the damage we’re doing and work to protect them, but only if we have the will to do so. Change would mean an end to drilling for oil and a serious move to sustainable energy because oil spills are casting a devastating effect. Plastic is a byproduct of fossil fuels and that is fast becoming #1 problem as so many hatchling die from ingesting plastic before they can even reproduce. Knowing all of this is what really got me into working with and rescuing sea turtles as I start my 5th year. When you see the struggle they go through just to get out of the nest it’s impossible not to want to help so I have dedicated a big part of my life to helping them survive any way I can. I do this with the help of many dedicated friends and colleagues in Florida.

Staci–Lee Sherwood, Sea Turtle Conservation Advocate, Rescue Volunteer, Highland Beach Sea Turtle Program, Sea Turtle Oversight Protection

We’re in the end-phase of natural resource exploitation. With marine life pushed to the brink, eyes are turning to krill, the keystone of the Antarctic ecosystem. This is where we need to draw the line. After stripping the seas of life with impunity for decades, can we not leave just one fragment of the world untouched by human avarice?”

John Hourston, Founder of Blue Planet Society, Marine Conservation Activist, Diver

We have known about the existence of giant squid for centuries.  Only within the last decade have we managed to photograph one alive; this is an animal that can grow up to 50 feet long. If an animal that big can elude us for this long, imagine how many other creatures are in the world’s oceans waiting to be discovered.   If these undocumented animals go extinct due to our carelessness, we will not even know what we have lost.  

Dr. James B. Wood, Marine Biologist

When I sing in the window of the world's leftover light

with the mantle's thunderstorms rumbling through the quilted sea

left alone to metronome my music within this blue deep night

full chorused distant voices echo back to me

Where once our songs respired at the edges of the tide

now crowds of slow-burn giants without tempo grind

those who left to breathe their wisdom for prosperity's ride

prey to false enchantments of material and mind

Old scars of death's survival lanced in black and white

now carbon-spined kinetics etch earth's primordial skin

their constant motions bring these oceans to the edge of life

I roam ancestral havens

hear the probing drones

know the reasons

and muse

are they worth believing in?

God knows they knew it

There's no way to prove it, besides

Once you've been through it

You can't hear the other side

It's only a matter of time

Before someone else will decide

It's not which one's better

But who got the most from the lies

Christopher W Clark, Senior Director Bioacoustics Research Program, Cornell University.

 The true giants of the sea,

 boom their loud voices endlessly.

 As they ever pursue huge patches of krill

 they swim with purpose, grace and free will.

 Plankton means life to a huge blue whale

 and oxygen to the ongoing human tale

 Blue whale/ocean, husband and wife

 inhale exhale, the circle of life

Michael Fishbach, Co-Director of Great Whale Conservancy

Life starts in the wetlands, and then travels to the oceans to give life to everyone, like the blood in our veins, and that is why the OCEANS MATTER TO ME because it is what connects us all.

Laura Martínez Ríos, Biologist, Director of Pro Esteros. 

Here's the thing - this planet is not a place that kids will inherit at some point far off in the distant future - we live here right now- we share this planet already! And kids can and should help make the choices that will shape the future of our planet and our lives. 

Milo Cress, 11 year-old Founder and Spokesperson for BeSrtawFree

The ocean is life. Nature at her purest, her most serene, her most powerful. From the primordial stirrings of civilization to the exploration of the deepest subterranean landscapes, there is mystery and discovery. 

Toni Fredrick-Armstrong Director of Visitor Experience, St Christopher National Trust

Ocean conservation is not really about fish. It's about people. Our health, food security, economies, and cultures, depend on a healthy ocean. Although we are the problem, we also have solutions. So let’s use the ocean without using it up.

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, founder of Ocean Collective.

Life is the question
waves are the key
Love is the answer

Kiss a whale for me

the sound of light
is where the sea
meets the sand
and while the whale lives
waves of love
are lapping on the land

and while the elephant
still roams free
the land will still
make love
with the sea 

Howie Cooke Co-Director, Surfers for Cetaceans. 

The great voyaging Vaka canoes with its bold sailors and navigators revealed the untold beauty and wonder of the mighty Pacific; now Asher Jay's bottles carry the aspirations of those whose own journeys take them through healthy and bountiful Oceans.

Lelei TuiSamoa LeLaulu, Chairman, Earth Council Alliance

Protecting as much of the ocean as possible is key to our survival, asc well as the survival of other species with whom we share this beautiful blue planet. To me one of the most sobering thoughts is how many species we have lost, never even having known that they existed. We have caused devastating damage to the ocean and now it’s our duty to use what we know to reverse this damage and restore the ocean to her former splendor. It is possible! We just need to use our hearts and our heads.

Deb Castellana, Director of Communications, Mission Blue, Sylvia Earle Alliance

I am privileged to have been scuba diving for 50 + years and fully employed in the industry for 44 years and I have seen many changes over these years, and few if any that make me feel good … 

Our oceans are being depleted by greed and ignorance and they will not survive – from simple decorative coral/shell collecting industries to the more brutal and blatant decimation of our shark populations to feed an ill-informed Asian market w/ an insatiable appetite for shark fin soup based on absolute, misinformation of its benefits to those that consume it!

 Approx 75 – 100 million sharks every year are brutally finned and destroyed to satisfy the market demand – but w/ many already focused on the brutal & wasteful practice we must turn our attention a new and rapidly emerging threat w/ equally grave consequences for our oceans and w/ a far urgency in available time to make change – the slaughter of Manta & Mobula Rays for: 

·         Their brachial gill plates used (stupidly) in traditional Chinese medicines.

·         Their skins for making of “clothing” (leather like) items.

·         Their fins – as cheaper and more readily available alternative to shark fins – the dumb consumers do not even realize the difference!!

Manta Rays do not reach sexual maturity to reproduce until their wing span reaches approximately 10’ – 12’ (this takes several years,) Mantas usually only bear one young even if occasionally two and the gestation period is thought to be greater than 12 months and during which time the pregnant female is ever more vulnerable to sharks who enjoy (Tiger sharks in particular) a meal of Manta – the reproductive process is slow & difficult and Mantas reproduce usually only once in two years, bearing one (maybe two) young so they cannot survive the onslaught mounted against sharks, and even now our sharks are in danger of imminent extinction if somehow we cannot affect immediate change … 

Peter A. Hughes, President of DivEncounters, Inc

The future of mankind will be determined by the choices that we make today. Our marine environment is at its breaking point and it is up to us to act as custodians of the oceans. By making ethical choices and actively minimizing the use of plastics and other non-degradable products, we can promote a sustainable future and ensure that the beauty, mystery and wonder of the oceans is preserved for many generations to come.  

Positive Change For Marine Life, Nonprofit

I am very concerned about the contaminated state of the oceans. Last month over a hundred dead dolphins were discovered along Peru’s shoreline, latest findings point the finger at anthropogenic pollution.

 I think it is crucial to save our oceans because they are the foundation upon which Earth’s life systems find stability; the oceans are the pillars upon which our global economies stand, if we deplete and poison its expanse we will suffer all the adverse consequences.  We, as humans are but one species, and we do not have the right to disrupt the balance of Nature.

Samuël Faure, Free Diver

A healthy, biodiversity of life in our oceans, is absolutely critical for the survival of all Earthings either on land, sea or sky!

Gary Stokes, Shark conservationist, Photographer

The great flaw of capitalism is that on a finite earth the rarer something is the higher its monetary value.
We can fight for the environment now, or we can fight each other over what's left later?
Earth cannot sustain continuous economic growth. We must find a new level of human existence which places the planet before material gain.
Protecting the land but not the ocean is like ignoring heart failure because you have the flu.

 Blue Planet Society, Nonprofit