June 7, 2012
By Mera McGrew
Famed cartoonist Jim Toomey and the United Nations Environment Programme are teaming up to produce a series of short videos to raise awareness of ocean and coastal conservation issues.
Toomey, whose daily comic strip “Sherman’s Lagoon” appears in more than 150 North American newspapers, recently released a video adding his voice in support of the Bermuda Blue Halo Initiative and has now partnered with the UNEP Regional Office for North America (UNEP RONA) to create a series of six two-minute videos intended to raise awareness of the importance of oceans and the coastal environment.
The first of six videos, Blue Carbon, will be launched on June 8, World Oceans Day, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. The five subsequent videos, which will be released over the next few months, will deal with a variety of ocean related issues including, the natural capital of our oceans, nutrient runoff, ocean acidification, marine debris and climate change.
Toomey and the UNEP are launching the first video within the series days before the official start of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) taking place from June 20-22 in Rio de Janeiro. There, world leaders and stakeholders are poised to focus their attention to these important ocean issues. This video series promises to help the general public gain awareness and understanding of these issues that will be focused on at Rio+20.
Mission Blue recently caught up with cartoonist Jim Toomey to talk about his new partnership with UNEP RONA and the importance of Rio+20.
What made you get involved in ocean conservation?
My love of the ocean got me into drawing a strip about the ocean, and it’s what eventually got me into ocean conservation. My love of the ocean began when I was very young and became infatuated with all the strange life forms in the sea. My relationship with the conservation community started back in the late 90’s when I was contacted by NOAA to help them put together a public outreach piece. It was then that I realized that the strip could serve a higher purpose. I could actually help the thing that I loved.
Why is the partnership with the UNEP RONA so important?
UNEP has the reach to spread this video far and wide. No other organization has that kind of mandate and the ability to do it on such a large scale. This is a bit of an experiment for UNEP and me. They have not done much in video production, especially videos with an emphasis on entertainment. I’m enjoying the project immensely because I can see how they are realizing the power of media, and particularly the power of digital content that has entertainment value as well as a message.
Why is it important for the public to understand the issues being focused on at Rio+20?
Ultimately, it will have to be large numbers of people who will have to compel their leadership to set the stage for the kind of societal changes we need if we are to achieve sustainability. At the moment, most of the environmental dialog is happening at the very highest levels, at meetings such as Rio+20. But often, this dialog doesn’t result in any substantive action because the general population still doesn’t see the reasons why we must move away from fossil fuel, or eat less fish, or find an alternative to plastic. So, the more educated the public gets about these issues, the more results we’ll eventually see in the aftermath of gatherings like Rio+20.
Who do you hope to reach with the six-part video series?
Great question. At the moment, there are no plans to translate Blue Carbon, so it’s primarily aimed at the English-speaking world. Beyond that, it’s aimed at the online world, because the videos are really designed to be seen online, not necessarily on TV. So, if you consider those two factors, you could infer that a typical viewer is American or European (English fluency is widespread), younger, and probably more educated.
What is your hope for Rio+20?
Within the small scope of the Blue Carbon video and how it relates to Rio+20, I’m hoping that leadership watches this short video and begins to realize that videos like this will change minds on a large scale within their populace, and that they should anticipate more pressure from below for change.
Check back to the Mission Blue website to see the animated videos as they are released.
(The above correspondence is an an unedited email exchange between Mission Blue’s Mera McGrew and Jim Toomey)