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Yearly Archives: 2014
Sylvia Earle’s Mission Blue at Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival

Movie premieres are usually held in New York or Los Angeles. But not “Mission Blue,” the Netflix documentary by Fisher Stevens and Bob Nixon about renowned oceanographer-marine biologist-environmentalist Sylvia Earle. Appropriately, the movie screened this week on Martha’s Vineyard for a large crowd at Menemsha Beach that was splayed on blankets and beach chairs.
Among those watching “Mission Blue” as waves lapped the shoreline were Earle, Nixon (whose mother is “All My Children” creator Agnes Nixon), actress-model Lauren Hutton, several members of the Kennedy clan, including Robert F. Kennedy’s son Max, actresses Marisa Tomei and Jodie Foster, the island’s de facto fishing guide to the stars Buddy Vanderhoop, and Eric Gordon, who financed the film. “Mission Blue” will be released on Netflix Aug.…

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Sylvia Earle and Sam Low win Cronkite Awards as Mission Blue film debuts on Martha’s Vineyard

by Martha Shaw
Edgartown, MA (August 6) – What do Walter Cronkite, Sylvia Earle and Sam Low all have in common? They have mastered the might of media on behalf of the sea.
The 2014 Walter Cronkite Award was bestowed on ocean all-stars Dr. Sylvia Earle and Dr. Sam Low by the MVYLI, Martha’s Vineyard Youth Leadership Initiative, which honors people who create positive social change in the world through the power of media.
Like the award recipients, Walter Cronkite was a champion for the 71% of Earth’s surface that is the sea – our omnipotent, astonishing, complex, generous and sorely neglected neighbor who rules our planet and keeps us terrestrials alive. Since the industrial revolution, the ocean has been polluted, and literally put through the meat grinder as never before in its 4 billion year history.…

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TBA-21 Academy hosts Shark Symposium at UCLA

August 11, 2014
For those seeking to find balance during Shark Week, Francesca von Habsburg and her foundation, TBA21 Academy hosted a groundbreaking science and advocacy based symposium, Pelagic Research & Conservation Project for Isla del Coco & Shark Conservation Initiatives in the Eastern Pacific, at UCLA in Southern California last week.
Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21,) was founded in 2002 by Francesca von Habsburg. It pioneers experimental programs that don’t fit into traditional categories. Their mission is to be “a fellowship organization bringing artists, scientists and thinkers together at sea and on land. We commission projects that compliment the itinerary of our flagship vessel Dardanella – (within) unique geographical contexts that raise ecological, economic and social issues. TBA21 Academy is an adventurous institution exploring critical geographies.”…

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Encounter at Cay Sal Reveals Poachers in the Bahamas

By Joseph Ierna Jr. / Ocean CREST Alliance
The Bahamas Reefs Hope Spot with its 700 islands and cays represents one of the most vast shallow water ecosystems in the world. The expansive and productive fishing grounds known as The Great Bahama Bank and The Little Bahama Bank comprise 180,000 square miles. This rich biodiversity directly supports the country’s third largest economy, fisheries that bring in about $100 million annually. What’s happening in these waters is out of control and a danger to those who wish to enjoy the area through diving,  legal fishing and tourism. Bahamian waters are being pillaged daily by Illegal Unauthorized and Unregulated (IUU) fishing activities.
Globally, IUU’s are stealing billions of dollars in revenue from local communities and from the ocean itself.…

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Atlantic coast catch limit leaves 300 million fish in the sea

By Courtney Mattison
The world’s first coast-wide catch limit to protect the Atlantic menhaden fishery – the largest fishery on the U.S. East Coast – is already well into its second year and the numbers are looking good. A recent assessment of fish landing data for the year 2013 suggests that roughly 300 million more menhaden were spared from overfishing (catching fish faster than they can reproduce[i]) thanks to a unique alliance between all 15 Atlantic coastal states from Maine to Florida established by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) in December 2012. The agreement limited the total menhaden catch to 377 million pounds – three quarters the amount caught in previous years. According to the ASMFC, last year’s total fish landings came in well under the allowed maximum.…

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Gills Club Connects Shark Girls and Women Researchers

The Gills Club is proud to be onboard as new partners at Mission Blue! We were founded in January 2014 when folks at The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, a non-profit based on Cape Cod, Massachusetts realized how many young girls were fascinated by sharks, but were lacking strong female role models in the arena.  They saw that by putting these young girls together with women shark scientists, they could be inspired and empowered to act on their interest in sharks by becoming marine biologists, or even take up a different STEM field of their choice.

Each month, The Gills Club publishes a newsletter featuring two female shark biologists, who tell why they’re interested in sharks, what institutions or organizations they’ve found helpful to them personally, and what particular area of shark research they’re working on now.…

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YOU can nominate new national marine sanctuaries!

Last month, the U.S. Government implemented a novel way to establish new national marine sanctuaries – exceptionally valuable areas in the ocean and Great Lakes that are protected as marine parks – and you can get involved! Folks at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is in charge of designating new sanctuaries, have worked tirelessly over the last few years to come up with a locally-driven nomination process that incorporates ideas from over 18,000 public comments, replacing a now defunct “site evaluation list” that was less community-driven. This innovative new approach allows groups of people across the nation to put together proposals for NOAA to designate their favorite watery regions (within U.S. jurisdiction of course) as official national marine sanctuaries.…

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