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Sea Lion Pups Starving Along California Coast

By Courtney Mattison
Sea lion pups are starving and washing up on California beaches for the third consecutive year. Every winter since January 2013, throngs of sickly young sea lions have stranded themselves on beaches and in seaside backyards and parking lots in California coastal communities, often weighing less than half of their ideal body weight. “They’re extremely emaciated, basically starving to death,” says veterinarian Shawn Johnson of the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito.
Over 2,000 emaciated, dehydrated and diseased sea lion pups have washed up on California’s shores from San Diego to San Francisco since the beginning of 2015. For the two-month period of January and February this year, California sea lion strandings were almost 20 times the average stranding rate.[i]…

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Happy Earth = Happy People

Last Friday, Grammy Award-winning musician, entrepreneur and philanthropist, Pharrell Williams and the United Nations Foundation welcomed 1,700 school children for the annual International Day of Happiness at the UN General Assembly Hall in New York City to spread happiness by learning how to take climate action and build a better world.
Pharrell addressed the young audience with the story of how music brings him joy, saying, “I’m here to talk to you guys about the importance of happiness. Music brought my happiness. And when you find out what makes you happy… you should know that happiness is your birthright.” He continued with a message about the importance of protecting Earth, our home:
We only have one home. And I know we’re visiting neighbors like Mars, and you know we’ve been to the Moon, but we have a home.…

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Act now to protect our ocean and fresh water

By Riki Ott, PhD on behalf of The ALERT Project
I am a survivor of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, a marine toxicologist, a commercial fisherman, and an author – turned activist. The turning happened 26 years ago today, when I flew over the wreck of the Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The Sound – my backyard, my fishing grounds, and most importantly, a place I loved. The giant inky stain on the water was… overwhelming. Intimidating. It was vast, and I was only one person. What could I do? As I flew over the ocean of oil, I realized I knew enough to make a difference… did I care enough? The answer, I knew, would change my life.…

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Sacred Forests – Part I: The Search

By Sam Low, author of Hawaiiki Rising
In 1990, the Polynesian Voyaging Society decided to create a new canoe, to be called Hawai’iloa after a famous Tahitian navigator. Hawai’iloa would be built of traditional materials – lauhala for the sails, olana for the lashings, koa for the hulls, ohia for crossbeams to connect the hulls, and hau for stanchions, decks and steering paddles.
“Hokule’a was built quickly, of modern materials mostly,” Nainoa Thompson recalls, “and then we went right into sailing – it was an ocean project – the emphasis was on sailing her, not building her. But when our ancestors built and sailed voyaging canoes, it required the labor and arts of the entire community, everyone working together – some collecting the materials in the forest, others weaving the sails, carving the hulls, lashing, preparing food for the voyage, practicing rituals to protect the crew at sea.…

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The Island President is Behind Bars

Mohamed Nasheed, the first democratically elected president of the Maldives and international champion of climate change action, was found guilty of terrorism and sentenced to thirteen years in prison this month. Nasheed is accused of ordering the arrest of a Maldivian judge in 2012 when he was still in office. Accusations aside, Nasheed’s defense has been stillborn: the court scheduled a hearing within two hours of his arrest and prevented the defense team from appearing in court because they were required to register two days in advance. As a result of this judiciary obstructionism, Nasheed’s own lawyers have quit the trial, citing biased proceedings and resultant inability to craft a defense. His confinement will be a “prison apartment” according to government officials.…

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The Deepwater Horizon Catastrophe 5 Years On

No one missed the Deepwater Horizon disaster. People missed the recent oil spill in Bangladesh. But the world witnessed Deepwater Horizon. Millions of gallons of oil flooded the Gulf of Mexico everyday — for 87 days. The biggest accidental oil spill ever. Five years later the effects of the Deepwater Horizon blowout still endure. A new study confirms a massive undersea oil mat near the unlucky oil well — Macondo 252 — that blew on April 20th, 2010. Considering this tar mat is the size of Rhode Island, the Gulf is clearly still feeling the affects of the catastrophe five years on. Gulf sea turtles stranding more frequently, dolphins killed, observed oil slicks hundreds of kilometers in length after the well was “capped” — a depressing list of unknown length.…

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Dr. Eugenie Clark, The Shark Lady Dies at 92

Legendary Shark Lady, Dr. Eugenie Clark, passed on last week after a long battle with cancer at the age of 92. She was a pioneer for women in marine science who inspired millions with her boundless enthusiasm for the ocean and its critters, especially sharks.
“When I was nine years old,” Genie said, “my mother took me every Saturday to the New York Aquarium at Battery Park, and I just was crazy about the fish. In the back of the aquarium, there was a big tank with some sharks inside. I used to put my face up against the glass and imagine that I was underwater and swimming with them. On rainy days, it was fun because all the derelicts would come in from the park and hang out at the aquarium.…

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Reconnecting Humanity with Nature at the Biophilia Ball

In November last year, Synchronicity Earth hosted the Biophilia Ball – London’s largest wildlife party – at the Natural History Museum to honor 50 years of The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ and raise funds for global science and conservation.
Biophilia is Synchronicity Earth’s initiative to reconnect human society with nature. Defined by E.O. Wilson as “the urge to affiliate with other forms of life,” the concept of Biophilia is more important now than ever in the face of global threats such as climate change and ocean acidification.
The Biophilia Ball connected environmental luminaries including Mission Blue founder Dr. Sylvia Earle with musicians, performers and artists for a spectacular evening of performance and masquerade that brought guests on a journey from the open ocean to the frozen arctic to the grasslands of Africa and highlighted the amazing diversity of life on Earth.  …

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Shari Sant Plummer on Saving Our Oceans

Mission Blue Board Member Shari Sant Plummer sat down with WWF’s World Wildlife magazine to discuss exploring and protecting the ocean.
(Originally published in the Spring 2015 issue of World Wildlife magazine):
Were you scared the first time you went scuba diving?No, I took to it very naturally. It feels like flying to me. I especially love being in warm, clear water, where you can experience the vastness of the ocean. I feel a freedom under water that I never get on land. Plus, while diving a healthy reef, there is the opportunity to watch fish in every size, shape and color swimming through vibrant ancient corals. It’s magical.
Is there a particular species that you’re intent on saving?Yes, humans! At the end of the day, ocean conservation is not just about saving a particular fish, it’s about saving ourselves.…

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Protection may be Imminent for Great British Oceans

By Courtney Mattison
Mission Blue has teamed up with a coalition of leading marine conservation organizations to urge the British Government to step up to its responsibility to safeguard the maritime zones of the UK’s overseas territories by creating three of the largest marine protected areas (MPAs) in the world. Through the Great British Oceans campaign, this alliance between 106 signatories including The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Greenpeace UK, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Marine Conservation Society, the Zoological Society of London, the Blue Marine Foundation, the Marine Reserves Coalition and National Geographic Society is gaining support for the UK to fund large-scale, full marine protection in the waters surrounding Ascension, Pitcairn and South Sandwich Islands.
The United Kingdom has jurisdiction over the fifth largest combined ocean area in the world – a collection of territories nearly 30 times the size of the UK itself.1 The three MPAs proposed around Ascension, Pitcairn and South Sandwich Islands would more than double the size of existing protected areas in the global ocean.2 Fully protecting these areas would mean shielding countless rare and threatened species including endemic seabirds, whales, turtles, penguins and corals from the enormous threats of overfishing, pollution and resource extraction.…

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