At last night’s National Geographic Explorers Live event, Explorer in Residence, Dr. Enric Sala urged people to “eat cows instead of lions.”
Speaking as part of a panel led by National Geographic journalist Boyd Manson, Dr. Sala explained the importance of eating lower on the marine food chain to ensure the long-term health of the world’s ocean.
Other panelists included National Geographic Fellow and bestselling author Dan Buettner as well as Emerging Explorers Lucy Cooke and Barrington Irving.
Through the evening Sala, Buettner, Cook and Barrington shared stories and lessons learned in the field — The Explorers spoke about licking frogs to determine if they were poisonous, encountering sand storms while flying solo around the world, and figuring out where the “happiest” people in the world live.…

Last week, marked a pivotal moment in the effort to establish a network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in California’s open coast waters.
After eight years, numerous public meetings, workshops, and input from the scientific community, the California Fish and Game Commission of California has approved the redesign and establishment of MPAs in five key regions along California’s coast: The Central Coast region, the San Francisco Bay region, the North Central region, the South Coast region and the North Coast region.
“These MPAs will be the biggest network of protection in the United States” said Stephan Wertz, Senior Environmental Scientist at the California Department of Fish and Game.
The MPAs were developed to be consistent with California’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA).…

Famed cartoonist Jim Toomey is best known for his comic strip Sherman’s Lagoon, which stars a lazy great white shark named Sherman and his undersea pals.
Recently Jim Toomey teamed up with the United Nations Environment Programme to create a series of six two-minute videos intended to raise awareness of the importance of oceans and the coastal environment.
We are pleased to present the first video in the series, “Two Minutes on Oceans: Blue Carbon” here.

The video was launched on World Oceans Day, June 8th, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History as part of a special World Oceans Day presentation, “Drawing Inspiration from the sea.” The presentation included a brief talk about why Toomey writes a comic about the ocean and where he gets his ideas.…

By Mera McGrew
Today is World Oceans Day — a day to celebrate and honor the oceans that connect us and provide us life. Oceans cover 71 percent of Earth’s surface and makes up 99 percent of the planet’s living space. The ocean is the blue heart of our planet. It plays an essential role in all life on earth, home to 97 percent of all life in the world. The ocean is also the lungs of our planet as it supplies the oxygen we take in every second breath. The ocean drives climate and weather and it also stabilizes temperature and shapes the Earth’s chemistry.
This year’s World Oceans Day falls at a crucial time as ocean advocates across the world seek to ensure that 2012 is a milestone year for the ocean.…

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.…

By Mera McGrew
Today is likely the last chance for those of us currently living to see the planet Venus pass in front of the sun. The transit of Venus is among the rarest of astronomical events — after this crossing, the transit will not occur again until 2117.
Historically, tracking the transit of Venus was a watershed moment in international scientific collaboration. The astronomer Edmund Halley had predicted in 1678 that the transit event could be used to calculate the distance between the Earth and the sun if observers were stationed at the proper places on the globe. So it was in 1761, the scientific community came together to solve a key problem.
Australian artist Lynette Wallworth is determined to use this rare occurence to create a sense of perspective and get people to think about the global problems that the world’s ocean currently faces — problems that require the cooperation of global governments, scientists and the international community.…

By Mera McGrew
Mission Blue is offering an exclusive online preview of New York artist, Asher Jay’s, newest art installation — Sea Speak Sphere: Message in a Bottle. The art installation is part of a larger conceptual, collaborative campaign that aims to highlight various ocean initiatives and advocates marine conservation.
Jay told Mission Blue, “ I just wanted to come up with a way in which I could speak up for the oceans but that would also encompass all the voices that are doing something similar.”
The art installation is made up of 100 painted bottles that bring to life personal statements or “blue memos” about the world’s ocean from some of the biggest names in marine biology, conservation, photography, exploration, journalism and more.…

By Mera McGrew
This past week, we read reports of radioactive contamination of Pacific bluefin tuna caught off the California cost. The mighty bluefin carried traces of radiation that leaked from Japan’s tsunami-damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which is located some 6,000 miles away in Japan.
The contamination of these Pacific bluefin tuna will likely tighten global tuna supplies, resulting in an increase in demand for Mediterranean bluefin tuna. Japan, which consumes 80 percent of Pacific and Atlantic Bluefin tuna is expected to drive much of that demand. Ocean advocates warn, that this could encourage the illegal fishing of Mediterranean bluefin tuna by all eager to profit.
According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) prices of Mediterranean bluefin are trading at historical highs.…

By Mera McGrew
Since 2002, the MarViva Foundation has been working to protect the unique and critical marine habitats in the Eastern Tropical Pacific.
The MarViva Foundation is an international, non-governmental, non-profit organization that is dedicated to conservation and sustainable management of marine and coastal resources. MarViva’s General Director, Jorge Jiménez, told Mission Blue that “Marviva was born out of the interest and love that the late Erica Knie, a Swiss philanthropist, had for the Eastern Tropical Pacific.”
The Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean extends from San Diego, CA, west to Hawaii and south to Peru. It is one of the world’s most productive tropical oceans. It has a high degree of ecological interconnection and complex oceanographic characteristics — Numerous oceanic currents merge in the region, facilitating the dispersal of marine larvae, affecting migrations of marine species, and making it home to a diverse and unique range of marine life.…