Hope Spot® Expeditions

Called the “Yellowstone of the North Atlantic” by Dr. Sylvia Earle, Cashes Ledge is a biological hotspot in the Gulf of Maine that is home to the largest cold-water kelp forest on the Atlantic seaboard of the U.S. and provides a nursery for important New England fish species like cod, pollock, Atlantic halibut, and white hake. Dr. Earle and the Mission Blue team visited the area in August 2015 to document its vibrant ecosystem and amplify our efforts in partnership with the Conservation Law Foundation, National Geographic, Google and the National Resources Defense Council calling for permanent full protection of Cashes Ledge.

Dr. Sylvia Earle and the Mission Blue expeditions team visited Cocos Island, Costa Rica in 2011 and 2015 to highlight the immense diversity and fragility of species populating the waters surrounding what Jacques Cousteau called “the most beautiful island in the world.” During the 2015 expedition in partnership with Fusion and Univision Media, the team captured exhilarating footage of a “bait ball,” conducted dives down to 1,000 feet in the DeepSee submersible, and created content for a media campaign to raise awareness among millennials and urge Costa Rica to ban hammerhead shark fin exports—a sanction that has since been established.

In December 2014, Dr. Sylvia Earle and the Mission Blue™ expedition team established six Hope Spots® along the coast of South Africa in partnership with the Sustainable Seas Trust: False Bay (from Cape Point to Cape Agulhas); Cape Whale Coast (from Rooi Els to Quoin Point including offshore islands); Knysna (including the Knysna Estuary, marine coast and offshore waters), Plett (linking the Robberg marine protected area (MPA) to Tsitsikamma MPA), Algoa Bay and the islands (a sanctuary area hosting the principal breeding colonies of the African penguin) and Aliwal Shoal in KwaZulu-Natal. In total these areas cover a notable amount of the South African coast and serve as a launch pad for further ocean conservation in the region.

In early 2014 Mission Blue and MarViva launched a film expedition with Dr. Sylvia Earle to highlight the Costa Rica Dome. Partners supporting the expedition were The Baum Foundation, The Leatherback Trust, LightHawk, Bula Bula Hotel, and National Geographic. The team documented the ecological and commercial value of the Dome’s resources to raise awareness and support for the protection of its unique species and habitats.

Consisting of over 3,000 islands, islets and cays and covering an area of over 14,000 square kilometers, the nation of the Bahamas contains several priceless marine habitats. This expedition in cooperation with The Nature Conservancy was concentrated in the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, which was created in 1958 by the Bahamas National Trust as the first marine fishery reserve to be established in the Caribbean. The park is famous for it’s pristine beauty, outstanding anchorages and breathtaking marine environment with thriving populations of queen conch, Nassau grouper and spiny lobster. The expedition team documented this beacon of marine protection while also calling attention to lionfish as an invasive species.

Known as the “Galapagos of the Caribbean,” the reefs surrounding the Swan Islands of Honduras are a biodiversity hotspot teeming with over 500 species of fish and 350 species of mollusk. The Swan Islands are situated at the southern boundary of the Mesoamerican Reef—the Atlantic Ocean’s largest coral reef and a Mission Blue™ Hope Spot®. In July 2011, Mission Blue and the Healthy Reefs Initiative (HRI) at Texas A&M Corpus Christi co-led an expedition with Dr. Earle and a team of scientists, government officials and award-winning photojournalists to these remote islands to raise global awareness of the critical importance of the Mesoamerican Reef and surrounding areas to the overall health of the world’s ocean and to catalyze support for the official declaration of this Hope Spot® as a marine protected area (MPA).