Ocean Stories

While 12 percent of the land on Earth is protected, less than 3% of the ocean has meaningful protection from fishing, pollution and resource extraction. Dr. Sylvia Earle, founder of global initiative Mission Blue, visited South Africa last month in a whirlwind tour of that ravishing marine environment to help generate community support for more ocean protection. And what a success it was. In partnership with the Sustainable Seas Trust, Dr. Sylvia Earle and the Mission Blue team visited six different communities along the South African coast and engaged local ocean lovers, community leaders and citizens to declare their waters a Hope Spot, special conservation areas that are critical to the health of the ocean — Earth’s blue heart.
And what began as an idea of conservation, was quickly embraced by the communities.…

The words Pope and Catholic Church may not often occur in the same sentence as climate change, but that is all about to change. This year is set to be a major milestone in humanity’s acceptance of our impacts on global warming as Pope Francis embarks on a mission to protect the planet.
Pope Francis has already stated that the greatest “sin” is destroying God’s Creation, and humanity’s contributions to climate change are doing just that.[i] Early last year, Pope Francis told a crowd in Rome, “if we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us!” According to the Associated Press and The Guardian, these statements may soon grow into an official Church document called an “encyclical,” instructing the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics to acknowledge human-caused climate change and act to fight it because doing so is essential to their faith.[ii]…

In January 2014, MarViva and Mission Blue launched a film expedition with Dr. Sylvia Earle to highlight our Central American Dome Hope Spot.  Partners supporting the expedition were LightHawk, The Baum Foundation, Bula Bula and National Geographic. The ecological and commercial value of the Dome’s resources were documented to raise awareness and support for the protection of its species and habitats. The film below, produced by Mission Blue and MarViva, takes viewers on a journey to learn about the Central American Dome (CAD) and why sustainable management of this High Seas Hope Spot is so important for the region:

In 2013, Dr. Sylvia Earle and Mission Blue declared The Central American Dome a “Hope Spot,” designating it as a special area critical to the health of the ocean.…

by Brett Garling
A month ago, an oil tanker spilled hundreds of thousands of liters of oil into the largest mangrove forest in the world, called The Sundarbans. This immense brackish estuary on the border of India and Bangladesh is also a bengal tiger sanctuary and home to countless other flora and fauna. While the story hasn’t gotten much media attention, what coverage it did receive focused more on the area’s status as an endangered dolphin sanctuary. (Yes unfortunately it’s one of those, too. It’s also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.) However, a disaster like this should also alarm us with regards to climate change: healthy mangroves play a crucial role in the delicate dance of carbon into and out of our atmosphere.…

They’re in your clothes, working their way through the washing machine, traveling through drains and out sewage outfalls. Then before you know it, they accumulate in the ocean at incomprehensible levels! Who are these perpetrators, you ask? They are tiny bits of imperishable material developed by our own ingenuity, adorning almost every human on this planet. They are microplastics and microfibers, and they are not going anywhere anytime soon.
Microplastic fragments are often so small that they are measured by the mere micrometer. Unfortunately, these tiny synthetic particles appear in massive quantities all over the world, especially near coastal communities and dense human populations. Researchers have begun examining potential sources, and recently one ecologist named Dr. Mark Browne was recognized for his remarkable finding: microplastics could be the biggest source of plastic pollution in the ocean.…

Why not go BLUE in 2015? Here’s how you can help save the ocean – Earth’s “blue heart” – and support Sylvia Earle’s Mission Blue initiatives and expeditions to protect Hope Spots around the globe. Happy New Year!

 “I have lots of heroes — anyone and everyone who does whatever they can to leave the natural world better than they found it”
Dr. Sylvia Earle, Founder of Mission Blue
       
 

5 WAYS YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE RIGHT NOW!

LEARN the issues and how you can help! Watch the Mission Blue film with your friends to understand how to eliminate or reduce seafood consumption, decrease your carbon footprint and stop plastic pollution (remember the 3 R’s: REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE). You can be part of the solution. …

As we look to the New Year, we’re taking time to think about ocean critters that inspire us to be hopeful. From the thousands of sharks that have been spared from finning due to recent bans in Asia to coral species that may be able to withstand ocean acidification, sea creatures big and small give us pause and merit our attention. Here’s a list of five animals that especially deserve our hope in the coming year:
Blue Whale
As the largest animal on Earth, the blue whale is one impressive cetacean! This long, slender marine mammal goes by the Latin name of Balaenoptera musculus, and has a heart that weighs 600 kilograms. Whalers hunted the endangered blue whale to near extinction for over a century until this practice was banned in 1966.…

Dear Friends,
It has been a truly amazing year and I would like to thank you for playing an important role in the growth and success of Mission Blue!
Harrison Ford recently narrated the voice of the ocean in an online video. He growls, “I am the ocean. You need me. But, I don’t need you.” If only this were true! The fact is now we are at a critical point in  time when the ocean does need us. We must wake up and understand what the ocean delivers: most of the oxygen in the atmosphere, a great sink for carbon dioxide, the majority of biodiversity — the ocean maintains a planet that works in our favor. Sadly, our collective actions — overfishing,  pollution, resource extraction — have driven this great system into a real crisis that is unfolding in this very moment in time.…

Can’t throw on a scuba tank and go diving on a tropical coral reef with Sylvia Earle this week? No problem! Infinite Scuba® offers a realistic scuba diving experience from the comfort of your home, and not only can you dive with Dr. Earle, you can be her! Cascade Game Foundry just released two exciting additions to its Infinite Scuba video game: a Sylvia Earle avatar and a new Belize dive site.
“Mission Blue is delighted to partner with Cascade Game Foundry on Infinite Scuba,” says Dr. Earle. “Experiencing the beauty, mystery and fragility of the ocean in such a hands-on way will inspire the people who play the game to protect our planet’s blue heart.”

Kathie Flood, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Cascade Game Foundry (CGF) says, “It is a true honor to include Dr.…

Dr. Sylvia Earle was in South Africa last week as a guest of Mission Blue partner Sustainable Seas Trust to launch new Community Hope Spots off the shores of South Africa. All in all six Community Hope Spots were launched: False Bay (all of False Bay from Cape Point to Cape Agulhas); Cape Whale Coast (stretches from Rooi Els to Quoin Point and includes offshore islands, just over 200km of coast line and then out to sea); Knysna (includes the Knysna Estuary and marine coast and offshore waters), Plett Hope Spot (links the Robberg MPA to Tsitsikamma MPA), Algoa Bay and the islands (this sanctuary area includes the principal breeding colonies of the African penguin, now down to 2% of historical population levels) and the Aliwal Shoal area in KwaZulu-Natal.…