fbpixel National Geographic Archives - Mission Blue

Blog Archives
Young Marine Conservationist Champions the Fish Rock Hope Spot in New South Wales to Protect Critically Endangered Grey Nurse Sharks

Header image: Justin Gilligan
SOUTH WEST ROCKS, NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA (AUGUST 24TH,  2021)

A five hour drive north of Sydney, New South Wales, is South West Rocks, a coastal town that just 5,000 people call home. Below the surface of its sandy beaches and picturesque pine trees is a 125-meter long underwater tunnel with its own unique ecosystem that supports a habitat for the critically endangered grey nurse shark. Local SCUBA diver and ocean conservationist Shalise Leesfield has a goal to establish a 1500m radius marine protected area at Fish Rock to protect these sharks and hundreds of other marine species that call the underwater tunnel home. Leesfield hopes that the recognition of the Fish Rock Hope Spot will bring to light the condition of Australia’s Grey Nurse shark population and the lack of support awarded to their recovery.…

Posted in .Homepage, Dr. Sylvia Earle, Featured, mission blue, Partner Stories, Photo of the Day, Uncategorized |

Leave a comment
Internationally Renowned Oceanographer and TIME Magazine’s First Hero Of The Planet – Dr. Sylvia A. Earle Publishes New Book Showcasing The Power and Significance Of Our Planet’s Ocean

National Geographic’s Explorer At Large and internationally renowned oceanographer, Dr. Sylvia A. Earle, is releasing her highly anticipated forthcoming book, National Geographic Ocean: A Global Odyssey (National Geographic; Now Available For Pre-Order; On-Sale Nov 16, 2021, $65, ISBN 9781426221927), showcasing how the ocean – with its forces, habitats, creatures, and global influence–has a tremendous impact on our everyday lives.
Dr. Sylvia A. Earle, President & Chairman of Mission Blue/The Sylvia Earle Alliance–affectionately called “Her Deepness”, a phrase coined by The New Yorker–guides readers with her lyrical style and inspiring wisdom, describing the evolution, beauty, and impact of our ocean, the challenges it faces, such as climate change, plastic, and overfishing, and the myriad ways we can help protect it. With a special focus on new discoveries in the deepest reaches of the ocean, Dr.…

Posted in .Homepage, Dr. Sylvia Earle, Featured, mission blue, Partner Stories, sylvia earle, Uncategorized |

Leave a comment
Sea of Hope: Preserving the Heart of our Planet

True Blue Films and National Geographic Present Sea of Hope on January 15, 2017, on National Geographic Channel.
SEA OF HOPE follows iconic ocean explorer and conservationist Dr. Sylvia Earle, renowned underwater photographer Brian Skerry, author and captain Max Kennedy, and their unlikely crew of teenage aquanauts on a year-long quest to secure their future. Deploying science and photography, they hope to inspire the creation of blue parks across an unseen and imperiled American wilderness.
By: Laura Butz 

We are all beneficiaries of the ocean and the natural world— nature provides us with an abundance of gifts for which we cannot take for granted. Too often we overlook the fact that harm done to the ocean, is harm done to ourselves. …

Posted in .Homepage, Featured, mission blue |

1 Comment
Innovative Technology Fights Wildlife Crime

The illegal wildlife trade is a $20B black market based on corruption—a global crisis that pops up in news headlines with heartbreaking stories of endangered species being poached and confiscated at customs. These activities are driving species of elephants, rhinos, tigers, pangolins, turtles, parrots and others towards extinction. Rhino poaching has increased by 9,000% since 2007; 100,000 elephants were killed in just three years; and the tiger population has decreased by 40 percent in the last decade. Our partners at the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge (WCTC), a partnership with National Geographic, Smithsonian, and TRAFFIC, is finding solutions to this global crisis through innovative science and technology.
Corruption is the key enabler of wildlife trafficking, creating illegal supply chains and fueling criminal networks that devastate vulnerable species and harm livelihoods.…

Posted in .Homepage, Featured, Partner Stories |

2 Comments
Mission Blue II Voyage: A Resounding Success in Calling for More Ocean Protection

Exploring over 1,500 miles of vibrant ocean in the South Pacific this past month, the Mission Blue II Voyage marked an important milestone for 21st century ocean conservation and underscored support at the highest levels for Hope Spots, Mission Blue’s flagship initiative. Aboard the 340-foot National Geographic Lindblad Expeditions Orion, world leading marine scientists, conservationists, policy makers, researchers, technologists and influencers traveled along the Pacific Equator from Papua New Guinea to the Solomon Islands and participated in an ocean symposium hosted and filmed by TED. Dr. Sylvia Earle, founder of Mission Blue, was as much a part of the onboard brainstorming as the underwater exploration that led to amazing finds like the ancient, oversized coral above.
In her TED filmed talk aboard the Mission Blue II Voyage, which will be made available at a later date, Dr.…

Posted in .Homepage, Featured, mission blue |

1 Comment
Cashes Ledge: the Gem of New England

Led by Dr. Sylvia Earle, the Mission Blue team recently returned from a Hope Spot Expedition to Cashes Ledge, a pristine biological hotspot off the coast of New England. It contains Ammen Rock, a peak so tall that it disrupts the Gulf of Maine current, creating massive upwellings of cold nutrient-rich water that fuels an explosion of life from plankton and squid to mackerel, tunas, billfish, sharks, seabirds and a high diversity of marine mammals. The area is home to the largest cold water kelp forest on the Atlantic seaboard and provides a nursery for important New England fish species like cod, pollock, Atlantic halibut, and white hake. Check out the map for a better sense where the Cashes Ledge is located.…

Posted in mission blue |
Reality Check: Five Years After Deepwater Horizon

By Courtney Mattison & Rachel Devorah
It’s a heartbreaking yet familiar scene. Oil disasters of catastrophic proportions, seeping and sludging all over marine and coastal habitats; hundreds of dead seabirds and dolphins; sick residents and failing coastal economies. The same irrevocable accidents continue to occur. It’s easy to see history repeating itself, posing the inevitable question: will we ever learn from our mistakes?
As the five-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster approaches on April 20, the effects of this devastating accident are still raw throughout the Gulf of Mexico. The 2010 catastrophe spewed approximately 210 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in America’s worst environmental crisis to date and the second largest oil disaster in world history next to the 1991 Gulf War spill, during which Iraqi forces intentionally released 252-336 million gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf.…

Posted in mission blue |

1 Comment
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.…

Posted in mission blue |

Leave a comment
Exploring Antarctica

Until well into the 20th Century, getting to Antarctica – and returning – was a really big deal. It still is, but thanks to new technologies and operations such as the National Geographic Lindblad Expeditions, adventurous souls from around the globe are able to experience Earth’s southernmost continent and appreciate the importance of the whales, seabirds, fish and seals that live there like never before. Mission Blue founder Dr. Sylvia Earle is grateful that “the value of exploiting Antarctic wildlife as commodities is giving way to appreciating them as vital elements of systems that maintain Earth as a planet that works in our favor.” The urgency of exploring and protecting the Southern Ocean has never been greater.
The following photo journal illustrates Gale Mead’s recent visit to Antarctica, South Georgia and the Falklands.…

Posted in mission blue |

1 Comment
Central American Dome – Playa Grande, Costa Rica Expedition

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.…

Posted in Uncategorized |

Leave a comment