Water has always been inspirational in one way or another, whether we are rafting a river, fishing in a stream, stepping over a brook, kayaking on a lake, or having a barbeque at a city reservoir. The oceans are especially powerful because of their immenseness, their beauty and their power. Even those of us who live inland are constantly drawn to the water’s edge. We ultimately come from the ocean, and it is here that we must focus much of our attention and efforts in conservation. What better way to reciprocate for all that the ocean does for us than to give back some help? That’s exactly why I am reading “50 Ways to Save the Oceans” by David Helvarg, the founder of Blue Frontier (www.bluefront.org), an organization in Washington D.C. that works by “building unity, providing tools and heightening awareness of our public seas and solutions for restoring them.”
This nifty little book is illustrated by Jim Tooney (a widely published cartoonist), and it invites us to examine the ways in which we treat the oceans. It has five main sections; Enjoy, Conserve, Clean, Protect, and Learn and Share. Of the fifty ways to save the ocean, we are, by virtue of this voyage, working on at least ten of them, from “Go on a Whale—Watching Trip” (we brake for whales!) to “Eat Seafood that is Healthy and Sustainable” (Lindblad Expeditions only buys and serves seafood of this nature) and “Go On a Live or Virtual Ocean Expedition” (I think this one is obvious!). We also actively support a myriad of conservation groups, more specifically the “Save the Albatross Campaign,” which helps to prevent long-line fisheries from killing seabirds like the one pictured today, the wandering albatross. These wide-ranging birds must rely on us to watch over them and assure their continued survival if we are going to continue to coexist together.
And so here we are (and there you all are at home reading these), helping in our varied ways to protect, preserve, and restore the oceans for future generations. For if we fail to respect the earth’s oceans (and we are living on a planet of mostly water), then ultimately we may not have a home at all. Inspiration comes in many forms and here in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, I find inspiration in the hope that we might just make it work if we all stick together.
