At Sea
As I look back on our visit to Ascension Island, introspection fills my mind. I am called to speak now; I feel the need for action. After fifteen years of visits to Ascension, I now see hope for the wildlife there. Because of a few heroes working tirelessly on conservation and restoration issues, sooty terns no longer fall prey to feral cats. Boobies, tropicbirds, noddies and frigate birds are re-colonizing their former sites. Sea turtles come ashore on pristine beaches and lay their eggs unperturbed by humans. Their hatchlings have a decent chance of making it to Brazil if they don't make a wrong turn or get caught in a fishing net.
But it is the open ocean that continues to receive the wrath of industrial expansion and an ever-increasing human population. We know that every single one of our day-to-day activities may have deleterious effects on the environment. We consume more than we need and discharge more waste than we should, leaving the land and ultimately the oceans polluted and decimated. Time and time again we come to realize (too late) that our actions usually have serious, planetary consequences.
Most of us may never see the miracle of a humungous fifty-year-old female sea turtle haul her pre-programmed body ashore to lay hundreds of eggs, but we can rejoice in the fact that they have that chance. It is up to us to ensure that they continue to have that chance.
At the very beginning of Carl Safina's revolutionary book Voyage of the Turtle; In Pursuit of the Earth's Last Dinosaur, he quotes Henry David Thoreau's Journals, vol 7:
"I am affected by the thought that the earth nurses these eggs. They are planted in the earth, and the earth takes care of them; she is genial to them and does not kill them. It suggests a certain vitality and intelligence in the earth, which I had not realized. This mother is not merely inanimate and inorganic. Though the immediate mother turtle abandons her offspring, the earth and sun are kind to them. The old turtle on which the earth rests takes care of them while the other waddles off. Earth was not made poisonous and deadly to them. The earth has some virtue in it; when seeds are put into it, they germinate; when turtles' eggs, they hatch in due time."
Read books on conservation, volunteer with some organizations, donate your time if you can. Do some research. Teach your children. Take action. Do it now. The turtles, if they could, surely thank you, and so do I.
As I look back on our visit to Ascension Island, introspection fills my mind. I am called to speak now; I feel the need for action. After fifteen years of visits to Ascension, I now see hope for the wildlife there. Because of a few heroes working tirelessly on conservation and restoration issues, sooty terns no longer fall prey to feral cats. Boobies, tropicbirds, noddies and frigate birds are re-colonizing their former sites. Sea turtles come ashore on pristine beaches and lay their eggs unperturbed by humans. Their hatchlings have a decent chance of making it to Brazil if they don't make a wrong turn or get caught in a fishing net.
But it is the open ocean that continues to receive the wrath of industrial expansion and an ever-increasing human population. We know that every single one of our day-to-day activities may have deleterious effects on the environment. We consume more than we need and discharge more waste than we should, leaving the land and ultimately the oceans polluted and decimated. Time and time again we come to realize (too late) that our actions usually have serious, planetary consequences.
Most of us may never see the miracle of a humungous fifty-year-old female sea turtle haul her pre-programmed body ashore to lay hundreds of eggs, but we can rejoice in the fact that they have that chance. It is up to us to ensure that they continue to have that chance.
At the very beginning of Carl Safina's revolutionary book Voyage of the Turtle; In Pursuit of the Earth's Last Dinosaur, he quotes Henry David Thoreau's Journals, vol 7:
"I am affected by the thought that the earth nurses these eggs. They are planted in the earth, and the earth takes care of them; she is genial to them and does not kill them. It suggests a certain vitality and intelligence in the earth, which I had not realized. This mother is not merely inanimate and inorganic. Though the immediate mother turtle abandons her offspring, the earth and sun are kind to them. The old turtle on which the earth rests takes care of them while the other waddles off. Earth was not made poisonous and deadly to them. The earth has some virtue in it; when seeds are put into it, they germinate; when turtles' eggs, they hatch in due time."
Read books on conservation, volunteer with some organizations, donate your time if you can. Do some research. Teach your children. Take action. Do it now. The turtles, if they could, surely thank you, and so do I.
