Core77

It covers the vast majority of our planet and is truly the last frontier: the ocean. To date, we've only sampled a measly 0.5% of the ocean surface, explained Claire Nouvian, an author, filmmaker, conservationist, activist, and hands-down ocean life enthusiast. Among the myriad man-made perils to the deep seas, like mining, dumping, CO2 sequestration, acidification, and methane and oil exploitation, Nouvian went into great detail about the imminent threat of trawling, a process where a steel trawling structure destroys everything, including coral, in its path in order to protect a capture net that follows. There are next to no recovery signs of what becomes crushed after trawling. "We are destroying a unique, unassessed planetary heritage at unprecedented speed and scale in a probably irreversible manner for no reason." Nouvian is now pushing forward with her own NGO, the Bloom Association, to create an emotional bond between people and the deep sea using the power of aesthetics (breathtaking imagery of incredible deep sea life). Oh, and did we mention her sense of humor? "It's like like at the night clubs when you look for the cute guys and girls before the really ugly people." Point taken. She also stressed the need to be aware and avoid consumption of trawled fish species.

Marine ecologist Enric Sala continued by proposing a quite reasonable sounding plan to recover and maintain underwater biodiversity step by step, one case at a time. By observing the individual ecosystems of the Lime Islands, with each coral atoll housing a varying number of inhabitants from Kingman's 0 at the least to Christmas' 5,000 at the most, Sala's group observed the impact of human occupation. Results showed that more inhabitants meant less biomass, or diversity in that specific area, made obvious by dead corals covered in algae, with little signs of recovery, and an explosion in microbial regeneration. Kingman Reef, the least inhabited territory, was pristine and covered in corals--even new species of corals that had never been discovered before. Sala asserted that "we don't have an instruction manual on marine ecosystems" and hopes his continued research will lead to prompt and practical applications of compelling research to improve conservation methods.

Things got pretty "local" when Ted Ames, an Eastern Gulf fisherman, researcher, applied scientist, and conservation activist, stepped on stage. He told us of a time, 12 years ago, when the groundfish (cod, haddock, flounder, etc.) industry collapsed just as Maine's now-booming lobster industry once had. In hopes to revive the once prolific population, Ames' research revolved heavily around gathering ecological information from times when fishing was "good" to then pool fine scale data to better rebuild. The kicker is the mere fact of Maine's infamously abundant lobster industry, which was revived by using habitat-friendly traps, protecting reproduction, protecting juveniles, placing control and limits on harvesting, and encouraging stewardship--the same exact steps that would help recover the nearly non-existent groundfish, explains Ames, except for the saddening fact that this idea is no longer appealing to lobster-focused fishery managers. He stresses that the only solution will involve eco-tourism and conservancy expeditions to the last remaining hubs of thriving aquatic wildlife, with paying guests, policy makers, the media, and documentarians on board.

Let's just say that seafood sounded a bit less tasty (still tasty though) by the end of day.