Disney and Oprah - Spreading the Word

Recently, the new movie from Disney hit theaters. “DisneyNature Oceans” is a film that shows people the beauty of the life that they can’t see from land. (If you want to learn more about the movie, you can visit this website: http://disney.go.com/disneynature/oceans/) This website even lets you “get involved” and find ways to donate to causes that help marine conservation and related programs.

Now, to the point of the subject. It’s so refreshing to see a big film being released by an extremely well-known and well-loved company. And it’s really gotten the word out. It premiered on Earth Day. That day, Oprah had an Earth Day special and she had a segment about this specific movie. She also had the producers of The Cove as guests and also connected via Skype to talk to a guy that was out in the ocean, studying the plastic in the Pacific Garbage Dump. But anyway, it was really good that Oprah helped get the word out about the movie. She reaches many women and those women take what she says seriously. So if she says that the oceans need help or that a beautiful movie just came out showing us the life under water, people are going to listen. We need powerful people like this to get the word out about problems that need to be solved in our world and we also need them to give their seal of approval to things that can spread that word farther.

Now, I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I’ve heard so many rave reviews about it. So I’m planning to. And I think you all should too. Learn about a different kind of world from the one that we know. Learn about the animals and how they live and interact. Learn about all of the different plants and how they flourish and survive. Learn about the horrors that are keeping these life forms from reaching their full life potential. And learn how you can help stop these horrors. Because a world with land life and marine life both flourishing is better than one where only land life flourishing just because it was too hard for people to donate and recycle.

Bag the Plastic

In the spring of 2006 my family and I traveled to the Hawaiian island of Kauai. We lounged at the beach, went to a luau, kayaked to a hidden water fall, and had a generally good time. Yet perhaps my favorite moment on vacation was swimming with the sea turtles off of the cliffs of the Napali Coast. Swimming with the beautiful creatures was an exhilarating moment and something I will not likely forget. What I did not realize then was the rough life a sea turtle lives. Of the seven species of marine turtles, six are listed as Endangered or Critically Endangered. Unfortunately, turtles are plagued by fishing and plastic consumption, particularly in the form of grocery bags. When grocery bags reach the ocean, the turtles mistake them for their favorite food, jellyfish. When sea turtles consume the plastic bags, they often get lodged in their stomachs making it seem like they are not hungry, and eventually causing them to die of starvation. When sea turtles die they upset the ecosystem because of their vital role of controlling prey species and providing food for larger predators. Marine turtles are also economically important to humans. Developing countries use sea turtles for food. They are also vital to the fish population consumed all around the world. So how can you help? These solutions from seaturtles.org are easy and effective:
1. Realize that "disposable" does not mean "goes away." Everything we create, especially things that are made of plastic, stay on this earth forever.
2. Reduce the amount of plastic that we use. Instead we can use glass bottle, reusable grocery and produce bags, and avoid plastic packaging as much as possible.
3. Make sure to recycle any plastic that we cannot avoid using.
4. Clean up any litter in the street, especially plastic litter. 80% of plastic in the ocean comes from urban runoff such as flyaway plastic bags.
5. Pressure companies that you like shopping from to switch to bio-plastics or other non-plastic packaging. Write them a letter saying that you will boycott their products until there are changes. Convince your friends of family to do it also!
6. Write to your congressman and ask that there be action taken. Push for bills that reduce the manufacturing of plastics, support plastic recycling, encourage research into plastic alternatives and support the implementation of those alternatives.
7. If you can, donate to organizations that are working hard to put a stop to this problem. Algalita Marine Research Foundation, Ocean Alliance, Center for Ocean Solutions and Green Sangha are all working to reduce the amount of plastics going into our oceans.
8. Most importantly, tell everyone! Let people know that this is a serious problem and encourage your friends and family to also adopt these methods of reducing waste.
Or check out this blog at http://savetheseaturtle.org/index.php?page_id=225.

Coral Reef Destruction

The Need for Aquaculture

I will not lie, I love to eat a nice plate of fish once in a while, but if my eating habits negatively impact the ocean’s ecosystem as a whole, I don’t want any part of it. This is part of the problem with commercial fishing. Although commercial fishing results in a delicious dinner for me, it has recently contributed to overfishing and a collapsing ecosystem. In recent years, once abundant fish populations have plummeted. This is a result of catching fish faster than they reproduce. Men and women who simply want to sustain a way of life deplete a food source for marine birds and mammals. With the depletion of fish, a delicate balance is upset, and only we are to blame. So what can we do? One option comes in the form of “aquaculture,” or fish farming. Fish farming consists of breeding and growing marine wildlife such as oysters, clams, mussels, shrimp, and salmon. Unfortunately, this is not a problem-free solution. Many environmental risks such as nutrient and chemical pollutions and escapees are threats to marine life. Fish food and excrements can escape in the ocean when not managed properly. The problem is that there is not a set regulation for marine farming like the Clean Waters Act that regulates land based farming. Escapees also pose a threat to the balance of the marine ecosystem because of the spread of disease and genetic mutations. Without proper planning and possible tagging, aquaculture could greatly endanger the oceans. If legislation is passed to regulate marine aquaculture, it provides a needed solution by protecting the lives of marine animals, and the livelihoods of fishermen. We can help by urging legislation to pass the needed regulations. To make a difference you and I can write to our congressmen to advocate national standards for marine aquaculture. Exercise your democratic voice! You can also sign an online petition at http://www.oceanconservancy.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=14131 to save the ecosystem. Another solution for the common consumer like me is to eat only sustainable fish. Ocean conservancy offers ideas and tips for choosing sustainable fish at http://www.oceanconservancy.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ftf_consumers_faq. Or check out this blog http://www.thefishsite.com/rss/news.php. Even though I am hundreds of miles away from any ocean, it is nice to know that there is an easy way I can help conserve marine life. Next time I pick up the fork for my nice seafood dinner, I can avoid the guilt in knowing that I am still fighting for the fishies.

The Pacific Garbage Patch

Saving the Dolphins - Making Progress

All around the world, if you were to ask people what their favorite animal was, plenty of them would say that they like the dolphin the best. And they have perfectly good reason to; the way the beautiful animals are able to learn so many tricks and how they always seem to be smiling makes you want to smile too. But many don’t know what a hard life many of these creatures face.

Recently, there has been a documentary, “The Cove”, made that reveals these problems. The main subject that the documentary focuses on is the slaughtering of thousands of dolphins in Taiji, Japan. The film follows an ex-dolphin trainer on his expedition to uncover the truth of this phenomenon. It also highlights the fact that the Japanese government allows mercury-filled dolphin meat to be mislabeled and even sold to the public. The documentary has become a huge success. It has nabbed an Academy Award and various other nominations and awards. But the biggest success is that it’s brought the secret of the immoral slaughtering out of the dark to everyone. Not only the hardcore environmentalists can watch this film but also the general public. It is taking the cause from the science labs and government and bringing it to the rest of the world. I know that I didn’t know how serious this problem was until I heard about what the documentary was about. It has started the ball moving for saving these dolphins and soon for saving all marine life. The triumph of the documentary shows that we can save the animals and that it is possible, not just a cause that’s only being handled by painted “Save the Whales!” signs that people march in circles.

There are also websites and blogs that are helpful for the public to use to learn about saving marine life. This blog ( http://animal-world.com/newsfeed/ ) gives animals a voice. It takes information to the people; it shows them headlines and stories that wouldn’t normally be seen in newspapers or magazines. It’s important for people to not only hear about what people are doing in the current day, but also what’s happening in the animal world. People need to hear about the new findings, the new crises, and even the old stories and their outcomes. There’s also a website ( http://www.thecovemovie.com/home.htm ) that is all about “The Cove”. There are so many resources connected to this site. You can find information, you can learn about the problem that the movie addressed, and you can even find ways to do your part for the dolphins. The site shows how pivotal the movie was to the type of community service people want to help with. Sure, there are disasters happening in the human world that are very important, but we can’t forget that part of our community is also the oceans and the inhabitants, even though they can’t speak the same language that we do. The world is our community and we need to step up and help every part of it, and this site helps us do that.