The Ocean Foundation has continued its work to support, strengthen, and promote those organizations dedicated to reversing the trend of destruction of ocean environments around the world. We work with donors who care about our coasts and oceans to add value to marine conservation initiatives by providing conservation grants, hosting projects and funds, and collaborating with important campaigns and opinion leaders. As the community foundation for the oceans, we are fostering best-in-class projects and promoting solutions for healthy oceans and the people who depend upon them. We have been able to adapt to a changing economic climate while maintaining our integrity as honest brokers for marine conservation philanthropy

Dr. David E. Guggenheim — the “Ocean Doctor” — serves as Senior Fellow of The Ocean Foundation and Director of its Cuba Marine Research and Conservation Program.

The Ocean Foundation Annual Report
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Dear Friends of The Ocean Foundation,

Once again, it is time to thank all of our donors and partners who have helped make The Ocean Foundation a success.

The past year has been a time of great growth for The Ocean Foundation as we continue our work to support, strengthen, and promote those organizations dedicated to reversing the trend of destruction of ocean environments around the world. We work with donors who care about our coasts and oceans to add value to marine conservation initiatives. We do this by providing conservation grants, hosting projects and funds, and collaborating with important campaigns and opinion leaders. As the community foundation for the oceans, we are fostering best-in-class projects and promoting solutions for healthy oceans and the people who depend upon them. We have been able to adapt to a changing economic climate while maintaining our integrity as honest brokers for marine conservation philanthropy.


The Ocean Foundation is our fiscal sponsor where Dr. David E. Guggenheim — the “Ocean Doctor” — serves as senior fellow.


Download The Ocean Foundation’s Annual Report 2010 or view online below

The Lawn has Become as much of an American Icon as Baseball and Apple Pie. But at What Cost? (Photo credit: From the cover of "The American Lawn" by Georges Tevssot)

Since 1948, radio station KBMW has been serving as the “Voice of the Southern Red River Valley,” a tri-state area including North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota, boasting some of the “richest farmland in the United States.” So why did they want to interview a city boy who lives for salt water? To update their listeners on the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and most importantly, tell their listeners how they could help. Like so many of us, they feel a deep connection to the Gulf, even from more than 1,200 from water’s edge,  and the daily images of oil erupting from the BP well has led to palpable frustration. It’s hard to watch and not be able to help. Truth is, KBMW’s listeners are more connected than they may realize, and they can materially help the Gulf of Mexico — and their own neighborhoods, by just getting outside and doing some gardening.

Recently the news went from bad to worse in the Gulf when it was discovered that tremendous volumes of natural gas (methane) were being released along with oil into the Gulf, several times more than would typically accompany such a gusher. Some of the methane bubbles up to the surface and enters the atmosphere, but much of it dissolves into the water. Researchers recently discovered areas in the water column where methane levels were 10,000 times normal.

A dead zone the size of the state of New Jersey lies in the Gulf of Mexico near the mouth of the Mississippi River. Here water from the Mississippi, laden with sediments, organic material, nutrients and pesticides, enters the Gulf of Mexico (Photo: EPA/N. Rabalais, Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium)

The good news is that there are naturally-occurring bacteria that eagerly break down methane. The bad news is that the process of breaking down methane, oil, or  other organic materials requires oxygen and already scientists discovered oxygen levels in the area at less than a quarter of what they should be. This means that these reaches of the Gulf have suddenly become hostile to organisms that need oxygen to survive — organisms like fish, which use their gills to extract dissolved oxygen from the water. When the water becomes so hypoxic (low oxygen) or anoxic (no oxygen) that it can’t support life, it’s called a “dead zone,” and the months-old eruption of oil and gas is robbing precious oxygen from the animals of the Gulf that need it. It gets worse. The problem is, there already is a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico near the mouth of the Mississippi, and it’s massive. It’s the second largest dead zone in the world: The size of the state of New Jersey.

The problem is that we’re dumping tons of organic waste into the Gulf of Mexico, along with tons of fertilizer (nitrogen and phosphorous) and pesticides from the farms of the heartland and the lawns of suburbia. Forty percent of the continental United States drains into the Mississippi Basin, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico.That includes 38 U.S. states (including KBMW’s listeners in the Dakotas and Minnesota) along with the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. But the nutrient problem doesn’t end there — it’s also coming from the other U.S. states with Gulf of Mexico waterfront, namely Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, not to mention the 5 Mexican states and 5 Cuban provinces that border on the Gulf.

Forty percent of the continental United States (portions of 38 states and 2 Canadian provinces) drains into the Mississippi River Basin, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

Those fertilizers do the same thing in the Gulf of Mexico that they do on farms, your back yard, or in the planter in your den: They stimulate plant (and algae) growth. In the Gulf, this means enormous algae blooms, and once those algae die and are broken down by bacteria, oxygen levels plummet.  Combined with the massive volumes of oil and gas being discharged into the Gulf, oxygen may become a rare commodity…as may fish and other marine wildlife. Not only is oil and gas adding to the already heavy load of organic material in the water, but oil slicks at the surface can prevent oxygen from dissolving into the water column in the first place by essentially forming an impenetrable barrier.

As you can imagine, trying to fix the dead zone is an effort that presents an enormous challenge that encompasses tens of millions of acres of land and crosses every imaginable type of jurisdictional border.  And it draws focus on how we use our lands, what we grow, what we put on the land, and what runs off. And this is where you and I come in, because it turns out the the largest irrigated crop in America is not corn, nor wheat, nor barley, nor soy. According to the journal Environmental Management, some 40 million acres of America are covered in lawns, making turf grass our largest irrigated crop.

Americans pour as much as 238 gallons of water per person, per day onto lawns during the growing season. Each year we use tens of millions of pounds of fertilizers, insecticides and weedkillers used on our lawns, not to mention the 800 million gallons of gasoline we burn in lawnmowers each year. Outdoor watering accounts for more than half of municipal water use in most areas, and homeowners often apply fertilizers and pesticides to their lawns at many times the recommended levels.

The American obsession with a green lawn took root in mid-19th century, with an eye to Europe’s long-standing practice. Nearly two centuries later, the words of landscape designer Frank J. Scott, written in 1870, are still firmly rooted in the American psyche: “A smooth, closely shaven surface of grass is by far the most essential element of beauty on the grounds of a suburban house.” The lawn has become a social barometer, signifying wealth and class, an iconic suburban manifestation of keeping up the Jones’. Even if you don’t care to compete with your neighbor for the greenest lawn, in many localities you have a civic duty to maintain a well-manicured lawn or face the risk of being slapped with a fine.

“A smooth, closely shaven surface of grass is by far the most essential element of beauty on the grounds of a suburban house,” Frank J. Scott, Landscape Designer

It’s not that lawns don’t provide benefits. They’re nice to look at, smell nice, produce oxygen and pull carbon dioxide from the air. The problem is, it comes at a cost, and most of us only use a small fraction of the lawns we work so hard to maintain. Fortunately, there is an alternative that will help your yard, your community, your wallet, and yes, the Gulf of Mexico.

Landscaping with Native Vegetation in Florida (Source: FloridaYards.org)

Near the end of my tenure as president of The Conservancy of Southwest Florida, I planned to launch a new campaign, to which I dubbed the playful if not partially accurate working title, the “Kill Your Lawn Campaign.” I planned to take a shovel to the lawn of my home in Naples and replant most of it using native vegetation. Thanks to a wonderful program in Florida called, “Florida Yards & Neighborhoods” (part of the Florida-Friendly Landscaping™ Program through the University of Florida/IFAS Extension Service and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection) I could receive training and advice on how to go about replanting with native vegetation, choose the right vegetation, etc. The benefits of using native vegetation seemed endless: Little or no watering, fertilizing, pest control. A lush, natural landscape that attracts wildlife, including butterflies and birds. And for the local water bodies, including the Gulf of Mexico, my yard wouldn’t be contributing to the nutrient load. On top of all of that, water conservation is a critical part of protecting and restoring the Everglades. It never made any sense to me that we would pump the Everglades dry to irrigate lawns in the middle of that magnificent ecosystem.  As it turned out, I moved from Naples to a downtown DC condo before I could implement the plan, but should I ever live in suburbia again, the lawn has to go.

There are programs like Florida Yards & Neighborhoods across the country. Your state or local government may have resources at little or no cost that you never knew about. I was invited to speak later this year at the Licking County Soil and Water Conservation District in Newark, Ohio. They work hard to provide information to homeowners and landowners to use their land responsibly while protecting the County’s water resources. You may be lucky enough to have such a resource in your county.

2010 marks the 75th anniversary of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the beginning of the federal commitment to conserving natural resources on private lands. Originally established by Congress in 1935 as the Soil Conservation Service (SCS), NRCS has expanded to help ensure that private lands are conserved, restored, and more resilient to environmental challenges, like climate change. There are field offices at USDA Service Centers in nearly every county in the Nation.

Although the majority of fertilizers and pesticides entering the Gulf come from farms, better managing the land where our homes sit can also make a significant difference. Perhaps “Kill Your Lawn” is an extreme many aren’t ready or willing to do, but here are a few tips you might consider:

• 

  Helping the Gulf of Mexico begins in your back yard - literally. An oiled reddish egret near the water in Grand Isle, La (Photo credit: Petty Officer 3rd Class Patrick Kelley, USCG)

  Get in touch with your local Soil and Water Conservation District and/or USDA Extension Service office and learn the best land management techniques for your area

• Reduce the size of your lawn and replant with native vegetation
• Practice environmentally-friendly techniques in your yard. Try to water less and follow fertilizer and pesticide instructions carefully. If you use a lawn service, consider hiring one that uses more environmentally-friendly practices, such as NaturaLawn (not an endorsement)
• If you need to pave your driveway or deck, use permeable concrete or stone so water doesn’t simply run off when it rains

For many, helping the Gulf of Mexico Starts in your back yard — literally. For the rest, the Atlantic, Pacific and Great Lakes and other great water bodies of the world thank you. According to KBMW, today’s forecast calls for a high of 79°with a blend of clouds and sun. Winds NW 10-20 mph, breezy at times. Perfect gardening weather.

Learn more:

Could the Grass Be Greener? Lawn turf is America’s biggest crop–and a mixed bag for the environment (US News and World Report)

Florida Yards & Neighborhoods Program

Audubon’s Mississippi River Initiative

Native Plants and Ecofriendly Landscaping (USDA)

There’s a solution: Rebuild the Gulf of Mexico fishery on land. Investing in “next-generation” sustainable land-based, closed-containment recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) could keep the Gulf region in the seafood business profitably, while creating green jobs and reducing fishing pressure on wild stocks. What is “next-generation” RAS aquaculture? From the outside, many of the systems look like an ordinary warehouse. Inside, they’re a specially-constructed system of pumps and filters that recycle 99 percent of their water and grow healthy and heathful fish without chemicals, antibiotics or genetically-modified anything.

Fish Tanks in a Next-Generation Recirculating Aquaculture System

RAS systems are scalable, ranging from small “backyard systems” to small systems that can feed a neighborhood to large-scale commercial facilities like the eel facility I toured in Denmark that produces 1,000 tons per year, an amazing 20 percent of the European demand. And because there’s no effluent or contact with the ocean, they function without the problems that plague traditional aquaculture that grow fish grown in cages and net pens sitting in our coastal or offshore waters. Such systems pollute the surrounding waters, infect wild fish with disease, and fish sometimes escape, a problem that can be especially serious in areas like British Columbia, where the non-native Atlantic salmon is grown in Pacific waters. You can put RAS systems just about anywhere. There’s one in Brooklyn. They can be built in urban brownfields or in the middle of Kansas. Since they can be located closed to market, fish can be delivered faster and fresher, without anywhere near the “carbon miles” needed to transport most of the fish we eat from distant ports to our refrigerators.

To top it off, these systems are profitable. Return on investment of 30 to 40 percent is not uncommon. And they’ve been proven profitable at commercial scale. There have been significant commercial operations for nearly 20 years in Europe, Asia and Australia, but the Americas have lagged behind. Fortunately, that’s about to change. A major push is underway in British Columbia to bring the salmon farming industry onto land. This past April, representatives from industry, government, investors, academia, First Nations, and environmental and conservation foundations came together to examine the current status closed-containment aquaculture, discuss potential barriers to creating this new growth industry in British Columbia and develop an action plan to aid in moving this industry forward. A report just released by Canada’s SOS Marine Conservation Foundation concludes that land-based, closed-containment RAS for growing salmon in BC would be profitable and could sustain an aquaculture industry that is both sustainable and profitable. An investor’s workshop to take place on June 7 in Vancouver will assemble the funding for the first projects.

Even before the BP spill the plight of wild fish in the Gulf wasn’t a pretty picture. Years of overfishing seriously depleted fish populations, including 14 species of snapper, grouper and reef fish. These are long-lived, slow-growing animals that take years to recover. The Gulf’s red snapper have been overfished for nearly two decades and could take more than three decades to recover.

Helping the Gulf states implement this technology does not constitute public assistance or relief aid…it’s an investment in a long-term, profitable, sustainable and green-job-creating industry with enormous environmental benefit beyond the immediate oil spill impacts.

As the oil spill continues to spread throughout the Gulf, the inadequacy of the cleanup effort is evident, a neglectful lack of vision. Now it will take exceptional vision to restore and invent a new, sustainable future for the Gulf of Mexico and its hard-working residents. RAS should be part of that vision.

Related Articles:

Sustainable Salmon Farming: New Developments and Promise for British Columbia

Next-Generation Aquaculture: The Future of Fishing on Planet Earth

Alliance for Sustainable Aquaculture (ASA)

Sustainable Land-Based Aquaculture in Action:

Aquaculture Developments, LLC (Pittsburgh, PA)

Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys

On July 18, 1975, the tanker Garbis spilled 1,500 to 3,000 barrels of crude oil into the warm, turquoise, coral-rich waters roughly 26 miles south-southwest of the Marquesas Keys, Florida. The oil was blown ashore along a 30-mile stretch of the Florida Keys, east of Key West. I was 16 and enjoying my second summer at Seacamp, a marine science camp on Big Pine Key. Rumors of the spill raced throughout the campus until finally, instructor James Smithson decided to find out for himself what menace might be approaching. He took a small away team aboard his 21-foot Mako, “Isurus,” and made haste south toward the reef tract. We waited impatiently for word back as the sun fell to the horizon and scattered its tranquil orange glow across the water. What I saw next filled me with dread. The Isurus entered the harbor, its white hull stained with enormous swaths of dark brown oil. In that moment the menace was no longer abstract, and to my young mind, everything we treasured — the corals, the mangroves, the fish, the turtles –was on the brink of extermination.

More bad news: The tides were predicted to bring the oil in toward shore overnight. But what could we do — a bunch of unruly long-haired kids? Simple. Seacamp is a science camp, so we would do science. I was among the older students and felt lucky to be included in a group of students and instructors shuttled to the south side of the island to do transect studies along the south-facing shores and tidepools. With measuring tapes, pencils, clipboard, flashlights and bug spray — lots of bug spray — we’d carefully measure each and every critter in each and every crevice so that if the oil hit, we’d have both a before and after picture. We couldn’t protect our shores, but we could hopefully learn from them. We stayed out the entire evening — it was exhausting and exhilarating.

At morning’s light there was no sign of the oil. It never arrived. I never really learned where it ultimately went. In retrospect, it was the most glorious waste of time I ever spent. I had never felt so strongly focused and such a sense of camaraderie with any group before. We were off our collective asses doing something constructive in the face of a terrible situation, in hindsight a powerful lesson for a teenager. Years later I found a study that indicated that the oil had come ashore in some areas, and several habitats were affected, killing echinoderms, oysters and mangroves.

Blue Hill Consolidated School, Maine

During my “50-States” tour and my meetings with students around the country, I am gratified to see their love and concern for the oceans, even among students who have never seen an ocean before. But I’m also pained that after decades of arrogance, carelessness and treating the oceans more like it belongs to large corporations than as the public trust that it is, it seems that we’ve failed to learn our lessons and have burdened our children with an environmental disaster of historic proportions, the effects of which will no doubt still be felt when they’re raising kids of their own. But if my generation didn’t get it right, I’m still hopeful that the next one will. This is a whopper of a lesson to learn from and change will come from it. But most of all, I’m buoyed by the kids themselves, like the young student at Maine’s Blue Hill Consolidated School who raised her hand during our discussion of the oil spill and, pointing to her classmates, asked simply, “What can we do?

You’ve seen it in the faces of infants when they recognize their mother’s smiling face above. You’ve seen it on the face of an old friend across the room when she suddenly recognizes you…after all those years. And Doug Shulz, producer at Partisan Pictures, saw it clearly on my face, when he tapped me on the shoulder and pointed toward an old friend I hadn’t seen in nearly 35 years.

When we humans recognize a friend, our faces convey it with a distinctive widening of the eyes. Combine that with the surprise of seeing someone we aren’t expecting to see, our eyes grow even wider, often accompanied by a cartoon-like jaw drop. Judging from Doug’s expression while observing my face, I can only imagine how wide my eyes were. Since we were 20 feet beneath Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico waters, it must have been difficult for him to discern between an expression of surprise and delight versus a textbook example of wide-eyed diver panic. My eyes were transfixed on my old friend with a funny name whom I hadn’t laid eyes on since I was a teenager. Larger than life, vibrant, and embracing the sun, my friend was very much alive and healthy, clearly enjoying the good life in Cuba.

Underwater cinematographer, Shane Moore films an enormous stand of healthy Elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) near Cayo Levisa, Cuba

At times I had doubted I would ever see Acropora palmata again — known to most as Elkhorn coral — but here it stood as dramatically and triumphantly as it had a generation ago, before most of its kind vanished from the Caribbean. Acropora has been described as the “poster child” for decline in the Caribbean, decimated by bleaching, white band disease, hurricanes, and other factors. Recent scientific papers, pointing to the nearly 95 percent loss of this genus in areas like the Florida Keys, have pointed out that such a grave loss has seriously altered “the fundamental dynamics of shallow-water community structure.” So emblematic is Elkhorn coral to the healthy coral reef, and so heart-wrenching has been its loss, that, while Vice President of Ocean Conservancy, I lobbied hard — and won — to have its image included in the organization’s redesigned logo. You can’t miss it, at the bottom, to the left of the humpback whale.

Healthy brain corals were abundant near Cayo Levisa, Cuba

I knew from data and photos taken by colleagues that such corals flourished in Cuba. And on previous expeditions, I had even glimpsed small patches of Acropora, clinging to reef crests, standing tall before the breaking turquoise waves. But in my wide-eyed encounter, I was breathless. I beheld not just a small patch of healthy coral. I saw stand after stand — a forest of glorious, healthy mustard-brown Acropora, as far as my eyes could see in the fading afternoon sun in the blue-green beneath the waves. Doug, along with renowned cinematographer Shane Moore, had found it before me and were already capturing frame after frame of video for the PBS series, “Nature,” an episode on Cuba scheduled to air sometime in 2010. But all I could do was sit and stare…and occasionally breathe.

Denuded mangroves evidence the power of 2008's Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, which passed through here within a week of one another

Producer Doug Shulz of Partisan Pictures (L) and Underwater Cinematographer Shane Moore (R) on location filming for the PBS series, "Nature"

What made this sight even more incredible is what we had just seen above the surface. Nearly a year ago to the day, not one but two major hurricanes — Gustav and Ike — converged on this area within a week of one another, causing tremendous damage. The storms tore millions of leaves from the islands’ protective mangroves, leaving a tangled fringe of rotting, brown branches along the coastline. What were formerly aids to navigation are now, as Shane pointed out, hazards to navigation, bare wooden posts protruding from the channel, stripped by the winds of their painted markers and lighted beacons. And there was damage underwater, too. The storms toppled dozens of corals, especially Acropora, which lay on their sides or broken into small piles of coral rubble. Some of them were massive, surely many decades old. But even among such wreckage there was cause for joy. Already the Acropora were growing back, and rapidly so. Many of the dark-brown, algae-covered dead branches were tipped with bright, mustard and white extensions several inches long, healthy, young coral exhibiting a quality that conservation biologists long to see in organisms like corals: Resilience. The ability of species to rebound from untold stress, to endure while others perish, we look for areas in the world where corals are resilient. Sadly, despite our efforts, the situation for corals will likely get worse before it gets better. Finding and protecting resilient areas is akin to emergency room triage — protecting those areas with the best chance of survival that may, in turn, help neighboring and downstream areas to recover when conditions eventually improve.

So why Cuba? Why do corals here flourish while just 90 miles to the north in the Florida Keys, and points east throughout the Caribbean, corals lie dead and dying? There are theories, which I’ve covered in an earlier post, “Can Cuba’s Mysteries Help Save the World’s Coral Reefs?” Decyphering this mystery is central among the goals of our ongoing collaborative research efforts with the University of Havana’s Center for Marine Research (Centro de Investigaciones Marinas), where nearly 20 graduate students are using this research as the basis of their Master’s theses and doctoral dissertations.

A lobster fisherman near Cayo Paraíso (Paradise Key), so-named by Ernest Hemingway

It’s also a top priority identified by a unique tri-national (Cuba, Mexico, USA) effort I’m helping to lead to elevate international collaboration in marine science and conservation to a new level. (See related articles at 1planet1ocean and the New York Times.)

As we rested aboard our boat between dives, a lobster fisherman paddled into view in a tiny pneumatico rowboat buoyed by rubber inner tubes. Gliding upon the warm emerald waters against the backdrop of a small, tranquil key, beneath the dramatic mogotes of Pinar del Río province along the mainland, it seemed a scene conjured up by the pen of Ernest Hemingway. As if reading my mind, our captain and guide, Rolando, pointed toward the key and identified it as Cayo Paraíso, Paradise Key, so-named by Ernest Hemingway himself. It’s not the official name of the tiny island, but the locals and the nautical charts all refer to it as Cayo Paraíso. Rolando reminisces about camping on the island with his father. The hurricanes of the past year have washed away nearly half of the island, and I detect a bit of sadness on Rolando’s face. But at the same time I can’t help but think about the paraíso I had just seen beneath our feet. It might be one of a handful of places in the Caribbean that still looks as it did when Hemingway plied these waters. I imagine him returning, wide-eyed, to greet his old friends.

Cuba has lost its Mother Ocean. Dr. María Elena Ibarra Martín, director of the University of Havana’s Center for Marine Research (Centro de Investigaciones Marinas, CIM) since 1981, passed away yesterday afternoon after a month-long struggle following heart surgery. CIM is the only academic institution in Cuba where marine biologists are trained, and her loss is mourned by hundreds of her students, many of whom grew up to become her colleagues — and friends. Her selfless, tireless dedication goes far beyond words, and the impact she has made on education, conservation, and her unique model of personal integrity will no doubt endure for centuries to come. When I last saw Doctora in February, she was as busy as ever, wrestling mountains of paperwork on her desk while never letting go of her visionary perspective about conservation and education. Nor did she ever let go of her special fondness for sea turtles and her love for and dedication to her students.

I first met Dr. Ibarra in 2000 while I was Vice President at Ocean Conservancy (OC), and the work we have done together has continued to blossom nearly nine years later (now under the auspices of The Ocean Foundation). During the summer of 2003, I nominated Dr. Ibarra for the “Local Hero” section of OC’s magazine, Blue Planet Quarterly to honor her many contributions to marine science and conservation. I can still remember the challenge of convincing her to allow me to write the article. She was always uncomfortable with accolades and recognition, and in this case she tried to encourage me to write about the institution and students rather than her. She complied only when I convinced her that the article could help her students by bringing recognition to her institution. And to snap the photo above required inviting her out to a local cafe for refrescos, then quietly pulling out the camera and engaging in yet more negotiations. Thankfully, she finally complied.

I managed to track down a copy of that article and I believe reprinting it here today offers the best way I could pay homage to this incredible woman:

Post Script: Within the next few weeks, both of the students I quoted in the article will make Dr. Ibarra very proud. Julia Azanza Ricardo will receive her Doctorate from the University of Havana and she now oversees the Guanahacabibes Sea Turtle project. Daylin Muñoz Nuñez will receive her Master’s degree from Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and soon begins work with Environmental Defense Fund.

A green sea turtle hatchling in Guanahacabibes Peninsula, Cuba

At her request, Dr. Ibarra’s ashes will be spread among the sands of the beaches of Cuba’s Guanahacabibes peninsula. Per her wishes, there will be no formal ceremony or funeral. If you would like to pay tribute to Dr. Ibarra’s memory, a contribution to The Ocean Foundation’s “Cuba Marine Research & Conservation Fund” will go directly to the Guanahacabibes Sea Turtle project and research expeditions to Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico Coast, both collaborative programs with CIM that are supporting the research of nearly 20 students.

To celebrate my 50th, I’d like you to send me on a journey this year, a journey to visit our next generation, in their schools, and share with them some of the awe and wonder of my experiences in the sea, including the important lessons that go along with them. So I’ll be donating one speech to one school in every state and U.S. territory (accredited schools, public or private, K through college level). I’m waving my speaking fee and travel expenses. I don’t require anything except an enthusiastic audience and maybe a glass of water. (I would encourage a class project to find creative ways to offset my travel’s carbon footprint to your school.) I’ll show my videos, share my adventures, and my enthusiasm for the wonder of the deep blue part of the planet.

I’ll honor the first request I receive from each state and U.S. territory (Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa) and, of course, the District of Columbia. If you or someone you know would like to take me up on this offer, just fill out the Book a Speaker Form on the 1planet1ocean web site and indicate that you’re submitting the request for the “Free Speech” project.

I look forward to this adventure and wish all of you a happy 50th, whenever it arrives, or whenever it was.

Even in those first minutes face-to-face with a coral reef, the enormity of what I was witnessing was clear to me. I remember thinking, “There’s a whole living world going on down here, and we don’t know anything about it.” While I may have suspected in those moments that I would dedicate my career to something having to do with the oceans, I never would have dreamed that more than three decades later I would be literally immersed in some of the most important work of my life just 90 miles to the south of where I was seated beneath the waves.

Last week, as I departed Ft. Lauderdale and the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium, the world’s largest coral summit held every four years, the news was sobering. One-third of the world’s corals are well on their way to outright extinction, and the rest are threatened with, among other things, the indignant end of simply dissolving away, as increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from fossil fuel emissions enters the oceans, raising their acidity to the point where any ocean creature with a calcium carbonate shell — from corals to clams — succumbs to the acid waters. When my daughter was 15 and floated above that same reef I had experienced, it had become a pale shadow of the miracle of nature I had so delighted in. Nearly half the corals in the Florida Keys have died in my lifetime. Some are bleached bone white, others shackled in diseased bands of black. Many more lie smothered in broad blankets of algal slime which have robbed the reef of its rainbow of colors, leaving a lifeless green-gray skeleton where countless diversity once eeked from every imaginable crack and crevice. As I beheld this tragic image, little did I imagine that important clues to saving this reef and many more like it around the Caribbean and the world, might lie just 90 miles to the south.

I now sort through assorted dive gear, video equipment, and sunscreen preparing for my 37th visit to that magical place 90 miles to the south, to an island larger than all the other Caribbean islands combined, to an island whose coat of arms bears a key — “llave del golfo“, the key to the Gulf of Mexico — a subtropical nexus where the waters of the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean intertwine in a sublime undersea cocktail of diversity, color and mystery. Our fourth joint expedition of Proyecto Costa Noroccidental (Project of the Northwest Coast) — a project of the University of Havana’s Center for Marine Research (Centro de Investigaciones Marinas: CIM) and the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi — will continue our ongoing project to explore the most unknown corner of the Gulf of Mexico: Cuba’s northwest coastal waters.

A green sea turtle hatchling at Cuba's westernmost point, Guanahacabibes

It is often said that those 90 miles of open water south of the Florida Keys — the Straits of Florida — separate Cuba and the USA. Like a hand-drawn blue borderline, the Straits are often invoked as a symbol of the 50-year-old Cold War that has frozen our two countries so tantalizingly close, yet so tragically far apart. But to the sea turtles, sharks, lobster, whales and other sea life, those same 90 miles of blue unite our countries with racing blue currents, unseen underwater pathways, and a web of colorful life that defies the perceptions of so many of the Gulf of Mexico, who know it only as a hot, muddy cauldron that spawns hurricanes and oil platforms. Cuba, Mexico and the U.S. share the Gulf of Mexico and have a responsibility to work together to understand and protect it. Thankfully, despite debilitating restrictions, which are ever-changing in the cool winds of Cold War politics, we have worked for a solid eight years now with our Cuban colleagues, advancing our understanding of the Gulf of Mexico and providing research opportunities for Cuba’s next generation of marine scientists — nearly 20 have based their Masters and Ph.D. research on our joint projects.

Cuba's next generation of marine scientists participate in & learn from the project

Cuba’s northwest coast – the verdant Pinar del Rí­o province, home to Cuba’s legendary cigars — is the least-developed coastal region of Cuba. But as Cuba’s tourism trade continues to develop and as Cuba’s fledgling offshore oil development expands into the Gulf, we hope that the insights from our joint research help to guide the hand of such development so that some of Cuba’s most precious assets, its coral reefs, will be spared the all too common fate I’ve seen elsewhere in the Caribbean. And there is much at stake. As we dove during the second expedition, it was as if we had been transported decades backward in time, to the healthy, vibrant, towering reefs I remember from my mid-teens. The reefs I have seen in the Archepélago de Los Colorados, the barrier reef that runs along Cuba’s northwest coast, are the healthiest I have seen in my life. For that reason, and because of its unique history and geography, Cuba may hold important clues for coral reefs elsewhere in the Caribbean and perhaps around the world.

Good friend and colleague, Dr. Gaspar González-Sansón, titular professor at University of Havana, CIM, and co-principal investigator of Proyecto Costa Noroccidental, recently pointed to a number of possible reasons for the health of Cuba’s reefs when we spoke when I was recently in Havana:

• Cuba’s tourism industry did not begin until 1993, necessitated by the demise of the Soviet Union and its aid to the island. Though tourism has proceeded at a rapid pace, it is highly localized at specific resort areas on the coasts.
• The healthiest reefs also happen to be far from shore, such as Los Colorados to the north and Jardines de la Reina to the south, perhaps beyond the reach of harmful concentrations of coastal pollution.
• Cuba does have a commercial fishing fleet, but fishermen principally use hook and line, so unlike nets and trawls which result in catching just about everything, fishing in Cuba is highly selective. In contrast, more than 80 percent of what’s caught in U.S. Gulf of Mexico shrimp trawls is not shrimp — it’s small finfish and other creatures collectively known as “bycatch” that represent the unforgivable waste of this fishing practice. Cuba is now phasing out all bottom trawling on its continental shelf.
  

  Cuban commercial fishing vessel in the Gulf of Mexico

• In the early days of the revolution, President Fidel Castro declared, “Not one drop of water to the sea,” a call to action to dam rivers and streams in order to divert water for use in agriculture and population centers. Reducing fresh water input upset the delicate balance of fresh and salt water in Cuba’s estuaries, resulting in the disappearance of populations intolerant to the saltier waters, such as the white shrimp. In another way, however, this policy may have inadvertently served to help reefs by reducing the transport of fertilizers and pesticides to the reefs.
• Use of fertilizers and pesticides has dropped dramatically since the withdrawal of the Soviet Union. Given that nutrient pollution is a key factor in the growth of coral-smothering algae, this may also be an important factor.

Sunset on Cuba's Gulf of Mexico

In countless ways, the island of Cuba is unique. And when it comes to coral reefs, Cuba is again, unique. Here an island of thriving corals flourishes amid a world of corals dying and disappearing. In this mysterious corner of the Gulf of Mexico where time seems to have stopped, I find hope. Hope that the rich ecosystems of this beautiful island will endure. And I find hope that Cuba’s coral reefs might share some of their tantalizing secrets, secrets that can offer clues to protecting and restoring coral reefs elsewhere, including a special place I still remember in the Florida Keys, just 90 miles to the north.