Two weeks ago my friend Captain Charles Moore – discoverer of the now-famed North Pacific Garbage Patch – pushed off from the docks in Long Beach aboard the ORV Alguita for a four-month-long exploration of the sizable floating plastic trash pile he initially brought to light a decade ago.
The 2009 exploration, divided into two segments, will first take Moore and his team to Hawaii and then to the heart of the swirling gyre, where he first measured six times as much plastic afloat near the surface as plankton.
The first leg, June 10- July 25, is underway and should take the crew around the North West Hawaiian islands, north of Midway and Kure.
Their pre-cruise expectation: The quantity of plastic pollution in the ocean is increasing rapidly, paralleling the rapid rise in global plastic production. Each time the ORV Alguita crew collects samples from the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG), we find that the abundance of plastic has increased since our previous visit. In previous research voyages we have found a very high abundance of plastic in the area of the gyre that has come to be known as “The Eastern Pacific Garbage Patch”, but we suspect that the contamination is much more widespread. This summer we will have the opportunity to test this hypothesis during the first voyage of our four month research expedition. During this voyage the ORV Alguita research crew will be at sea for over six weeks as they sail west from California past the Northern Hawaiian Islands as far as the International Date Line (180 degrees longitude) to sample areas of the Pacific Ocean previously un-sampled for plastic marine debris. We will be collecting samples of plastic debris, plankton and fish to analyze back in our laboratory to better understand not only the quantity of plastic debris pollution in remote areas of the ocean, but also the impacts the plastic is having as it is consumed by marine animals. Below is a map that shows the area where ORV Alguita has sampled for plastic pollution over the past 10 years. The first voyage of the summer expedition hopes to extend the study area all the way to the International Date Line at 180 degrees longitude.
The second leg of the expedition, expected to begin early in August, will take the boat on a giant loop one thousand miles north of Hawaii, into the NPSG. Moore is convinced the percentage of plastic in the gyre will have increased during the past decade, but this exploration will bring back hard evidence. While lots of people have talked about visiting the site it is tricky to reach – halfway across the Pacific Ocean, between Russia and California – so very few scientific efforts have actually taken place.
Moore and crew are posting daily logs, so … tune in.
During the winter of 2004 I spent a month exploring the waterways surrounding two of Gabon’s then-brand-new national parks. Accompanied by a pair of young Gabonese eco-guides (minus the parks they would have most likely made a living as poachers), photographer Pete McBride and field biologist Mike Fay (whose 1999-2000 Megatransect – he walked across the entirety of the Congo forest – helped encourage the establishment of the park system), it was the most physically exhausting adventure yet. For a few reasons: We couldn’t carry much food, we pretty quickly ran out of fresh water and temperatures rarely dropped below 100 degrees F. It was also one of the most rewarding when it came to wildlife; when we’d pull onto the wide, sandy beaches of the Atlantic coast each night we’d be greeted by browsing elephants, buffaloes, hippos and crocs, nearly a full Noah’s Ark of critters displayed on some of the most beautiful white-sand beaches I’ve ever seen.
Those beaches, the jewels of the thirteen national parks, were protected in 2002 by Gabon’s president for life, Omar Bongo. With one dramatic signature he had turned ten percent of his country into parkland, in a country that had never had a park before.
The handful of environmental groups that had worked long and hard on the park set up rushed to get their borders marked and drawn onto every map possible. There was immediate concern that while it was dramatic it may have been only a gesture. Gabon – Omar Bongo – had never seen an oil, gas or timber contract that didn’t spell personal gain and there was concern that the park borders could easily be ignored at whim. Which is exactly what is happening today, furthered by the death two weeks ago of Omar Bongo.
He had treated Gabon as a self-obsessed landlord treats his private estate, ruling for so long — 42 years — that they had become one. He considered everything inside its borders to be his personal property and elevated corruption to a method of government. He amassed enough wealth to become one of the world’s richest men. It was therefore perfectly natural that an oil company, granted a large concession for coastal drilling, should slip him regular suitcases stuffed with cash. It was natural that $2.6 million in aid money should be used to decorate his private jet, that government funds should pay for the Italian marble cladding his palace, and that his wife Edith’s sea-blue Maybach, in which she was driven round Paris, should be paid for with a check drawn on the Gabonese treasury. His greatest political achievement was to ensure that the revenues from Gabon’s 2.5 billion barrels of oil reserves guaranteed his grip on power while carefully allowing just enough oil money to trickle down to the general population of 1.4 million, thus avoiding any serious unrest.
The parks have been at risk even on the day the ink on their declaration was still wet. Since the beginning the integrity of the national parks system has been repeatedly threatened by resource extraction and infrastructure development. Most critical is the proposed Belinga mine development project, a $3.5 billion project that includes a mine, a dam, railroads and a deep-water port facility. Goldman Environmental Prize winner Marc Ona Essangui has led the fight against the mine, and other environmental battles within Gabon. While the mine is currently on hold with Omar Bongo’s death – and a new ruler yet to be named, possibly his son, Ali-Ben Bongo – who knows what kind of new exploitation will follow?
The New York Times editorial page yesterday focused on one of our pet topics and one of the most important of all ocean issues, overfishing. Particularly it cited the goal of the new chief at NOAA, Jane Lubchenco, to coordinate a single U.S. policy at a time when there are twenty different agencies operating under one hundred and forty different laws:
The White House seems prepared to give this issue high priority. George W. Bush, though more sensitive to marine issues than other environmental problems, was slow to offer remedies, the most important being the establishment of three large protected marine reserves in the Pacific. President Obama has engaged the matter early in the game.
Empty nets hauled from the Adriatic Sea
A more immediate measure of the administration’s commitment is the steps it is taking to meet a 2006 Congressional mandate to end overfishing in America’s coastal waters by 2011. The most important of these is an effort led by Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist who runs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Her mission is to persuade America’s fishermen to broadly adopt a market-based approach known as “catch shares” to manage their fisheries sustainably.
Under the present system, America’s regional fishing councils, which are run largely by fishermen with federal oversight, set annual catch limits. To meet these quotas, most commercial fleets follow a detailed “days at sea” approach regulating the number of days they may fish, how many fish they may catch and what kind of equipment they may use. The system does not work well. Some people obey the rules, and others don’t. The days-at-sea restrictions often lead to a frantic race to catch as many fish as possible as quickly as possible, which in turn leads to indiscriminate and wasteful fishing.
Ms. Lubchenco’s alternative would give individual fishermen or groups of fishermen fixed shares — a guaranteed percentage — of the annual catch, then let them set the rules. The theory is that share-holding fishermen will have a vested interest in seeing their resource grow, much like shareholders in a company.
Fisheries that use this system — also known as “dedicated access” fisheries — have prospered in places like New Zealand. The dozen or so American fisheries with catch shares, accounting for about one-fifth of the total domestic catch, have also done well.
Ms. Lubchenco has lately been beating the drums for catch shares in New England, whose regional council will shortly take a preliminary vote on the issue. New England’s fishermen could use a change in direction; four-fifths of their commercially important stocks — including cod, pollock and flounder — are in trouble.
The truth is that fisheries almost everywhere could use a change in direction. A well-managed American system would be an example for the world.
In our travels around the world looking at the health of ocean and coastline, we’ve seen some success stories too, particularly in Tasmania where licenses for abalone and crayfish have been reduced in recent years to take pressure off the fishery. We’ve also seen the worst-case-scenarios, like the Adriatic Sea, where Italians, Croatians and a host of international fishing companies have scraped and scoured the bluest-of-all-seas so that there are nearly no fish left.
If you live near a big city, check out the new documentary “End of the Line,” which raises the question of whether or not we are soon to see the last fish caught.
For the past ten months we’ve spent a bit of time prowling the bayous, creeks, swamps, rivers and the gulf waters of Southern Louisiana, working on a film about the relationship between man and water there … a rich subject in a place where any glance over your shoulder and you’re about to fall into the drink. Despite some serious water issues – a booming dead zone caused by fertilizer run-off primarily from the upper Midwest, a land and populace far too accustomed to oil spills and the leave-behind-mess of the $62 billion a year oil and gas industry that dominates the region, Cyprus trees being cut for garden mulch and sold at local box stores, a variety of erosion and pollution issues putting America’s biggest fishery at great risk – the people we’ve met and worked with and filmed couldn’t have been a more vital, full-of-life crowd.
In recent weeks one place we filmed, a beautiful swamp near Baton Rouge called Alligator Bayou used for the past decade as an educational playground for kids from all over the region, has gone through major alterations. Actually, the gates that have made it swampland for the past fifty years have been opened, the swamp largely drained. It’s yet another great modern-day battle between developers (who want access to the land to use as “mitigation” banks – basically a hedge bought by builders who plan to impact other wetlands and will the newly-drained swamp as “credit”) and environmentalists.
Like most developer-enviro fights this has a long and complicated history. Read through Amy Wold’s story in the Baton Rouge Advocate and see if you can get to the bottom of the mess. All I know, from this distance, is that Frank Bonifay and Jim Ragland – who bought the place a decade ago and opened it as a nature center – could have gotten rich over the years by selling off the land. Instead, as they showed us last August when Frank motored us slowly around the bayou watching cranes and alligators, it was clear they truly loved the place for its beauty and uniqueness. That the swamp is now surrounded by encroaching McMansions, whose owners and future-builders want more land to build on and less swamp, appears to have been its death-knell.
That said, Frank is a feisty guy. He may very well figure out a way to close the big gates that have kept the swamp wet these past fifty years and recreate his own personal dreamscape.
Spent a fantastic weekend in Savannah, Georgia – where I’d never been before – watching the very best films out there today about whales-sharks & dolphins, a variety focused on David v. Goliath battles between oil/mining companies and indigenous fishermen and a few powerful tear-jerkers illustrating man’s inhumanity towards the sea and its creatures. After four days at the first-ever Blue Ocean Film Festival I couldn’t feel more enthused and committed and simultaneously evermore concerned about the issues facing the world’s ocean.
Accompanied by some of the leading lights in the ocean/environmental movement – Sylvia Earle, Celine and Fabien Cousteau, Carl Safina – it was incredible to spend a few days mingling with the choir and comparing notes about the state of the seas. While it would be easy to fall into a pessimistic chant – the ocean is warming, plastic in it is mounting, fish are disappearing faster than anyone could have predicted – it was heartening to hear just how hopeful and optimistic the gathering crowd could be. I think that optimism derives from a crowd that truly loves the ocean – truly – especially that feeling of diving into the blue whether hot or cold or simply standing on the beach staring for hours at a time at that thin line on the horizon where blue meets blue.
It was the first time I’d shown our just-finished TERRA ANTARCTICA, Rediscovering the Seventh Continent. Previously only a small handful of editors and friends had seen the finished, one-hour film about our 2008 expedition along the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. To show it was great on two levels: To see all that beautiful high definition video displayed at nearly life size on a giant screen and for the extremely complimentary comment afterwards.
With great serendipity, on its first screening the judges apparently regarded it one of the best. More than 200 films were entered into the festival’s competition and 50 were screened over the weekend. Only six were chosen to “compete” for the “best of festival” prize. TERRA was included on the short list, both a great honor and tremendous surprise.
That short list was prestigious and heavy: A $5.4 million IMAX film (“Wild Ocean”), Jean-Michel Cousteau’s most recent (“Call of the Killer Whale”), this year’s ‘Audience Favorite’ at Sundance (“The Cove”), a 21-time festival winner (“Saving Luna”) and one from the BBC and David Attenborough (“The Great Tide”). Plus, TERRA ANTARCTICA, a unique look at the health of Antarctica’s peninsula and its ice at a decidedly important moment in history.
In the end, “The Cove” was named “Best” overall; TERRA ANTARCTICA won the prize for best “Ocean Issues” film, a perfect fit. The definition of the category was “the film that most effectively raises awareness and increases understanding about environmental and sustainability issues facing the oceans and its inhabitants.”
Which is the most incredible honorific for my team and me; that is exactly our mission – to bring back stories about the health of the world’s ocean and the lives of people who depend on it. Period. While cliché, it was fantastic to be included in such high-end company and I encourage everyone to do anything they can to see “The Cove” and “Wild Ocean.” (Though my two personal faves of the festival? “Red Gold” and “Dugong and Din” ……). I’ll keep you posted as to when and where TERRA ANTARCTICA will show next.
Hello from Savannah, Georgia where we ‘premiered’ our new Antarctica film (TERRA ANTARCTICA, Rediscovering the Seventh Continent) last night at the brand new, very cool Blue Ocean Film Festival. It was the first time I’d seen all that beautiful high def video we shot along the Peninsula on a big screen and it looked … fantastic. Especially watching those ten-story icebergs roll.
By great coincidence the finalists for “Best of Festival” were announced last night and TERRA is on the short list, which is both a great honor and tremendous surprise.
The judges screened more than 200 films and are showing 50 this weekend. They chose six to compete for the “best of” prize and it’s a prestigious list: A $5 million IMAX film (“Wild Ocean”), Jean-Michel Cousteau’s most recent (“Call of the Killer Whale”), this year’s Sundance favorite (“The Cove”), a 21-time festival winner (“Saving Luna”) and one from the BBC’s Nature series (“The Great Tide”). Plus, TERRA ANTARCTICA ….
The winner is to be announced Saturday night, by none other than the queen of the deep, Sylvia Earle … (which is ironic since I have tickets that night to see Steve Earle, never imagining that our big, beautiful Antarctica film would make any kind of short list). So … stay tuned!
Watch the TERRA ANTARCTICA trailer.
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