A Sea Change Gives New Insight to Ocean Acidification

Last night Howard Ferren and I had the pleasure of co-hosting, together with Alan Parks from the Alaska Marine Conservation Council (http://www.akmarine.org/) the Seward premiere of "A Sea Change" (http://www.aseachange.net/) a new award winning documentary about ocean acidification. The screening was held in the AVTEC theater and despite competition from City budget meetings (or perhaps because of same...), we attracted an excellent crowd of more than 70 people.

According to the film promoters, “A Sea Change is the first documentary about ocean acidification, directed by Barbara Ettinger and co-produced by Sven Huseby of Niijii Films. Chock full of scientific information, the feature-length film is also a beautiful paen to the ocean world and an intimate story of a Norwegian-American family whose heritage is bound up with the sea. A Sea Change is also a touching portrait of Sven’s relationship with his grandchild Elias. As Sven keeps a correspondence with the little boy, he mulls over the world that he is leaving for future generations. A disturbing and essential companion piece to An Inconvenient Truth, A Sea Change brings home the indisputable fact that our lifestyle is changing the earth, despite our rhetoric or wishful thinking".

I was struck by three things in the movie. First up, there was a big focus on Alaska and Alaskans who are at the forefront of this issue such as Dr Jeff Short (pictured in this excerpt photo) who is a member of our Science Advisory Council and Deborah Williams who led a series of climate change trainings for our staff and partners earlier this year. Secondly, it was evident that relatively few people know about this issue – a straw poll of folks at this premiere suggests that ocean acidification is a much less appreciated issue than climate change generally and yet equally as alarming. Finally, I was as pleased a punch that one of the key solutions promoted in the film is the same sea water heat pump technology that we have been promoting for 8 months (and which we made a presentation to the Denali Commission on just 2 days ago)!

In all a compelling film and one that we really ought to promote even more widely as this is an issue of huge concern to all Alaskans. Our next co-hosted event is slated for the Anchorage Museum at 7pm on November 12th – hope to see you there… or you can buy a copy online for $25 and host your own sea change event!

AZA 2009 - Day 3 reflections

Just back in Anchorage after a long day at the conference and then flying back home on the last plane out of Portland.  Day 3 of AZA was a great chance to engage substantively in sessions - I attended an excellent session on "Connecting Visitors to the Ocean Through Partnerships with Ocean Protected Areas" that featured the great work being done under the NOAA National Marine Sancturaries program.  These 14 'flagship' MPAs cover 150,0000 square miles (larger than the US National Park Estate) and have a major emphasis on working with others to promote ocean literacy.  They have begun some fascinating partnerships with aquariums and others on education activities as diverse as a ride simulator to explore undersea areas to a really neat "Sanctuary Sam" video program in CA - I have a swag of ideas to follow up on from that session.  Interestingly, there are no National Marine Sanctuaries in Alaska, although there are certainly significant areas and features that would qualify.

The next session I joined was focused on one of my pet subjects - evaluation. Titled 'Ready... Shoot... Score", this session featured great work being done in Cleveland and San Diego to better understand the visitor experience.  I picked up some great new tools including a much simpler survey form and some ideas for using new cell phone polling software - beware visitor services team!

During morning and lunch plenaries, we had the chance to hear about the diverse work being done under the AZA grants programs and to recognize some true champions in the national zoo and aquarium community.  My personal favorite was the replay of the best zoo and aquarium advertising videos for 2008-09!  Check out the hilarious Columbus Zoo No More #2 advert featuring Jack Hanna available on You Tube!

The final session of the day was our panel on Climate Change.  Working with the Monterey and New England Aquarius and the AZA, we bought together a  great panel to discus a "Common Framework for Climate Change Action by Zoos and Aquariums".  I moderated the panel and present a paper jointly with John Anderson from NEAq on CC training (a copy of the presentation is posted on the S drive under my folder).  The session focused on both follow up to the Aquariums and CC conference in Monterey that Ned and I joined last December and on the bigger question of how zoos and aquariums can work towards promoting greater public understanding of CC issues.  There are now proposals for new AZA working groups on this - stay tuned!

Overall - was the conference worth the time and $ invested?  I'd say a big yes for two reasons - (1) as my first AZA meeting this was an invaluable networking opportunity - the zoo and aquarium community is incredibly diverse and doing a lot of cool things that we don't hear much about otherwise - I really like the idea of expanding our horizons and learning from peers.  (2) there is a LOT of momentum in marine conservation and ocean literacy (as evidenced by the huge NOAA presence at this meeting) - being at this meeting gave me a much better sense of our current niche and possible directions. 
Bottom line... are we joining AZA?  Good question - its a complex process and would take a lot of effort - the payoff is, however, significant and so I'll be meeting with our SMT and Board to assess their appetite for this and with AZA staff when I am next in DC to further assess what is involved in the process.

AZA 2009 - Day Two Notes

Day 2 of AZA is a riot of activity and people! From an early morning breakfast to sort out session details with my co-presenters on climate change and aquaria the day quickly became a procession of meetings, presentations and information exchange. Like all good conferences its overload… but in a good way!
Jane Goodall’s presentation this morning was a superb reminder of the power of the zoo and aquarium community to influence people’s attitudes. Now 75, Dame Jane (she was just made a Dame of the British Empire by the Queen), recalled with great clarity her first visits to the London Zoo as a precocious 4 year old and how they shaped her thinking about animal intelligence. Going back there to work for a year before she began her famous chimp studies in 1960, she developed an empathy with great apes that has been the rudder of her career over the past half century (see http://www.janegoodall.org/). Her new book “Hope for Animals and Their World: How Endangered Species are Being Rescued from the Brink” expresses optimism for the future of wild species.
After the opoening session, I joined sessions on AZA Accreditation, the Coastal America Coastal Ecosystems Learning Center (CELC) Annual partnership meeting and a session on capacity building for aquarium staff – all of which have provided me with both excellent technical updates and a wide array of new contacts. It has been especially helpful to meet with AZA staff and the many Aquaria Directors who are natural partners of the ASLC such as Dr John Nightingale CEO of the Vancouver aquarium which was just admitted as a CELC partner institution.
Below are a random selection of photos from the large exhibition Hall – posters and commercial exhibits – I think the next time I come to one of these I’d better bring a bigger bag to carry home all the materials on offer – SMT members beware – your inboxes will be filling with ideas next week!

A cheap options for getting people around Seward? - electric with solar - runs 50 miles on a charge

Getting into invasives - lots of interest here in the issues we have begun to grapple with in AK.

Oregon Zoo Green Team is doing a great job promoting sustainability actions and principles - I got my green stamp today by committing to 10 of those practices while here - read them online at
www.oregonzoo.org/aza2009

An interesting analysis of AZA member mission statements with all the words compiled into a graphic and the relative size shows frequency of mention... a quick assessment showed me we had most of the key terms covered...

Finally.. lots of aquaria are using citizen science as a key tool for engaging members and the public in their research and conservation work.

AZA Conference 2009 - Day One

This week I’m attending my first AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquaria) Annual Conference – all 1600 delegates can tell this because on the bottom of my name tag in big gold letters is “First Time Attendee”… apparently that is to help me network, but I learned years ago at conferences that no one usually wants to talk to newbies and so we’ll see how effective that is!
Right below my name tag is another big green badge – “Speaker” – that is because the main reason I am here is to help present a session on Climate Change and Aquaria. That session is the culmination of a process that began last December when I joined Ned Smith to attend a climate change and aquaria summit at the Monterey Aquarium. Since then I have been actively involved in a range of follow up activities such as national webinars and various proposals to help the aquarium community deliver climate change information effectively – polling shows that aquaria are trusted sources of information on such subjects.
My other main reason for being here is to “suss out” AZA accreditation – the Alaska SeaLife Center has never sought AZA accreditation. Reasons for this are not fully clear, but relate to the fact that because of our research orientation, we are not like other aquaria and becasue of costs – apparently accreditation is a complex and cumbersome process. I want to leave Portland with a clear understanding of what is involved and whether the benefits outweigh the costs to the Center.
The conference program looks terrific – see http://www.azaconnect.com/connect/2009annualconf/ - I’m especially looking forward to Jane Goodall’s keynote address tomorrow and the various sessions on climate change and on how to develop more effective institutions. If anyone has a request for me to attend a specific session, please let me know. I just attended the Marine Mammal Technical Advisory Group Meeting at Carrie Goertz and Brett Long’s suggestion and immediately made some great connections – a lot of AZA folks know us and there is tremendous interest in the marine mammals of Alaska.
I’ll be adding daily blog updates, but thought you might enjoy seeing how Portland is positioning itself as a green city – from its terrific public transport light rail system (the Max – only $2.50 from the airport and free in downtown) to increasingly energy efficient urban design in the renewal areas, this city has a lot to offer us to think about.
Stay tuned!