Honoring Senator John Kerry's Contributions to Coastal Stewardship

I had the privilege last night to participate in the Coastal America Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership (CWRP) 10th Anniversary Celebration during which the Senator John H. Chafee Coastal Stewardship Award was presented to Senator John Kerry. 

Senator Kerry has been a true oceans champion and sponsored many important pieces of legislation related to coastal and ocean management, including the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the National Sea Grant College Program Act.  He has also been a long term supporter of the Coastal America program (http://www.coastalamerica.gov/).  In 1996, he led the designation of the New England Aquarium as the first National Coastal Ecosystem Learning Center (CELC) -- there are now 23 such Centers around the country and the Alaska SeaLife Center is playing a key role in that network.  Next year will be the 15th anniversary of the CELC network and the 20th Anniversary of the Coastal America program.

It was a truly inspirational event and I greatly enjoyed hearing from such ocean leaders as Leon Panetta, the first recipient of the Chafee Award and now CIA Director, Dr Larry Robinson, Assitant Secretary  for Oceans and Atmosphere in the Dept. of Commerce, Virginia Tippie, Director of Coastal America and Pat Hester from Spectra Energy who is Chair of the CWRP. 

Events like this are a tremendous oportunity to reflect on both the difference that committed leaders can make and of the importance of persistence!  US coastal and ocean policy has been a 'work in progress' for a long time.  In order to understand why things are the way they are and where the proposed new ocean policy (see http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ceq/initiatives/oceans/interimreport) is heading (and why), it is helpful to hear directly from the people involved.  I'll share some more observations on that with staff when I get back home to Alaska.

Promoting Awareness Through Art... out of sight?

This week Howard Ferren, our Director of Conservation at the Alaska SeaLife Center, working in partnership with the Ocean Alaska Science and Learning Center of the National Park Service and with the Anchorage Museum, is hosting acclaimed artist, Prof. Pam Longobardi. Prof. Longobardi has worked with a wide range of media throughout her remarkable career, but in recent years has focused special attention on art from marine debris.  She is currently Professor of Art at Georgia State University and lives in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Over the past few years, she has created the Drifters Project, http://www.driftwebs.com/, an ongoing collaborative interdisciplinary project focusing on marine debris and plastics pollution.  The products of that work are fascinating and provocative as the image below indicates.

From: http://www.pamlongobardi.com/

Prof. Longobardi gave the first of two scheduled Alaska public lectures on her work last night at the Anchorage Museum.  The audience was enthralled with  her creative use of a wide range of media and her passion for drawing attention to the increasingly serious issue of ocean pollution by plastics.  Her next lecture is scheduled for 6pm this coming Thursday night here at the SeaLife Center and I encourage all with an interest in the future health of our oceans to attend and view her presentation and share in her goal of inspiring greater awareness of the impact of our lifestyle and consumption choices.

She demonstrates very effectively that marine debris is far more widespread than most of us imagine and that it has a dramatic impact on marine life - the image she shared of dozens of dead albatross chicks killed by discarded cigarette lighters and other drifting plastic waste will stay with me for the rest of my life.... that is a testament to the power of her art.

At this time of such widespread public concern for the future of our oceans associated with the bp well blowout and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I fear that too much attention will be focused on short term responses.  Prof Longobardi's work is a timely reminder that our oceans are under assault from many sources and that it would be wise to take a much bigger picture and long term view of how we treat our ocean systems.

Out of sight should no longer equate to out of mind

World Ocean Day - a Day to Reflect and Recommit

Banner from the Ocean Project Site - http://www.theoceanproject.org/wod/

What a year to celebrate World Ocean Day - with an unprecedented and still uncontrolled oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico focusing public and political attention on marine ecosystems, suddenly the work that we do has a renewed sense of relevance and value!

This week I am in DC participating in the 10th annual Capitol Hill Ocean Week (CHOW) - the Alaska SeaLife Center is actively supporting the event.  The theme for CHOW is ocean energy - as all speakers to date have noted, that theme was selected a year in advance but is particularly prescient in view of the Deepwater Horizon blowout and spill, now at Day 50! 

I started the morning with a depressing, but helpful breakfast briefing organized by AZA on the impact of the spill on wildlife - our colleagues Dr Joe Smith at the Fort Wayne Childrens Zoo and John Hewitt at the Audubon Aquarium in New Orleans gave a riveting report from the frontline.  So far more than 1,000 seabirds and > 50 turtles and some 8 dolphins have been "processed".  The challenges of their work had an eery resemblance to the stories that I have heard from Pam Tuomi and others involved in the Exxon Valdez response.  Clearly, there is a lack of preparedness to respond adequately to disasters of this magnitude, despite the vast intellectual capital and amazing support provided by all members of the national strandings response and aquarium communities.

I left the briefing wondering about the future for the Gulf and what we must do in Alaska to be better prepared for a future that will likely continue to involve oil production for the best part of this century.  Even when the blowout has been shut down and the promised Gulf of Mexico restoration work underway, I can't help but wonder whether we are really committed to the long term energy reform that is esential if future spills like this one,  Exxon Valdez and the many others that preceded it are to be avoided.

It was therefore most encouraging to hear, later in the morning, Interior Secretrary Ken Salazar speak about how marine, energy and climate policy intersect - he took the opportunity to launch a new Federal partnership with 10 Atlantic States to develop a new program on reneweable energy.  I applauded his leadership, but wondered if that change will happen fast enough and at a level that makes a fundamental difference.

On this Ocean Day 2010, I hope that all of us recommit to doing all that we can to ensure the health of our global ocean that makes possible life on this planet (note that in the context of this special day it is a single ocean).  What more can the Alaska SeaLife Center do to help Alaska be better prepared to deal with oil and other threats to our oceans?  What more can we do to work more closely with industry and communities to promote a greater level of ocean stewardship?  What more can we do to demonstrate leadership in use of renewable energy?