Turn The Tide

Imaging Foundation presents "Sea Save", a discussion about current ocean challenges and what they are doing to "turn the tide". Imaging Foundation-Sea Save is one of the finalists in the “Chase Community Giving” Facebook contest. With enough votes, they will win $1 million to help protect our oceans! Please vote for Imaging Foundation in the Chase Community Giving contest between January 15th and 22nd.




Become a member of the Vote For The Imaging Foundation group on Facebook and receive a courtesy reminder on those important dates to get your vote in! This is such a great opportunity to DO SOMETHING productive, proactive and positive for our oceans. Please take the time to share this special call with your family and friends. Thank you everyone!!

Man Made Plankton

It has become commonplace that a walk on a beach involves careful footing around the morass of washed up trash. It’s obvious when you look at the growth on it that it’s been in the sea for a while; but how long, and where has it been?

There are 5 major gyres in the world, formed by the circling currents in the north and south Pacific and Atlantic, and the Indian Gyre. Trapped in these gyres is the trash that has found its way from wherever we left it to the ocean. Occasionally pieces find their way back to shore, but the majority of it just collects out in the “great garbage patch” in the ocean.

The effects of this are the topic of thousands of websites, articles, books, and movies. I’m only going to touch on one aspect; plankton. Plastic isn’t biodegradable, but that doesn’t mean that it stays ‘whole’. It eventually gets broken up into smaller and smaller pieces and mixes into the water column. Studies in the gyres have not only shown that there’s more plastic then plankton in the water, but that there’s as much as 6 to 10 times more plastic then plankton.

Add in the propensity of plastic to absorb harmful chemicals, you know have these little poison pills replacing the plankton in every swallow of a filter feeding animal. I can’t even begin to imagine how much plastic is sitting in the stomachs of the whales and filtering sharks of our oceans.

I urge you to search the web for “plastic gyre”, do some reading. Check out Addicted to Plastic. Read, Research, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

-Jeff

Conservation Attenuation

Attenuation is a wonderful word, it applies to a number of different fields, and has a litany of uses.

Attenuation in electronics is the reduction of signal strength due to destructive interference. Think of it as the overhead on a wire; the longer the wire, the more the signal is lost on the way to its destination.

Similar to the loss of signal strength in electronics, I found attenuation to be a great term to reflect what I watch occurring in the shark conservation world. There is so much bickering and infighting, so much concern on what the others are doing, that the message is getting lost. Too much time and energy is being spent micromanaging each other, looking through a microscope to try and find what someone else is doing wrong, that we lose the signal on what good is being done.

Attenuation in biology is to make thinner, weaker, less virulent. While the reasons behind it are complicated and can be attributed to so many different aspects, the fact of the matter is that attenuation is occurring to the shark populations throughout the world. The harvesting of our world’s shark is not being done at a sustainable pace, and the clock isn’t stopping for us to bicker among each other.

No one is going to be completely 100% on the same page as another, and this is not a bad thing. Innovation doesn’t occur when everyone is doing the same thing, with the same motives. It takes the collective innovation of many minds for solutions and answers to form out of the spray.

You can waste your time fighting about the differences between each of us, and focus on discrediting others’ methods, but what exactly does that do for the greater good? If you look past the differences, sweep the parts you don’t necessarily agree with out of your mind and instead focus on the strengths that each bring to the table, we can feed off each other for the betterment of the world.

Attenuation in oceanography is the dwindling of light through the water column to its gradual extinction at depth. I’m not even going to bother running the parallels I see with that definition. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. However this prophecy is something we have control over, we can turn around, or stop. But it takes our collective minds to find the answers, since there won’t just be one simple epiphany; change will be needed from so many different places. We will need to tap into each one of our unique backgrounds and personal motivations, rather than focusing on discrediting each other; this is the only way we will be able to band together and form a united front for the benefit of all.

-Jeff

Below The Waves

"My heart belongs to the ocean, my soul calls out to the sea."

Below The Waves from Amanda Cotton on Vimeo.

Imagery from U/W photographer, Amanda Cotton. Visit www.acottonphoto.com to learn more about what you can do to help protect our oceans.

50 Ways To Save the Ocean

"One world and that world's blue."

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Can a blog change the way you view the world? Possibly...

Invisible People

Beth's Story from TakePart on Vimeo.

Appointment to Oceanic Defense Advisory Board

It is quite an honor to announce Oceanic Defense's new Advisory Board; Annie Crawley, Amanda Cotton, Bill Bushing Ph.D., Mike Dunmyer, Peter Kater, Shaun Monson and Wallace J. Nichols Ph.D.

"Oceanic Defense is a worldwide nonprofit organization with membership in over 60 countries, spanning 6 continents with 1 mission: Healthy aquatic ecosystems free from human abuse and neglect. Whether you are new to conservation or a seasoned environmental eco-warrior we have programs that empower our membership to do incredible things and make a personal commitment to our water planet.

The aquatic environments we strive to protect are comprised of a diverse, interconnected system of unique organisms each playing an integral part in its overall function. Healthy aquatic ecosystems function as a whole -- at first glance it is not always evident how interconnected our underwater environment truly is, yet each and every different and unique component serves a vital role.

We have taken the same philosophical approach when considering Oceanic Defense's advisory board members. We are forming a group as diverse as the ocean and the many challenges we face in working to protect it." -Oceanic Defense