FROM "THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC" - OCTOBER 2010
MY BLUE WILDERNES
by Sylvia Earle
WHEN I FIRST VENTURED INTO THE GULF OF MEXICO IN THE 19505, THE
SEA appeared to be a blue infinity too large, too wild to be
harmed by anything that people could do. I explored powder white
beaches, dense marshes, mangrove forests, and miles of sea grass
meadows alive with pink sea urchins, tiny shrimps, and seahorses
half the size of my little finger. I learned to dive in
unexplored areas offshore from the many rivers that flow into the
Gulf, where jungles of crimson, green, and brown seaweed sprouted
from rocky limestone reefs. Under the canopy of golden forests of
drifting sargassum, I swam with a floating zoo of small
creatures: lacy brown sea slugs, juvenile jacks, and flying fish
no larger than dragonflies.
Diving into the cool water of Ichetucknee, Weeki Wachee, Wakulla,
and other inland springs, I glimpsed the honeycomb plumbing of
underground tunnels, sinkholes, shafts, caves, and disappearing
rivers that are common along the Gulf, all shaped from rock
formed from the bodies of ancient sea creatures with calcium
carbonate shells, skeletons, or cell walls. Bones of extinct
mammals are there too-creatures that lived long before the
arrival of humans. Ice ages have come and gone, with sea level
high enough at times to drown most of the Yucatan and Florida,
alternating with long stretches when both had more than double
the dry land present today - changes that took place over
millions of years (now that is wishfull think on the part of
evolutionists - Keith Hunt).
Then, in mere decades, not millennia, the blue wilderness of my
childhood disappeared: biologic change in the space of a
lifetime.
By the mid-1950s manatees were already scarce, and monk seals,
once common as far north as Galveston, were gone. By the end of
the 20th century, up to 90 percent of the sharks, tuna,
swordfish, marlins, groupers, turtles, whales, and many other
large creatures that prospered in the Gulf for millions of years
(very wrong, but evolution claims so) had been depleted by
overfishing. The coral reefs had declined by half, and hundreds
of miles of marshes, mangroves, and sea grass meadows were
replaced by houses and hotels, malls and marinas. Rivers that
once nourished the Gulf with vital nutrients now carried toxic
loads of pollutants, forming massive "dead zones:"
Mission Blue Partnership
In the face of urgent threats to the oceans, the National
Geographic Society, Waitt Family Foundation, Deep Search
Foundation, and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia
Earle and National Geographic Fellow Enric Sala have joined ranks
to establish Mission Blue, a new global initiative that seeks to
restore the health and productivity of the seas. One of its
signal goals will be to promote the creation of marine protected
areas in critical ecosystems from the Poles to the tropics.
Another aim will be to support solution-based research to reduce
overfishing while considering the loss of marine-based
livelihoods worldwide. "This effort is not only to inspire people
to care about the oceans, but also to inspire people to act,"
says Sala, who is a marine ecologist. "If we do something today,
we know we'll have an impact tomorrow." To learn how to support
this new campaign to save the seas, go to ocean.
In 2003 I found reasons for hope in clear, deep water far
offshore from the mouth of the Mississippi River. Through the
transparent dome of a one-person sub, I watched pale blue deepen
to shades of indigo as I descended into ebony darkness sparked
with bioluminescence - living light generated by a glowing
minestrone of thousands of small creatures startled by the sub's
passage. Nearing the bottom at 1,800 feet, I turned on the sub's
lights, illuminating a sofa-size tangle of pencil-thick tube
worms, each creature a century or so old and crowned with a rosy
fringe of tentacles. Their bodies were laced together with spaces
large enough to shelter hundreds of translucent shrimps, dozens
of pale crabs, several scorpionfish, and numerous red sea stars.
Gas bubbled in a steady stream from the middle of the mass, a
reminder that this thriving cold-water community was powered by
chemosynthetic bacteria using methane, the organic remains of
creatures that had lived in the sea 200 million years ago - not
sunlight - as a source of energy. Clearly, life in this part of
the Gulf was prospering.
Large areas of the Gulf have escaped being scraped by trawls,
crushed by more than 40,000 miles of pipelines, or displaced by
one of 50,000 oil and gas wells drilled since the middle of the
20th century. Some places have been deliberately protected.
Waters around the Florida Keys and the northern Gulf's Flower
Garden Banks are sanctuaries. A network of protected reefs
thrives off the coast of Veracruz, Mexico. Cuba also safeguards
portions of its northern coast.
As a child, I did not know that people could consciously protect
something as vast as the ocean nor that they could cause harm.
But now we know: The ocean is in trouble, and therefore so are
we. As biologist Edward O. Wilson has observed, "We are letting
nature slip through our fingers, and taking ourselves along."
Smothered in an avalanche of oil and poisoned by toxic
dispersants, the Gulf has become a sea of despair. Protecting
vital sources of renewal-unscathed marshes, healthy reefs, and
deep-sea gardens-will provide hope for the future of the Gulf,
and for all of us.
......
Sylvia Earle, author of "The World Is Blue: How Our Fate and the
Ocean's Are One," has led more than 100 expeditions as part of
her oceanographic research.
......
Note:
And the book of Revelation says we ain't seen nothing yet as to
what we shall do to the oceans, whether it be from us or a
direct miracle from God, as He brings us to our knees in deep
serious PREPENTANCE! The book of Revelation is horrific in its
forecast for the last 42 months of this age. All expounded to you
on this Website.
Keith Hunt
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