Marine Electronics
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Over 100 business leaders, marine scientists, ocean explorers and entertainers managed to pull together $16.7 million and a plan to increase the number of marine protected areas. The group will use the donations, which came primarily from the Planet Heritage Foundation and the Oak Foundation, for the implementation of an extensive eight part plan that was worked out at the Marine Blue Voyage community get-together.
That event, hosted on the National Geographic Endeavour in the Galapagos Islands by TED, attracted the likes of actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Chevy Chase, and sea explorer and filmmaker, Jean-Michel Cousteau, as well as many of the top marine scientists in the world. Additionally, 2009 TED prizewinner, Dr. Sylvia Earle, a renowned sea explorer and ocean advocate, also spoke.
TED, which is a nonprofit organization with the theme of Ideas Worth Spreading, sponsors the event as well as numerous events like it every year. At these events select groups of specialists and leading figures in the technology, entertainment and design worlds, are brought together to work out strategies and ideas for a common goal. These conferences, which have spread in popularity throughout the world, also come with a prize and wish. For 2009, the prize and wish went to Dr. Sylvia Earle. That prize not only included $100,000, but as is tradition with TED included her wish, which is to create a global network of marine protected areas.
The program that has been designed to fullfill Dr. Earle’s wish consists of an initiative with eight parts and a budget for each part. Of the $16.7 million raised, $8 million will be used to create a partnership to fund longer term projects, $3.25 million will be used for a public affairs campaign to end fishing subsidies, and another $1.1 million to work with the government of Bermuda to protect the Sargasso Sea. Besides the initial $1.1 million in expenditures for Sargasso, another $2.5 million in commitments were also gathered to protect the sea over the long-term.
Besides Bermuda, the group also focused on establishing protected marine zones in the Arctic and the Galapagos Islands. As part of a $500,000 budget, the group plans to establish a network of Arctic marine protected areas and an Arctic high seas science reserve. Another $1 million will be targeted towards the protection of the waters that surround the Galapagos Islands.
Also as part of the plan the organization plans to use $350,000 of the funds to create ocean oriented education programs for students. The group also has established a program to further the use of new technologies for ocean exploration and research, as well as to establish a pan-Pacific alliance. The goal of that alliance would be to link Pacific seascapes together.
The program comes at no better time. Not only is the technology here now to help protect the seas, but the marine and tourism industries now recognize that they need sound ocean management in order to ensure that their businesses will survive. According to TED, “many commercially exploited species of fish have declined by 90 percent; about half of the coral reefs have disappeared or experienced serous decline; hundreds of coastal “dead zones” have developed.” And despite it all, “Destructive deep sea mining activities are moving forward.”
With just 0.95 percent of the ocean categorized as Marine Protected Areas and of that only 0.08 percent classified as fully protected, the group’s contribution of money and time is expected to further accelerate awareness of ocean environmental and natural resource issues. Already TED, besides launching the Mission Blue organization with Dr. Earle, has also, released the first TED Talk from Mission Blue. Furthermore, for the coming months, TED has scheduled a series of twenty Mission Blue presentations on ocean issues. The first five of these films will be sponsored by Tiffany & Co. Foundation, an organization that has been active in coral and marine conservation.
