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Drawn to the Sea.

Narration By: Claire Paris, Biological Oceanographer and Free Diver 

I have always been drawn to the sea. As a kid, I imagined the magic of the aquatic realm and found comfort underwater, mesmerized by the sounds of waves on the shoals and of my heart beat slowing down.
I am a biological oceanographer and a free diver. The ocean is where I push my mind and my body. I study the earliest days of a fish’s life, what we call its larval stage. All fish, even those that grow to become very large, begin their lives very small. They may be tiny, but we’ve learned they are far from defenseless. They are strong and self sufficient having evolved to survive the pelagic life.…

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IUCN- Planet at the Crossroads.

The IUCN World Conservation Congress 2016 kicked off two days ago in Honolulu and we can’t imagine a more auspicious occasion! Less than one week after President Obama announced the expansion of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument around the Hawaiian atolls as the world’s largest marine protected area, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) convenes its conference on the monument’s doorstep for the first time anywhere in the United States.
In a recent response to President Obama’s announcement of the expanded Hawaiian monument, Mission Blue Founder and National Geographic Society Explorer-in-Residence Dr. Sylvia Earle remarked:

Americans on this centennial anniversary are encouraged to “find your park” and enjoy these wonders that are the collective conscious of our nation. But with President Obama’s expansion of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument from 50 to 200 miles out from the Northern Hawaiian Islands, now the world’s largest marine protected area, history will remember this anniversary and next century as the “blue centennial”—the time when the national park idea was brought to the ocean.…

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Help us wish Dr. Sylvia Earle a happy birthday!

 
On August 30th, we celebrate Her Deepness Dr. Sylvia Earle’s birthday, and we’re excited to invite you to contribute to her gift! In honor of Dr. Earle, a Mission Blue board director has generously offered to help raise $100,000 for Mission Blue by matching your contributions dollar for dollar! 
Dr. Earle inspires us all with her youthful curiosity and enduring passion for the “blue heart of the planet.” She has truly dedicated her life to exploring and protecting the ocean and the miraculous creatures it sustains. What better gift could we give her than supporting her wish to explore and protect Hope Spots around the globe?
Please open your big blue heart and join us in wishing Sylvia Earle the happiest birthday ever!…

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Coral Reef Recovery in Fiji

By: Victor Bonito, Director, Reef Explorer Fiji

Over the last three years, coral reefs worldwide have suffered unprecedented damage to coral communities from abnormally warm seawater temperatures. When the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced the third global coral bleaching event in October 2015, shallow reef areas along Fiji’s Coral Coast had already experienced two back-to-back years of widespread coral bleaching. Before we received the depressing news about our local reefs, we decided to take action and incorporate lessons learned from previous bleaching events and seawater temperature monitoring efforts.
In late 2015, our  Reef Explorer project team and local youth clubs established five new coral nurseries across our local reefs. We stocked the nurseries with a good diversity of coral species propagated from numerous donor colonies that we suspected had good thermal (heat) tolerance due to their size and placement on the reef. …

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National Parks Were America’s Best Idea. Let’s Bring Them Underwater

Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument is now the world’s largest marine protected area. We can do more.
 
By Sylvia Earle
and John Bridgeland
 
PUBLISHED AUGUST 26, 2016 on National Geographic 

One hundred years ago, President Woodrow Wilson and Congress created the National Park Service to conserve areas of natural, cultural and historic importance and leave them “unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

Places like Yellowstone and Yosemite were already in federal protection, but in the next 100 years, America’s “best idea” would include 413 areas and more than 84 million acres of vast wilderness, scenic rivers, military battlefields, presidential homes and more. It was a radical idea to put large tracts of land into federal custody on the heels of the Industrial Age when almost nothing was untouched by development and our manifest destiny.…

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Taking the Pledge for One Less Straw

Mission Blue is proud to partner with One More Generation!

Did you know that in America, we are using an estimated 500,000,000 plastic straws every single day?  That is like 1.6 straws for every man, woman and child living in this country… every single day.  If you were to take an entire day’s worth of plastic straws we use in one day, it would fill up over 127 school busses.  That is like over 46,400 school buses full of one-time use plastic straws that are ending up in our landfills and waterways.  Sick isn’t it?
This inspired 13-year-old Olivia and her 15-year-old brother Carter to  launch the global “OneLessStraw Pledge Campaign” this fall.  Olivia and Carter realized reducing our plastic footprint could be very easy to do; we just need to say ‘NO‘ to single-use plastics such as straws.  …

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Giving warriors a cause. Giving a cause its warriors.

Mission Blue is proud to partner with FORCE BLUE.

FORCE BLUE is a new nonprofit 501(c)(3) initiative that seeks to unite the community of SOF combat veterans with the world of coral reef conservation for the betterment of both.  Through the creation of a military-style “Coral Reef Special Operations School,” FORCE BLUE gives former combat divers (Navy SEALs, Recon Marines, Army SF, etc.) a chance to experience and explore one of the most critically endangered ecosystems on the planet and to adapt their training and teamwork to aid in its protection.
Buoyancy. Belonging. Betterment.  Three words that represent what FORCE BLUE will deliver to each veteran who participates.  The tools to regain equilibrium; the ability to feel at home in an alien world, and proof that their skills and training can still make a positive difference.…

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Holistic Reef Replenishment on Tetiaroa

 
Coral reef ecosystems are among the most biologically diverse and complex marine ecosystems in the world. Corals provide a bio-calcified foundation that serves as habitat for multitudes of fish, invertebrates and algae, constituting a network of interacting species responsible for the overall health and functioning of the reef. Elimination or reduction of species due to global climate change, pollution, and/or unsustainable fishing practices upsets the intricate balance of biological interactions and endangers the resilience of the reef. Sadly, most coral reefs worldwide are experiencing some combination of stressors, with the result of loss of biodiversity, function, and ecosystem services that much of the world’s human population relies upon.
Restoration attempts of degraded reefs are complex and require restoring all components of a healthy reef community.…

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Industrialization of the Ocean

By Michael Stocker,  bioacoustician and founder of Ocean Conservation Research – a research and policy development organization focused on the impacts of anthropogenic noise on marine habitat. For more information on industrial noise see www.ocean-noise.com

While the specter of seabed mining is one of the more recent assaults on the ocean, it is a practice that falls under the longer-running and larger rubric of the industrialization of the sea.
The ocean is a difficult – even hostile work environment. The surface is only occasionally calm. Due to the darkness of depth and turbidity visibility is all but obscured. Salt water is corrosive; and as operations submerge ever deeper they are subject to crushing hydro-static pressures. But advances in materials, processes, and communication technologies are opening up vast areas of the sea that have heretofore been out of reach and un-tappable.…

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Second Century Stewardship in US National Parks

David Shaw, the founding chair of the Sargasso Sea Alliance (a Mission Blue partner) and conservation filmmaker, has recently released a documentary titled Second Century Stewardship: Science beyond the Scenery in Acadia National Park. The film has come out on the occasion of the historic 2016 centennial celebrations of Acadia National Park and the US National Park Service. Mr. Shaw serves as a Trustee of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National Park Foundation.

Second Century Stewardship is a hopeful, forward-looking film that examines what science-based stewardship looks like in Acadia and beyond in this second century of the national parks system. Mr. Shaw remarks, “This collaboration is intended to more powerfully engage science in America’s national parks to benefit park stewardship and to encourage public engagement in science through park experiences.”…

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