WORLD OCEAN journal

World Ocean Observatory Volume Two, No. 1, 2015

VOLUME TWO

ISLANDS On the Cover:

Namenalala Island at the heart of the Namena Marine Reserve, Koro Sea, Kubulau, Fiji. In This Issue The Namena Marine Protected Area (MPA) is located between the two main islands of Fiji: Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. Villagers of 4 Contributors the Kubulau District on Vanua Levu own the traditional fishing rights of the Namena 5 Ocean Log Barrier Reef. After witnessing first-hand the increased threats imposed by commercial by Peter Neill fishing in the 80s and 90s, the chiefs of Palau at the United Nations Kubulau imposed a complete ban on all 7 fishing activity, thereby creating the Namena Keynote Address: President Tommy Remengesau MPA. The area encompassed the entire reef at the United Nations Healthy Oceans Forum surrounding Namenalala Island, a key area of Ocean Solutions marine biodiversity. Scientists have confirmed 10 that the area is home to more than 1,000 The Ocean Has a Recycling Problem: species of invertebrates, 400 known corals, and UNESCO Garbage Patch State by Ghislaine Maxwell 445 documented marine plants. From dive- 16 Ocean Review the-world.com. Judith Schalansky’s Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Credit: Stacy Jupiter, Wildlife Conservation Never Set Foot on and Never Will. Reviewed by Lincoln Paine Society, 2008, Marine Photobank. 24 Ocean Views Thinking Like an Island by Peter Neill 28 Ocean Innovations Can Man-Made Floating Islands Save the Ocean? This Page: The SeaSteading Floating City Project by Joe Quirk The Cocos (Keeling) Islands from space. The 34 Ocean Portfolio Cocos Islands are in the eastern Indian Ocean, Fogo Arts: Residency-Based Contemporary Art from Fogo northwest of Australia. Comprised of coral Island, Newfoundland, Canada atolls and islands, the archipelago includes North Keeling Island and Horsburg Island. 40 Ocean Solutions

Using the Ocean Without Using it Up. The Blue Halo Credit: Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon for the NASA Earth Observatory. Initiative is Developing a Plan to Manage the Waters Around Barbuda For This and Future Generations. 46 Ocean Commonplace No Man Is An Island. Lewis Pugh, Extreme Swimmer, Environmental Advocate.

Volume two, 2015 3 ,

Contributors Editor’s Log World Ocean Journal NISSOLOGY Blue Halo initiative Peter Neill lewis pugh volume Two, 2015 The Study of Islands by Peter Neill

Islands are at the forefront of changing efforts to recycle and reduce EDitor oceans – extreme weather, temperature, the devastating impact of such Peter Neill sea level rise, and more – and they irresponsible and useless discard on The Waitt Institute aims to empower Peter Neill has devoted his career to marine Lewis Pugh, a maritime lawyer, is the provide visceral evidence of climate marine life great and small. What communities to restore their ocean by only person to have completed a long- affairs and education. He has written consequence and wisdom for us to live follows is somewhat less conventional: partnering with island governments numerous articles and books on maritime distance swim in every ocean. Recently he Design & Production to envision, design, and implement history and art. He is Founder and Director undertook a series of swims in Antarctica by. Nissology is a formal area of study Lincoln Paine’s review of The Atlas of comprehensive, sustainable ocean policies of World Ocean Observatory and host of to campaign for the Ross Sea to be set Trisha Badger and action with a nation-state political Remote Islands by Judith Schalanksy, based on science driven by community World Ocean Radio. aside as a Marine Protected Area. alliance: Alliance of Small Island States; reflections on the history of 50 islands priorities. @TheW2O @LewisPugh a sustainable development action the author has “never set foot on and network: Small Island Developing never will,” followed by my short essay FOGO ISLAND ARTS lincoln paine Joe Quirk World Ocean Journal is States (SIDS); the International Small on Thinking Like an Island, which a publication of the World Ocean Islands Studies Association; research offers observations on islands as a state publications: Shima, the Journal of of mind, set apart in space and time. Observatory, a not-for-profit Island Cultures, and Island Studies organization based in coastal Maine. Journal; an academic conference: In Ocean Innovations we look to

World Ocean Journal is a digital Islands of the World; a web-based Seasteading, the creation of modern magazine on ocean culture and A residency-based contemporary art venue The author ofThe Sea and Civilization: A information source: Global Islands floating communities engineered and Joe Quirk is a “Seavangelist” at the solutions to today’s ocean issues. Each located off the coast of Newfoundland , Maritime History of the World, Lincoln Seasteading Institute. He is a science Network; a UNESCO-based regional socially designed to exist in the ocean Canada. Artists-in-residence come to the Paine lives in Portland, Maine. A trustee writer, novelist, and ghostwriter with volume includes essays, interviews, art, program: Small Island Voices; several alongshore as independent and self- island to do research; selected artists are of the Maine Maritime Museum, he can be a bestselling book in each category. He exhibits, and performances profiling institutes: Island Studies, Island sustaining entities that incorporate the invited to present their work in exhibitions found online at LincolnPaine.com. has also written an educational book for the vital impacts of the ocean on our Institute, and Scottish Center for Island advantages and values of successful at the Fogo Island Gallery. @FogoIslandArts @LincolnPaine young adults about marine mammals. lives. This and future editions focus on Studies; and many other academic island living. In Ocean Portfolio we @Seasteading a particular theme. programs and regional affiliations celebrate the work of two visual artists- ayana elizabeth johnson Tommy Esang Remengesau devoted to serious examination of the in-residence at Fogo Island Arts in the terramar project histories and traditions, merits and Newfoundland, Canada, whose work World Ocean Observatory demerits particular to island life. isn representative of the resourcefulness is a major utility for ocean andI creativity of Fogo Islanders, communication as a means to advance Volume Two of the World Ocean which provide a framework for the public awareness and political will, and Journal evokes islands in many forms, organization’s activities. Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine President Tommy Esang Remengesau, biologist and Executive Director of the is dedicated to providing information not always predictable. We begin at the Jr., is the 8th President of the Republic of Similar to the World Ocean Observatory, Waitt Institute. She is dedicated to ensuring United Nations with a Keynote Address This volume offers a secondOcean Palau. He helped lead Palau’s transition to The TerraMar Project is a nonprofit and education about the health of healthy ecosystems and sustainable seafood an independent country in 1994. President ocean organization dedicated to building the ocean. It is our belief that the sea to the September 2014 Healthy Oceans Solution: the Blue Halo Initiative, a for those who rely on the ocean for nutrition, Remengesau and his wife Debbie have four a global community of ocean advocates and Seas Forum by Thomas (Tommy) scaleable project which is empowing livelihoods, and culture. @Ayanaeliza connects all things. children and two grandchildren. empowered to speak up for the ocean. Esang Remengesau, Jr., President of Barbudans to restore their coastal

They are using the power of their the Republic of Palau, a nation that waters by developing a sustainable ghislaine maxwell judith schalansky community to advocate for a strong has relentlessly advocated for all island coastal policy which supports ocean-specific Sustainable Development nations through its Ambassador coastal livelihoods while building Goal at the United Nations, ensuring and policy efforts at the UN, and at sustainable, healthy ecosystems. And prominent placement for the oceans in the UN’s post-2015 agenda. major conferences on sustainable finally, through the poetry of John @TerraMarProject Copyright © 2015 by the World Ocean development, climate, and ocean issues Donne, we look to the individual as Observatory. All rights reserved. worldwide. an island, both as entire of itself and Founder and President of The TerraMar Judith Schalansky, born in Greifswald, Reproduction of articles online or as part of the main – Lewis Pugh, Project, Ghislaine has enjoyed a lifelong Germany published her debut novel, Blau love and appreciation for the ocean. She in print is prohibited without first In Ocean Solutions we look at the swimming alone in the cold Antarctic steht dir nicht, in 2008. She is the author of astonishing floating aggregation of waters as a powerful statement, not is a successful businesswoman, holds a obtaining written permission. Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have plastic, the island of waste known of diminishment, but of the essential BA/MA from Oxford University, and is a Never Set Foot On and Never Will which is qualified EMT, helicopter and deep worker reviewed in this volume. around the world as “the Great Pacific implication of the ocean for the submersible pilot. Garbage Patch,” and international survival of all mankind. WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 4 Volume two, 2015 5

Small island developing states The Story of Palau Keynote Address of President Remengesau at the Healthy Oceans Forum United Nations, September 26, 2014

PRESIDENT REMENGESAU: Earlier this year, in February, Palau and Italy co-hosted the first Healthy Oceans and Seas Forum here at the United Nations. At that historic meeting in the ECOSOC Chamber, I called upon the international community to join the Pacific Small Island Developing States in adopting a Stand Alone Sustainable Development Goal on Healthy and Resilient Oceans.

I am much honored to stand before you, six months later, at the second Healthy Oceans Event, again with Italy as co-host, and this time joined by Monaco, for generations a true champion of the oceans. I like to think that his Serene Highness Prince Albert II was influenced in his decision to help by the Thomas (Tommy) Esang Remengesau, Jr, President of the Republic of Palau, delivering memorable time he and I and our the keynote address to the General Assembly of the United Nations Healthy Oceans families had last year, diving in Forum. New York, New York. September 26, 2014. Palau. Credit: Staff Image, UN General Assembly

Where, only a year ago, just a handful of countries called for a Stand Alone Oceans Goal I humbly thank the nations of issue is still in doubt. There are in their General Assembly the world for hearing the voice strong voices for a reduction in the remarks, now we stand here with of the islands. Even landlocked number of goals, now 17, and for a over eighty countries in vocal countries have stepped forth in consolidation of goals under fewer support and a Working Group their solidarity with a growing headings. To this I say no, and Report to the General Assembly movement which recognizes that repeat the unanimous support for which recommends just such a all of us who breathe and eat are a Stand Alone Goal of the Pacific transformative goal. We are on the reliant on the oceans for our very leaders who recently adopted the brink of paradigm shift in oceans survival. Palau Declaration. governance. Perhaps the free-for- all is coming to an end. And not a We cannot be complacent. While We agree with the Global Ocean moment too soon. our supporters are many, the Commission which, in its recent,

WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 6 Volume two, 2015 7 Palau’s Wooden Seal Palau’s Rock Islands from the Palau Mission to the UN Image Credit: Patrick Colins

Palauan man blowing conch shell. Image Credit: Gunther Deichmann | gdeichmann.photoshelter.com authoritative report, argued that generations, Palau’s Council of met our Micronesian Challenge will be discussed here today by my countries; partnerships with stages in the development of our “A Stand Alone SDG on ocean Chiefs has preserved marine Commitment to effectively protect esteemed colleagues from all points enlightened non-government nationwide marine sanctuary. It sustainability would provide the resources by placing vulnerable 30% of our near shore and coastal of the globe, are an integral and actors; and partnerships with is with this kind of early support kind of focused and accountable reef areas off limits to fishing. This marine environment and 20% of necessary part of our larger effort international funding agencies. that Palau, now not just one small attention that the ocean needs, and traditional conservation method our forests by 2020. to ensure a sustainable fisheries Only through these strong island nation but as member of a help put the ocean front and center known as a “bul” preserved the economy in our region, and partnerships will we be able to meet community of leading nations like in the post-2015 development livelihoods and food security of We have also created the world’s ultimately, the regeneration of all of the challenges of a Stand Alone those here today, determined to a g e n d a”. the Palauan people in a simpler first shark sanctuary, prohibited the the fish stocks in the world. Sustainable Development Goal on regenerate are our oceans for the time. However, the modern taking of sharks, certain reef fish, Oceans, and the underlying work to benefit of future generations. Our meeting today is designed leadership of Palau has come to turtles, rays and marine mammals. Ladies and gentlemen, earlier be done to regenerate and clean up to help pave the way to that goal. understand that the “bul” is no this month it was my honor to those oceans. I look forward to exchanging ideas Let us not waiver. Let us not be longer a sufficient response to Finally, we are in the process address the leader’s meeting of with you today. complacent. I suggest to you that the growing outside pressures of declaring the Palau National the Pacific Islands Forum, as the In that regard, and coming this opportunity will not come on the environment caused by Marine Sanctuary, which will ban Chair of that important regional so close upon the heels of the Thank you. again. modernization, overpopulation industrial fishing nationwide, while body was transferred to Palau successful Samoa conference, it and industrialization. That is why combining a massive no-take zone from the Republic of the Marshall is my pleasure to announce that The other theme of my remarks Palau, over the past decade, has and a smaller highly regulated area Islands. At that time, I observed one such bedrock partnership has at our last Forum was our focused on mobilizing modern for domestic fishing needs. We ask that the key to this entire process just been formed. Italy has agreed determination in Palau to protect mechanisms to meet its needs and that you support this protected area of building a sustainable future to become the first country in the Reprinted in partnership with our ocean by ourselves, until the ensure a sustainable future. For and recognize that ocean protected will be partnership: partnerships world to support with a significant The Terramar Project. Online at world agrees to come along. For example, we have declared and areas, like many of those which between developing and developed financial contribution the early TheTerramarProject.org.

WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 8 Volume two, 2015 9 OCEAN solutions With so much plastic entering the According to the Environmental disappearing act is ingestion ocean, why isn’t this a better-known Protection Agency, plastic bottles by marine creatures, which is UNESCO Garbage patch state problem? take 450 years to decompose, supported by a Greenpeace study and other plastic products take posted to the United Nations UNESCO Recognizes the Ocean’s Recycling Problem as a State The ocean comprises 361 million varying amounts of time from 50 Environment Programme website 7 by Ghislaine Maxwell. Image Credit: The Garbage Patch State. square kilometers, or 71% of the years to 600. Therefore, the vast which reveals up to 80% of sea Earth’s surface. That is a huge area majority of plastic products ever turtle and sea bird species have 8 and the Global Ocean Commission, produced are still in existence consumed plastic. Could plastic an ocean advocacy group today. Over time, these items break make its way up the food chain to The ocean has a recycling problem. and when researchers published World of Jacques Cousteau was comprised of former heads of state down into smaller pieces from the very apex—humans? According their findings in the journal still airing on television, and and senior government officials in the beating they take from the to a study published in Nature in At age 8 I was glued to the PLOS ONE after years of data consumption patterns have addition to business leaders, cites elements in a process called photo- 2013 investigating the transfer television watching Jacques collection and lifetimes of personal dramatically changed since then. only 15% of plastic stays on the degradation and become known as of harmful plastic chemicals to 1 surface. It’s hard enough to find the microplastics, which look a lot like the fish that ingested them, the Cousteau highlight the mysterious experience, people were shocked. Hardly anythingt can be purchased 9 beauty of the sea. The ocean today without plastic involved in plastic hiding in plain sight, but the phytoplankton to fish. alarming answer is yes. became my passion. I began At least 269,000 tons of plastic the packaging, casing, transport, or vast majority requires scuba tanks collecting shells, learned to scuba, are floating in the sea, numbering product itself. In fact, it’s difficult to or submersibles to see. One theory for plastic’s Another possibility for the missing fly helicopters, and ultimately how more than 5.25 trillion particles. picture a time during the day when to pilot a deep-sea submersible—all Grist characterized the amount one isn’t interacting with plastic. to continue exploring the ocean. as the equivalent of 2,150 adult 2 The general public thinks of the blue whales. MIT compared it Fortunately, a new study released ocean as the same healthy vibrant to 38,000 African elephants, and in early 2015 in the publication home teaming with fish, big and Dr. Manus Erikson, co-founder of Science provided updated figures to small, and gorgeous colorful corals the 5Gyres Foundation and one estimate the mass of annual plastic 5 as it did when Jacques revealed it of the researchers responsible for inflow to the ocean. According to to the world. However, much of the the study, compared it to stacking the abstract, this was estimated by: damage to the ocean is not visible 2-liter soda bottles end-over-end to “Linking worldwide data on solid 3 to the naked eye and is occurring the moon and back—twice. waste, population density, and below the surface or over the economic status.” Using the same horizon. The unfortunate reality At the time this study was released, 275 million MT of plastic produced is the ocean has become tragically many in the ocean conservation globally in 2010, the new estimates polluted, many species of fish in community were surprised by the range from 4.8 to 12.7 million MT huge decline from overfishing, figure. A regularly cited study from flowing into the ocean annually, corals suffering cataclysmic damage the National Academy of Sciences with a mean of 8.8 million MT. from a heating, acidifying ocean in 1975 estimated the flow of plastic and bottom trawling, tens of into the ocean to be .1% of global That’s just for 2010. According to 4 thousands of miles of the ocean production of plastic. In 2010 alone a press release for the study, “The covered with trash, and dead zones we produced 275 million metric NCEAS (University of California at proliferating from humanity’s tons (MT) of plastic, so the amount Santa Barbara National Center for runoff into the seas. that flowed into the ocean that year Ecological Analysis and Synthesis) should have been roughly 275,000 working group forecasts that the At the end of 2014, a study made MT, just about the same amount as cumulative impact to the oceans headlines in nearly every major recently discovered floating on the could be as high as 155 million news outlet when it revealed the surface by the study. metric tons by 2025. However, the stunning amount of plastic floating planet will not reach global “peak in the world’s oceans. Many did But this National Academy of waste” before 2100, according to 6 The Garbage Patch State installation on display at the not realize how endemic the plastic Sciences study was published four World Bank calculations.” United Nations in New York. pollution in the ocean had become, decades ago, while the Undersea

WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 10 Volume two, 2015 11 but it is far more, it is an invitation almost invisible and make it simple to go further, to understand the to grasp and bring it out into the world we live in.” open. To provide a direction for good behavior.” “This is a world under increasing pressure. From unsustainable By turning this message into behaviors from unrestrained forms art, the Garbage Patch State’s of development. The ocean carries approach is simply brilliant. In much of the burden.” the installation for UNESCO, Ms. Finucci arranged the art in front A federation of five “garbage of a mirror, which obliged the patches” created by the great ocean viewer to see him or herself as they gyres of the world, the Garbage gazed upon the plastic debris… A Patch State has its own constitution powerful message indeed. and flag and with this official status from UNESCO, it is bringing Although the population of the the issue of plastic pollution and Garbage Patch State is officially marine debris out of the obscurity zero, there are millions of casualties of the ocean depths to the forefront every year. Sea birds, sea turtles, A sign for the Garbage Patch State installation in Madrid, Spain. on the biggest stages in the world. marine mammals and fish—nearly all marine creatures feel the impact During the 2013 Venice Art of marine debris. There are also Biennale, the Garbage Patch State few safe refuges from the insidious had a national pavilion sponsored grips of plastic pollution, as even plastic is the deep seabed. A the Garbage Patch State was by the Italian Ministry of the the most remote beaches have recently published study in Royal symbolically recognized by the Environment and Protection become de facto dumps as a result Society Open Science sampled United Nations Educational, of Land and Sea hosted by Ca’ of their exposure to prevailing deep-water corals and sediments Scientific, and Cultural Foscari University of Venice. In winds and currents. to depths up to 3,500 meters, Organization (UNESCO) during an one of the most internationally with the majority of samples official ceremony in Paris on April acclaimed venues, the Garbage All is not lost. 10 taken at the 1,000-meter range. 11, 2013. Patch State highlighted the ocean’s Microplastics were abundant in all recycling problem with a pavilion As bleak as the future may seem, coral and sediment samples, but “Art is the bridge between the ‘real’ composed of a tragically beautiful organizations like the Garbage due to the small sample size, global and the ‘ideal,’” said the Director- flood of colored plastic bottle caps Patch State show there is hope. estimations could be made. It can General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, harnessed by red nets pouring From edible algae-based packaging During the 2013 Venice Art Biennale, the Garbage Patch State be inferred, however, that plastics during the Garbage Patch State’s towards the Grand Canal. To to innovations in recycling 11 created a flood of colored plastic bottle caps harnessed by red nets are impacting even the deepest recognition ceremony, “This is further highlight the plight of the and processing, every day sees pouring towards the Grand Canal. marine habitats. what makes art such a powerful ocean, the Garbage Patch State new solutions to this global force – it exposes the gap between immersed their audience in two epidemic and substitutes to the Out of sight, out of mind. the ‘real’ and ‘ideal,’ it reveals our different cubes featuring 360-degree most common uses for plastic. strengths and weaknesses and it videos of the overwhelming issue. UNESCO’s symbolic recognition It’s incumbent upon everyone to will accept, refusing plastic Fortunately, organizations such as mobilizes us to act. The installation of the Garbage Patch State shows do their part. A few examples of straws in restaurants as they are the Garbage Patch State are shining by Ms. Maria Cristina Finucci has “Behind every piece of plastic in the support of these endeavors at small changes in personal behavior almost never recycled, and urging a spotlight on the issue of plastic all this power. the Garbage Patch State there is a the highest levels of government, that could have a profound impact lawmakers to take proactive pollution, creating history in the story,” says Ms. Finucci. “Someone and each municipality that bans across a community include measures against plastic waste. process. “Bags filled with water and plastic made it, someone threw it away, a single-use plastic bags, Styrofoam using recycled multiple use bags, pieces, laid on the floor, reflected by system failed to properly recover packaging, and plastic bottles is a purchasing items at the grocery A personal commitment to Started by the world-renowned a mirrored wall. The combination it before it was too late. My intent step in the right direction. store that local recycling centers preventing plastic pollution can artist Maria Cristina Finucci, of shapes and colors is appealing – is to take something complex and

WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 12 Volume two, 2015 13 Maria Cristina Finucci is a trained architect and artist whose The Garbage Patch State National Pavilion immersed their audience research has encompassed painting, The Garbage Patch State arranged their installation at UNESCO’s in two cubes featuring 360-degree videos of the overwhelming issue of Paris office in front of a mirror 30 meters long, obliging the viewers to sculpture, architecture, design, plastic pollution in the at the 2013 Venice Art Biennale. see themselves as they gazed upon the plastic debris. video, and film. Her work and experiences synthesized into the 4 transmedia series Wasteland which Works cited National Academy of Sciences (1975) www.unep.org/regionalseas/marinelitter/ Assessing Potential Ocean Pollutants: A Report publications/docs/plastic_ocean_report.pdf. comprises all the actions connected of the Study Panel on Assessing Potential 9 replacing the expiring Millennium Chelsea M. Rochman, Eunha Hoh, go a long way; the fate of the to the Garbage Patch State. 1 Ocean Pollutants to the Ocean Affairs Board Marcus Eriksen, Laurent C. M. Lebreton, Tomofumi Kurobe, and Swee J. The. “Ingested ocean is in our collective hands. Development Goals, which united (National Research Council, Washington, DC). Henry S. Carson, Martin Thiel, Charles J. plastic transfers hazardous chemicals to http://www.pnas.org/content/111/28/10239. Also becoming part of the largest public policy and funding with To see more of Maria Cristina Moore, Jose C. Borrero, Francois Galgani, fish and induces hepatic stress.” Nature full#ref-23 growing ocean community based private philanthropy and passion Finucci’s incredible work and learn Peter G. Ryan, and Julia Reisser. “Plastic (November 21, 2013); http://www.nature.com/ 5 around our joint ownership of our in unprecedented ways to move the more about plastic pollution, visit Pollution in the World’s Oceans: More than 5 Jenna R. Jambeck, Roland Geyer, Chris srep/2013/131121/srep03263/full/srep03263. Trillion Plastic Pieces Weighing over 250,000 html#close global commons – the High Seas, needle on such issues as extreme the Garbage Patch State online at: Wilcox, Theodore R. Siegler, Miriam Perryman, Tons Afloat at Sea.” PLOS ONE, December Anthony Andrady, Ramani Narayan, and 10 Lucy C. Woodall, Anna Sanchez-Vidal, where the five gyres of plastic swirl global poverty and malaria. In a www.garbagepatchstate.org. 10, 2014. Web (http://www.plosone.org/ Kara Lavender Law. “Plastic waste inputs Miquel Canals, Gordon L.J. Paterson, Rachel similar fashion, a stand-alone goal article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal. from land into the ocean.” Science, February and the Garbage Patch State exists, Coppock, Victoria Sleight, Antonio Calafat, pone.0111913). 13, 2015. Web http://www.sciencemag.org/ will amplify the voices asking for for the ocean would be a game- Alex D. Rogers, Bhavani E. Narayanaswamy, 2 content/347/6223/768.abstract. our oceans to be better managed changer in conservation and finally Amelia Urry. “Here’s all the plastic in and Richard C. Thompson. “The deep sea is 6 and preserved. place the priority of the ocean in a the ocean, measured in whales.” Grist Julie Cohen. “An Ocean of Plastic.” The a major sink for microplastic debris.” Royal (December 10, 2014); http://grist.org/news/ Society Open Science (December 17, 2014); position commensurate with its size Current (February 12, 2015); http://www.news. heres-all-the-plastic-in-the-ocean-measured- ucsb.edu/2015/014985/ocean-plastic, accessed http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/ UNESCO recognized the Garbage and indispensable value to all life. in-whales/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_ March 3, 2015. content/1/4/140317. medium=email&utm_term=Daily%20Dec%20 Patch State, and the United Nations 7 11 11&utm_campaign=daily. “Marine Debris Timeline.” EPA (January 30, Address by Irina Bokova, Director-General can do even more by including the Together, we can stem the tide of of UNESCO, on the occasion of the exposition 3 2014), http://www.epa.gov/gmpo/edresources/ ocean as a stand-alone Sustainable the ocean’s recycling problem. Genevieve Wanucha. “A Quarter Million Tons debris_t.html. “Project Wasteland” by Maria Cristina Finucci.” of Plastic Float in our Oceans, says Dr. Marcus UNESCO (April 11, 2013); http://unesdoc. Development Goal in their post- 8 Eriksen.” Oceans at MIT (December 10, 2014); Michelle Allsop, Adam Walters, David unesco.org/images/0022/002204/220445m.pdf. 2015 agenda. These goals are http://oceans.mit.edu/featured-stories/269000- Santillo, and Paul Johnston. “Plastic Debris asdfdad tons-plastic-ocean-now-dr-marcus-eriksen. in the World’s Oceans.” Greenpeace; http://

WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 14 Volume two, 2015 15 Book Review Judith Schalansky’s Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Never Set Foot on and Never Will. by Lincoln Paine

According to one estimate, there are upwards of 8.8 million islands in the world.1 As Christian Depraetere, a leading practitioner of nissology (the study of islands) has put it, “islands are the rule rather than the exception.” 2 From a nissological perspective, the visible land of our bluewater orb constitutes nothing more than a sprawling archipelago, dominated by the big islands of America, Eurasia, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica to be sure, but a cluster of islands nonetheless. If this were not the case, ships would not be central to world trade. Perceptions Indian Ocean matter, of course, but while we South Keeling Islands, Australia (aka South Cocos Islands) may scoff at the apocryphal British 595 inhabitants newspaper headline, “Fog in the Channel. Continent Cut Off,” the people of Easter Island (Rapa Nui) call their island Te Pito Te Henua, Their pretensions to systematic with a multilingual glossary of “the navel of the world.” 3 coherence notwithstanding, all geographical terms, from the reference books are idiosyncratic, French arête (crest or ridge) to In any case, the supercontinent but Schalansky’s compendium the Japanese yama (mountain), Pangaea was an aberration, of Fifty Islands I Have Never Set and an index of about 1,100 place an accidental confluence of Foot on and Never Will—fifty names—points, bays, capes, peaks, landmasses rather than an Edenic out of millions? what gall!—is settlements—and the names of the norm that came apart at the seams. stunningly so. The presentation is hundred or so people who haunt Then again, in a geologically perfect impeccable. The islands are drawn these pages. world whose constituent elements to the same scale (1:125,000) and were distributed in even layers each, from the smallest (Tromelin, If the heart of the book is like a spherical pousse café, there a 0.7 square kilometer “French” Schalansky’s beautifully executed would be no bits “of the earth’s crumb in the Indian Ocean) to the cartography, the soul is in the text, crust from the bottom of the ocean largest (Russia’s uninhabited Rudolf especially the narrative captions, that just happened to shoot up Island, 297 sq. km.) sits in solitary none more than about 400 words, above sea level, a veterbra of an splendor on its own right-hand drawn from a careful reading of undersea spine” like Macquerie page. The facing page includes the innumerable though unnamed Island between New Zealand, island’s latitude and longitude, scale sources. A pair of faint gold slashes Australia, and Antarctica. 4 Without bars showing its distance from indicates a change from one writer land, we would not exist. But we three often equally remote landfalls, or theme to another. “All text in the live in an imperfect world, some of and a timeline of significant events book,” she writes in her preface, a whose more jagged contours Judith since 1500—sometimes only subtle and succinct meditation on Schalansky has artfully delineated one, never more than four—and cartography, art, and the human in her Atlas of Remote Islands. a written sketch. She concludes condition, “is based on extensive

WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 16 Volume two, 2015 17 research and every detail stems on her failed circumnavigation; the medieval mariner’s motto “to from factual sources. I have not Norfolk, which served as a penal sail is necessary, to live is not,” invented anything.” 5 The last claim colony for Australia; Iwo Jima, site Schalansky reminds us “only that gives me hope for Schalansky, of one of the bloodiest battles of which is written about has really but inspires little confidence in the Pacific theater in World War happened…. Only when a place humankind as a going concern. II; Diego Garcia, part of the British has been precisely located and Indian Ocean Territory whose measured can it be actual and real. This is because thet says as much 2,000 native inhabitants were Every map is the result and exercise about people as it does about forcibly removed between 1968 of colonial violence.” 9 islands, even though the average and 1973 to give the United States a population of the 31 inhabited military base in the Indian Ocean. Schalansky’s colonialism is not the islands is 1,095 and the median narrow, geopolitical form familiar only 277. Nineteen of those Still others are known simply from history books, but the broader she describes are uninhabited. because they are named for human project to control the world Schalansky seems not to have someone of renown. These are the by defiance of the unknown and made her choices to prove a point celebs of the island world, famous conquest of . . . what? Nature? or advance an agenda. Her love of for being famous. Sometimes the Fear? Oneself? Mapmakers charted maps is rooted in an East German relationship was complementary, our progress as terrae incognitae childhood spent poring over an and Schalansky notes that became known and we drove “sea atlas with “a map of the world, discoverers who put islands and monsters and other creatures” from carefully positioned on a double- their names on maps could become the darkest corners of the page. 10 page spread so that the Federal as famous “as if they had not merely She advances no grand theory to Republic of Germany and the found new worlds but actually explain the ancient human drive German Democratic Republic fell invented them.” 7 Explorers, as to go in search of and colonize, on two separate pages.” She only givers of names, were well aware of when possible, even the smallest, discovered “the provisional nature this. In the words of HMS Beagle’s remotest islands. She is less of the GDR” after unification, when Captain John Lord Stokes, who concerned with the Terra Australis she saw West German atlases that named Port Darwin, Australia, after Incognita of human ambition than marked her homeland as “Soviet- his former shipmate, “monuments with the outcomes of our restless occupied territory…. Ever since may crumble, but a name endures urges, the deep and all-too-often then I have not trusted political as long as the world.” 8 At least toxic ambition to go our own way. world maps, in which countries sometimes: Alexander Selkirk gave John Donne’s meditation on the float on the blue ocean like vivid his name to an island (also known idea that “No man is an island” gets scarves” 6—or like clusters of as Más a Tierra, 630 km. from no play here, for that suggests the islands huddled on the land. Chile) where he was marooned for potentially beneficial, or at least four years, but in 1970 the Chilean benign, interconnectedness people The randomness of Schalansky’s government, ever alert to marketing have with one another. selections suits her subject. Only a opportunities, renamed it for his small minority of readers will have fictional Doppelgänger, Robinson There is a dark side to the human heard of all these islands, yet what Crusoe. In compensation, they web, yet despite the wealth of is striking is how many names are gave Selkirk’s name to the still more contrary evidence, we remain familiar. Some islands we know remote Más Afuera, on which he inclined to associate much of because our eye has chanced upon never set foot. this with the corruptions of, or them repeatedly while looking for resistance to, Western modernity, something else: Bear, Amsterdam, Discoverers, their shipmates, and to feel, as early European St. Paul, and Trinidade Islands, for and their sponsors might serve explorers did, that island societies instance. Others are known as the as the mapmaker’s muse, but preserved “the state of natural man, Arctic Ocean | Barent Sea Arctic Ocean, Barent Sea locus of events of wider historical the cartographer is essential to born essentially good, free from Bear Island, Spitzbergen, Norway Bear Island, Spitzbergen, Norway. 9 residents. interest: Howland, near where bringing the world into two- all preconceptions, and following, 9 residents Amelia Earhart’s plane went down dimensional being. Playing on without suspicion and without

WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 18 VolumeVolume I1, No.two, 1, 2015 19 remorse, the gentle impulse of the main island, Hirta, readily the navel of the world, the most girls as young as ten, or even an instinct that is always sure accessible to tourists fascinated by remote of remote islands—2,000 younger. The trial was a collision because it has not yet degenerated this disconnected people. Yet they kilometers (1,400 miles) from its of British law (and imperial into reason.” 11 The testimony also introduced smallpox and other nearest neighbor—the people of neglect) and a people who were Schalansky elicits from her sources diseases that wrought havoc on the Easter Island divided themselves without law as we know it, and can be read as counterblast to small population, while tetanus into twelve tribes, utterly denuded one that laid bare a culture of this enlightened naiveté and an infantum claimed two-thirds of the their island of trees, and saw their rampant promiscuity in which indictment of the moral ease with islands’ newborn children. Faced population plummet, from 10,000 carnal knowledge of a minor— which we degrade each other and with these perennial threats and to 4,000 today, only a hundred of twelve? fifteen? it’s unclear—was our environment. It also makes diminishing agricultural yields, whom are described as native. theoretically punishable by a the reader obliquely aware of the the last of the St. Kildans went into hundred days in jail, though the enormous effort required to lead voluntary exile and evacuated the With an area of only 4.5 sq. crime was routinely ignored. And honorable, respectful lives. island in 1930. km. (1/36 that of Easter Island), consent was often no more than Pitcairn is not an imposing apathy: “After a while I stopped The difficulties islanders face are On the far side of the world in the neighbor. Polynesians once lived saying no. There was no point not unique to them, but many of Solomon Islands lies Tikopia, first on the island, but by the time to saying no. So I just lay there these remote islands represent if settled a thousand years before St. of its European rediscovery in and let him get it over and done not microcosms of human society, Kilda. Life here is precarious in the seventeenth or eighteenth with. The quicker he did that, the then at least controlled experiments the extreme, for the land is able century, they had either died off quicker I was able to go.” 14 After whose subjects have followed to support no more than 1,200 or moved on. It rose to outsize three years of abuse, the future corrupt, or corruptible, Pied Pipers people, a fact of which everyone fame as the hideaway of Fletcher plaintiff left the island. She was to the hearts of darkness at the ends is acutely aware and which has an Christian, his nine fellow Bounty fifteen. of the earth. For isolation—from enormous impact on society. Only mutineers, and eighteen Tahitians, the Latin, insula, island—can be a the oldest sons may have children, eleven of them women. Despite The origins and circumstances of Antarctic Ocean: Deception Island. South Shetland Island form of individual and collective for they must be fed from the the miniscule population and the the Pitcairn islanders are unique, Uninhabited torture, and there is no shortage of land they own. “The younger sons absolute certainty they could never but living at a remove from examples here. Whether inhabited stay single and are careful not to leave—they burned their ship to society, whether on islands or in or not, remote islands do not bring produce any children…. [T]he men ensure it—unrest was widespread continental interiors, lends itself out the best in people, and the lines practice coitus interruptus, and and only one of the original men to indifference towards societal to Berlin alone. Her doctor was named it for Peter the Great, who between proud self-sufficiency, if this does not work, the women survived to greet the next ship norms, and worse. In 1929, Dr. dead, reportedly of food poisoning, died more than a century before, it arrogance, and depravity seem press hot stones to their pregnant to call at Pitcairn, eighteen years Friedrich Ritter and a patient, the baroness and one of her lovers was not landed on for another 108 as arbitrary as the drawing of the bellies.”13 There is no postponing later. The population peaked at Dore Strauch, separated from their had disappeared, and the remains years, by crew from a Norwegian prime meridian, or the printer’s the inevitable; unwanted babies are 233 in the 1930s, the same decade respective spouses and moved of the other was found several ship. On the strength of this, gutter between West and East left to die. that Pitcairn gained international from Berlin to Floreana, one of the islands away. The mystery of what Norway claimed Peter I Island and Germany. Hence the truth of the renown following the release of more demonstrably inhospitable of happened was never solved, but mapped it; Schalansky records the title she gives her introduction: Among history’s greatest mysteries, Mutiny on the Bounty, the most the Galapagos Islands. Eschewing Schalansky does not exaggerate Norwegian names of twenty-four “Paradise is an island. So is Hell.” 12 of particular interest to nissologists, expensive movie made to that time, clothing and other obvious when she writes, “human beings topographical features. But the is what prompted the migrations and winner of the 1935 Academy trappings of twentieth-century travelling far and wide have turned Antarctic Treaty suspends Norway’s Provisionality is an underlying that led, over the course of 3,000 Award for best picture. (This was society, they attracted a steady into the very monsters they chased territorial claim to the 156 sq. theme in the majority of these years, to the settlement of almost the third of five cinematic tellings stream of emulous visitors and off the maps.”15 km. basalt pile, which is neither miniature case studies, which every island capable—if only barely, of the story so far, starring Clark homesteaders and voyeuristic habitable nor inhabited. So there it invariably touch on the fragility like Tikopia—of supporting life in Gable and Charles Laughton; journalists eager to report on this At its best, the discovery of remote sits, named and all but unknown, of island life. The archipelago of Oceania. Necessity? Land hunger? not the infamous 1962 version highly evolved couple, whom islands results in a brisk failure, an outsized drop of ink on even the St. Kilda, a clutch of islands forty Exile? Disinheritance? Exploration? featuring Marlon Brando’s theatrics the press dubbed—catchilly but a leaving well enough alone: Step smallest maps. miles from the Outer Hebrides, was The search for fish? Charismatic and to which Schalansky refers.) without irony—“Adam and Eve away from the island, and no one inhabited for two thousand years, megalomania? What we do know on Galapagos.” Three years later, gets hurt. The whole venture can Five decades ago, the cartoonist and is home to two ancient breeds for certain is that Melanesians, The world gazed again on Pitcairn they were joined by an Austrian seem almost absurd, as in the case Walt Kelly drew a poster for the of sheep. The St. Kildans were in Polynesians, and Micronesians in 2004, when thirteen current “baroness” and her two young of Peter I Island, a massive heap first Earth Day captioned “We intermittent contact with outsiders were every bit as susceptible to the and former islanders were tried on lovers armed with ambitious plans of extruded rock 460 kilometers have met the enemy and he is us.” before the nineteenth century, destructive forces of greed, jealousy, charges of rape and other sexual to erect a hotel for millionaires. from Antarctica. Discovered in Nowhere is this more obvious than when steamer service made and prejudice as anyone else. At offenses, most of them involving Two years later, Strauch returned 1821 by a Russian explorer who on islands. But islands are also the

WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 20 Volume two, 2015 21 canaries in the coal mine of global is an island. It is no coincidence Works cited warming. In 2009, members of the that many of the most celebrated cabinet of the Maldives, the most manned spacecraft have been low-lying country in the world, named for ships of exploration that 1 donned scuba gear to convene an island-hopped their way to fame: Christian Depraetere and Arthur Dahl, underwater cabinet meeting in Discovery, Endurance, Columbia, “Locations and Concentrations,” in A World of Islands: An Island Studies Reader, edited an effort to illustrate the perils of and Challenger, Mir and Vostok. by Godfrey Baldacchino (2007), cited by global warming. The government Yet in plotting our way to what Baldacchino at http://buff.ly/155BCUO. 2 of Kiribati seeks to buy land on Fiji we once called the heavens, the “islands are the rule”: Christian Depraetere so its people have a place to relocate realm of an imagined paradise, we and Grant McCall, “Nissology: Overview and when their land goes under. have grown too sure of ourselves. Future Directions for XXIst Century Island Issues.” The Inaugural Meeting of the IGU Maps of the universe harbor no Commission on Islands—“Island Geographies” Yet not everyone believes in sea monsters, and few unknowns. The International Conference, October 29– level rise, much less that the possibility that some dusky corner November 3, 2007, Taipei, Taiwan. 3 earth—the earth under their very of space should be marked “Here “the naval of the world”: Schalansky, Atlas of feet—is in peril. The outlook for the be dragons” is left to the authors of Remote Islands, 100. 4 Papua New Guinean atoll of Takuu science fiction, who invariably let “of the earth’s crust”: Schalansky, Atlas of Remote Islands, 78. (Mortlock Islands) is especially humanity win. 5 “All text”: Schalansky, Atlas of Remote Islands, dire, and the people seem torn 20. between an attachment to life as If celestial explorers find themselves 6 “map of the world”: Schalansky, Atlas of it should be, indifference in the crashing back to earth, they can Remote Islands, 9. 7 face of inevitable and catastrophic console themselves that the airstrip “as if they”: Schalansky, Atlas of Remote change, and a grudging willingness on Easter Island is “so enormous Islands, 20. 8 to consider leaving for the safety of that a space shuttle could touch “monuments may crumble”: in Paine, Ships of Bougainville Island, 220 kilometers down on it in an emergency.” But, the World, 55. 9 to the southwest. Traditionally Schalansky continues, “The end of “only that”: Schalansky, Atlas of Remote reluctant to admit outsiders— the world is an accepted fact, and Islands, 20–21. 10 “sea monsters”: Schalansky, Atlas of Remote missionaries, anthropologists, and Easter Island is a case in point with Islands, 11. others—they have in recent years its chain of unfortunate events that 11 “the state of natural man”: Commerson, in eased restrictions on foreigners, led to self-destruction; a lemming Paine, Sea and Civilization, 499. so if nothing else the people’s last marooned in the calm of the 12 16 “Paradise is an island”: Schalansky, Atlas of days as Takuu islanders will be well ocean.” Remote Islands, 6. 13 recorded. “The younger sons”: Schalansky,Atlas of Remote Islands, 116. 14 What about the rest of us, “After a while”: Unnamed witness for the cosmopolitan denizens of coastal prosecution, in William Prochnau and Laura islands and vast landmasses? We Parker, “Trouble in Paradise,” Vanity Fair (January 2008); http://buff.ly/155Dn4i, are in grave danger of following accessed December 11, 2014. the isolationist creed of our insular 15 “Human beings”: Schalansky, Atlas of Remote counterparts. The difference Islands, 19. 16 between them and us is that as a “so enormous”: Schalansky, Atlas of Remote species, humans have no practical Islands, 100. alternatives to where we live, no fallback territory just over the horizon. Yet having exhausted our curiosity about oceanic islands, Judith Schalansky, Atlas of Remote Islands: Fifty Islands I Have Never Set Foot on we are now launching ourselves and Never Will. Translated by Christine Lo. New York: Penguin, 2010. 144 pages. towards celestial islands—planets, Hardcover, ISBN 9780143118206, $30. Pocket Atlas of Remote Islands (2014), 240 moons, asteroids—in search pages. Hardcover, ISBN 9780143126676, $20. ultimately of refuge from the hard Originally published in German as Atlas der abgelegenen Inseln. work of being ourselves and the acknowledgment that none of us

WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 22 Volume two, 2015 23 ocean views romanticizing island life; it is hard, us what to do? Why can’t we do this for challenging, often lonely, not always ourselves? And do it now? united in politics and beliefs, and thinking like an island forever formed by natural forces that The global recession has brought home by Peter Neill are omnipresent in changing weather to nations and individuals alike the and wave. painful bankruptcy of systemic over- consumption, driven by credit, as an Nonetheless, these circumstances unsustainable model for the future. demand different standards for Only the most vested interests hold living. Islanders must focus first on to the delusion that all will be as on first things, on utilitarian needs it once was. There are signs among not frivolities, on the essential some countries and some executives requirements of individuals, families that the application of such values to and neighbors. Islanders re-use and governance and business development re-cycle things; they run machines can be a successful, competitive, and Anacapa Island, Channel Islands longer on precious little fuel. They profitable way to behave in the world National Park, California. invent and create; islands are good marketplace. There are signs that places for artists and makers. They citizens of nations whose resources police and govern themselves. They have been exploited and consumed, teach and coach children they know. whose destroyed environments can no Islanders choose to limit themselves longer sustain water and food supplies, to the circumference of the land and are demanding, sometimes violently, to the quality of the life so defined the attention or replacement of by the omnipresent maritime beauty politicians complicit in the old model. and enduring community they have There are signs that we are beginning found and built there. Many times, to think and act as if we understand islanders choose to stay because that earth, too, is an island. Such signs The Bajau are a small refugee community found off the coast of Malaysia. They live their entire lives on the they reject the way of living known are not enough. ocean in wooden huts built on stilts. They subsist on fish, octopus, and lobster all caught from handmade on another shore. They are not boats. Credit: Ng Choo Kia ocean-bound; indeed, now, given the We must do more, and quickly. Floating City, Ca Ba Island, Vietnam Internet, they can communicate and Claire Fackler, NOAA | Marine Photobank exchange goods, services, and ideas iscussing solutions to place. But think of it this way: we Assume the satellite perspective and worldwide. challenges on land and sea, approve investment in research and look down upon the earth to view an D we speak often of patterns development of pharmaceutical ocean world in which float islands, be What are the characteristic values of consumption. We are a society products that treat disease; we they atolls, nations, or continents. If evident in such places: independence, organized around apparently insatiable disapprove of similar investment in you now descend and join those island self-reliance, practicality, frugality, consumption – of our natural such products that compromise the communities, you will discover people ingenuity, respect for work, resources, of the products derived health of our children. It seems to me whose lives are defined by different success within limits, cooperation, from those resources, even of our that the problem lies not so much in limits, different needs, different community. What if we suddenly heroes who we use up and discard with the financial system itself, but rather utilities. Islanders are by definition drew invisible lines in urban places abandon equal to changing fashion – in the investment and consumer more reliant on things to hand: water and applied these same values there? and it is this drive that has created such decisions and their consequences that locally drawn, food locally raised or What if we looked at our cities, our stress on our terrestrial and marine either heal our sick or poison our harvested from the sea, local skills regions, even our nations as islands? environments. Our social needs and fields, streams, and ocean. It’s all about required to make and fix things for What if, as citizens, we all start acting financial system enable the extremes, values. themselves. They are more or less like islanders, applying such values for example, fishing tuna to exhaustion connected to a mainland that may individually, locally, and nationally to meet immediate lucrative demand How, then, do we shift our priorities, provide fuel, additional supplies, even in our purchases, our institutions, with no concern for limits or the change our behaviors, and alter our law enforcement, doctors, and priests, our expectations of governance, our inevitability of extinction. patterns of consumption so as to but they know that fog or storm may life choices? What if we abandon sustain the resources that remain and cancel that connection at any moment the rigid, mis-valued ideologies that Some argue this is the result of assure our future survival? I suggest and they will be required to fend paralyze us and engage instead in a Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain evil capitalism. I will leave that that we start thinking like an island. for themselves. I have no interest in fulsome exercise of island living? Do discussion for another time, another we have to wait for our leaders to tell

WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 24 Volume two, 2015 25 Islanders are by definition more reliant on things to hand...

...Water locally drawn, food locally raised or harvested from the sea, local skills required to make and fix things for themselves. They are more or less connected to a mainland that may provide fuel, additional supplies, even law enforcement, doctors, and priests, but they know that fog or storm may cancel that connection at any moment and they will be required to fend for themselves. I have no interest in romanticizing island life; it is hard, challenging, often lonely, not always united in politics and beliefs, and forever formed by natural forces that are omnipresent in changing weather and wave. ~ From Thinking Like an Island by Peter Neill.

WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 26 Volume two, 2015 27 ocean innovaTIONS Life utilizes the carbon cycle, and require no fresh water, soil, or so should civilization. pesticides, and on the ocean they Can Man-Made Floating Islands Save the Ocean? can expand to any size. Unlike The Seasteading Floating City Project by Joe Quirk Seaweeds are some of the most land crops, algae grow and harvest productive and nutritious plants in year-round. Algae don’t suffer from the world, representing three large droughts or floods. They grow in groups, red, brown, and green, and a stable, year-round environment. at least 11,500 species, containing All they need to ramp up to colossal a much healthier nutritive profile proportions is carbon pollution than wheat, corn or soy, and an and nutrient pollution, two things hat if the way to save the astounding diversity of varieties. agriculture is producing in colossal ocean is to live on it? Most people don’t know they eat quantities. By András Gyõrfi various forms of algae all day -- Since floating components can be WThe solution to restore our abused shuffled and recombined according to from the creamer in your morning Corn and cow farms produce oceans may be counterintuitive. coffee, to the make-up or sunscreen unhealthy food and pollute the the choices of the residents, buildings A diverse international you put on your skin, to the oceans. Algae and fish farms would never need to be demolished, only moved. community of marine biologists, toothpaste that cleans your mouth, produce healthy food and clean nautical engineers, aquaculture to the medications or vitamins you the oceans. The transition from farmers, maritime attorneys, take as tablets or capsules, algae agriculture to aquaculture will security personnel, investors, permeates your body. Marine algae transform our corn farms into algae environmentalists, and artists has is in ice cream, milk, sausages, salad farms, and our cow farms into fish initiated the seasteading movement, dressings, muffins, and mayonnaise. farms. This will free up the fresh a campaign to homestead the high It’s even in baby formula and pet water for the world’s poor, and we seas by building buoyant cities that food. can give the world’s farmland back float on the ocean. to the song birds. Cyclical metabolism can clean the You might well ask: Why on earth? seas. Humans eat food and create “There is the possibility of By Emerson Stepp sewage. Algae eat sewage and create producing seaweeds, fish, shrimp, “I designed by seastead to be visually Start from the realization that we By András Gyõrfi food humans eat. Why are we oysters, and many other products, don’t live on Planet Earth. We live Seateads will be designed to be modular, so the appealing yet at the same time able to ignoring this symbiosis? Ricardo directly at sea, without needing withstand the harsh atmosphere that on Planet Ocean. Planet Ocean is components of floating urbanization can fit together like a jigsaw puzzle to suit the community’s needs. and others propose that massive a single drop of fresh water,” says comes with maritime architecture,” said more than twice the size of Planet algae farms could be stationed near Ricardo Radulovich. “So the the architect. Earth, and many believe we can polluted coastal waters all over the possibilities are many, and we are save Planet Earth by building cities What if the increase in human powers all life, and it can power all world to gobble up the products of barely beginning to exploit them. on Planet Ocean. population could restore the seas civilization. Here’s how: untreated sewage, creating biomass The area available to produce at instead of polluting them? we can use to feed and fuel the sea is enormous. The amount of homo aquaticus feed the world with world. As algae farms profited and water available to produce at seas What if every baby born added The solution is cyclical metabolism. greenhouse gas scaled up in size, wildlife would is enormous. So we shouldn’t be a small improvement to the It’s not a new idea. The ocean and Ricardo Radulovich, an agricultural return to the purified waters. at all worried that we’re going to ocean environment? What if has been doing it for billions of water scientist from Costa Rica, run out food, or we’re going to run the wealthier each baby got, the years. A quarter of the carbon plans to transform greenhouse Ocean farming wouldn’t just restore out of water. Of course if we keep healthier the oceans became? dioxide we produce is absorbed by gas and ocean pollution into food the oceans. It would restore the producing only on land, that may What if accelerating the rate by the ocean, almost half the oxygen for the poor. His plan is massive land. happen. It is happening already. which the poorest billion people we breathe comes from the ocean, seaweed farms which can transform But the sea represents the next became prosperous could fuel a a large amount of the nutrients the nutrient and carbon pollution restorative farming agricultural landscape. We have to By DeltaSync mass restoration of the ocean? modern people consume have humanity has dumped into the Seventy of the worlds’ available change our frame of mind.” By designing the platforms as squares and pentagons, an endless series of What if cities built in the twenty- their origins in the ocean, and oceans into edible sea crops. The fresh water is used for agriculture, neighborhood arrangements are possible. first century could serve as a giant every molecule of water that passes more carbon seaweed pulls out of and roughly a third of all land is By mixing seaweed flour with clean-up system for the planet? through our bodies spends 98% of the ocean, the more carbon the used for agriculture. Algae farms wheat flour, Ricardo is working to its time in the ocean. The ocean ocean pulls out of the atmosphere. WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 28 Volume two, 2015 29 end malnutrition in the developing Ocean Thermal Energy world. The Bill and Melinda Gates Conversion (OTEC) Foundation helped Ricardo found The ocean is the largest solar panel the Sea Gardens Project, which in the world. Lockheed Martin teaches the poor how to grow estimates that each day the tropical floating farms which can be scaled oceans absorb three times the up to any size. Soon Ricardo hopes amount of energy that the world to demonstrate how microcosms currently consumes. Incredibly, can work profitably on an industrial the ocean’s stored energy can be scale. Algae farms will continue to tapped. We each use a form of this By DeltaSync scale up in size, detach, move out, technology every day. Consider All the components of city life are and lay the agricultural foundation your refrigerator, air conditioner, already floating in service to ocean for an ocean city. or the engine in your car. Much industries, and they can be combined of the energy that powers our in any way the residents choose, and daily lives works on the simple changed at will. the fountain of life Imagine a city built in a lifeless thermodynamic principle that a desert that transforms the wasteland machine containing a difference in into a garden. Imagine if this temperatures can create energy. city could provide an endlessly renewable abundance of food, fuel Now think big. In the tropics, the and fresh water that would not have water at the surface of the ocean existed had the city not been built. is very warm. The water at the All the desert residents have to do bottom of the ocean is very cold. to access this bounty is to reach If we send a thousand-foot pipe By Vincent Callebaut a thousand feet below the desert down into the deep, we have a Biomimicry is the means by which cities could be based on nature’s structures. This city design is based on the lily pad, surface. temperature difference, from the which is solar-powered and environmentally restorative. bottom of the pipe to the top, of 20 By DeltaSync The nutrient pollution that land-based Such a city-sized horn-of-plenty degrees Celsius. This temperature cities release into the ocean can be sounds like something out of a differential can drive a gigantic plants were built. Corporation, of which he became necessary to sustain life on the absorbed by algae farms and transformed fantasy. Yet the technology is old steam engine to produce a massive Vice President in 2011, has ocean floor, which holds a virtually into food and fuel. news. It was demonstrated during amount of electricity. OTEC isn’t a futuristic technology. projects planned in several tropical inexhaustible amount of fertilizer. the Carter Administration, yet the It’s an old technology that was island nations. In fact, the rich concentration of innovation was abandoned because Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, shelved. The Office of Energy nutrients is suspended in seawater unsustainable fossil fuels and or OTEC, is a clean and renewable Efficiency and Renewable Energy Imagine if Saudi Arabia was the only 500 meters below the surface. agriculture were cheaper. Today, as energy source. It’s environmentally (EERE), which leads the U.S. size of an ocean, but to access Nearly half of all wild seafood is demand for energy, food, and water sustainable, and it’s capable of Department of Energy’s task force, the energy, we don’t need to drill harvested from less than one tenth increases, national governments and providing massive levels of energy reports, “Some energy experts into bedrock, only dip a pipe into of one percent of the ocean surface. venerable corporations are already that can not only power an ocean believe that if Ocean Thermal water. These are the rare places blessed working to build these energy city, but create enough extra power Energy Conversion can become with natural upwellings from the powerhouses that could support to fuel the land-based nations of cost-competitive with conventional OTEC cornucopia deep ocean floor. Once sunlight cities. the world. power technologies, it could be If you go fishing on the high seas, and algae get a hold of that rich used to produce billions of watts of you may be disappointed. Most of fluid, marine ecosystems flourish, By DeltaSync To understand, imagine this desert “Pipe” dream? In 1979, Lockheed electrical power.” the world’s ocean is a lifeless desert each like an oasis of life in a vast Once economies are based on cyclical city not fixed on land, but floating Martin constructed the first where the nutrients that sustain desert. metabolism, the Blue Economy will be on the ocean. Such floating cities floating OTEC off the Hawaiian Ted Johnson, a former Director life sink below where sunlight can underway, and civilization may achieve harmony with nature. could provide a virtually endless coast, which produced clean, green of Renewable Energy at Lockheed reach to power photosynthesis. Patrick Takahashi, a Hawaiian fountain of food, fuel, and fresh electricity. It worked! Soon after, Martin declared, “Water will be Organic matter sinks. For biochemical engineer, asks, water. the oil crisis ended, oil became the next oil.” Ted Johnson’s new billions of years nature has been “Why are we relying on natural inexpensive, and no more OTEC company, Ocean Thermal Energy depositing all the ingredients upwellings covering one tenth of

WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 30 Volume two, 2015 31 one percent of the ocean?” One bottom billion By Vincent Callebaut hundred percent of the ocean floor According to Lockheed Martin, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. is covered in the elixir of life. If “each commercial OTEC plant To change something, build a new model that makes the OTEC plants allow us to double the would create 3,500 to 4,000 existing model obsolete.” Buckminster Fuller amount of upwellings to, say, two- direct jobs. With the potential tenths of one percent, we double for thousands of OTEC plants, the amount of wild sea life we the economic impact would be as described in our Design and can create and harvest. A sizable enormous.” Implementation Concept report. platform will be needed to stabilize By DeltaSync OTEC pipes. If we build a city on it, Consider the potential for the blue Buildings should be no more than “Any coastal city can environmentally we have a self-sustaining ocean city economy. In 2009, 700 million and economically pay for itself with an 3 stories tall. Structures can take up and aquaculture farm. By accessing poor and oppressed people told offshore floating city,” says Rutger de to 80% of the platform, leaving at a Gallup poll they want to leave Graaf, co-founder of DeltaSync. the unused nutrient wealth of least the other 20% for walkways, the deep oceans, these floating their countries forever and find gardens, and outdoor space. metropolises would increase the freedom and prosperity for their match the market’s price point, number of ocean ecosystems children. That’s more than twice our survey letting us know what 3. The Seasteading Institute can Designs should allow for fluidity in without foreseeable limit. the population of the United States. they want from a floating city with rearranging a sea-city, and should secure a deal with a host nation Existing countries refuse to absorb political autonomy. The market incorporate sustainable energy willing to grant a floating city OTEC plantships could also end them. Seasteads will require them demand for the first floating city practices, such as solar, wind, wave, substantial political independence. wars for water. If you think the to survive economically. To coax is vigorous and growing. If such and tidal power. Designs should potential bounty of clean energy people to floating cities, better a small floatingseastead prospers consider wave action and withstand We conclude that the first floating and renewable seafood is too opportunities will have to be and attracts residents, DeltaSync severe ocean storms. good to be true, consider that offered. Imagine millions ofblue city with significant political believes the city could expand autonomy could be established by OTEC plants create fresh water jobs causing a mass immigration and move out into deeper water. Rutger de Graaf, co-founder of 2020. as a byproduct. Producing energy comparable to the gold rush. Their long-term plan includes DeltaSync, estimates that with 13% by evaporating sea water and the construction of floating of the human population living By DeltaSync condensing the resulting vapor Infected with this vision, The floating nation 2020 breakwaters made from modular on water, humanity will achieve In DeltaSync’s vision, the city will DeltaSync envisions that technological means you are left with clean Seasteading Institute has researched units. This would allow the harmony with nature, with any lessons learned by small cities in shallow be composed of solar-powered drinkable water. the potential for permanent floating floating city to expand and enlarge size population. According to waters will be applied to larger cities on platforms shaped like squares or ciies on the sea since it was founded to protect the city from waves. DeltaSync’s figures, this would be the high seas. pentagons with 50-meter sides. Now compare agriculture to in 2008 by Peter Thiel, co-founder Once our floating city moves into achieved if we cultivate less than These platforms can be connected aquaculture. Agriculture supported of PayPal, and Patri Friedman, international waters, it would be a one percent of the ocean. and arranged in numerous branch- true seastead, by which we mean a by oil requires fresh water, produces grandson of economist Milton like structures. The design features floating nation. C02, and drains excess nutrients Friedman and a third generation If you’d like to join the Blue apartments, terraced housing, office into the sea, creating “dead zones” political theorist. Revolution to build a sustainable space, and hotels. Eleven connected that harm marine life. Aquaculture Now that we have laid the floating civilization for 9 billion platforms could host about 250 full- supported by OTEC plantships will engineering, legal, and business people by 2050, become a member After five years of research, we time residents with an additional be supported by sunlight, produce groundwork for our floating city, of the growing Seasteading commissioned the Dutch aquatic 50 hotel beds. This would cost $393 fresh water, and absorb nutrients we need artists to make it beautiful. Institute, and contribute your engineering firm DeltaSync to per square foot of gross space, from the sea, creating ecosystems of talents to this effort to restore produce and design a feasibility but since 20% of each platform is bustling life. architects needed Planet Earth by living on Planet study for a small floating city. In reserved for green space, the report By DeltaSync In 2015, The Seasteading Institute Ocean. 2014, the Seasteading Institute “Growing algae to produce biofuel Will immigrants move to floating estimates that private space will in partnership with DeltaSync was proud to release of our long- cost $504 per square foot ($5425/ can be 10 to 20 times more productive OTEC cities that host aquaculture announced The Floating City Floating cities are the next frontier. compared to corn or sugarcane,” reports awaited Floating City Project sq. meter.) farms? Project Architectural Design To get involved, or for more DeltaSync. report. Our key findings are: Contest. We are inviting architects, information, visit Seasteading.org. 1. A market for a residential Thousands of potential residents students, engineers, and designers blue jobs for the floating city exists, from at least 67 countries and to create designs for a small 2. A practical design can be built to many income levels have filled out city with at least 10 platforms WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 32 Volume two, 2015 33 OCEAN PORTFOLIO FOGO ISLAND ARTS Residency-Based Contemporary Art from Fogo Island, Newfoundland, Canada

fogo arts: edgar leciejewski explores the various social and Fogo Island Arts is a residency- scientific uses of photography. His based contemporary art venue work employs an experimental, that supports research and analytic approach to the medium production of new work for artists, of photography by using various filmmakers, writers, musicians, techniques and media. Besides curators, designers and thinkers content-related issues and the from around the world. Since 2008, reflection of his own work, he FIA has brought some of the most is interested in issues such as exciting emerging and renowned the rhetoric of the photographic artists of today to Fogo Island, series, the photographic genre, the Newfoundland, Canada to take composition, and how as much part in residencies and to present time as possible can fit in a single solo exhibitions at the Fogo Island photographic image. His pictures Gallery. Combining contemporary are repositories of time that allow art, iconic architecture and social for the slowing down of the act of innovation in a singular setting, Fettgerüst (detail) Fettgerüst (detail) seeing. Leciejewski’s work has been Edgar Leciejewski from Tones, 2014. FIA is a world-class institution that Edgar Leciejewski from Tones, 2014. exhibited amongst others at Witte Colour print. Image courtesy the artist. is uniquely rooted in community. Colour print. Image courtesy the artist. de With Center for Contempoary Art Rotterdam, Schirn Kunsthalle Located off the coast of Frankfurt, Kunsthalle Wien, Newfoundland in Canada, Fogo Museum der bildenden Künste Island Arts was established in 2008. Leipzig. Leciejewski lives and works Artists-in-residence come to the in Leipzig, Germany. island to do research and selected artists are invited to present their Edgar Leciejewski spent six months work in exhibitions at the Fogo as a Fogo Island artist-in-residence Island Gallery, which is located in in 2014. His show Tones brings the Fogo Island Inn. Exhibitions together new work stemming from are accompanied by publications his time on the island, including produced in collaboration with large-scale collages, photographs international imprints, including of natural elements, and precarious Sternberg Press (Germany) and sculptures composed of objects with public institutions globally. found on the shore. Taken together the works in the exhibition are a Two artists-in-residence are collection and an archive of time featured in this volume’s Ocean shown in modern images, raising Portfolio: Edgar Leciejewski and Fettgerüst (detail) Fettgerüst questions on how we contemplate Edgar Leciejewski from Tones, 2014. Kate Newby. Edgar Leciejewski from Tones, 2014. ideas of nature. Colour print. Image courtesy the artist. Colour print. Image courtesy the artist. Learn more: www.edgarl.de WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 34 Volume two, 2015 35 Exterior View kate newby Kate Newby, Let the other thing in, 2013. “let the other thing in” Photo: Guy L’Heureux. Courtesy of Fogo Island Arts. june 27 - september 8, 2013 at fogo island gallery

On a low-lying platform, the artist places groupings of kiln-fired rocks and sticks she made while living on the Fogo Island. Newby assigns each group a title, suggesting a system is at work. The artist derives this from a similar preference Fogo Islanders have for assigning names Installation View to places, landmarks and things. Kate Newby, Let the other thing in, 2013. Photo: Guy L’Heureux. Courtesy of Fogo Island Arts. All photos: © Guy L’Heureux

kate newby is based between Auckland, New Zealand, and New York, USA. In 2013, she had solo shows at the Fogo Island Gallery, Newfoundland, Canada; La Loge, Brussels, Belgium; and Hopkinson Cundy, Auckland. This year she will be included in group shows at Arnolfini, Bristol, UK; Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland Slopes, Melbourne, Australia. learn more: http://buff.ly/1deQUtN Off-Site installation, Shoal Bay. Kate Newby, Let the other thing in, 2013, Photo: Guy L’Heureux. Courtesy of Fogo Island Arts.

Images from Kate Newby’s exhibit Let the Other Thing In, 2013. Photo: Guy L’Heureux. Courtesy of Fogo Island Arts.

WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 36 Volume two, 2015 37 ocean Solutions from dr. ayana elizabeth johnson, keynote speaker is sustainable, profitable and at the 2015 blue vision summit, washington, dc: enjoyable. It’s supposed to be fun. Using the ocean without using it up Beyond food security, a lot of The Blue Halo Initiative is Developing a Plan to Manage the Waters Around Barbuda for It is based on the perspective I term we use. We really mean it: what motivates me is the vibrant This and Future Generations. A Project of the Waitt Institute; Funded by the Waitt Foundation have gained from reading the In Barbuda, there were 7 rounds coastal cultures that need healthy scientific literature, and from my of community consultation, an oceans: fish frys, fishing with your time at NOAA, Scripps Institution additional 5 rounds with fishers, 22 parents, swimming in clear waters. of Oceanography, the Waitt meetings with the Barbuda Council Without healthy oceans, not only Foundation, and at gatherings like (island governing body), two are livelihoods and food security these, that over the last two years stakeholder committee meetings, threatened, but cultures are. Ocean I have led the creation of the Blue 75 one-on-one stakeholder conservation is about cultural Halo Initiative. This is now the interviews, and I lived on the island preservation. primary focus of the Waitt Institute. for 8 months over one and a half We partner with governments and years. So by saying these are your ocean communities as they envision, resources, what to do you want create, and implement sustainable The Blue Halo Initiative is not to do with them? How do you ocean management. just about conservation in the want to balance all the demands sense of setting areas aside and on ocean space? By asking “What Our recipe for ocean conservation keeping people out. It can’t be. do you want your ocean to look has three main attributes: it’s It’s about enabling thriving like? and how can we help you get comprehensive, it’s science based, coastal economies. It’s about there?” this was the result. As of Blue Halo is empowering Barbudans to restore their coastal waters by developing a and it’s community driven. a triple bottom line of using August, 2014, 33% of the coastal magine a scalable project, sustainable coastal policy based on science, supporting coastal and fishing livelihoods, Community driven isn’t just a ocean resources in a way that area out to 3 nautical miles is now being tested in real time on involving stakeholder participation, and including creation of sanctuary zones to marine reserves. There is no way a small Caribbean island, replenish fish populations and restore a healthy ecosystem. that percentage would have been Icentered on the values and goals so high if we’d come in with an of its community. Imagine this is home to a great diversity of Council, Codrington Lagoon agenda to protect a certain area. We project improving livelihoods species and mangroves. According National Park, Barbuda Fisheries provided data to the community, while simultaneously sustaining to the UN Rio+20 report, in 1980 Division, the people of Barbuda, we listened to stakeholder and protecting the health of the approximately 11% of Barbuda the Office of the Prime Minister priorities and concerns, and we local ecosystem and its resources. was covered in wetland, which of Antigua and Barbuda, and made policy recommendations, This and more is happening on included 36% mangroves. Coral the Waitt Institute. The goal of but every line on this map was Barbuda, an island nation in reefs and seagrass beds were in the Initiative is to manage ocean drawn by local people, mostly the the Eastern Caribbean, part of abundance. Today those systems resources sustainably, resulting fishermen. Anchoring zones have a three-island state including are under severe stress. Like many in improved fishing catches, been established and use of net is Antigua and Redonda. Barbuda small island developing states healthier ecosystems, and stronger, prohibited on or near the reefs. is home to approximately 1,500 (SIDS), Barbuda will feel the severe more sustainable ocean-based Nursery habitats are now protected, people, is highly dependent upon impacts of global CO2 emissions livelihoods. The approach is to parrotfish and urchins are protected fishing, has a strong community long before more developed, larger develop zoning, implementation, too. awareness of the need to improve nations will. Their geography makes monitoring, financing, and its sustainability and management them more vulnerable to extreme enforcement plans for the waters And as of February, 2015 we have practices, and has a government weather, sea level rise, climate within 3.45 miles from shore expanded the Blue Halo Initiative fully on board with the Blue Halo change, and threats to fisheries on that are under jurisdiction of the to Montserrat and Curaçao. Many concept. A small village community which this small island community Barbuda Council, accommodating more island communities have unencumbered by tourism and so heavily depends. multiple activities while expressed interest in partnering known for its pink sand beaches supporting ecological integrity with us and we hope to continue and stunning turquoise waters, Blue Halo is an ocean zoning and productivity, and working to to expand our work across the Barbuda is a natural paradise: the initiative, a collaborative ensure sustainable fishing for future Caribbean and then globally. coastal and marine environment partnership between the Barbuda generations of Barbudans.

WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 38 Volume two, 2015 39 The state of Caribbean reefs and fisheries is dire, http://bit.ly/1Fl4bNm

“ but the policy solutions are simple. my heart soars Measuring conch in Barbuda to think that if other islands take similarly bold steps soon, we will see reefs “ recover, fishers’ livelihoods improve, ecosystems become more resilient to climate change, and the Caribbean coastal way of life thrive.

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson Explains the Blue Halo Initiative Executive Director of the Waitt Institute and coordinator of the Barbuda Blue Halo Initiative

Barbuda’s new ocean laws help ensure that conch, an environmentally and economically important species on Barbuda, will be around for many generations to come.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0SUymbJi8U

Ocean zoning: An approach to managing the ocean that balances all Pictured: Dr Ayana Elizabeth Johnson with then Antigua and Barbuda Prime uses and helps ensure sustainability. Minister, Baldwin Spencer. Image Credit: Waitt Institute

Barbuda Blue Halo: Your Ocean, Your Future WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 40 Volume two, 2015 41 Barbuda Blue Halo Initiative Ocean Zoning Diagram Comprehensive Ocean Zoning + Sustainable Managmement of Fisheries

The Waitt Institute will continue to work closely with the government and people of Barbuda over the next three years to support implementation of the regulations. This will include setting up a long-term scientific monitoring program, training local staff in marine ecology and field research techniques, recommending enforcement approaches, providing needed equipment, and working with schools to develop an ocean education curriculum.

To learn more about the Blue Halo Barbuda Initiative and the Waitt Institute, please visit: www. WaittInstitute.org.

New fishing regulations and coastal Winding through mangroves gives Build partnerships, think bigger, ditch zones passed last summer protect students firsthand experiences with one the ego, triage, and shout about what’s 33% of Barbuda’s coastal area. of Barbuda’s most unique assets: the working. Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Frigatebird Sanctuary. Blue Vision Summit keynote.

WORLD OCEAN JOURNAL 42 Volume two, 2015 43 an OCEAN commonplace NO MAN IS AN ISLAND Lewis Pugh and the 5 Swims in Antarctica for 1 Reason Expedition Ross Sea, 2015

No man is an island, Entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. Lewis Pugh, ocean advocate, If a clod be washed away by the sea, pioneer swimmer. Pugh is best known for being the first to swim across the Europe is the less. North Pole in 2007 to highlight the melting of As well as if a promontory were. Arctic sea ice. He has received a number of awards, was named Young Global Leader by the World As well as if a manor of thy friend’s Economic Forum, and appointed UN Patron of the Or of thine own were: Oceans. In February 2015 he launched the 5 Swims in Antarctica for 1 Reason Expedition, swimming Any man’s death diminishes me, in sub-zero Antarctic waters to help save the Ross Because I am involved in mankind, Sea from irreversible damage.

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; Photographs by Kelvin Trautman @kelvintrautman It tolls for thee.

John Donne (1572 - 1631) Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII 1624

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