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Text transcribed by Gunild Pak Symes from Dr Sylvia Earle’s presentation at the Celebrate the Sea 2005 Festival and Image Competition in Singapore

Photos courtesy of the National Geographic Society, Deep Ocean Exploration and Research, NOAA, NURP

Her Deepness: Dr Sylvia Earle Named Time magazine’s first “hero for Well, I thought about it, and it occured back bones up through the Atlantic and the planet” in 1998, marine biologist to me to ask, “Okay, let’s get rid of the the Pacific and Indian Ocean. Sylvia Earle has pioneered research on ocean. What would the planet be like? You know, there’s lumps in the deep- marine ecosystems. She has led more Think Mars. The red planet was perhaps est sea, based on observations by a than 50 expeditions—that’s more than once blue, but not today. You know, couple of guys who made the descent 6,000 hours underwater. Earle has been we might set up housekeeping on Mars to the depths of the Marion Trench PHOTO BY AL GIDDINGS COURTESY OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC an explorer-in-residence at the National some day. And a few people think that back in 1916. But ironically, nobody has National Geographic Geographic Society since 1998. She that’s a worthy goal. But not for six bil- been back to this deepest part of the Explorer-in-Residence holds many diving records, including the lion of us. It’s just not a viable alternative sea since, despite the fact that Japan DR SYLVIA EARLE women’s depth record for solo diving at to living here. And if we launched a robotic device a thousand meters (3,300 feet). Below is should make it to Mars There’s plenty of that made several marinal a transcription of Dr Syliva Earle’s pres- one day, we’d have to water in the universe trips to the deepest part of entation at the Celebrate the Sea 2005 think about things we the ocean. That robot was Festival in Singapore. take for granted here. without life, but lost a little more than a year Where is the water going nowhere is there life ago. It was the attitude. The compla- to come from? The food? without water. Plus there were no means cency is what prompted me to The place to live...some- for our species to access thing to eat. —Dr Sylvia Earle the deepest sea either with visit Australia a few years ago The ocean governs the people inside a special sub- when a reporter put the question way this planet operates. This beloved mersible or with a robot that can send a Walk in the Deep to me, ”Why should I care about blue planet. Average depth 2 ½ miles, camera to the deepest part of the sea. Oceanographer Sylvia Earle gets a fish- the ocean?” She said, ”I don’t maximum depth 11 kilometers—about 7 We now have the technology. Why don’t eye view of Hawaii’s ocean floor as she miles. we have the will? dons a high-tech diving suit for “a walk swim. I get seasick. I don’t fish. And here’s the thing... Although in the It probably happens because of that in the deep,” 1,250 feet (380 meters) People don’t drink salt water. If last half century, it is safe to say, we’ve complacency—the lack of understand- down. A tether linked her to a research learned more about the ocean than in ing that the ocean really does matter submarine above; a communications the ocean dried up tomorrow, all preceding human history. Half a cen- to all of us. That is why this conference wire wrapped around the tether ena- what difference would it make bled her to talk with the sub’s crew PHOTO BY CHUCK NICKLIN COURTESY OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC tury ago, we really didn’t know much is so important and why each of you, to me, or anyone?”—this from about the depths of the sea, and we still as an embassador for the ocean, is so somebody who lives in Australia don’t. But at least we know that there important. We need to get the word out for heaven’s sake. are mountain chains that run like giant that the ocean, first of all, matters to all

81 X-RAY MAG : 6 : 2005 EDITORIAL FEATURES TRAVEL NEWS EQUIPMENT BOOKS SCIENCE & ECOLOGY EDUCATION PROFILES PORTFOLIO CLASSIFIED profile Dr Sylvia Earle Books by or with Dr Sylvia Earle

Defying Ocean’s End, with Linda K. Glover, et al, 2004

Jump into Science: Coral Reefs, 2003

Atlas of the Ocean: The Deep Frontier, 2001

Hello, Fish: Visit to the Coral Reef, 2001

The Oceans, with Eilen Prager, 2001

Sea Critters, 2000

Dive: My Adventures in the Deep Frontier, 1999

Wild Ocean: America’s Parks Under the Sea, 1999

Sea Change: A Message of the Oceans, 1996

PHOTO BY KIP EVANS COURTESY OF NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Click on the book cover to order from Amazon.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL MARINE EDUCATORS ASSOCIATION Earle studies the creatures of the ocean in a deep sea submersible

humankind. Without the ocean, there single non-negotiable thing. There can cerned about the complacency entists just recently that documents that guide this interest in doing would be no life on Earth—certainly not be water without life, but not life without concerning the oceans, “How do we tuna, swordfish, cod—fish that ran in the something to convey to people—not life as we know it. And it may be like on water. So, at the same time as we have change the way people think? How do deep seas—grouper, snapper, big hali- just the scientists, not just the divers, not Mars where there was apparently an learned more about the nature of the we get inside their heads and do some- but...The big fish have been extracted just those who are curious about the ocean once upon a time or maybe like sea, it’s possible that we have lost more thing about the problems that are taking from the oceans. The sharks. That has ocean, but the public at large—we on one of the moons of Jupiter—Europa. owing to what we are putting into the place?” happened in my lifetime, it’s happened dreamed up the concept of doing a film In fact, whereever there is water in the sea and what we are taking out of the After all, in the last half century, we’ve in the lifetime of many of you. The pace with the National Geographic Society universe, there is a possibility that there ocean. probably lost on the order of 90 percent right now is picking up, which is what about a fish. might be life, because water is the cor- I was asked a few years ago by a of the big fish in the sea based on a makes this point in history so important. It took some doing to sell the National nerstone of what makes life possible—the group of individuals who were con- study that was done by Canadian sci- So, given the chance to hopefully Geographic Society on the idea of doing

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a film about fish. Now, a film about lions... you some of these images. But let me SCIENTIST: “I sincerely believe the Blue we got lots of films about lions; tigers... start with this one. (The following is the fin tuna is now in a state of crisis. All our lots of films about tigers; sharks...there script of the film clip) people should know that what we did to have been a number of films about the buffalos on land, we are doing to big sharks. But in this case, we convinced the NARRATOR: “We call it the blue planet, wild animals in the ocean.” National Geographic Society to choose yet the creatures we know best rule the one of the other big predators in the land. But one of nature’s most impres- NARRATOR: “On the front line of the con- sea. And I just want to share with you the sive creatures is an ocean dweller often troversy is a small group of scientists strug- opening sequence from this film. It runs a missed and seldom understood... Swifter gling to learn the secrets of the Blue fin full hour, and I only have a few minutes than a dolphin... A hunter as bold as the as quickly as they can. For them, there is to stand here in front of you and show Great White shark... The Blue fin tuna is even more at stake than the legendary perfection made animal itself.” real. Designed for speed, it DR SYLVIA EARLE: “If the ocean is in trou- races the cur- ble, our future is in trouble. These crea- rents at 50 miles tures are the lions, the tigers, the wolves, an hour—one of the eagles of the ocean.” the fastest swim- mers in the sea. NARRATOR: “It is a creature so A warm-blooded advanced, its deepest secrets may giant, it crosses always ellude us.” (end of clip) whole oceans at NOAA will spanning the Well, there you go. It’s the Blue fin Dr Sylvia Earle and the dive supervisor discuss plans for the next dive seas on epic jour- tuna—a fish that many people love. It is neys.” so rare to see them other than as sushi or system. But the second big discovery is that it does matter to us, it comes back sashimi. The taste for tuna in the last half that we do have the capacity to alter to us. It doesn’t just matter to the fish and DR SYLVIA EARLE: century has grown to a state right now the way the it works, to really diminish the whales and the turtles and the sharks. “The ultimate where their numbers have significantly creatures that once seemed to be infi- It matters to us, because we, too, are fish has to be declined. nite in their capacity to rebound no mat- connected to all that blue stuff out there the Blue fin tuna. Imagine that within less than 50 years, ter how many we extracted. that governs the way the ocean works. Those creatures we managed to whittle down their num- It’s a hard thing for most people to I want to give you one other example. that can power bers from what they were when some of face up to especially when our numbers I know that both in this conference, and their way across us were kids to a fraction of their former are growing and prospering at such a over the years that this conference has the whole ocean numbers. It is because our taste for rate. Population on our planet has tripled been carried out, the focal point has basin. That has to them is at a point where our technol- in my lifetime, that is, human population. been the fate of sharks. Oh, I certainly be the supreme ogy has reached a level where we can While all other species, our fellow crea- remember as a kid, the feeling was that creature unlike find and bring to market every last one, tures, are diminishing in their numbers. really the only good shark was a dead any other on should we choose to do so. It seems pre- Not all creatures, but certainly some of shark. And a lot of people thought they earth.” posterous. them that we have particularly targeted were really doing a great thing if they When I was a child, and even now, for taking. would exterminate every shark that they NARRATOR: many believed that the ocean was infi- So, what do we do about it? The first could find. And the problem was, you “But the Blue fin nite in its capacity to yield back to us step is knowing. If you understand that know, that people thought that sharks tuna is hunted whatever we wanted to take out and there is a problem, there is a chance were man-eaters—of course, I didn’t whereever it to absorb whatever we wanted to put that you might care, and if you care, you worry about that, because of my gender, goes. And there is in. And perhaps the greatest discovery might do something about it. If you don’t I didn’t qualify. But now, the problem is, a serious debate about the ocean in the last century has know, you can’t care. And that is the man eating sharks. about the conse- been first of all that the ocean really is idea that the ocean is not infinitely pre- You know, lots of them, millions of quences.” at the heart of what makes the planet served; that we do have the capacity to sharks, are munched on by us. And work—the cornerstone of our life support change the way the ocean works. And every once in a while, they turn around

83 X-RAY MAG : 6 : 2005 EDITORIAL FEATURES TRAVEL NEWS EQUIPMENT BOOKS SCIENCE & ECOLOGY EDUCATION PROFILES PORTFOLIO CLASSIFIED Dr Sylvia Earle ...a paradise of dreams

and take a bite out of one of us. But maybe they are allowed when you take a look at what we are doing to them. Let me just give you this little example from an island that people The South China Sea is the world’s most exciting dive destination rarely go to. It’s off the coast of South —Becca Saunders America. It’s part of the eastern tropi- www.layanglayang.com cal Pacific seascape—that body of water that sweeps along the coast of Equador, Panama and Costa Rica. It’s a small group of islands, a kind of a halo of islands, where until recently, sharks were really, really common. You could count on finding scorpions

and hammerheads and other spe- DOER cies of sharks... white tips in abun- dance. However, in just a year, that ABOVE: Earle, poses in a submersible has changed. before a deep sea dive Can we save the ocean? It is hard LEFT: Earle prepares to dive in a JIM suit to tell. To keep the options open, to BELOW: Earle at work in a JIM suit at depth help the creatures such as those in the South Pacific in 2003, you have help to keep doing your part. The birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, the predators of the ocean—the sharks, the tuna—all of those creatures have

a role to play. So do we, of course. NOAA But we are supposed to have the brains to be able to figure out how hand a chance as good as the one to find a place for ourselves within we have right now. these natural systems upon which we You can say, “Well, 90 percent are living with them. But as of right are gone of the sharks, the tuna, the now, it is clear that we don’t get the swordfish,” and climb down the long picture... that we are over-using the list of depressing numbers of crea- life support system that we need to tures that have real trouble, or you maintain ourselves. can say, “Hey, 10 percent of those The key though is to do exactly numbers are still out there. They’re what you are doing—an unique solu- not all gone. There’s still a chance.” tion—the efforts that you are mak- It’s that attitude, that optomistic spirit ing to reverse this plan. I figure that that I see throughout this conference. the next ten years may be the most You know, we can do something. important decade in the next thou- We don’t just have to sit around sand years. Based on two things: as and moan and groan. We have the never before, we know what’s going power to make a difference. We can on and we understand the impor- support those who are taking actions, tance of the natural world, particu- people such as those in government larly, the ocean to us. But maybe seeking protecting of species in the there’s never been on the one sea. DOER

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I want to get out in I got really excited some years ago about the concept that we can do the water. I want to see for the ocean what’s been done with fish, real fish, not fish the land in terms of protecting areas of in a laboratory. national parks. Around the world, some 12% of the land has been embraced —Dr Sylvia Earle by humankind for protection as parks, preserves and wildlife areas. It’s not perfect. It’s not enough. But coupled with supporting policies that care about originates, about water- sheds, about what we put into rivers, lakes and streams, and certainly, the ocean, we can, however, stabilize the downhill trends, and in due course, NOAA. PHOTO BY EMMA HICKERSON if we are really smart, we’ll see a Dr Sylvia Earle and barracuda. Flower Gardens, Texas change, a turnaround. And find that place where we can actually look for- But about the same time, I had with the agency where I served as ward to an enduring future. another opportunity to work with a chief scientist, as a program, we put So, when National Geographic a foundation, which is based in San together this project. few years ago, asked if I would be Francisco, California, on a project for The project grew from six months interested in coming to Washington about five years. And they wanted to to five years—I am working on being D.C. to be an Explorer-In-Residence, do it on conservation, on education, explorer-in-perpetuity right now with my first thought was, “Well, that’s on research about the oceans. National Geographic—continuing great... Explorer-In-Residence... kind So, while putting the two things beyond the coastal waters of the of a contradiction in terms.” But the together, this five-year mission of United States and moving to the waters idea of doing something with National exploration, research and educa- of the world. Moving to your backyard, Geographic was something I liked to tion, conservation and creation of the to this part of the world, towards the do. The deal was that for six months Sustainable Seas Exhibitions, another area where the highest concentration they would support you with a supple- more fortuitous thing happened. And of many species in the ocean is about ment for something you would really that was that Dr Phil Nuytten, from to occur—in the famous coral triangle, like to do. whom we will hear very shortly, came this part of the planet where fish and up with a brilliant concept other invertebrets and plants all seem for a new kind of submers- to have a special atypical circum- ible—one that was so simple, stance. But we know very little about even scientists could drive what this world except where divers these submarines around— can go. taking you down to 2000 feet But now with new technologies now (667m), which covers a fair in the circle, we don’t have to look part of the Continental Shelf wistfully over the edge at these steep therein parts of the United drop-offs or sit at the side of a boat States and continental waters or the shore and just wonder. We can of many countries, actually. actually go. And so the idea of putting There are luckily now, in the United this thing together with the States, some 18 thousand square miles resources of the National of ocean that have been embraced as Geographic Foundation in protected areas, as marine sanctuaries, San Francisco and working although it’s mostly in name. A very tiny PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ACADEMY OF ACHIEVEMENT ABOVE INSET: Earle diving with jellyfish DOER LEFT. Earle interacts with a wild dolphin 85 X-RAY MAG : 6 : 2005 EDITORIAL FEATURES TRAVEL NEWS EQUIPMENT BOOKS SCIENCE & ECOLOGY EDUCATION PROFILES PORTFOLIO CLASSIFIED profile Dr Sylvia Earle

fraction of that small amount of the we have a chance like no genera- there is to do—these are baby tion in the eye, and you can look waters of the United States have full tion before us to make a positive steps, and we want some giant yourself in the eye, and be confi- protection in the way that a nation- difference just as our predecessors steps. dent that you have done what you al park does. did years ago when the idea of pro- So, I first, salute you for all that can to make a difference. Thank And around the world, although tecting wildlife on land came with a you are doing, and I challenge you, you. there are more than 3000 places in purpose. Now, it’s our turn with the that when we get together, and I the ocean being investigated for ocean—this time, our time, to make will come back in years ahead, we For more information about Dr Sylvia some form of protection, it’s a tiny decisions that will resolve the bal- should be mindful of what progress Earle and her organization, Deep fraction of that amount that has ance through years to come. we can make as individuals, as Ocean Exploration and Research, real protection in a similar way that Eighteen thousand square miles organizations, whatever it is, what- visit: www.doer-inc.com ■ we think of in a park where in you of US water sounds like alot, but ever talents you have... I get asked don’t cut down the trees or trap the the Great Barrier Reef in Australia alot, “I am just one person. What wildlife or catch the fish. is 144 square miles of ocean. And can I do?” We use the ocean in mutliple even then, despite that vast area First thing you do is pick up the ways including recreation, diving, has enjoyed such protection since mirror and look at it and say, “I take and all the rest, but many of the the mid 1970’s, there are some real great underwater photographs.” ways we use the ocean are con- problems. It’s more of a manage- Use that talent. Or you can say, “I sumptively destructive. If we are to ment area than it is a fully protect- can play wonderful music.” Use that have fish in the sea in the future, for ed area. talent. If you are good in math, or whatever reason, to take them out Good news: a lot of things are you can draw or you have a way of the sea, we have to do what we better off than they would have with words—what ever it is, use it, so have in some ways already done been had they been without any that you can look the next genera- to creatures on the land: protect protection at all. But just last year, the breeding areas and the feeding it was at a point where meas- areas. Otherwise, we might breach ures had to be taken to really do migration routes, and so on. something more. So, full protec- In fact, a fraction of one percent tion was increased from about of the ocean has any known pro- 6% to 33%, a good third of that tection as compared to the land vast system, now has been given where about 12% has fairly exten- better protection. sive protection. And in the United States, plac- It was about 100 years ago that es that we have had a chance

NOAA people began to get serious about to go to during the protecting wildlife on the land and Sustainable Seas protecting habitats where they series of expedi- lived. If people wanted to have tions, is now under ducks and other birds to consume, consideration to they had to protect the breed- become an even ing areas, the feeding areas, the larger body of boundaries. Now we need to simply water under pro- Books about Dr Sylvia Earle: apply these measures for the sea... tection—the north Meet My Grandmother: She’s a Deep-Sea Explorer for tuna, for swordfish, for sharks for western Hawaiian (Millbrook Press) by Lisa Tucker McElroy heaven’s sakes... for anything that Islands. Sylvia Earle: Deep Sea Explorer is out there, we must, at this stage, But again, when (Women Explorers) by Susan Tyler Hitchcock seize the opportunity that we have we think about Sylvia Earle: Guardian of the Sea NURP now, but won’t have much longer. the ocean as a (Lerner Biographies) by Beth Baker TOP: Earle in action studying marine plant life You know, all we have is right whole—how much Sylvia Earle: Deep Sea Explorer and Ocean Activist INSET: Earle displays samples to an aquanaut inside TEKTITE now. I met a psychic that said that there is, how much (Women Hall of Famers in Mathematics and Science) by Katherine White

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