LA TIMES/Coastline Pilot

18 June 2004

 

Chasing the Muse

Catharine Cooper 

 

Politically, I’m aligning myself with the dolphins and the whales.  They need me a great deal more than any of the political parties, in fact, they need me because of the political parties, because they are unable to speak – at least in a language that we can understand - for themselves.  And the right, left and middle are too engaged in a battle for supremacy to currently notice what’s just below the water’s edge.

 

It isn’t just the dolphins and the whales who need my voice.  Rather, it is the entire marine eco-system, which, if you haven’t noticed, is in serious trouble.  Those of us who live along the southern shore of California are more aware than most, at least of the affects of urban run-off and the havoc it wreaks with our local beaches.  Bacterial and fecal counts have rendered our waters unsafe for swimming on numerous occasions.  “Don’t go near the water” is a rather tragic statement on a sunny day with great surf.

 

Beyond our precious coastline, the deterioration of the marine system continues to escalate.  The recently released Pews Ocean Commission (POC) report reveals broad and widespread issues, but the most disturbing is that the primary impediment to ocean conservation is a broad lack of public awareness of the importance of the oceans by Americans, opinion leaders and policy makers.

 

The world is a complicated place to live, with constantly expanding needs all vying for attention.  War, famine and disease – those items that seem to directly affect the health of the human population – grab the bulk of media attention and political currency.  The oceans appear vast and able to fend for themselves.  This, simply, is not the case.

 

The majority of water pollutants are invisible, and the toxins that appear in the food chain are consumed without visual clues.  Trawler dragging destroys coral and seabeds; urban run-off chokes habitats and creates dead zones, commercial fisheries run unchecked.  We view our oceans as beautiful, and they are, but each and every day, another human action takes unprecedented toll on a dwindling resource.

 

The POC is an 18 member independent bipartisan panel comprised a broad spectrum of citizens, government officials and those whose livelihood is dependent upon the seas.  They spent three years in a study of the awareness of ocean issues, criss-crossing the country, soliciting concerns and knowledge in such varied locales as Hawaii, Alaska, Maine, South Carolina, New York, Louisiana, and even Iowa.  Their 2004 report lists major threats to our oceans:  point and non-point pollution, invasive species, aquaculture, coastal development, overfishing, habitat alteration, and climate change.

 

How do we measure something like overfishing?  One term used in an analysis is “shifting baselines,” coined by fisheries biologist Daniel Pauly in 1995.  Shifting baselines affect the quality-of-life decisions we face daily.  They are chronic, slow, hard-to-notice changes in things, like the disappearance of birds and frogs in the countryside, the loss of local abalone in the waters, or the increase in drive time from San Diego to Los Angeles.  If your weight used to be 150 and now it’s 160, your baseline (as well as your body shape), has shifted.

 

Among environmentalist, a baseline is an important reference point for measuring the health of the ecosystem.  It provides information against which to measure change.  In an ideal world, the baseline for any given habitat would be what was there before humans had much impact.

 

Can we determine baselines, before they again shift?  Measuring the temperature of the earth’s surface, the ocean’s waters and the composition of the atmosphere can provide us with scientific data that will aid in making decisions to deter global warming.  Understanding the significance of a measured loss of fish habitat and fertility should aid in policy making and legislation.

 

We stand on a brink of rather daunting marine disasters, and they are not blatantly apparent, except to those involved in their research and analysis.  Cadres of foundations, including Surfrider, the Ocean Conservancy and Scripps Institute of Oceanography are mounting major media campaigns to call attention to the overall decline of the oceans.  The campaigns should increase our awareness, but it is action and commitment that are needed. 

 

Since those whales and dolphins seem to struggle for our ear, it is up to us to be loudly vocal on their behalf.  They cannot stop us from dumping toxins, poisons, overfishing, over-building, or messing with the climate that affects their existence.  It is up to us to take these issues to our politicians, whatever their party leanings, because in this democracy, it’s the noisy parts that get attention.  So speak up.  Take a stand.  Make a whale proud.

 

Catharine Cooper loves wild places (and is currently in the midst of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge paddling up the Kungakut River).  She can be reached at ccooper@cooperdesign.net.