Community effort request Mission Blue

[Gadagirl]

I watched for the first time a documentary "Mission Blue" and I was very muched moved. Because, as with the observations of Dr. Sylvia Alice Earle I have observed in my lifetime the degredation of coral reefs and sea life. She's an amazing pioneer scientist in oceanography, biology , etc . Very well accomplished,. If you are unable to view the dicumenertty i'd urge you to read up on her.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Earle

Her documentary is on Netflix
https://www.netflix.com/title/703082...entIntent=true

And the mission blue web site
https://missionblue.org/

I'm posting on cruisers forum for a rally of support amongst some of our caring sailors to help fund raising for her mission to create "HOPE SPOTS" , which are creating protected ocean areas similar to national parks and reserves as we do on land but instead in sensitive ocean habitats.

I just feel as a community we can probably make a great difference. So I'm asking if enough sailors are interested in helping. It doesn't necessarily involve personal financial assistance. I'm just starting this quest to feel out interest in participating.

So can we as a small community help? Who's interested?

[boatman61]

A great idea... beats the hell out of the hypocrisy of the EU's fishery/sea conservation farce..
Their idea of protecting the ocean is to send their factory ships to hoover up the Indian Oceans fish stocks.. stuffed up the North Sea and Atlantic with them already, so let's rape and pillage others waters.

[Gadagirl]

Yes it's very alarming. Fish stocks across all species is down to unprecedented, unsustainable lows.

[bensolomon]

Great idea. I'm interested in seeing what we can do as a community. You might consider contacting Ocean Research Project, Matt Rutherford and Nicole Trenholm. They might be able to help scale the project.

[boatman61]

Another thing that is either totally ignored or unknown by many is, not only are we depleting the fish towards the top of the food chain in the oceans we are depleting the supply of the food for marine life to thrive and multiply.
Krill is the most fished animal in the Southern Ocean. Their oily bodies are either used in pharmaceuticals as an alternative source of omega-3, fed to livestock and aquaculture fish, used in pet food or a small amount are even prepared for humans to eat.. the new Gold Rush.
You hear all this bull about Carbon Capture from the 'elite' yet here we are fishing a life form capable of removing 12 billion + tonnes of Carbon from the atmosphere every year.
That total decreases every year that the ships operate.
But hey.. The shareholders of the corporations are happy, the upcoming shareholders of the latest scientific Carbon Capture and Storage plants will be just as happy..
Why worry about something that has worked efficiently in the Natural World for millions of years when you can make loadsa money and invent a (you hope) substitute..

"By eating phytoplankton and excreting carbon and nutrient-rich pellets that sink to the seafloor, Antarctic krill are an integral part of the carbon cycle and a key contributor of iron and other nutrients that fertilise the ocean"

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Another thing that is either totally ignored or unknown by many is, not only are we depleting the fish towards the top of the food chain in the oceans we are depleting the supply of the food for marine life to thrive and multiply.
Krill is the most fished animal in the Southern Ocean..

Indeed!
A study [1], published in 2022, by researchers in Chile, concluded that by 2100, the krill population biomass will undergo “a marked decline” that could range “from <50% to near extinction”; and that “environmental variability resulted in a greater impact on the Antarctic food web in 2100 projections compared with the krill fishery.”

[1] “Projecting environmental and krill fishery impacts on the Antarctic” ~ by G. Testa et al
➥ https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...79661122001215

See also:

“Krill fishing and conservation in the Southern Ocean” ~ by the British Antarctic Survey [BAS]
➥ https://www.bas.ac.uk/data/our-data/...outhern-ocean/

“Climate change and overfishing threaten once ‘endless’ Antarctic krill” ~ by Elizabeth C. Alberts
➥ https://news.mongabay.com/2022/08/cl...tarctic-krill/