Squid Ink

The Pacific's Past Sets the Stage for a Voyage into its Future

Submitted by ahemphill on Fri, 2010-07-23 17:23
in

Vaka canoe patroling Suva Harbor, Fiji (photo: Arlo Hemphill, Center for Ocean Solutions)

Arlo Hemphill by Arlo Hemphill, Communications Specialist 

Suva, Fiji.  The islands of the Pacific are separated by thousands of miles of deep, blue ocean. From space, they amount to little more than random specks of sand and rock adrift in a vast watery world.  Yet ancient mariners were able to navigate these then unchartered waters and populate the lonesome specks, becoming the Pacific Islander peoples of today.  Unfortunately, their tradition of open ocean navigation has been all but lost in modern times.  That is until recently.
  Read more...

Obama announces a National Ocean Policy to guide our management of the ocean

Submitted by eloury on Tue, 2010-07-20 12:59
in

Obama's new National Ocean Policy charts a sustainable course of ocean conservation and management for future generations (photo:Steve Lonhart, SIMoN NOAA)  

by Erin Loury, Science Communication Intern

Some good news for the oceans! On July 19th, President Obama signed an Executive Order that establishes a National Policy for the Stewardship of the Ocean, Coasts, and Great Lakes. The Executive Order adopts the Final Recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force (pdf), also released on July 19th after a year of research and deliberation. The Order and Recommendations highlight the importance of ecosystem health and biological diversity to human well-being, acknowledge the threats of climate change and ocean acidification, and call for the implementation of comprehensive coastal and marine spatial planning.

Both the Order and the Final Recommendations invoke the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the environmental crisis in the Gulf of Mexico as “a stark reminder of how vulnerable our marine environments are, and how much communities and the Nation rely on healthy and resilient ocean and coastal ecosystems.”

“Until now, there has been no cohesive, strategic vision for where the country is going with respect to ocean health and ocean resource management,” said Matthew Armsby of the Center for Ocean Solution’s (COS) marine spatial planning team on the significance of this Order.  “We’ve had many different laws and policies, but the nation’s resource managers lacked a meaningful prioritization of ecosystem health and sustainability.  Read more...

Tribute to a “Climate Warrior” – Stephen Schneider dies at 65

Submitted by eloury on Tue, 2010-07-20 08:19
in

Stephen Schneider, a leading climate expert from Stanford University, is dead at 65.

by Erin Loury, Science Communication Intern

The world of climate change science mourns the loss of a great spokesman.  Stephen Schneider, a leading climatologist, died July 19th at the age of 65.

Schneider, a professor at Stanford University, served on the international research panel on global warming that received the 2007 Nobel Prize along with former Vice President Al Gore.  He also worked closely with Center for Ocean Solutions staff during the 2009 climate negotiations in Copenhagen.  According to his wife, Stanford professor Terry Root, Schneider suffered a heart attack while onboard a plane as it landed in London.  Read more...

Fiji’s Call to Arms for the Pacific

Submitted by ahemphill on Thu, 2010-07-01 16:13
in

Fiji's Pacific Coast (photo: Arlo Hemphill, Center for Ocean Solutions)

Arlo Hemphill by Arlo Hemphill, Communications Specialist 

Suva, Fiji.  Thunderous clapping from the seated meke dancers, a solo chant and then silence as a lone dancer, dressed in the grass skirt-like liku vau, delivers a bowl of kava to Meg Caldwell, Center for Ocean Solutions' Executive Director and one of a dozen special guests of honor at this traditional Fijian ceremony.  Ms. Caldwell is seated next to Joketani Cokanasiga, Fiji’s Minister of Fisheries, Forests and Agriculture, who greets the guests assembled from across the Pacific basin with a call to arms, a challenge for all the Pacific - nations and citizens alike - to work in unison in response to the major threats on the largest of our planet’s oceans.  The call now made, the bowls of kava are downed, and the dancers retake center stage, leading the group into a night of revelry and celebration of our shared future.  Read more...