Filmmaker's Journal: guest posting on Oceans4Ever's "Summer Sharktakular"

It's been said that the future belongs to the young. If so, then here is an example of hope: ten-year old Alexa, with the help of her mother, Cindy, have established the blog Oceans4Ever. It succeeds in bringing important issues to light without hyper-opinionated rants and complex scientific jargon. Just straightforward talk from the perspective of someone who is living with the world we adults have given her, warts and all.

Right now Alexa is running a Summer Sharktakular with contests along with information and guests posts from a wide range of sources. I was asked to contribute a guest post about shark filmmaking and I was most pleased and honored to oblige. I addressed the responsibility that the nature filmmaker has towards getting the story right when it comes to sharks:

"... the truth is that sharks are predators and scavengers – extremely important predators and scavengers that help maintain the proper balance and health of the marine ecology.

The oceans cannot survive without them.

The message I try to convey to my audience is: you may not love them, but you must appreciate them. You can’t enjoy the jackrabbit or the deer without appreciating the coyote or the wolf. And you can’t enjoy the colorful reef fish or the comical seals without appreciating the shark."

My hat's off to Alexa and Cindy for Oceans4Ever! We are standing very close to a precipice but its because of the efforts of young people like Alexa that, in that perilous moment, we might spare ourselves that long fall.

"Shark films can be exciting, they can be entertaining, but they must be on-target. We owe it to the sharks; we owe it to ourselves – for our futures are intertwined."

Check out the Ocean4Ever blog.

Gulf Oil Disaster: a few items of interest

News coverage of the Gulf oil disaster continues unabated, as well it should - we must never become anesthetized to this environmental bombshell of an event. Because there are so many news and conservation outlets following this on a daily basis with much better skill and detail than I could provide, I have left the subject in their able hands.

But here are a couple of items I wanted to bring up today:

IfItWasMyHome.com
My good colleague, multimedia producer Liz Smith, brought this web site to my attention. Assembled by Andy Linter, it brings together several timely widgets and news feeds, some of which I have mentioned in past posts. Included are the live camera feed, the counter showing the number of gallons leaked to date, the spill zone map that can be transposed to your region or community to give you an idea as to the scope of the spill, and several news feeds from leading news outlets.

Visit the If It Was My Home website.

Lawsuit to Lift Deepwater Drilling Moratorium
On May 27th, a federal moratorium on deepwater oil drilling was put in place, following the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill. Earlier this month, a group of companies that provide oil drilling services, including Hornbeck Offshore Services, filed a lawsuit against the government, declaring that the moratorium violated the Outer Continental Lands Act and would impose financial hardship on the plaintiff companies. With support from several conservation organizations, including the Center for Biological Diversity, the Secretary of the Interior and several related agencies intend to continue with the moratorium.

“The Secretary’s decision was a valid exercise of his discretion predicated on the need to ensure that no further drilling accidents occur pending review and implementation of safety protocols and procedures,” lawyers for the agencies said. “The short-term economic harm asserted by the plaintiffs fails to meet their burden of demonstrating irreparable harm.”

Here is the dilemma: when a society's economy is so entrenched in oil, that businesses will sue to maintain the status quo even in the face of one of the largest environmental disasters ever.

Read Businessweek article.

Petition to Prevent Drilling Without Environmental Review
And speaking of the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), the organization filed a legal petition with the Department of the Interior, requesting the elimination of the "categorical exclusion" which allows the infamous Minerals Management Service (MMS) to approve drilling plans without the usual environmental review as required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

According to a CBD press release, "BP [British Petroleum] received approval for its Deepwater Horizon operations under a NEPA categorical exclusion, which allows MMS to greenlight oil and gas exploration and development activities without companies needing to submit an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement, as typically required under NEPA."

"The petition also charges that MMS violated NEPA in its approval of Gulf oil and gas exploration activities. According to the center, the environmental assessment prepared by MMS for the 2007 lease spill — the one that parceled out the Deepwater Horizon well — concluded that the lease sale would have 'no significant environmental impacts.'”

Read Law360.com article.

The Blame Game
While certainly BP and several federal agencies have to take responsibility for setting the stage for this now ongoing disaster, we ourselves are not free of blame, as a recent issue of TIME pointed out.

"And all of us bear responsibility too for depending on and demanding cheap oil underwritten by risky drilling while showing again and again at the ballot box that we wouldn't support a government that really regulated the industry. 'This failure of government is government acting the way the American people have said they want it to act,' says Sarah Elkind, a political historian at San Diego State University. 'We get what we deserve.' The question is whether we have the strength and smarts to recognize how Americans got to this oil-soaked moment and to force the changes needed to make sure it never happens again."

Scuba Divers: be part of the solution, or you're part of the problem

As a scuba diver for some 25 years or so, I have had the opportunity to dive in a variety of locales and have, over the years, seen some significant changes in various aspects of marine ecosystems - from reef degradation to reduced fishlife to encroaching pollution and man-made debris. So, I have tried to be a thoughtful diver while also trying to enlighten as many people as possible to the many issues challenging our world's oceans, often through my volunteer diving at aquariums and through public speaking.

Scuba divers can serve as ambassadors for marine conservation as they have a unique perspective having been active participants, shall we say. They have seen the ocean's beauty firsthand; they have witnessed its complexities - these are not alien experiences, gleamed from a book or dreamt about. And because we divers take benefit from what the ocean has to offer us then we have a responsibility to do what we can to preserve it. We must not choose to cede it all to the activists or the decision-makers, assuming that they can carry the ball without our help.

When I am speaking to groups about marine conservation, often in regards to shark conservation, I occasionally run across a diver or two who are a bit worn out from all the eco-preaching. They just want to dive and leave the "save the seas" stuff to someone else. Sorry, but that ship has sailed. We all must chip in and do our part: know what's going on, get involved in some capacity if only just to let your voice be known; otherwise you risk being as selfish a consumer of the seas as those who have been labeled as the worst of abusers.

After all, what are you there for? To see vibrant sealife, healthy reefs, lush kelp forests? Or do you just want to experience the cool features on the latest dive computer or fashionable wet suit? To those divers who are committed to preserving the earth's oceans - many, many thanks. To the uncommitted - be part of the solution, not part of the problem.