Journalist, diver and conservation activist David Helvarg reflects on a lifelong appreciation of all things oceanic. July 15th 2015 Every person has their own reasons for becoming involved in the causes they hold dear. For David Helvarg, the sea—whether the Long Island Sound of his youth, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, or the icy waters around […]
Saved by the Sea
“Our bodies, like the planet, are 71 percent salt water, our blood exactly as salty as the sea.” Every person has their own reasons for becoming involved in the causes they hold dear. For David Helvarg, the sea—whether the Long Island Sound of his youth, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, or the icy waters around Antarctica—makes […]
Can We Save Ocean Fish?
I respect my friend Sylvia Earle’s refusal to eat seafood, as well as the famed ocean scientist’s argument that no market hunting has ever been sustainable. Still, there’s nothing as delicious to me as a wild salmon I’ve caught myself, or raw oysters from cold waters with their fresh briny sea flavor, or fried calamari with […]
Why A New Writers Group Wants to Save the Seas
Writers for the Sea is a new organization that was formed on June 8—World Oceans Day—and is going to make a splash, if not set off a new wave, in literature. What prompted the creation of Writers for the Sea? “Who hears the fishes when they cry?” asked Henry David Thoreau in 1839. The following […]
Our Ocean Crisis — Solutions Are the Easy Part
Over the last 64 years, the geologic nanosecond in which I’ve lived my life, 90 percent of the largest pelagic (open ocean) fish — including hammerhead sharks, bluefin tuna and black marlin — have been wiped out, along with close to half the world’s tropical reefs. Our global ocean faces a cascading disaster from industrial […]