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2 · JUNE 2012 AN INdEpENdENt AdvErtIsINg sUpplEmENt by mEdIAplANEt to los ANgElEs tImEs
CHALLENGES
Saving the oceans to feed the world
The incredible degree to which the oceans can help feed the world by mid-century is just becoming clear.
A fully productive ocean can pro-vide 700 million seafood meals a day, up from 450 million meals at current levels - and that’s when fi shing is done at a responsible rate, when a balance is struck between the production of food and the pro-tection of ocean ecosystems.
But this will only be possible if we begin to manage the oceans properly in the places that matter most. Throughout history, we’ve
done the opposite. We’ve pillaged the oceans – destroying fi sh stocks and wrecking habitats even after the late 1980’s when the global fi sh catch started to decline. You’ve heard of peak oil, well this was peak fi sh. It has been declining ever since, in stark contrast to the tra-jectory of human population, and if allowed to continue, it will mean further desecration of the oceans and a missed opportunity to help battle world hunger.
The point is that we can reverse the trajectory of declining fish catch in a practical way that ben-efi ts the oceans and the 9 billion people projected to live on earth by 2050. Through the implementa-tion of basic (and proven) scientifi c policies, it’s possible to protect the oceans and ensure that fi sh popu-lations rebound enough to sustain-
ably produce more food. Oceana is tackling this issue.
We’ve identifi ed the steps neces-sary to restore fi sh stocks in the 25 countries that control 75% of the world’s marine fi sh catch – this means honing in on the places where most of the world’s fi sh are
caught and enacting policies to bring their numbers back. We’ll focus on the most productive ocean places with the understand-ing that biodiversity will also be protected in the process. It’s a win-win.
surfrider and Alacer Corp’s Emergen-C blue make a huge splash in the blue Water task force
we reCoMMend
pAgE 5
mediaplanet’s business is to create new customers for our advertisers by providing readers with high quality editorial content that motivates them to act.
ANDreW SHArPLeSS, OCeANA, CeO
water stewardshiPfirst edition, June 2012
Business Developer: rebecca ramgren [email protected] Director: Cahill [email protected]: noelle saulnier
Contributors: Conservation international, County of los angeles department of Public works, Mara dias, avery hurt, oceana, ocean Conservancy, lynn ramgren, david de rothschild, andrew sharpless, greg stone, surfrider foundation
Distributed within: los angeles times, June 2012this section was created by Mediaplanet and did not involve the los angeles times or its editorial departments.
This special publication is dedicated to Gary Wilstein.
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ANDreW SHArPLeSS, oceana, CEo
Individual actions such as choosing sustainable seafood are a great start, but that can’t be all we do to protect the oceans. I invite you to learn more on the pages that follow about the many threats fac-ing our oceans, the amazing folks who’ve dedicated their lives to pro-tecting them and about how you can help, like getting in involved with Oceana to help us enact poli-cies that stop overfi shing, reduce bycatch, and protect nurseries around the globe. Join us. Help us to save the oceans and feed the world. Learn more at www.oceana.org/feedtheworld.
EAT SEAFOOD SUSTAINABLYEAT SEAFOOD
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“Individual actions such as choosing sustainable seafood are a great start”
PHOtO: MIKe SMOLOWe
JUNE 2012 · 3AN INdEpENdENt AdvErtIsINg sUpplEmENt by mEdIAplANEt to los ANgElEs tImEs
CHALLENGES
mediaplanet’s business is to create new customers for our advertisers by providing readers with high quality editorial content that motivates them to act.
If you type the phrase “how long can you last without” into Google, given the thousands of suggestions to fire back to complete the phrase, it might surprise you that “water” is the first word to bubble up and claim top spot.
Scan the fi rst few pages of the search results and you’re presented with a collection of near identical survival websites focused on tips needed to keep your personal water tank from dipping into the red.
But amid all the reams of cut-and-paste references, one particular tip caught my eye. It was a sentence that could easily win the award for most obvious statement of 2012: “The best method to survive with-
out water is not to be placed in that situation in the fi rst place.”
Had Google existed before the Industrial Revolution, when our population barely topped a billion and the horizon actually did seem endless, this statement might have appeared plausible. Fast forward to 2011 and not only does this maxim seem naive, but it’s no longer fea-sible. Today our global population is just shy of seven billion, with an expected surge up to nine billion by 2050.
On a planet that’s approximately 72 percent water, shouldn’t there be plenty to go around? But here’s the catch: only 2 percent of that 72 per-cent of water is actually drinkable. Coupled with an access issue that currently leaves 1.1 billion without
THIRSTY WATERSINSIGHT
an adequate clean water supply and suddenly our most precious resource shrinks. Dramatically.
Under siege from nearly every industry—agriculture, clothing, and yes, even our own personal con-sumption—our water supply is not only drying up before our eyes, it’s being used on all the wrong things. Coupled with a rapid decline of water fi lling our aquifers, lakes, river, seas, and the unpredictability of rainfall patterns due to a changing climate, cut in half again by waterborne dis-eases. The result? This year alone, 12 million people will die from a lack of safe drinking water, of which more than three million will die from waterborne diseases.
We can do better. This isn’t a far-off problem. It’s here, now. So at the risk of sounding cliché, I cast my vote for prevention rather than a cure. The good news? Like most other environmental challenges, we already possess most—if not all—of the tools needed to tackle this issue! In my opinion it involves a simple, three-fold approach.
The First thing we must undergo is a fundamental
re-understanding of our current situation. We need to work hard to eradicate the perception that water access, distribution, and hygiene are merely issues for developing nations, and instead recognize that it’s a critical issue for every species and every individual on this planet. We need to create a sense of owner-ship across all demographics, so that everyone takes part in the global conversation.
The second challenge is for us to take this new-found
inclusive narrative and use it to catalyze system-wide changes. Not just changes, but improvements. This would alter not just how we capture, store, reuse, and distribute all forms of freshwater, but also how we try and eradicate the dumb inef-fi ciencies—ineffi ciencies like those stated in a United Nations 2009
World Water Assessment report called “Water in a Changing World” which cites leakage rates of 50 per-cent in urban environments!
The third step we need to take in order to create a more
effi cient planet 2.0, one in which we carefully manage our precious water supplies, is to build adaptive management and innovation into the very heart of our plans. We must broadly analyze our habits if we’re going to change them.You might be wondering why we should go to all this trouble. After all, what’s in it for you? A lot, actually. If we follow this plan, our future might hold a wealth of possibility. Or, we can stick to the status quo. We can keep refusing to improve. We already know what kind of future that will entail. Even more billions of people without water, even more waste, even more thirst. The choice is ours. How long can you last without water?
Conservation needed at every level: local, national, international
oceans cover 70 percent of the Earth, but despite their vast expanse the majority of the activity
in our seas is near the coast where land and sea meet, where millions of people live and depend on the sea’s resources. Its where most ocean life is found and where the problems are felt the strongest.
The Philippines is home to the Sulu Sulawesi Seascape, a 350,000 square mile globally-important marine biodiversity conservation
area. Conservation International (CI) is helping local governments and communities to address over-fi shing concerns by establishing marine protected areas (MPAs). These managed areas include “sanctuaries” that are kept free from fi shing activities to sustain the fi sheries and protect important coastal habitats.
Fishers in municipalities that have established MPAs and strengthened marine law enforce-ment in their waters have reported
increases in fi sh catch and subse-quently, household income. After many years of declining fi sheries
production, they are now seeing clear signs of recovery.
Since 2005, CI has helped facili-tate a 242 percent increase in the total marine area under some form of protection (from 220,767 hect-ares to more than 750,000 hectares) in the Sulu Sulawesi Seascape.
Coastal communities, like those who depend on the bounty of the Sulu Sulawesi seascape will be the ones who suff er the impacts of overfishing, climate change, and destruction of marine habi-
tats. Conservation of our oceans is needed at every level from locally nationally and internationally. And the best way to foster this action is to have those who depend on it the most, like the people of the Philippines and the Sulu Sulawesi Seascape, lead the way as ocean stewards.
“we must broadly analyze our habits if we’re going to change them.”
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DAvID De rOtHSCHILDFOuNDer OF MuZe
@drexplore
FOuNDer OF MuZe@drexplore
GreG StONeCHIeF SCIeNtISt,
CONServAtION [email protected]
Greg Stone Chief scientist at Conservation International
David de rothschildfounder of muze
JUNE 2012 · 5AN INdEpENdENt AdvErtIsINg sUpplEmENt by mEdIAplANEt to los ANgElEs tImEs
Educating communities on the value of water qualityIn 2011, the Surfrider Founda-tion partnered with Alacer Corp., maker of Emergen-C Blue, to raise awareness about the need for clean water and alert communi-ties about water quality issues through the Blue Water Task Force (BWTF), presented by Emergen-C Blue. Designed to take advantage of the daily presence of surfers and beachgoers in coastal waters, this volunteer-run, water testing, education and advocacy program is one of the Surfrider Founda-tion’s most visible and successful programs to date. Our chapter activists use this program to alert citizens and officials in their com-munities about water quality prob-lems and to advocate for solutions.
Surfrider Chapters are collecting samples at ocean beaches and their freshwater sources such as creeks, rivers and wetlands. The bacte-ria levels in these water samples are then measured in the lab and
compared to national water qual-ity standards established by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect public health in recreational waters.
Gathering together locally and advocating for solutionsLocally, the South Bay Chapter’s water testing program, dubbed “Teach and Test,” involves five area high schools. The students collect water samples every other Sun-day during the school year from eighteen ocean beach and wetland sites. The samples are then ana-lyzed in lab space that the Chapter shares with the SEA lab in Redondo Beach or at Loyola Marymount University. Visit Surfrider.org to see what beaches are being tested.
This school year, the students have also conducted a waste char-acterization study to support the chapter’s Rise Above Plastics campaign. Trash was collected at the beach where water samples are taken, then sorted in the lab to
Protect our waves, keep our water clean, and preserve our beaches
NEWS
determine where the trash came from (i.e. food wrappers, foam con-tainers, bottles and sports items). The Chapter just held their end-of-the-year celebration on May 6th, at the SEA Lab where all of the stu-dents presented their water qual-ity and beach trash data and made recommendations for improving the health of their beaches and water.
We can all join them in their
efforts to keep our beaches clean and safe. Say no to single use plastics. Clean up after your pets. Plant an Ocean Friendly Garden that doesn’t need heavy chemicals and watering as many lawns are treated. Also, visit Surfrider.org and learn more about the BWTF, presented by Emergen-C Blue and our campaign to support state and local beach monitoring programs so we know when it is safe to swim
or surf at our favorite beaches.As a sponsor of the Surfrider
Foundation since 2009, Emergen-C Blue has donated more than $100,000 to the organization.
Emergen-C Blue is a registered trademark of Alacer Corp.
Photo: Craig Cadwallader / sUrfrIdEr foUNdAtIoN soUth bAy ChAptEr
Ecosystem Based Management■ Question: how do we protect endangered species – and preserve our economy?
■■ Answer: by taking into account all the interconnections in an eco-system.
When it comes to protecting endangered species, concentrat-ing on one species at a time isn’t working terribly well. Animals do not live in isolation, and actions to protect one species have conse-quences for entire ecosystems.
For this reason scientists over-whelmingly recommend Ecosys-tem-Based Management (EBM). Rather than focusing on single species, EBM considers the inter-actions between and interests of all the affected species – including humans. The concept has been in use for many years in land-based ecosystems, but is still a relatively new approach with marine ecosys-tems.
EBM makes excellent sense, but isn’t easy to implement. Trade-
offs are inevitable. “When mak-ing [environmental] decisions, we have to keep in mind the context of the society and the culture we live in. We have to be realistic. If you’re looking for simple solutions, there aren’t any,” says Bob Bertelli, chair-man of the California Sea Urchin Commission.
Trying to estimate the overall and long-term effects of any action can seem overwhelming. But we don’t have to throw up our hands in despair. There are plenty of
Avery [email protected]
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direct things we land-based mam-mals can do, explains Bruce Steele, farmer, fisherman, and environ-mentalist, “Leave buffers of wet-lands around farms, figure out how to not pump so much of our waste in the ocean. These things will be expensive, but we can do them.”
When we see these interests as interconnected rather than com-peting, most of us agree, it’s worth the expense.
Mara DiasWater Quality Manager,
Surfrider [email protected]
INSPIRATION
H2O Projects: Rob Machado and Hurley join forces■ Lynn Ramgren: As you come face-to-face with several is-sues while out surfing, which issue has most impacted you? What do you think is the most pressing issue facing oceans today?
■ Rob Machado: First thing that comes to my mind is pollution. The Earth’s population will only continue to grow and with that comes the issue of discarding all of our waste products. The old way of thinking seemed to be “out of sight out of mind” and the ocean worked perfectly for that -- giant body of water with currents that will make everything go away. Well, that can no longer happen. Our oceans are a precious resource and we need to protect them and take care of them. Take a look at the plastic situation in the 5 gyres, garbage patches twice the size of Texas are out there with 90% of it being plas-tic. A lot of that is from single-use plastic bottles. A little secret on plastic bottles is that it takes about 6 gallons of water to create each bottle of water, and that only 20% of those bottles are ever recycled. Greanpeace reports that of the 200 billion pounds of plastic the world makes each year about 10% of that ends up in the ocean. Not good.
■ Lr: You’re involved with a few Hurley H20 projects. Tell us more about some of your current efforts and upcoming water projects.■ RM: A few years ago I helped the Sumba foundation with a well
digging project in Indonesia. That open my eyes to the issue of clean water. At a global level, 1 in 6 people do not have access to clean water so I worked with my friends at Hur-ley to establish the H2O initiative to do something about it (www.hurley.com/h2o). In doing so, I’ve worked with them at beach events to raise awareness, I’ve partnered with local community leaders to educate, and I’ve gone to Haiti with Jon Rose, who created Waves For Water (www.wavesforwater.org), to distribute portable water fi lters to those in need. Next on the hori-zon, we are getting ready to launch, “Hydration Nation.” It’s a program that works with local schools to eliminate single use plastics in favor of re-usable bottles. Through my Foundation, and Hurley H2O we’ll also install innovative water fountains specially designed for refi lling those re-usable bottles. And the great thing, each school will learn about the water crisis and be able to do something about it. They’ll actually get to “sponsor” a nation in need and I’ll organize a relief eff ort to connect the dots. It’s going to be fun and rewarding.
■ Lr: What should Califor-nians consider in being a “Steward of the Water?” ■ RM: I think a lot of Californians live under the assumption that water is easily obtained here...when the reality of the situation is that we live in an arid semi-desert and that we have to have a majority of our water brought in via the Col-orado River. I would love to see Cali-
LyNN rAMGreN
fornians take more of an initiative in preserving the water that we get. Through my Foundation (www.robmachadofoundation.org) we am to teach children that water is precious; we need to respect it more and can’t live life taking our water preserves for granted. Each one of us can make a diff erence.
From turning off the faucet when brushing your teeth, to eliminat-ing single-use plastic bottles, to understanding your water shed, we can all work together to make an impact. We can’t keep operating the way we do or we’ll pay a price. So, I hope to encourage people to take a look around and realize that
there is an issue but ultimately, we can make it better. California is a special place with great people and a beautiful coastline — let’s work to keep it that way.
REDUCE PLASTIC
POLLUTION
REDUCE
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6 · JUNE 2012 AN INdEpENdENt AdvErtIsINg sUpplEmENt by mEdIAplANEt to los ANgElEs tImEs
1.PHOTO: HURLEY2.PHOTO: HURLEY3.PHOTO: HURLEY4. PHOTO: MIKE SMOLOWE
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8 · JUNE 2012 AN INdEpENdENt AdvErtIsINg sUpplEmENt by mEdIAplANEt to los ANgElEs tImEs
INSPIRATION
Here are some ideas to prevent stormwaterpollution:
■ to report illegal dumping
call 1(888) Clean la.
■ Pick up after your pet.
■ don’t put anything in storm
drains but rainwater.
■■ avoid throwing litter into the
street. use a car litter bag in your
vehicle and a trash can to dispose
of trash.
■■ recycle beverage containers. recycle used motor oil and oil fi l-ters.
■■ select household cleaning
products that are environmentally
friendly.
■■ Bag, compost, or recycle your
grass and yard clippings.
■■ do not apply pesticides or fertil-
izers to your lawn before it rains.
TIPS
COuNty OF LOS ANGeLeSDePArtMeNt OF PuBLIC WOrKS
Water, water, everywhere■■ Question: what can i do to
protect the oceans?■■ Answer: Make responsible
water-use choices at home.
According to the American Water Works Association, “How we use water, how much we use, and where we send our runoff aff ects not only the rivers and streams around our homes, but the ocean as well. And it all comes back around again, in rain and from our taps.” If we care about the oceans, we mustn’t think about them only when we are at the shore.
The challenges of maintain-ing a healthy coastal ecosystem are enormous. “The United Sta-tes must deal with significant drought, fl oods, growing threats to its water quality, continuing loss of wetlands and the impact
■ Participate in a household haz-
ardous waste/electronic waste event
to properly dispose of toxic chemi-
cals and unwanted electronics from
your home.
■ Call the County’s 1(888) Clean la
hotline or visit www.Cleanla.com for
more information on the County of
los angeles’ stormwater Pollution
Prevention program, used Motor oil/
oil filter recycling program, smart
gardening workshops and house-
hold hazardous waste/electronic
waste Collection events.
trivia Fact:
■ Cigarette butts still remain the
most littered item in the world.
Avery Hurt
WATER CONSERVATION REBATES: GET
THE 411!
WATER
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of these losses on the natural and benefi cial functions of fl oodplains and estuaries,” says the American Water Resources Association. But these are challenges that we can help meet even in small ways. Con-serving water and maintaining responsible water-use practices at home is crucial to maintaining the
health of the oceans.California has 840 miles of beau-
tiful coastline. If we care about our oceans we can do our part to pro-tect them, even from our kitchens and bathrooms.
learn more about enric sala’s most recent expedition to the Pitcairn islands by visiting nationalgeographic.com/ocean
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