Dr. Sylvia Earle & The Mission Blue Initiative

Oceanographer Sylvia Earle's TED Prize speech reminds us why we should care about the oceans, our life support system. Her wish: “I wish you would use all means at your disposal — films! expeditions! the web! more! — to ignite public support for a global network of marine protected areas, hope spots large enough to save and restore the ocean, the blue heart of the planet.”

Dr. Sylvia Earle and Dr. Thomas Shirley are leading an exploratory expedition to the Gulf of Mexico, around the site of last April’s BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill to document the impact of the disaster as well as determine a potential path forward for the area.

“Our goal is to identify areas with potential for Gulf ecosystem recovery,” said Dr. Earle…”That is going to require protection of places healthy enough to replenish and rebuild populations. What’s happened [there] is far from over for the clams and oysters and other sea life critical to a healthy Gulf of Mexico.”

[...] The expedition team, assembled under the broad banner of the Mission Blue initiative, seeks answers to questions about the current status of key species and ecosystems. What they learn will be compared with historical data gathered in the region since the 1950s, archived at the Harte Research Institute.

You can join Mission Blue at http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/missionblue/

Jackson Browne wrote this song, If I Could Be Anywhere, with Sylvia Earle on the Mission Blue Voyage to the Galapagos Islands.