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Ocean Conservancy Piques Interest, Displays Site Problems

© Kenneth Friedman

A little surfing recently landed me at a web site of the almost 30-year-old Center for Marine Conservation--"the nation's oldest and largest ocean conservation organization"--which was recently renamed The Ocean Conservancy. Explains the conservancy, "The need for change has led us to a new name - The Ocean Conservancy. While 'Center for Marine Conservation' has served us well, the new name reflects our emphasis on conserving and protecting significant parts of our oceans. Our mandate reaches out to new audiences with a message that makes a compelling case to understand and support our oceans."

One of the programs the conservancy is working on is preservation of ocean wilderness areas. Now, I always thought about the oceans at large as being "wilderness," more or less. Lots of water and waves to make me seasick. The conservancy, however, rightly points out that there are actual "forests of 200-foot tall, tree-like kelp reaching toward the sun and supplying us with valuable oxygen." Two-hundred-foot-tall kelp plants? These are indeed giants to consider. We could casually harvest them as a resource without giving it the kind of thought and fervor put into preserving old-growth timber forests, tallgrass prairies and wetlands. The conservancy also points out mountains "taller than Mt. Everest and canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon." Although out of sight, out of mind, conservation of such resources is worth the thought.

The Ocean Conservancy makes another interesting argument I'll bet you haven't thought about: wilderness includes sounds - "from the beautiful songs of the male humpback whale to the guttural vocalizations of the aptly named grunt fishes." Would you preserve sounds you are unlikely to ever hear first-hand?

"The crown jewels of the Ocean Wilderness Challenge," writes the conservancy, are "areas within Glacier Bay and Prince William Sound in Alaska; the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands; the Channel Islands off southern California; Florida's Dry Tortugas; and the San Andrés Archipelago, Colombia." These sound like topics from a nature television special.

Now, a few observations about the site.

I searched the site to find anything substantive about what the conservancy does. Problem is, all I found were disappointing generalities. Here's an example: "CMC has been actively involved in the program [National Marine Sanctuaries], working to get many of sanctuaries designated and is deeply involved in their ongoing management. We are currently involved in improving management of the sanctuaries along the west coast and the designation process of the proposed Northwest Straits Sanctuary in Washington State's Puget Sound." Now, what does this mean? Does it "say" anything?

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