![Cycles and connections, from the mountaintop to the abyssal plain Fresh Water](https://www.worldoceanobservatory.org/files/imagecache/exhibit_grid_image/category_pictures/FRESH-WATER-mid-size.jpg)
This summer we are revisiting some of our favorite World Ocean Radio episodes that highlight optimism in ocean news, science and advocacy. In this episode we're discussing Tampa Bay, Florida, whose revival of seagrass and cleaner waters have served as an example of engagement, cooperation, determination, and leadership. What can be learned from this success in order to meet environmental challenges and solve today’s problems?
This summer we are revisiting some of our favorite World Ocean Radio episodes that highlight optimism in ocean news, science and advocacy. In this episode we discuss marine protected areas and their importance to biodiversity and to the mitigation of climate change and other destructive forces at work on the planet.
This summer we are revisiting some of our favorite World Ocean Radio episodes that highlight optimism in ocean news, science and advocacy. In this episode we discuss the need for more funding and energy directed toward the still largely unknown ocean, and the importance of scientific endeavor and observation, and we highlight the General Bathymetric Chart for the Oceans (GEBCO), a project dedicated to completing the full mapping of the world ocean by 2030.
This summer we are revisiting some of our favorite World Ocean episodes that highlight optimism in ocean news, science and advocacy. In this episode we're talking about the history of oysters, New York Harbor, and the Harbor School—an innovative high school on Governor’s Island in New York City, highlighting their Billion Oyster Project, designed to revive the defunct oyster populations through an ambitious goal of restoring no less than one billion oysters to New York harbor. Harbor School's restorative ecosystem service activities are reconnecting the harbor to the 30 million people living within its vast urban watershed.
We have focused the last few World Ocean Radio episodes on the value of ecosystems, how we assess, monetize and protect with new practices that are constructive and sustainable. How do we move forward? This week we are discussing potential approaches that include protection of resources and new regulations against abuse and irresponsible consumption, and we propose expanding the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a multi-lateral trust fund, to include a new ocean sustainability bank that incentivizes change and lends funds based on sustainability principles and a new definition of return on investment.
Each year on June 8th we celebrate World Oceans Day, a day set aside to recognize our relationship with the ocean through global connection. What is Oceans Day meant to do? Is it working? Are the voices and the will of the people translating into a voice for change toward a healthy ocean and a sustainable future?
This week on World Ocean Radio we are discussing the work of the Sustainable Ocean Alliance and their "222 Solutions to Heal, Restore and Sustain Our Ocean". We break down the report's accomplishments, results, facts and figures. The full report can be read at impact.soalliance.org.
This week on World Ocean Radio we're talking about the latest OUR OCEAN Conference in Palau and the contradiction of mangrove protection and invested monies for environmental protection interests. What happens with all the promises made at OUR OCEAN? Where does the money go? What have past commitments achieved and how are outcomes measured?
Climate change is accelerating change to all global systems. Do we have the power and the will to break the systemic corruption of the global water cycle and take risks to intervene and change?
Pharmaceutical pollution is as important and critical a factor for public health as microplastics and other chemical wastes that enter the water cycle, marine biota, and our bodies. A recent study by researchers at the Global Monitoring of Pharmaceuticals examined 258 rivers around the world and found that pharmaceutical pollution is contaminating water on every continent.
Last week we discussed the vast bio-region of the Amazon River, one of the most productive and important ecosystems on the planet. This week we highlight another system--the taiga--an enormous boreal forest and wetland at the top of Canada and part of the Russian federation. Both of these systems are more valuable sustained than exploited.
The Amazon is one of the most productive and important ecosystems on the planet. What will continue to be lost if we fail to protect the last great wilderness area on Earth?
Is economic growth antithetical to the overall health of society? This week on World Ocean Radio we discuss the concentration of capital and offer two examples of an ocean economy currently dominated by special interests, including the recent creation of Natural Asset Companies designed to turn ecosystem services into tradable commodities.
The biggest single problem facing ocean conversation is the lack of public awareness and political will. Public engagement efforts by agencies, institutes and NGOs are more fulsome than ever, yet the campaigns and power of those invested in the status quo to undermine the data, resist the alternatives, and misinform the public are also as robust as ever. Enter The Economist Magazine--connected to more than 100 million worldwide, and their latest effort to inform the public about marine chemical pollutants. With access to such a vast audience of change agents, it is an opportunity ripe with recruitment opportunity, and an invitation for alliance and amplification.
This week on World Ocean Radio we're discussing the ways we are connected through shared ocean memory and experiences. This episode offers reflections on the ocean as a healing place, where we can use its power to offer hope for generations to come.
This week we're referencing a recent Medium post entitled "The Knowledge-Implementation Gap in Conservation Science: Exploring the Space Between Knowing and Doing" which speaks to what may be the most crucial problem faced by ocean scientists and policy leaders, and offers suggestions for how the situation might be improved by new behaviors, collaboration, and public engagement.
Millions of people worldwide do not have access to adequate water supply for drinking, cooking and basic sanitation. According to a February report, more than 3.5 billion people worldwide live in areas that experience water scarcity. This week on World Ocean Radio we're discussing the need for invention and some prospective ways forward: not just new ideas and technology, but taking what we already know and applying it differently, locally and internationally, to scale.
This week we introduce listeners to World Ocean Explorer, a new, revolutionary and immersive 3D virtual aquarium project the W2O team has been developing over the past year. Explorer is a game-based learning environment designed to promote ocean literacy and excitement for ocean exploration. Launching in late March.
This week on World Ocean Radio we're discussing the importance of ocean literacy and ocean education to transform our understanding of the ocean's contributions to human health and survival. We highlight the seven principles of Ocean Literacy and some perspectives that we can use to expand them into a set of curricular approaches that pertain to science, climate impacts and solutions for our future.
This week on World Ocean Radio we are discussing an emerging new phenomenon called the Global Deep Ocean Water Market and the food industry companies that are extracting salt water from the ocean depths, desalinating, trading as deep ocean water futures, and packaging for distribution and sale.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have long been the cogs turning the wheels of global economics, driving infrastructure growth and economic development while often supporting the exploitation of natural resources and ignoring the social consequences of poverty, displacement, and disruption. Some have argued that the World Bank and the IMF have outlived their purpose, no longer effective as tools for the future. This week we're discussing the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a little known agency that finances large international projects with demonstrated financial outcomes that are progressive and sustainable.
This week on World Ocean Radio: reflections on the morality of nature and the ocean. How do we change the consequences of our actions, and take responsibility for what we have done to create the world we find ourselves in? Is it time for a bit of moral neutrality to return to a more accommodating, natural state?
This week on World Ocean Radio we're introducing listeners to the Water Ethics Charter-- recommendations from a global Water Ethics Steering Committee with draft principles for water sustainability based on five themes: environmental, economic, social, cultural, and governance.
This week on World Ocean Radio: five suggested strategies as laid out by Karl Burkart (Managing Director of One Earth and formerly the Director of Science & Technology at the DiCaprio Foundation) by which to create the funds required to meet the urgent global climate crisis.
This week we're discussing the consequences of consumption. We point to a recent exhibit in London entitled "Waste Age: What Can Design Do?" that highlights the fusion of nature and culture and the ways that we have produced a culture of waste. How might we transform our waste into materials that can be recycled, repurposed, and reprogrammed by design? What if we choose to create a culture designed to retain and maximize the built environment rather than destroy it? How do we transform waste into something lasting and sustainable?