Amongst my many reasons for resuscitating MBSL&S, most proximate is that I'm spending the weekend in Monterey, CA, where I'm attending BLUE: the global oceans film and conservation festival.On one level, I'm representing my organization (and incidentally, our new PSAs won honorable mention here at the festival!). But mostly I'm here to rub elbows with friends, colleagues, and other ocean geeks. I've already bumped into Sylvia Earle, Jean Michel Cousteau, David Doubilet, Wallace Nichols, Carl Safina, Julie Packard, colleagues from Indonesia and Africa, and that's just the first day!
At the registration tables, some group was giving away red Cousteau beanies, and it wasn't long before schools of red-capped ocean nerds were seen aggregating in the streets and at the film venues. I'm old enough to realize the iconic impact in the Cousteau beanie. But I can't help but feel my irony rising as I prefer to now think of them as Zissou caps.Tonight's keynote speaker was Julie Packard, founder and executive director of The Monterey Bay Aquarium. Her key message seemed to be that after factoring-in the impact of educational venues such as the aquarium, and after decades of environmental education, we haven't really moved the ball significantly on public perceptions of the importance of the ocean. Nor does the general public seem to position environmental issues (let alone ocean environmental issues) as a high priority in their lives. Packard listed numerous statistics from public polling compiled by The Ocean Project.
Packard certainly chose the right audience for her pitch to find more effective ways of reaching the public. The auditorium was standing room only with film makers, media, ocean environmental communication experts, and conservationists. If anyone should be able to move the ball on registering awareness, it's the combined talent in this room! The room was jam-packed with incredibly talented videographers, directors, writers, story-tellers, and photographers. The halls of the Portola Hotel (the festival's home base) were festooned with sumptuous ocean imagery. Sharks, waves, deep sea life, sea birds, seaweed, whales, storms, ships... some in high-def color, others in somber black and white. Video monitors were screening trailers of films to be shown this weekend. And throngs of festival attendees were ogling the visual bounty.
Indeed, we have done an incredibly effective job at capturing the public's attention and interest in the ocean. The public can't seem to get enough. But there's a disconnect. They seem to love the otherworldly strangeness of ocean life and the stories that are told by film makers. Hell, Shark Week is big business and big money--perhaps the biggest annual draw for attention focused on the ocean. But the public doesn't seem to care enough to do something to protect it.
The old chestnut that we only protect what we care about seems to be true. The challenge which Packard laid down for the room tonight hinged on that critical tension. How do we make people care. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is a vehicle for generating that empathy. But it's a tightrope walk, having to balance education and concern with entertainment and fun.
I'm curious to see if anyone tonight cares enough to pick up Packard's challenge and taker her call to action to heart. After all, the heart seems to be where all of this needs to start.
