California and the World Ocean 2006

By Linda Hunter
Published: September 2006

Ocean Beach, San Francisco. Credit: NOAA

Thank You Ocean – California’s Ocean Awareness Campaign

The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and the Pew Oceans Commission documented that our nation’s oceans and coastlines are in trouble and made hundreds of recommendations for improvement.  This has gone nowhere on a national level but in California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger released one of the most forward-looking state ocean action plans in the nation, Protecting Our Ocean: California’s Action Strategy. The California Ocean Protection Council has made substantial advancements in implementing that plan.

This week, the Farallones Marine Sanctuary Association staff will join a thousand delegates from around the state and around the world in Long Beach at the Ocean Protection Council’s California and the World Ocean Conference. This conference will emphasize the need for California, other states, and even other countries to move from planning for future action, to taking action.  The conference will emphasize the connection between land and sea and will identify actions from our watersheds to the deep ocean waters off our coast.

The conference is the continuation of a state-sponsored conference of the same name first held more than 40 years ago and again in 1997 and 2002.  Since the 1964 conference, California's population has grown from 18 million to more than 35 million.  By 2025, 75 percent of California's population is projected to live in coastal counties.  These population trends are similar to those occurring throughout the United States and in other coastal locations throughout the world.  Our growing population is bringing about additional pressures on resources that will require new and innovative approaches for management.  This conference will help us take the next steps.

Amy Dean, Education Manager of the Farallones Marine Sanctuary Association, will be presenting a poster titled “Investigating Demographics and Acanthocephalan Parasite Load of Emerita Analoga: A Model to Engage Urban Youth” at the World Ocean Conference 2006. The presentation will highlight the education and scientific accomplishments of the Sandy Beach Monitoring Program within the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.

 

Shannon Lyday, BeachWatch Coordinator, will be giving a presentation on FMSA’s award-winning volunteer monitoring program. Beach Watch volunteer citizen scientists have acted as the first line of defense against oil spills and other coastal disasters by consistently monitoring wildlife and the overall health of 55 beaches along the coasts of Sonoma, Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties.

Another exciting event at the conference will be the launch of a new Ocean Awareness Campaign. FMSA staff has participated in a series of Ocean Communicators workshops held for the last year throughout California that involved hundreds of participants. The ocean communicators identified key ocean messages that need to be communicated to all Californians. Foremost are “sustain the ocean, sustain life” and “humans and the ocean are inextricably connected.” These messages became the basis of the California Ocean Awareness Campaign.

 

The result of that work and the work of a professional advertising agency, the Hive, is the Thank You Ocean campaign that includes a stunning public service announcement filmed by renowned ocean photographer and cinematographer Bob Talbot as well as a colorful and inspirational campaign website, created by Michael Hanrahan of the Ocean Channel. The Hive Advertising Agency has created print ads, outdoor advertising, product ad and more. This California Public Ocean Awareness campaign will be launched during the opening session of the California World Oceans Conference by California Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman and NOAA Administrator Vice Admiral Conrad Lautenbacker.

 We look forward to joining other ocean advocates in Long Beach this week, to the launch of the Thank You Ocean campaign and to bringing the message to all Californians that: The ocean has given us so much, isn’t it time we gave something back?