Global Goal 14: Life Below Water

Like many people, I was raised to love the beach and the ocean, and to find happiness in any time I could spend there. I work to get back whenever and wherever I can, especially anywhere in the Mid-Atlantic coastal south through the Carolinas, where the sight, sound, scent, and feel of the waves and the salt water work a certain kind of magic for me. I'm happier by water. I’m more peaceful and at home.

I focus on the external beauty of the ocean most of the time, honestly. I think in passing about the ocean's health, the state of sea life, and the struggles of pollution and environmental change that threaten our water supply and all life that depends on it. I was raised and still live close to the Chesapeake Bay, and I am familiar with the struggles of the Maryland and Virginia coastal region against pollution, coastal degradation, and in maintaining the food supply and the occupational and financial health of people who have depended upon the water for their livelihoods for centuries.

I don't do anything though, except the basics: I pick up litter. I don't wash my car in the neighborhood and let all that chemical crap go down the drain. I recycle. I rip up my plastic so it's less likely to strangle a living thing. Besides that, it's easy to let this stuff pass through my mind and quickly out, though, for no good reason, really. Just because. The problems can feel overwhelming to a person like me with minimal scientific knowledge and no skills or experience in sustainability or environmental advocacy. What am I going to do about it? Like climate change and littering and food inequality and so many other problems that plague our world and our communities, what am I going to do?

Global Goal 14 -- Life Below Water -- stood out to me for my previous lack of action. I can talk all day long about education, health care, poverty relief, hunger, equality, and other goals on the list. I'm less confident in what I know when it comes to the state of the ocean, and I'd like to change that.

What I found out with just a tiny bit of research is that just as I had a grandmother and aunts and a mom who walked me by the water and taught me to love the beach, there are women who have made studying the ocean and the environment in general their life's professional work. I can educate myself, too--certainly not on their academic level but enough to do some good. I mean, if it's good enough for the UN, it's good enough for me.

Image courtesy UN Foundation

I found Sylvia Earle, an oceanographer whose TED talk and writings and work as an Explorer-in-Residence at National Geographic would delight me if her findings didn’t terrify me so much. The New York Times and the New Yorker called her Her Deepness. Director James Cameron called her Joan of Arc of the Ocean. She says the oceans are in trouble and we need to get our environmental act together.

“Fifty years ago, no one imagined that we could do anything to harm the ocean,” she said. “Now we know we are facing paradise lost.”

With money from her Ted prize, Earle founded Mission Blue: Sylvia Earle Alliance, with the mission of igniting public support for the protection of Hope Spots – special places that are vital to the health of the ocean. They hope to increase protected spaces in the ocean from three percent to 20 percent by the year 2020.

I'm learning from her. I'm sharing her ideas and her work, because it's important, and because these concentrated efforts and mobilizing of smart people and initiatives can make a difference.It's not enough to love the ocean. It's a resource that needs protecting if we want to stay alive.

The UN has the following goals for the protection of the ocean:

Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources

• By 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds

• By 2020, sustainably manage and protect marine and coastal ecosystems, including by strengthening their resilience, and take action for their restoration

• Minimize and address the impacts of ocean acidification, including through enhanced scientific cooperation at all levels

• By 2020, effectively regulate harvesting, and end overfishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and destructive fishing practices and implement science-based management plans, to restore fish stocks in the shortest time feasible Find out more: www.globalgoals.org

• By 2020, conserve at least 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas, consistent with national and international law • By 2020, prohibit certain forms of fisheries subsidies which contribute to overcapacity and overfishing and refrain from introducing new such subsidies • Increase the economic benefits to small island developing states and least developed countries from the sustainable use of marine resources • Increase scientific knowledge, develop research capacities and transfer marine technology to improve ocean health • Provide access of small-scale artisanal fishers to marine resources and markets

TheUnited Nations Sustainable Develpment Summit:

The United Nations wants to help rid the world of extreme poverty, provide an equal education for girls and boys, and protect our environment for generations to come. The UN Foundation has identified the 17 global goals for Sustainable Development that will set the world’s agenda for the next 15 years.