World Ocean Radio - Ecosystems

This week the multi-part RESCUE series continues with an advancement of the sub-theme of technology. We're talking about the pitfalls of modern agriculture, examples of sustainable fisheries, and the innovative ways that we might farm the marine environment that positively impact human health and have a regenerative, sustainable response to our harvest and use. RESCUE as an acronym offers a plan for specific action and public participation: Renewal, Environment, Society, Collaboration, Understanding, and Engagement.

This week on World Ocean Radio we discuss the disruption and potential sabotage of the Nord Stream Line, the underwater natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea and North Atlantic that connect Poland to Norway, causing enormous leaks of methane within the ocean and atmosphere. Who did this and why? And what does it mean for future disruptions of its kind that could affect all of us here on Earth?

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.

In this episode, part thirty-seven of the multi-part BLUEprint series, we continue to discuss the take-aways from the recently published 2nd United Nations World Ocean Assessment, a report that looks at the social, environmental, demographic and economic trends, as well as a review of the integrated sustainable management of coasts and oceans as driven by science, technology and innovation. In this episode we look at the report through the lens of ecosystem service analysis, the ways in which we view and value Nature, and some examples of projects globally that are based ecosystem service accounting that are preserving places and biodiversity.

This week on World Ocean Radio: part thirty-four of the multi-part BLUEprint series. This week, as part of our focus on new approaches and ideas to simplify our strategies for living sustainably on earth, we are continuing our discussion of the ocean genome as well as the commercial interests, applications and marine drug and health discoveries made and yet to be discovered. We also warn that marine protected areas remain vulnerable to limited enforcement and over-exploitation of their natural resources.

This week on World Ocean Radio: part four of a multi-part series entitled "BLUEprint: How the Ocean Will Save Civilization". In this episode--Ecology, Ocean and Equity--we share findings from the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy and assert that the sum of an equation of ecology to ocean to equity is the total of inclusion, connection, and justice. The BLUEprint series outlines a new and sustainable way forward for civilization, with the ocean leading the way.

Food webs describe who eats whom in an ecological community. In the aquatic food web, humans feed down the food chain, consuming lesser and lesser ocean predators and marine species without a consciousness of the consequences of our actions at the microscopic level. How do we persuade listeners to adopt a different perspective? How do we articulate an optimistic and realistic way of looking at who we are in relation to all the elements of the natural world? In this episode of World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill suggests we look at the food chain from the bottom up, and ascribe value to the base elements and fundamentals of ocean life so that all life may thrive and provide and endure.

In this episode of World Ocean Radio, part 2 of a two-part series on environmental law, host Peter Neill provides a series of examples of systems we have in place to protect nature and its resources. These protections extend from international treaties to intergovernmental agencies and NGOs working to enact and secure maritime policies, governance and legal rights; and from law centers to the United Nations working to set standards for marine protections and indigenous peoples rights, and for the conservation of Nature, ecosystems, and natural resources.

In this episode of World Ocean Radio, host Peter Neill examines a variety of ecosystem services scenarios that look beyond current models and may help to formulate a new value equation for the future benefit of humankind and for healthy, functioning ecosystems.

In the 20th century, U.S. waterways had become dumping grounds for industrial, urban, and agricultural waste. Today many of these waterways are getting cleaner. In this episode of World Ocean Radio we highlight Tampa Bay, Florida, whose revival of seagrass and cleaner waters serve as an example of engagement, cooperation, determination, and leadership. What can be learned from this success as a means to meet environmental challenges and solve today’s problems?

Oysters have had a history of ebb and flow, plenty and scarcity, and in New York Harbor there was a time when the waters were so polluted that oyster populations diminished and interest in consumption vanished. Enter the Harbor School, an innovative high school on Governor’s Island on the East River in New York City. They have launched a project to revive the defunct oyster populations through an ambitious goal of restoring no less than one billion oysters to the harbor. In this episode of World Ocean Radio, host Peter Neill will discuss the school’s history and their restorative ecosystem service activities and their effort to reconnect the harbor to the 30 million people living within its vast urban watershed.