Marine Conservation Is In Trouble — Why People Aren’t Concerned About the Ocean

0:01 Marine conservation is in trouble. Ocean protection is in trouble. I am here on the beautiful island of Oahu in Hawaii, and I've seen some things that make me worry. And not just here, but I see it happening everywhere. The regular conversations I have in person and online. People are not concerned about the ocean. And that is a problem. That's what we're going to talk about on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host Andrew Lewin. And this is the podcast we find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. And on today's episode, we're going to be coming to you from the beautiful island of Oahu in Hawaii, where I've been here for the past 11 days. This is my 11th day of a family vacation, a long, long overdue family vacation. And I am in paradise.

0:59 This island is gorgeous. We've been to all parts of the island, the east, the west, the north shore, and it is in the south and it's beautiful. It's absolutely stunning. We've seen Hawaiian monk seals on the beach. We've seen Hawaiian monk seals resting in areas that have been just phenomenal lookouts. We've seen whales playing in the water on lookouts as well. We've seen whales just on a whale watching tour. We've seen sea turtle. I just got splashed by water and it's very, very refreshing in this hot sun this morning. But we've seen sea turtles, we've swam with sea turtles that are here all of the time. And it is absolutely phenomenal to see some of the protections or the sea, the protections that are enacted through the endangered species act with the sea turtles and with the Hawaiian monk seals.

1:47 And the volunteers that come out to help protect them working with government to be able to say, Hey, you know what? We love these sea turtles. We love these Hawaiian monk seals and we want to protect them as much as possible. The people here, some of you may or may not be able to see over my shoulder, there are some people who are just enjoying surfing earlier this morning. There were people paddling and it was just been amazing to see how many people use the ocean. How many people continue to be connected to the ocean here on the beautiful island of Oahu in Hawaii? And this is something that is a dream of mine to be here is my second time here. And it's something that I just enjoy seeing the ocean each and every day. It's definitely inspired me even more to bring you messaging about the ocean.

2:33 And I want to talk about today because I feel as though marine protection, marine conservation is in trouble. There are a lot of people, whether you speak to them online, whether you speak to them in person who are not worried about the ocean. In fact, not only are they not worried about the ocean, they just don't know a lot about the ocean. I don't blame them. It's not necessarily their fault. We just don't have a lot of resources that they can go to on a regular basis that are part of mainstream TV or mainstream TV. Or mainstream movies or mainstream news. The only time we see news is when there's a tragedy or there's climate change or a quote unquote shark attack. That's where we start to see us talking about marine conservation or marine protection. Even in documentaries, we see the major problems around ocean conservation or a certain part of climate change.

3:23 But we are not seeing the solutions. They just focus on the problems because it makes good TV. It makes good documentaries. It makes people click on articles. But it doesn't provide people with hope. It doesn't provide people with the education needed to be able to say, hey, you know what? The ocean's in trouble and there's a way around it. We can actually protect this place, but we need your help. We need your not only day to day life, but understanding of how the political system works, understanding of who will vote for what, how people can change, whether it be in government levels, whether it be federal, state or provincial or local levels, or whether it be you as a person or as a community to be able to bring ocean conservation to the forefront of what we need to do.

4:10 Every second breath that we take is due to the ocean. Think about that for a second. Every second breath is due to the ocean. The oxygen produced by the ocean provides us with every second breath we take. If we destroy the ocean, we destroy ourselves. Humans need the ocean and we need to learn about the ocean. We need to hate to say it. Subscribe to channels like this to be able to say, hey, you know what? We need to learn more about what we can do with the ocean, how we can protect it and how we can learn more about it. I've been here for the last 11 days with my family and it's been phenomenal to see, but there have been some disappointing things that I have seen. I haven't seen a lot of signs around town talking about, hey, you know what?

4:59 Discard of your garbage, discard of your plastics or don't use single plastics. This is not to say a lot who is against using single plastics or for using single plastics. This is about saying general messaging around tourist spots where tourists need to be educated and how we act in and around the ocean is extremely important. I've come here to try and not only visit and enjoy and connect with the ocean, but I want to take care of the ocean while I'm here and make sure that anything that I do, whatever footprint that I leave is minimal on the ocean. I love to be connected. I've gone snorkeling. I've gone whale watching. I've gone to the different beaches to see sea turtles and gone on long hikes to look out at these beautiful views. And I want to protect that. I want to see albatrosses, which I have to see that they're absolutely amazing.

5:46 I want to see just beautiful things that are around town. I want to see this. I want to see the culture and there's a lot of that here. What there isn't a lot of is the emphasis on how important the ocean is to the Hawaiian culture, to the Polynesian culture. I would love to see that in different places, but not enough. And I would love to see that even more in every country, including my own in Canada, see more of the integration of indigenous populations and how their culture integrates with ocean protection and how Canadians can do more of that. And that's something that every platform, including mine, has to bring to light is the fact that we need to talk about the ocean. We need to talk about how ocean protection will actually help us in the end, how we decrease the amount of money we spend on natural disasters, how it actually decrease the amount of money we spend on changing the environment and making things more concrete instead of more natural.

6:43 The amount of money that we lose because of the lack of ocean conservation, because of consequences of climate change, because of consequences of losing land to build concrete structures to fortify that land and not understanding the actual processes that go around it is extremely harmful and extremely expensive. And we always talk about the economy when it comes to voting a new government in which my country is about to do. And we never really talk about the ocean. We never really talk about how important it is to protect it, how important is to protect fisheries, how important is to our safety in terms of climate change and natural disasters. This is something that's extremely important. It takes a lot to restore, but it doesn't take a lot to conserve. It's less money to conserve and protect. And I feel that this is a call to action to say, hey, you know what, we need to make sure that we protect this ocean.

7:34 So that's the message today. That's the message I've been thinking about for the last 11 days as I arrived on this wonderful island of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands and seeing the culture and seeing the connection to the ocean of the people here who surf, who canoe, who paddle, who kayak, who dive, who snorkel, who just enjoy the ocean. And the tourists come here every day and enjoy this place. And we want to see it protected as well as other beautiful ocean places, including in my country, Canada. And to be able to say, hey, you know what, we did a great job here. We've protected ourselves. We've been able to protect our every second breath and we've been able to protect the ocean. So hit me up on a comment down below if you're watching this on YouTube or Spotify. If you want to help protect the ocean and you want to know more about the ocean.

8:21 If you want you can DM me on Instagram if you're listening to this on a podcast on your favorite podcast app. And of course, hit me up on Instagram if you're listening to this on the audio form, you can hit me up at how to protect the ocean that's at how to protect the ocean. And of course, you can go to speak up for blue.com to get access to me, as well as all my other episodes and learn more about the ocean on the podcast how to protect the ocean. I want to thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast from the beautiful island of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands. I'm your host Andrew Lewin from the true north strong and free. Enjoy the day. Talk to you next time and happy conservation.