Sturgeon General's Advice

The Green Guide is honored to have as this issue's guest editor marine biologist Sylvia Earle, Ph.D., famously known as the "sturgeon general" for her time spent as chief scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration in the early nineties. Having set records for deep-sea dives in experimental diving suits and submarines, logged weeks in the Project Tektite underwater laboratory below the waters of the Virgin Islands and established her own engineering company, Earle is now a National Geographic explorer-in-residence and recently assisted in the 2006 development of America's first national marine monument in the Hawaiian Islands.

We caught up with Earle in her well-stocked Washington, D.C., office to discuss the oceans, but found ourselves talking about yards instead--specifically, her childhood front yard. "We didn't have a lawn," Earle said. "My mother loved animals and planted wildflowers and native trees, and I grew up playing among them." Encouraging her daughter's interest in the natural world, Earle's mother, Alice, took her on walks to look for flowers or play with frogs and would herself frequently bring home hurt birds. "Caring for the environment came naturally to her long before there was an environmental movement," Earle says. Not that this was widely appreciated. Years later, the city decided Alice Earle's native trees were a threat to overhead power lines and, without consulting her, cut the trees down.

Such high-handed actions are typical of our treatment of nature, especially of the seas, from which we take literally countless species with fishing trawls bulldozing the ocean floors. Earle argues this is the equivalent of giant scoops dropped onto the streets of Manhattan by aliens dredging for concrete. "We talk about fish the wrong way. They aren't crops to be harvested."

Take wild Alaskan salmon. Based on traditional management practices, salmon have been eliminated on both sides of the Atlantic and in the Pacific. Alaska, the Pacific Northwest and limited areas in Russia and Canada are the only places left with healthy salmon populations. And salmon play an essential role in bringing vital nutrients to upstream landscapes. Where salmon runs have declined, the fisheries and wildlife officials in the state of Oregon have even gone to the extreme of dropping dead salmon from helicopters into the forest. "So why interrupt the feeding habits of bears, eagles, raccoons and other animals who live off the salmon runs [by fishing for them]?" Earle asks. "If you want to see a recovery of wildlife, give them a break. Don't encourage coastal communities to sell their natural resources to distant markets. Fish aren't living marine resources; they're wild animals."

Protecting the seas protects ourselves. As Earle notes, "The ocean is our life support system, maintaining the essence of what we need to live--air and water." Play your part with these tips.

What You Can Do

* Choose farmed fish raised mostly or wholly on vegetarian feed (see "A Fish Out of Ocean Water").

* When you must eat wild fish, pick those from healthier fisheries. See "Yes" fish on the Smart Shopper's Fish Picks card.

* Enjoy visits to the beach, but tread lightly: Don't leave trash and don't return with animal souvenirs, such as coral and shells.

* If you boat, replace an old polluting two-stroke engine with a fuel-efficient four-stroke or direct injection two-stroke. Old engines release up to 2.5 million gallons of oil and gas into coastal waters annually.

* Stock marine aquariums with fish reared in captivity. See Reef Protection International (www.reefprotect.org) for tips and The Green Guide's Pet Products Report (www.thegreenguide.com/reports).

* Wear waterproof sunscreen when swimming; not only will you remain protected, but you won't leave behind a slick of petrochemicals (see "Screen Test").

* Skip petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides for your yard (which poison waterways). Instead, raise plants appropriate to your region the organic way (see "Grass Roots").