Tag

pollution

Sep 18
0

Let’s Talk Zero Waste For Our Blue Planet

By | Action today, Climate Action, Sustainable Living, Uncategorized, W2O Blog, Zero Waste

Have you thought about joining the “zero waste” movement? What does “zero waste” actually mean? At W2O we are keen to make sure that this term and its peer-reviewed accepted definition is on everyone’s lips.

Zero Waste: “The conservation of all resources by means of responsible production, consumption, reuse, and recovery of products, packaging, and materials without burning and with no discharges to land, water, or air that threaten the environment or human health.”

Last updated December 20th, 2018 by ZWIA.org

Now that you have changed your individual habits and cut down on single-use plastic, its time to move towards bold action collectively to ensure that we live in a circular economy without waste that ends up in our landfills and in our ocean. Zero waste moves beyond reusing and recycling to eliminate waste. Successful zero waste means that everyone from manufacturers to consumers must consider design, packaging, longevity, and end of life usage. From the conception of an idea straight through a product’s life cycle, zero waste aims to make sure that manufacturers are accountable for the sustainability of their products and that we become more thoughtful about our purchases, shifting us away from the current “throwaway” model that has been so prevalent in the last several years. The goal of zero waste is to make sure that no trash is sent to a landfill, is incinerated or ends up in our ocean.

On October 10th, join Women Working for Oceans and Conservation Law Foundation for a special event, The Truth About Plastics, It’s Time for Zero Waste, to learn more about zero waste and how you can become part of this movement.

 

 

Mar 28
0

Meet Ocean Spirit Award Winner Bonnie Combs

By | Climate Action, Events, Featured Post, In the News, New England Aquarium, New England Aquarium, Sustainable Living, W2O Blog

Meet Bonnie Combs, our 2019 Ocean Spirit Award winner! Bonnie lives in Blackstone, a small Massachusetts community on the border of Rhode Island. Her journey to ocean conservation started years ago with a love of food and continues today with big ideas that exemplify how an army of one can influence two states and multiple communities, inspiring them to join the fight to protect our blue planet. When Bonnie tells her story, it’s best to have a map of Massachusetts and Rhode Island on hand! Her life has crisscrossed these borders and each state could claim her as their own ocean hero.

Bonnie’s motto is “be the change you wish to see” and believes everyone can make a difference when it comes to saving the planet. “Some people are just too shy or scared but I say if you just try and get out there, you never know how your efforts might make a difference,” she muses. Always a nature lover, Bonnie had her awakening to conservation while working as a chef at Whole Foods and was drawn into the company’s sustainability mission becoming Community Relations Team Leader. This work, in locations in MA and RI, became her conservation training ground and solidified her interest in working locally to spread the message that you too can choose healthy for your family and in turn, make our world a better place.

Bonnie is often using her skills as a trained chef to make sustainable meals or is firing up her sewing machine, stitching up t-shirts for reusable bags, sewing remnant fabric for cutlery wraps and repurposing animal feed bags. A creative energetic change maker, Bonnie is regularly organizing river and beach clean-ups across both MA and RI, teaching folks how to reuse and repurpose everyday materials to mitigate waste, and sharing her talents with the community by empowering others to learn how to make creative choices when it comes to refusing single-use plastic pollution.

Her life is bursting with community activism and her reach is wide. As Marketing Director at the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor, Inc, she has developed and designed the Trash Responsibly and Fish Responsibly campaigns, making sure that waste and monofilament fishing line is recycled properly. A co-worker and volunteer coordinator of the Corridor, Suzanne Buchanan, describes Bonnie’s enthusiasm for her conservation work as contagious. “People stop by to donate feed bags for repurposing and you would think that she is being given a bouquet of flowers given her outburst of joy and the hugs that follows,” says Suzanne. “Bonnie is generous above and beyond as she gathers people together to think about their consumption and choices. She can’t go to bed until she has filled up a trash bag on one of her walks and on those walks she is stopping for conversations, inspiring others to join in.” Suzanne adds, “She makes me a better person and I am not the only one that would say that.”

Bonnie loves networking, outreach and the community participation in the building of a movement. She thinks big! Her newest project takes this concept on, literally. Bonnie is currently a “3D Resident Local Artist” at the Providence citywide public art initiative, The Avenue Concept, collecting a rainbow of plastic containers from across Rhode Island for an enormous public sculpture that will be assembled and constructed on site by famed New York artist Steven Siegel. The entire structure will be assembled from plastic waste including laundry jugs and personal and household cleaning products. The sculpture will be held together by discarded fishing nets and Bonnie hopes the art will spark discussions about how to protect marine life from entanglement and keep plastic pollution out of our waterways and ocean.

“The ocean to me (blending my passion for the environment and cooking) is the soup of life,” says Bonnie. “We all play a part in the recipe. If we want a well balanced, healthy and life-sustaining soup, we need to change our mindset and think of our daily actions as ingredients. Are we adding too much to the soup? If ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ we must be mindful of our individual impact and how collectively we all sit at the same table and share the same meal.”

Bonnie at The Avenue Concept

Congratulate Bonnie on May 21st at W2O’s On the Brink: Saving our Right Whale, Saving our Ocean. Bonnie will be presented the 2019 Ocean Spirit Award at this event that will educate the public about the endangered North Atlantic right whale. Find out how we can save this species, thought of as the “ocean’s canary in the coal mine,” and join us to take a closer look at how we can protect our blue planet. Click Here for Tickets!

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 28
0

Meet our 2018 Ocean Spirit Award Winner Sierra Joy Rothberg

By | Action today, Events, Featured Post, In the News, New England Aquarium, Sustainable Living, Uncategorized, W2O Blog

 

We are so proud this year to present our W2O 2018 Ocean Spirit Award to Sierra Joy Rothberg for digging deep and coming up with creative solutions for the reduction of single-use plastic pollution in her neighborhood of Dorchester and for all of Boston.

The W2O Ocean Spirit Award honors the individual that has encompassed our mission of educating and inspiring action using grassroots initiatives towards protecting our blue planet.  

 

Sierra Rothberg from Dorchester MA

 

“The ocean is everything for me,” says Sierra. “After moving from the West Coast to Nahant, the ocean was actually our backyard. All year long we watched storms roll across the bay for entertainment, felt wonder in endless discovery along the shores collecting shells, swimming, and felt the energy from the waves and tides. If we got a cut or scrape, we were told to go into the water. The ocean heals us!”

 

Knowing that single-use plastic bags litter our parks, clog drains and end up in our waterways, Sierra and a team of activist (including her supportive family and a very determined girl scout troop) fought for the Boston bag ban and then started Boomerang Bag Boston to provide reusable washable bags to communities that might need them. Partnering with local organizations, Sierra holds monthly sew-a-thons and to date has made over a thousand bags, helping to reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in our ocean.

Repurposed donated fabric is used for these washable beautiful reusable bags.

Sierra Rothberg has serious skills. A creative entrepreneur with her own company, Lusterity, she can take something and make it into magic. With a mission of sourcing local products for socially conscientious events, her resume includes floral arranging, graphic design, event and organizational planning, development, being a data geek and community activism. Recently Sierra was hired by The Martin Richard Foundation as director of the community service component for One Boston Day. This day “serves as an opportunity to celebrate the resiliency, generosity, and strength demonstrated by the people of Boston and those around the world in response to the tragedy of April 15, 2013,” explains the organizers of the event. Sierra has just been hired as Director of Service Projects for the Foundation’s “Do More-Serve With Us” campaign inviting people to continue volunteerism throughout the year.  Sierra is someone that you want on your team!

“Our daily decisions on land greatly affect the ocean, even when not by the ocean’s side, and that is why I do what I can to change how we think and live more sustainably,” says Sierra. “Everything is all connected. Now I live in the city, just a mile from the ocean and even though the ocean is not my immediate backyard anymore, my favorite days are when I can smell the ocean air without seeing it.” 

It is fitting that Sierra will be presented the 2018 Ocean Spirit Award at our May 15th event featuring marine scientist Dr. Asha de Vos. Both women believe that community engagement to protect our blue planet is the key to making the meaningful lasting change that will benefit folks that are the day-to-day recipients of those efforts. Sierra and Dr. de Vos are “can do” women and mentors that bring hope to their communities.

Come join us in honoring Sierra at our event Think Big on May 15th. The lecture is free, but you must REGISTER.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aug 24
0

Seagrass

By | Featured Post, Uncategorized, W2O Blog

Seagrass in Yarmouth Maine at low tide

If you launched a boat at the New England coast this summer, chances are you navigated through brilliant green strands of grass that hug the shoreline. Our local seagrass, Zostera marina, also called eelgrass, and there is something soothing about the sway of these grasses right below the surface of the water. At low tide, the grasses stand up tall, starkly green against the dark mudflats. We acknowledge them, (or maybe pay them no real notice at all), but these strands that are seemingly in our way are very important to the success of our shoreline and ocean. According to the Smithsonian, seagrass, “one of the most productive ecosystems in the world,” evolved around 100 million years ago. But like so many ocean assets, we are losing seagrass daily. Pollution from fertilizer, sewage, urban runoff, sedimentation, storms, and rising ocean temperatures pose threats to seagrasses. When we loose seagrass, habitat for the creatures that depend on it such as crab, quahog, and scallop is also threatened.

Seagrass, a primary producer of oxygen with its leaves, stem, and root system, works its magic by becoming an underwater meadow, feeding and harboring sea creatures, filtering toxins by absorbing nutrients and all the while protecting our coastline from erosion. New studies suggest that the amazing seagrass may also play an important role in mitigating the effects of climate change. By grabbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to use in photosynthesis, carbon is transferred to the soil as plants die and decompose. In this recent study from MIT’s Sea Grant, Massachusetts eel grass was found to store carbon from outside sources, confirming that we need healthy seagrass for a healthy ocean and healthy planet.

W2O member, artist Nadret Andre reflects on her use of seagrass as a subject for her work: “My paintings are about color and the sensations of light that is essential for seagrass survival. The interconnectedness of a vast number of species sheltered, fed and protected by seagrass habitats is an inspiration for my paintings. Reaching is inspired by the amazing phenomenon of aerenchyma, the spongy tissue that forms spaces or air channels in the leaves of seagrass. These air channels keep the seagrass leaves reaching up towards the light and allow for photosynthesis.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 22
0

Celebrating Hopeful Signs for More Marine Protected Areas

By | Featured Post, In the News, Uncategorized, W2O Blog

What a relief to finally hear some promising, hopeful and, quite frankly, exciting news about protection for our oceans. September’s headlines about President Obama designating Papahānaumokuākea off of Hawaii and the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts in the Atlantic as National Monuments could not have come at a better time. Every day there is a broadcast, article, or radio commentary about climate change and the devastation taking its toll on our blue planet. Ten years ago information regarding ocean risk was something you searched for in an environmental magazine or maybe the science section of a newspaper. It is telling that the coverage of climate science related to our oceans is now every publication’s front page news.  This hopeful sign signals that conservation groups are no longer “preaching to the choir” and that generations are learning and becoming keenly aware of the importance of protecting our oceans for our future. With his announcement at the Our Ocean Conference, President Obama declared that “The health of our planet’s oceans determine, in large part, the health of our bodies and the health of our economies.”  Thank you President Obama, for putting the health of our oceans on the world stage and for giving us hope that this might be the first wave of more protection of vulnerable marine areas.

Aug 11
0

Sailors Delight Plastic Free

By | Action today, Featured Post, In the News, Sustainable Living, Uncategorized

Boaters will tell you that plastic is their friend for making sure food is fresh and transportable. Reusable hard plastic dinnerware and shatterproof glasses are boating standbys, especially for enjoying refreshments above deck.  Storing food on a boat means thinking about avoiding condensation and tightly sealed containers that are light weight are the favorite choice.  It would be great to decide to go plastic free completely while boating but today a doable goal would be to decide to refuse single use plastic or plastic that we use once and then throw away. There are choices you can make to reduce the amount of plastic pollution that ends up in our oceans.

After our visit to Sailors for the Sea, and checking out their “Green Your Galley Guide,” we were inspired to look a little closer at how to make a day out on the water single use plastic free. Most day sailors and boaters are really “picnic-ing” on a boat with transportable foods usually eaten at the dock, on a mooring or anchored in a safe harbor.  The first step to a plastic free day starts at home. Here are some tips to help you take the important steps to healthy plastic free choices for you, your family and our oceans.

  • Make your food! Create a simple meal at home and avoid picking up prepared foods in single use plastic containers. Transport food in insulated reusable bags in glass or metal containers.
  • Find a basket with handles, like the one Emily is passing up above, or a deep wide tray for handing food and drinks above and below deck.
  • Bring a large cooler and fill it with ice and water at the dock rather than opting for that case of water bottles. Filling it up at the dock ensures it will stay cold for the trip and is easier to transport from home. Using insulated reusable water bottles are also a handy solution.
  • Life tastes better with real cutlery! Stock bamboo or metal on your boat instead of single use plastic.
  • Transport your gear in reusable bags or choose to invest in a “boat” bag. The one pictured below is 20 years old, has clocked many miles at sea and is still as good as new.

Aug 06
0

Sailors for the Sea

By | Action today, Featured Post, In the News, Sustainable Living, Uncategorized

Milk jugs, plastic bags, fishing nets, food packaging, straws; these are now common sightings for avid ocean fanatics. Mark Davis and the “crew” at Sailors for the Sea are on a mission to educated boaters and sailors about how to make sustainable choices and still enjoy being out on the water.

From serious ocean racers, to the average weekend enthusiast, participation in activities on the water while being an ocean steward is a relatively new concept for most. “It use to be that out of sight out of mind mentality,” says author and sailor Barbara Beck of Annapolis Maryland. “I remember ocean racing and tossing large green garbage bags overboard without much thought, hoping they would sink to the bottom.” Today most boaters know about pollution in the ocean but are unaware of how they can be part of the solution. “At our yacht club there are efforts to “go green,” says Beck, “but those efforts often fall short because there doesn’t seem to be easy solutions and people opt for convenience.” Sailors for the Sea is hoping to educate boating enthusiasts that opting for convenience is creating a bigger problem and destroying our oceans for future “Sailors.”

The “Sailor” in our title is “anyone who travels across a body of water”, says Mark Davis, president of Sailors for the Sea. “We won’t be taking on other sports or events because we are very focused on the community of boating and sailing,” says Davis. Sailor for the Sea, headquartered near the harbor in Newport Rhode Island, is creating useful tools and delivering a global healthy ocean message to all sailors and boaters across the U.S., Europe and Asia. With the support of Sailors, enlisted volunteers follow “best practices” which begins with assembling a “green team.” With their programs for clean regattas next generation educational lessons through KELP and a new Clean Boating Guide, their mission is to make boaters “catalysts for change.” Good for you, Good for our oceans!

Jun 08
0

Happy World Oceans Day from Intern Emily Conklin

By | Events, Featured Post, In the News, Uncategorized, W2O Blog

Emily at WOD

Happy World Ocean Day from Women Working for Oceans (W2O)  

I am thrilled to be working with W2O on outreach and advocacy this summer and New England Aquarium’s World Oceans Day was the perfect first assignment. The event drew hundreds of families, all interested in learning more about our precious ocean resources and what they can do to preserve them.

W2O’s booth and education activity focused on the importance of Cashes Ledge, 80 miles off of the New England coast, and our work with partner organizations to try and have it established as a National Monument. Children colored in pictures of ecologically important marine organisms as part of a letter writing campaign to urge President Obama to designate protection for Cashes Ledge. Even the littlest participants had touching and remarkable things to say about the ocean and were eager to talk about the animals they were designing. It was exciting and refreshing to see such passion for the environment and enthusiasm for ensuring these ocean treasures are healthy and available for years to come.

Interacting with the next generation of ocean conservationists, I was inspired by the level of interest in action demonstrated by World Oceans Day and am excited to move forward with this and other W2O projects. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the year will bring! 

Emily Conklin holds a BA in Biology from Wheaton College and is a Masters of Science Candidate in Marine Biology at Northeastern.

For more information on how you can help Save Atlantic Treasures, HERE

 

Jun 05
0

Cashes Ledge: Save Our Atlantic Treasures, Save Our Future Fish Today!

By | Action today, Featured Post, In the News, Uncategorized

This place is not a fantasy, but exists today only 80 miles east of Boston in the Gulf of Maine

Imagine, if you will, an underwater cathedral of rock off the coast of Maine, where ledges of stone that rival Mount Washington provide a foothold for the largest cold water kelp forest in the Atlantic.

Marine life on Cashes Ledge

Photo: Brian Skerry

Broad blades of kelp lift towards the surface, converting energy from the sun into life supporting oxygen and providing cover for a staggering abundance and diversity of marine life.

Here you can still find both large and small sharks and fish like cod, pollock and tuna of the size our ancestors described.

Marine life on Cashes Ledge Photo: Brian Skerry

Marine life on Cashes Ledge
Photo: Brian Skerry

Kelp Forest and Red Cod at Cashes Ledge; 70-miles off the coast of Maine. Photo: Brian Skerry

Kelp Forest and Red Cod at Cashes Ledge; 70-miles off the coast of Maine. Photo: Brian Skerry

Lobster and sea stars, anemones and sponges cover the bottom like clumsy, multi-colored fists of large fingers reaching to a wash of nutrients in the water.

Photo: Brian Skerry

Upwards to ten thousand whales, dolphins and porpoises at a time come to the surface to feed on the abundance of smaller fish and plankton. Seabirds on the surface hunt for leftovers and bring this enormous cauldron of productivity and energy back to land. You needn’t jump in a time machine to go there. This place is not a fantasy, but exists today only 80 miles east of Boston in the Gulf of Maine as an extension of the mountain range of Acadia National Park. The area is simply known as Cashes Ledge and it is part of our Atlantic Treasures, a fragile place being considered for marine protection through designation as a National Monument.

The rugged mountainous rocks of Cashes Ledge interrupt the river of currents flowing through the Gulf, creating smaller upending rivulets that deposit nutrients on canyon edges, fueling the start of the food chain. The larger catch upon which New England fisheries depend, such as cod and tuna, reproduce and feed on smaller fish here before ranging to the open ocean. Tiny gears turn progressively larger gears in a simple, yet elegant mechanism that is as ancient as our earth. It is these uninterrupted gears that support our healthy seas, which in turn sustain us.

“I spent a lot of time flying aerial surveys over this area,” says Scott Kraus, Ph.D.,the Aquarium’s vice president of research and one of the leading experts on the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale. “One day, we encountered a multi-species aggregation of dolphins and whales that extended along the shelf edge for nearly 10 miles. There must have been 10,000 animals, and it looked like the equivalent of the Serengeti in Africa—only instead of wildebeest, giraffes, antelope and lions it was grampus, pilot whales, striped, spotted and common dolphins and sperm whales.”

But Cashes Ledge is under threat as waters warm globally. The Gulf of Maine is warming at a rate faster than 99% of other areas worldwide. Some ocean animals have started to show signs of stress from habitat changes as they search for cooler waters. A movement to permanently protect Cashes Ledge through designation as a National Monument needs your support today. Protecting Cashes Ledge, a feeding and breeding ground for so many populations of fish and marine mammals, would be the equivalent of protecting the principal of an investment, ensuring that future dividends can be paid.

Please join us in protecting this New England treasure. Sign the petition here and urge your congressmen elected officials to voice their support in protecting Cashes Ledge.

More about the species, habitat and health of Cashes Ledge from the scientific assessment proposal on marine National Monuments including work from Dr. Scott Krauss and the New England Aquarium

Laura Parker Roerdan, a W2O board member, is Executive Director of Ocean Matters.

 

 

Apr 21
0

An Unexpected Encounter With a Beaked Whale

By | Action today, In the News, Uncategorized, W2O Blog

Guest blogger Nigella Hillgarth is President and CEO of the New England Aquarium and a W2O board member

Several hundred years ago there was said to be a strange and fierce sea creature that attacked ships.  The Water-Owl or Ziphius had the body of a fish and a head of an owl with huge eyes and a beak-like a sword. Today we think the animal behind these stories is Cuvier’s beaked whale or Goose-beaked whale. This deep water whale is the most widely distributed beaked whale species.

In early February I was on a sailing ship in the Caribbean passing through the channel between St Lucia and Martinique.  It is deep in that area –  several thousand feet and suitable for beaked whales. I was not thinking about whales at the time because I was busy photographing the brown boobies that were following the ship. Suddenly a robust, chocolate brown animal appeared next to the ship below me. I took as many photographs as I could before it disappeared into the deep. I was pretty certain I had seen a beaked whale but I had no idea what species.  It was not large – about 10 to 12 feet long but had the typical curved dorsal fin towards the back of the body and a strange elongated and slightly bulbous head. When I returned one of our marine mammal scientists at the New England Aquarium identified it as a young Cuvier’s beaked whale. I feel so lucky to have seen one of these elusive animals.

Cuvier’s beaked whales can dive deeper than any other marine mammal. A recent study shows that at least one individual went down as far as 9,816 feet!  Not much is known about these elusive and extreme divers, but there is concern that noise in the ocean from sonar and seismic testing may cause these whales to strand.  There is evidence to suggest that some of these stranded animals have surfaced too quickly and developed damage similar to that of the bends in humans.

Noise in the ocean is a serious threat to marine mammals and other marine life.  Commercial shipping noise, sonar testing and seismic surveys can clearly have significant, long-lasting, and widespread impacts on marine mammal and fish populations. Normally, when we think about pollution in the seas we don’t think about noise. We think about plastics and chemicals and ghost fishing nets.  Noise in its various forms is just as big a problem for life in the ocean.  If we care about the future of strange and elusive mammals such as the ‘Water-owl’ we need to understand and mitigate noise impacts in the ocean far more than at present.

Photo: Nigella Hillgarth

Learn more about seismic testing and how you can help stop ocean noise HERE