Sea Star: Sylvia Earle

Sea Star: Sylvia Earle

Photograph by Al Giddings, National Geographic

The ocean first grabbed National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and Rolex laureate Sylvia Earle's attention at an early age—when a wave knocked her over on the New Jersey shore. After moving to Florida, she had the Gulf of Mexico for a backyard. Now the oceanographer known as "Her Deepness" reflects on the Gulf of her youth and its current threatened state.

"When I first ventured into the Gulf of Mexico in the 1950s, the sea appeared to be a blue infinity too large, too wild to be harmed by anything that people could do. I explored powdery white beaches, dense marshes, mangrove forests, and miles of sea grass meadows alive with pink sea urchins, tiny shrimps, and seahorses half the size of my little finger. I learned to dive in unexplored areas offshore from the many rivers that flow into the Gulf, where jungles of crimson, green, and brown seaweed sprouted from rocky limestone reefs.

"Then, in mere decades, the blue wilderness of my childhood disappeared: It was biologic change in the space of a lifetime.

"By the mid-1950s manatees were already scarce, and monk seals—once common as far north as Galveston—were gone. By the end of the 20th century, up to 90 percent of the sharks, tuna, swordfish, marlins, groupers, turtles, whales, and other creatures that prospered in the Gulf for millions of years had been depleted, many by overfishing. Rivers that once nourished the Gulf with vital nutrients now carried toxic loads of pollutants, forming massive dead zones.

"As a child, I did not know that people could consciously protect something as vast as the ocean, nor that they could cause it harm. But now we know: The ocean is in trouble, and therefore so are we. As biologist Edward O. Wilson has observed, 'We are letting nature slip through our fingers, and taking ourselves along.' Smothered in an avalanche of oil and poisoned by toxic dispersants, the Gulf has become a sea of despair. Protecting vital sources of renewal—unscathed marshes, healthy reefs, and deep-sea gardens—will provide hope for the future of the Gulf, and for all of us."