Heal the Ocean: Solutions for Saving
Our Seas by Rod Fujita
Upbeat, Realistic And Full Of New Ideas
An oil tanker breaks up off the coast of Spain, contaminating beaches and
killing over one hundred thousand birds. Colorful coral reefs turn a deathly
white around the world. Six whales die in the Bahamas from bleeding near
their ears after the Navy tests an active sonar system there. After so much
bad news, people are thirsting for workable solutions to the oceans crisis.
Heal the Ocean provides a refreshing change in the literature by
emphasizing success stories in the struggle to save the seas. The author
—a marine ecologist dedicated to protecting and restoring ocean
ecosystems—first describes the nature of ocean environments and then
discusses current and emerging threats, including pollution, overfishing,
poor land use, deep sea mining, and the search for new energy sources.
Heal the Ocean then urges that we build upon efforts that have
successfully countered such threats, including:

allowing natural processes to restore the San Francisco Bay and Delta
innovative wastewater treatment at Ecoparque, Baja, California
the world’s first scientifically designed marine reserve network in
California’s Channel Islands
traditional stewardship of land and sea by native Hawaiians
economic incentives for sustainable fishing in Alaska
new international fishing agreements with teeth
shifting consumer demand to sustainable seafood
building constituencies for ocean conservation and creating a new ocean
ethic using sophisticated social marketing and community-building
techniques
Upbeat and inspiring, Heal the Ocean will appeal to professional
environmental advocates, community leaders, opinion-shapers, and
policymakers, as well as any citizen aspiring to protect the ocean.
Rod Fujita is a Senior Scientist with Environmental Defense, in Oakland,
California. He has studied the ocean for over twenty years, logging
hundreds of hours underwater studying ocean wildlife, as well as playing a
key role in setting up marine reserves in the Florida Keys and the Channel
Islands, California.
Personal Review: Heal the Ocean: Solutions for Saving Our
Seas by Rod Fujita
Heal the Ocean: Solutions for Saving our Seas
by Rod Fujita
New Society Publishers
227 pages
www.newsociety.com
Championing the Seas
Dr. Rod Fujita does not write with the detached voice of a scientist,
although he is one. He writes with the passion of a champion for the
cause of sustainable development and he believes it is possible.
Some fisheries such as California's near shore waters collapsed
through over fishing. The solution: California's Marine Life Management

Act of 1999 that strives to protect whole ecosystems through marine
reserves where no fishing is allowed. Fujita calls it "fish in the bank."
"Present economic activities should not compromise our own future
need for resources or those of future generations," and according to Fujita,
it is a view that is gaining acceptance all over the world. It is a view that
makes sense.
Although the author shows numerous scenarios for environmental
disasters, he is no prophet of doom. After showing how ecosystems can
and do collapse, he shows solutions, and sometimes brilliant solutions that
have worked as well as ideass that have not been tried, but should be.
Solving problems with scientific knowledge and political know how makes
Heal the Ocean: Solutions for Saving Our Seas an important book.
Some of the engineering solutions that Fujita shows are ingenious, yet
there is not a single solution that fits all situations. Each problem, each
place on earth and in its oceans has unique features that call for creative
solutions. Each problem must balance human needs with the conservation
of natural resources.
Rod Fujita's enthusiasm for his subject shines through. He provides a
toolkit full of savvy solutions, some tried and successful and some waiting
to be used to remedy modern day assaults upon the seas and their living
ecosystems. His book draws upon a body of recent scientific discoveries
and provides a wealth of fascinating details about the connections among
rivers, oceans, land forms, mangroves, reefs and the life that is
interdependent in ways that are understood, and ways we have yet to
discover. This alone would make it an interesting book, but Dr. Fujita
goes takes his subject further. He shows us a future full of possibilities for
healing the oceans.
Dr. Fujita gleaned his knowledge from close observations under water
and his scientific work at Woods Hole, (he received his PhD from Boston
University's Marine Program), and his work as a Senior Scientist with
Environmental Defense, an environmental activist group. He has served on
many state and federal commissions and review panels. He looks at the
big picture drawn from his experience of work on many environmental
issues such as protecting marine ecosystems, global warming, ozone
depletion, acid rain and new discoveries in the deep ocean abysses. Here
is an authoritative author who opens our eyes to the beauty, intricate
ecological relationships, and threats to our ecosystems as he raises our
awareness of what is happening to the interconnected waters of this planet
and the life in them. The book is interdisciplinary as books of this type
must be.
He shows the importance of non-governmental organizations and what
they can do to influence how state and federal funds are spent. By using
examples, he shows the importance of local solutions. "People will protect
what they love and can love what they understand...we too are part of the
matrix of the coastal zone and the sea." He gives examples of commercial
fishermen on the East Coast working hand in hand with the scientific
community to find good solutions to conserve natural resources. Peoples
such as native Hawaiians, who have lived on the land and gone to sea for
generations, are wise in their knowledge of their particular environments.

He shows where some government programs designed from afar have
produced the opposite results than were intended.
He has documented losses of salmon on the West Coast through the
damming of wild rivers. Pacific salmon are anadromous fish that migrate
between oceans and freshwater rivers. These losses are disheartening
but may be reversible. Scientists are using the concept of pysis, a Greek
word that means self-healing. To reverse environmental damages, rivers
can be returned to their natural states without levees and dams and with
natural features such as wetlands and trees on their banks so that fish and
wildlife can return to their intricate patterns of feeding and spawning in
habitats that sustain.
Donning mask and flippers, Dr. Fujita has explored pristine reefs up
close and observed how their ecosystems work as opposed to coral reefs
damaged by global warming, pollution and destructive fishing practices. He
advocates marine reserves as a way to study and preserve ocean species
before it is too late.
The scope of the book covers various ocean zones from the near shore
areas to the practically unknown abysses while revealing surprising new
information insights and fresh ideas. Minerals in the deep ocean are there
to be exploited by nations that need them; deep ocean mining needs to be
regulated to protect deep water ecosystems that scientists are only
beginning to study.
In the last chapter, "Creating A New Ocean Ethic," Dr. Fujita states
that reasonable accommodations of competing interests-economic
development and environmental protection can often be made. "True
economic development is an increased quality of life, wherein people
prosper not only in financial terms, but also in aesthetic and spiritual terms,
sustained by natural beauty, wildlife and health ecosystems."
Hercules, hero of ancient Greek mythology, was given twelve
seemingly impossible labors to accomplish and found ways to overcome
enormous difficulties. There are lessons in this. Today, Dr. Fujita
champions the Herculean tasks needed to heal the oceans of the world.
With the precision of a careful scientist and the drive of a committed
activist he has written a book that should be in every library and bookstore.
Heal the Ocean: Solutions for Saving Our Seas makes complicated issues
clear to scientists as well as the general public and writes with a fine style.
Review written by Barbara
Spring, author of The Dynamic Great Lakes, a non-fiction book about the
history of changes in North America's Great Lakes and The Wilderness
Within, a book of nature poetry and essays from around the world.
For More 5 Star Customer Reviews and Lowest Price:
Heal the Ocean: Solutions for Saving Our Seas by Rod Fujita 5 Star Customer Reviews
and Lowest Price!