How to Describe Ocean Benefit

[intro music, ocean sounds]

Welcome to World Ocean Radio…

I’m Peter Neill, Founder of the World Ocean Observatory.

When I am asked what is the principal mission of World Ocean Radio? I respond that I am trying to change the way we see the world. How many ways can I portray the ocean, in its myriad forms and constant connection which we use to sustain ourselves in the natural world of which the ocean-freshwater continuum is the essential defining part. If indeed the sea connects all things, then I should have a vast number of ways to exemplify that connection – and the repetition of that fact, using all methods and platforms for worldwide communication, becomes the purpose of what I do, every day, from week to week, with words, numbers, visualizations, educational exercises, and multiple means for global public engagement and action.

Here’s yet another way to understand this fundamental compulsion: what if I can make the argument through grammar?

In a recent post by NatureScot, Scotland’s Nature Agency, based in Inverness, with hundreds of preservation projects and programs nationwide (https://www.nature.scot/scotlands-biodiversity/scottish-biodiversity-strategy/ecosystem-approach/ecosystem-services-natures-benefits), I found a presentation of natural benefits, from Nature and from the sea. The message was delivered through a particular figure of speech – the gerund – which is, for those of you who have forgotten, a form of a verb used as a noun. I have used the distinction before, calling for the re-definition of a policy – a noun – into the more active application of verb – a shift from passive to active that should transform the way we see the world, indeed, how we engage necessarily with our oceanic world to survive.

The post portrays the benefits from Nature as defined by four actions: provisioning, regulating, supporting, and acculturating; while the benefits from the sea follow closely as provisioning, maintaining, and supporting, with the substitution of maintaining not regulating. Within natural provisioning, for example, may be found materials, water supply, renewable and non-renewable energy, natural medicines, food and drink. The provisioning from the sea may be found fish and shellfish stocks, wind and hydro-energy, harvestable seaweed, sand and gravel, and genetic resources. The cultural benefits from Nature include physical health and mental well-being, knowledge and learning, tourism, recreation, sense of place, inspiration, and spiritual and religious connections; and the cultural benefits from the sea add the value of tourism, seascapes, science and education, wildlife study, recreation, health and well-being, creativity and art. The other categories are equally inclusive and all embracing.

Suffice it to say, lest I lose the point in a tortured device, that there is simply no aspect of human enterprise that is not contained within the synergy and symbiosis of the ocean eco-system and its supporting services.

A noun is a static device, with a careful definition. A verb is an applied device, with a determined outcome. Science and policy exist as nouns and their success depends first on the precision of their content, and second on its application. It is the disconnect between these two parts of speech that accounts for failed or inadequate understanding and behavior. Only when the noun is applied as a verb, through physical and psychological energy, does the specific commitment to the activation of one thing lead to the activation of another, with resultant beneficial truth revealed and understood. Love is the noun; I love you is the verb. Together, through that connection, that declaration and that knowledge is the ultimate benefit revealed.

Jacques Cousteau, ocean explorer, famously declared, “we conserve what we love.” We may not always succeed, but the essence remains: that the ocean serves us and rewards us and sustains us as a cosmic connection of love. We ignore it, we dismiss it, at our peril, as a terrible loss…and we had best understand now that there is no future without it.
We will discuss these issues, and more, in future editions of World Ocean Radio.

WORLD OCEAN RADIO IS DISTRIBUTED BY THE PUBLIC RADIO EXCHANGE AND THE PACIFICA NETWORK, FOR USE BY COLLEGE AND COMMUNITY RADIO STATIONS WORLDWIDE. FIND US WHEREVER YOU LISTEN TO PODCASTS, AND AT WORLD OCEAN OBSERVATORY DOT ORG.

[outro music, ocean sounds]