Parks Stewardship Forum

Earth’s human life-support system shows signs of failing. Human capacity to alter landscapes and the atmosphere is reaching catastrophic levels. Only the oceans seemed to be beyond control, but still they are not beyond human influence. Limited experience in protecting nature’s integrity, health, and resilience in seascapes offers the potential to reverse sliding global environmental conditions by providing realistic expectations, offering moral fortitude, stimulating imagination, and proffering hope. The ocean’s capacity to evoke human awe and inspiration may be sufficient to focusmankind on the global existential threats we face. It is now vital to heed Rachael Carson’s 1937 prescient observation “Against this cosmic background the lifetime of a particular plant or animal appears not as a drama complete in itself but only as a brief interlude in a panorama of endless change.” The world will keep spinning, whether people are able to enjoy the ride or not.