[Created Nov. 8, 2016]
Small feet create dents in the Earth’s surface, kicking up sprays of sand and salt water. The sun blazes down through clouds overhead and the wind whips over a nearly empty beach between scattered umbrellas. The beach around Coronado Island in the late evening is nearly empty as I play on the shore, dragging tired and reluctant cousins back into the waves again and again to body surf and boogie board. The hustle and bustle of vendors has died out for the day, while resorts and restaurants begin to light up the coastline. People flooded the boardwalk hours before, but now only a few remain. These summer trips to the beach are valuable to a kid growing up land locked in Arizona. There’s nothing quite like driving out from open desert towards crashing waves. Evening is the calmest time of day on the water, nightfall ushering most people off to other activities. Laughter and music drifts down to the beach from different establishments. Evening remains my favorite time to be on the water.
Flash forward to another beach on the east coast years later. Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, tourists crowd vendors and boardwalks in the overbearing heat. Bodies cram onto the narrow strip of beach, and people practically run each other over swimming and surfing in the water. It’s loud, it’s hot, and it’s anything but relaxing. But it’s also fun, it’s social, and it’s something everyone is sharing. Everyone, for whatever reason, wants to be on that beach. I want to be there because the air is hot and the water is cold. The water is choppy and the best for body surfing, a beach activity I’ve failed to grow out of. Bribing friends into the cold water is a challenge to overcome, and taking forever to walk along the strip of sand is something they’ve gotten used to as I stop to pick up stray trash accumulated by the throngs of people.
Another year, another beach. Flying across the country and over the Pacific to Hawaii, not knowing what to expect. Watching the ocean pass by underneath the body of the plane, and wondering what it would be like to boat out into the middle of nowhere. Spending weeks along crowded shores and warm water, dragging my family from conservation point to observation tower. Spotting humpback whales that should have long left the area, and questioning an information desk worker about the ecosystem around the island. Finally, my family becoming tired of my elongated trips and information searches, simply wanting to enjoy the beautiful scenery. Workers on the island strive to educate their visitors about environmentally safe practices, but everyone seems to turn a deaf ear. I wake up early in the mornings, before sunrise, to meet up with a woman working on turtle nest protection. We go out counting the number of nests and watching turtles hatch, migrating down the beach, and preventing other early birds from interfering. During the hot afternoons, Hawaiian monk seals drag themselves onto the shore to sunbathe, as tourists surround them snapping pictures and taking selfies. Law enforcement isn’t enough to keep people back 200 feet. Hotel workers have to walk along the shore handing out warnings. The ocean isn’t just a place to visit anymore, it’s something to protect.
Four years later, deep into studies on the marine environment, human impact, and policy, I’m on a plane flying to Aruba and about to land. Tankers and barges stream by miles below towards Venezuela, and oil rigs sink their pipes into the ocean floor. Trash lines the waves out from shore, noticeable even from above. A desalination factory overshadows the southern coast, a beer factory in the west, an airport inland, and resorts lining the coast. Trash and windmills dot the northern coast, waves crashing over rocky shores dragging drift wood and plastic onto the island. Despite all of this, the waters are pristine. Snorkeling along the rocky shore is one of the most incredible experiences of my life. Barracudas hover around sandy floors meters away, and starfish slowly migrate over rocks covered in sea urchins. Thousands of fish dart in and out of the current as the rolling waves sway the whole ocean back and forth. I dive for hours, getting close up looks of everything I can take in. Floating on the surface, fish begin schooling under my shadow, moving in formation as I move my limbs through the water. No matter where I go, even if back to that same rocky shore, will ever be the same experience.
It’s a strange feeling to spend years playing into a tourist economy that, while benefiting people and infrastructure, can be completely detrimental to marine life. Yet, without these experiences I wouldn’t be where I am today in my passion for protecting these places. If not for countless years of beach visits, weeks at a time spent on the coast and in the water, I wouldn’t have nearly the relationship I do today with the marine world. As I’ve grown, my memories of time on the water has shifted in a subtle but notable way. I see the beauty in the vast ocean, but also the danger it poses and threat it’s under. I see the tourists, but I also see the pollution. There are more human footprints shaping the marine environment than waves washing them away.
What began as a distant relationship of scattered memories has become an entangled lifestyle around the coast. Seeing the tranquilities of the ocean above and appreciating the depths unexplored below. It’s a sense of awareness and love for the ocean I’ve gotten to experience that drives me to study it further, and care about the problems facing the future of the marine world. It’s thanks to a family that pushes you to follow what you love, but also lacks an environmental consciousness coming from a background in art, computer science, and anthropology. A family who, prior to my own interest, was more focused around how the world used to be versus how we are shaping it to be. A group of conservative people thinking of social and environmental issues as two separate categories. My value of the marine environment has come from hoping to fill a void of awareness, and bring about change in human behavior to aid a system exposed to our own uninformed actions.
Gaining scientific and political understanding of marine systems has been a hope and distraught in my vision of the future. Hope comes from a sense of growing momentum in the efforts to educate and conserve through the past decades. In the huge changes that have already occurred, there’s a precedent for more change. In a country though, where not everyone gets to experience the ocean as I have, how can I expect everyone to pressure a system that provides economic stability and personal comfort to change for the sake of a foreign entity. I have faith though in the Earth, that even after all the damage humans have done, Earth is still fighting back, and if we can just give it that fighting chance, then history can be rewritten in the regrowth of a newly born system.
It’s strange to think that how someone values an ecosystem begins when they’re young, or could possibly never develop if they’re never exposed to it. I didn’t place enough appreciation onto my upbringing and development of my valuation of the natural world before. I’m surprised to see how far back I can clearly remember different beach visits and what stands out to me years later. Each visit is like a collection of snapshots in my memory, different colors and senses highlighting different aspects. Underlying the basis for the value I give the natural world isn’t anything I’ve learned from a class, or seen in a film, but what I’ve gotten to experience myself. It’s my education and going back out into the world with this new knowledge that has allowed me to form my viewpoint on environmental issues around the ocean. Moving forward in life, I want to continue to share my experiences, expose others to these issues, but also share passions through immersion in the natural world. Personally, it’s time to work on not only advocating for the changes needed to improve human impact on the marine environment, but also taking more personal steps to catalyst better habits for myself and others.
