We’re keeping the ocean wild — and you can join us | Sylvia A. Earle

**Elise Hu** (0:03)
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Today is World Ocean Day, recognized by the UN as a day dedicated to raising awareness about the crucial role oceans play in our lives, and to mobilizing a worldwide movement for its protection.
There's arguably no one better to mark this day than with ocean scientist and deep sea diver Sylvia Earle. She has spent more than 7,000 hours underwater. Yes, you heard that number right. She's witnessed the ocean at its most breathtaking, and has watched it change in ways most of us will never see firsthand.

**Sylvia Earle** (0:43)
I was told 50 years ago to be afraid if I saw sharks. No, I'm afraid because I don't see sharks when I go diving.
We've eliminated more than half of them since I began diving.

**Elise Hu** (0:56)
Sylvia, who's known in the ocean and diving communities as Her Deepness, is a marine biologist, national geographic explorer at large, and founder of Mission Blue, the organization behind a global network of ocean protected areas called Hope Spots. In 2009, she was awarded the TED Prize and used her wish to call for a global movement to protect the ocean's blue heart.
17 years later, she returned to the TED stage to take stock of what's been lost, what's been saved, and why it's still imperative to protect the oceans.

**Sylvia Earle** (1:27)
We can stop trashing the ocean.
We can stop industrial fishing. We must never allow mining the deep seas to sweep away the security the living deep ocean provides to all of us.

**Elise Hu** (1:55)
And I feel so lucky I got to sit down with Sylvia in Vancouver after her talk to hear how she first fell in love with the deep sea, how she's using technology in her fight to save the oceans, and the advice she'd give anyone who wants to help. That's all coming up right after a short break.
And now, our TED Talk and conversation of the day.

**Sylvia Earle** (2:41)
So, in 2009, I stood here as a TED Prize recipient, given a chance to make a wish big enough to change the world. So, what was that wish? I wish you would use all means at your disposal. Films, expeditions, the web, new submarines, a campaign, to ignite public support for a global network of marine protected areas, hope spots, large enough to save and restore the ocean, the blue heart of the planet. So, why did I make that wish? How much of the ocean should be protected?
It's our life support system. We need to treat all of it with respect. Part of the reason for my wish was because of what I've seen, what I've explored, what I've come to know in a lifetime of diving in. To see things in ways that most people will never get to see. To use systems that make it possible to stay underwater for days, weeks at a time. To explore places that most people will never get to see. And to be a witness to the change that's currently taking place. I've had the chance to use more than 30 different kinds of submarines. Sometimes sharing the view with government officials, such as the Minister of the Environment from Ecuador.
He was a little apprehensive.
But he warmed up to the idea thanks to a mola mola who kind of whispered in his ear.
I've also witnessed how we're trashing the ocean. More than just what we're putting into the ocean, what we're taking out, how we are stripping the ocean of the wild creatures that maintain earth as a habitable planet. When I voiced concerns, when I served as a chief scientist of NOAA in 1990, I was called the Sturgeon General.
And I was told not to worry.
But in a few decades, with billions of dollars in subsidies, we have de-wilded the ocean, taking these wild animals to markets globally. Industrial fishing is simply too efficient, and the markets are too demanding. Wild animals, I don't stand a chance. Nothing in their history enables them to escape the mechanized killing. They're fleets that move like cities across the high seas, taking and marketing wildlife. We almost succeeded in exterminating the great whales. But now we know we need whales. We need squid. We need the menhaden, the tuna, the shrimp, the sharks, ocean, wildlife. We need them alive. This is the carbon cycle in action. This is how the living planet works. Elements of the universe are moving from one creature to another, keeping Earth's chemistry within safe operating space.
I was told 50 years ago to be afraid if I saw sharks. Now I'm afraid because I don't see sharks when I go diving. We've eliminated more than half of them since I began diving. In 2009, I wished for expeditions, films, the web, new submarines that inspire action. In the same week that Google launched the first 10 hope spots on Google Earth. In 2010, at a TED at Sea expedition to the Galapagos Islands, we gathered together about 100 big thinkers to figure out what can we do to change this trajectory of decline.