It was summer 1953. Only a year before, Jacque Cousteau had introduced readers of Silent World to his new-fangled invention that he boasted could transport humans into another world—the self-contained underwater breathing apparatus—the SCUBA tank.

As one of eight students in a marine biology class at Florida State University that summer, Sylvia Earle—a teenaged sophomore from Clearwater, Florida—saw and touched her first SCUBA rig. It was one of only two the university had—the first to arrive at the university's marine lab, then located on Alligator Point, a spit of sand jutting into the Gulf of Mexico an hour south of campus. Training consisted of a single admonition from instructor Harold Humm. "Just breathe normally," he told his excited students, before heading out to sea aboard the 30-foot Sea Quest.

Today, Earle's memory of those days borders on total recall. The woman who is the unchallenged female icon in undersea exploration got her first long taste of that world 40 years ago this summer as a student at Florida State.

"We dove on a little patch reef in about 15 feet of water, about five miles off the mouth of the St. Marks River," she recalled in an interview with Research in Review last spring. "It was hard, rocky bottom—lots of soft corals, lots of fish. The sensation was wonderful. To be weightless, to stand on one finger—what a joy!"

Her biggest thrill of all—staring at fish for long periods without surfacing to catch her breath. The experience instantly kicked a childhood passion for things marine into an avid pursuit of a career in marine biology. She finished FSU in '55, earned a master's at Duke a year later, and—after time out to have a family—finished a doctorate, also at Duke, in 1966.

As it turned out, Earle wouldn't get any formal dive training (in truth, in those days there was little to be had) until 1970, when she was tapped as the leader of a five-woman team of scientists selected to serve as guinea pigs for Tektite II, a research project chiefly sponsored by the U.S. Navy. The experiment, requiring Earle and her fellow "aquanauts" to live underwater for two weeks, made for some splashy lay-outs in Life. In the decidedly non-PC journalistic world of the day, reporters cashed in by branding Earle and her Tektite crew as "aqua-babes."

Earle parlayed her newfound fame into becoming an in-demand public speaker and writer. She became an outspoken advocate for undersea research and for raising public consciousness about the growing menace of human impact on the world's oceans. Her rising stature in the community of marine and oceanographic science soon led to collaborations with numerous luminaries in sea research and technology.

In 1979 Earle's place in the history of sea exploration was sealed when she pulled off a feat done by no one before or since. Using a new type of pressurized suit, Earle stepped off of a submersible vehicle parked 1,250 feet on the ocean floor off Oahu and walked untethered for two-and-a-half hours before resurfacing. The feat still stands as the deepest dive ever made by anyone outside of a sub.

Earle's career since has swept her into entrepreneurship (in the 1980s, she partnered with marine engineer—and former husband—Graham Hawkes on ventures which produced a series of one-person deep-diving vehicles, including the well-known model Deep Rover); policy-making (she served as chief scientist for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration in the early 1990s) and writing. She's been a regular contributor to National Geographic for many years, and is author or co-author of more than a dozen books, including two written for children.

Upon the release of her autobiographical Sea Change: A Message of the Oceans in 1996, a reviewer for the Boston Globe opined: "What Rachel Carson was to insecticides, birds, and our planet in 1962, Sylvia Earle, scientist, explorer, oceanographer, diver extraordinaire, entrepreneur and eternal romantic, is now to the ocean."

Earle's most recent forays into domestic sea research have been tied to NOAA's Sustainable Seas Expedition, a five-year project largely aimed at increasing knowledge of undersea environments within U.S. waters. Earle led the project, which ended last March.

In the summer of 2001 Earle spent several weeks aboard the R/V Gordon Gunter, a NOAA ship based in Pascagoula, Miss., with a team of scientists investigating little-explored areas in the Gulf of Mexico. That team included FSU's Chris Koenig and Felicia Coleman—a pair whom Earle enthusiastically calls "her heroes" for their work in marine conservation.

From her Oakland, California home, Earle talked about her days at FSU and her new passion for protecting marine life through mandated closures. -F.S.

INTERVIEW

RinR: What's the best evidence for the purported decline in world fisheries?

B>Earle: You can point in one of a 100 different directions. Look at any commercial species—check out what it looked like 25 years ago, and today. Doesn't matter whose statistics you look at—fishermen, government scientists, doesn't matter. What things aren't on the menu today—and what new strange things are? Know one would think of eating a monkfish, orange roughy or Chilean seabass 25 years ago, but they're all newcomers, based on the collapse of the more sought-after species.

The sea has been around for more than 4 billion years—we've been around only a few million—and our most serious impact as far as taking wildlife out of the ocean has come about in the past 50 years. These systems have been fine-tuned over periods of hundreds of millions of years, and we've come along in the last few decades using military technologies—acoustics to identify them, airplanes to spot them, state-of-the art catching devices, nets that don't rot and are almost invisible—all this in the last 50 years, and the pace is picking up. That's the scary thing. We're subsidizing fishing on the order of $50 billion plus on a global scale, propping up an industry that really cannot--on the basis of paying it's own way--exist. It's got to be supported by taxpayers everywhere. In Japan, Europe, Canada and certainly in the U.S.

RinR: So, do you believe that marine protected areas (MPAs) represent the best management tool we have to stop the decline?

Earle: I think they're one of the best tools. A common sense thing is that if you're concerned about a species of animals, you stop killing them. Look at whales--it's only when we stopped killing them that real progress was made. If you want to restore health to a species or a system, do the obvious—stop killing them.

Secondly, look at the breeding areas and feeding areas and target them for protection. That's just plain common sense. Over the ages, people in Hawaii and Polynesia and elsewhere whose living were tied on a day-to-day basis to the fish they caught imposed tight constraints on people taking from breeding populations or nursery areas. All that has been washed over in modern times because no longer is the connection as clear as it used to be. Now, instead of your families, you're feeding distant markets—usually high-priced luxury markets. No longer is there a connection between the health of the local systems and what you put in the bank or what you use to feed your family.

RinR: How do you counter the argument that MPAs don't have any protection against pollution? That closing off an area to fishing means little if you don't have clean water?

Earle: You've got to start upstream. If you're serious about restoring health to the oceans, you have to start at the tops of the mountains, the headwaters and rivers, in our backyards, golf courses, wherever chemicals are entering ground water or where deliberate dumping is taking place.

Most MPAs—at least the ones I'm aware of--are located in places selected because they're still in pretty good shape and because the populations have the best chances of recovery in those areas, and often they're selected because they're in breeding areas. If pollution exists, that's just one more pressure that the creatures have to put up with, coupled with heavy predation. But if you at least back off in terms of predation—that is, fishing—there's a chance these creatures can rebound. But if you give 'em a double whammy, of effecting the quality of the water in which they live and at the same time you kill 'em, it's a slam dunk they're going to be in trouble.

RinR: Florida is looking at California to see how things are going out there with the new reserves and the management philosophy behind those. What can you say about the way things are headed on the west coast?

Earle:K And California is looking at Florida, believe me. First of all, there aren't many MPAs in this country, or anywhere in the world for that matter—in the sense of those places where the taking of wildlife is restricted or prohibited. In most of the so-called sanctuaries, so-called protected areas, there's in fact little sanctuary, because the same rules that apply outside apply inside—there are very few additional protective measures for the wildlife. There are very few things you're constrained from doing in a (typical) MPA that you can't do outside as well.

The Channel island closure in California applies only to a very small area. This is a fraction of one percent of the so-called MPA as a whole; we've got 18,000 square miles of so-called MPAs within the marine sanctuary program, and within that there's a fraction of one percent that is fully protected.

RinR: In your view, what percentage of U.S. coastal waters needs to be put into MPAs?

Earle: There's a move afoot that suggests that at least 20 percent needs to be fully protected. Not just messing around with these funny names—I mean genuine no-take areas. Twenty percent is one thought that's been put forward as a goal that would help write an insurance policy for the health not only of the individual species of fish that some people care about but the health of the ocean as a whole.

But I believe 20 percent is not enough. And I think (other scientists) do to, but part of the problem is—I'll tell you flat out—it's not just the amount of wildlife extracted from the ocean but also the techniques being used, for example, bottom trawling. This is coming under great fire currently as people become aware of just how incredibly destructive dragging these trawls across the seafloor really is, not just to the targeted species, or bycatch, but I'm talking about the destruction of the habitat itself. It's like using a bulldozer to catch songbirds.

RinR: If no-take MPAs were to proliferate globably, any thought to what impact they might eventually have on seafood cultures who traditionally have made their living from the sea?

Earle: I look at this "tradition" business with a jaundiced eye. What's "tradition?" Our tradition may go back 50, 100 or even 200 years, but the real problem is not people catching fish to feed their families, going out for the weekend or whatever. The real problem comes from the pressure to go out and build restaurants and supermarkets on a large commercial scale, so that you can go to any place in the country, almost the world, and find shrimp on the menu. That is not sustainable. I don't care how you slice it, that is not sustainable. You can't expect the oceans to produce on that level if you're taking from the wild, and the best hope is cultivating a few species that can work and do work in aquaculture.

Think about it—our ancestors used to eat almost any kind of birds-wild birds-even into the early part of the 20th century. My uncle used to make a living catching wild ducks and geese and muskrats and so forth, selling these things literally by the truckload. And you cannot do that today, because they're gone. The same thing is true of wildlife in the ocean. We're past the point where we can expect to commercially supply markets, restaurants, the world with wildlife out of the ocean. Just as we have come to value songbirds and other wild creatures on the land, for something other than just how good they taste, we are beginning to value wildlife in the ocean—not just seals and whales, dolphins—but I mean fish.

Some, like me, who have gotten to know these creatures on their own terms, see them as an integral part of the system, and are absolutely crucial to the health of coral reefs, for example. You take out the barracuda, the sharks, the parrot fish, the groupers and snappers-and you lose the reef. People say it's just global warming, others say it's just pollution that's causing the (world's coral) reefs to die, well it's a combination of stresses, but high on the list is the fact that we have undermined (reef ecosystems') integrity by taking out the top predators (along with other) critical parts of what it takes to make those systems function.

RinR: So, aquaculture-you see a future for that on a large scale?

Earle: I do. I think it's the only answer for us to consume large quantities of any species—marine, terrestrial, freshwater—if we are to insist on having them on our menus on reliable, large-scale basis, then we have to come up with the ways and means of cultivating them. Now, I'm not endorsing all aquaculture everywhere. There are some real problems with aquaculture. But there are some real opportunities, too. I look at the amazing investment in the aquaculture of some species—salmon, mahi mahi and flounder for example—these are all inappropriate choices for one basic, fundamental reason—they're carnivores. Nothing we cultivate from the land fits that category—not pigs, chickens, cows, nothing. The irony is that now we're using fish meal to feed chickens, cows, pigs and so forth. This is outrageous-an insult! But fish meal is being fed to carnivores in aquaculture. The amount of wild creatures taken to feed salmon is just obscene. It's like taking songbirds to feed chickens. Stupid.

RinR: But what about the huge problems with shrimp aquaculture? Reportedly, this has devastated some coastal wetlands in South America, Southeast Asia and elsewhere.

Earle: Yes, but within these problems are kernels of solid hope because we're talking about creatures low on the food chain—they are omnivores—they eat plant detritus and anything else. A big problem is that they still have to go catch the gravid (pregnant) females, and so, shrimp aquaculture is still not divorced from the wild.

Shrimpers often object to aquaculture, regarding it as competition. They say they're being put out of business because of it. Well, I have a hard time being sympathetic to a business that is putting itself out of business by destroying the habitat in the process of taking what they're taking. Aside from that, the problems with turning (terrestrial) habitat, destruction, turning mangroves into fish ponds, but the same argument can be applied to agriculture. Think of all the natural wild lands that have been turned into farms for wheat, corn, tobacco and so forth. It all comes back to the question of how you sustain 6 billion people on a planet that just 200 years ago was sustaining one billion people.

RinR: Some third-world countries regard developed countries as elitist in our approach to marine conservation— in other words, we can afford to shut down our fisheries and they say they can't.

Earle: But what we're really talking about here are luxury foods. The biggest problem is the high-end market for swordfish, tuna and so forth. The latest price I've heard for a single bluefin tuna in Japan that weighed only 444 lbs--they can weigh three times that or more—sold for $183,000 in Tokyo! And who needs tuna to survive? Or swordfish? Poor people who require aquatic creatures for their sustenance are not taking these high-end animals. Or shrimp--people who (need calories) aren't catching these things. And they're not longlining, either. We could and should stop longlining cold, right now. And we could and we should stop trawling right now. And the reason for both is that the real cost is the reproductive potential of the ocean—we're destroying it. We're undermining the possibility that in the future, the ocean could serve as an ongoing source of sustainable use on a level that's more reasonable. There's just no way that the ocean can continue to yield the way it is now--on the order of 100 million tons a year, not counting bycatch.

RinR: What about artesanal fisheries—those everyday activities that sustain coastal communities around the globe and provide recreational opportunities as well?

RinR: What's your read of the George W. Bush administration and its approach to marine conservation?

Earle: So far, there's been more silence than action. The conservation and environmental issues have been (confined to) upland interests pretty much, so we have not heard too much about fishing policies or marine sanctuary policies. I think there's an opportunity and a possibility that this administration could make a very positive impact on this area. There is tremendous respect around the world for our national parks, for what we've done to establish protected areas on the land. President Bush could create a positive legacy forever by supporting a comparable kind of action for critical parts of the ocean that would mirror the national park system on the land.

RinR: Does the huge disparity between what this country spends on its space program and what it spends on ocean research bother you at all?

Earle: I'm in full support of every penny we put into space technology and exploration. I just think that it's only reasonable, right and appropriate that we put an equal amount of money into (ocean research) and it's far from being equitable right now. I think the dividends for investing in the oceans arguably far outweigh what we may achieve from going skyward. But I think it should be balanced. If NASA has a budget of $14 billion, which is what I think it is today, we ought to have a $14 billion ocean agency budget. And right now, our ocean agency, such as it is, is buried within the Department of Commerce, and it has a built-in bias that is totally inappropriate to mirroring our investment in space. One of the reasons I'm such a big supporter of the space program is that it has given us new eyes on the importance of the oceans. But it has yet to penetrate our overall policies.

We need a loftier approach to the ocean more than just the idea of how many fish we can extract or how much junk can we dump into it. The ocean has a primary function as our life support system, creating oxygen, maintaining a habitable planet, regulating temperature, supplying most of the water that goes into the atmosphere and comes back as rain. It's our life support system and should be valued as such.