In today’s world where societal demands are placing increasing pressure on the ocean, public understanding of the importance of the oceans for us and our impact upon them, is essential for pushing for a more sustainable future.  As Senegalese forestry engineer Baba Dioum said at an IUCN meeting in 1968, “In the end we will conserve only what we love, love only what we understand, and understand only what we are taught”.  Whether close to the ocean or in a land-locked country the call for increasing ocean literacy across the general population is one that can now be heard across the globe. 

Life is hectic, and people and constantly bombarded with news and information.  For many people, the oceans are simply ‘out of sight out of mind’.  The remoteness, vastness, and seemingly impenetrable nature of the ocean is a challenge for ocean literacy, but there are those who are seeking new ways to connect people with an environment that gives us so much. 

On April 20th 2014, Mike Irvine donned his drysuit, flippers, scuba tank, and mask, and jumped into the waters of the Saanich Peninsula, Vancouver Island in British Columbia.  This was no ordinary dive.  For one, Mike was also wearing his pinstriped suit over his drysuit.  His mask was no simple mask, but one designed for underwater communication. He also had an underwater camera, streaming footage live from his location. His audience was his Masters thesis defence committee, sitting in a room at the University of Victoria (UVic) - and approximately 869 people from 15 countries around the world, watching live via YouTube.  A graduate from UVic’s Faculty of Education, Mike’s dissertation focused on the use of underwater cameras not just to educate but engage students; “My hope is that this will bridge the extensive gap between the ocean and the public, that we can connect people to a world we hardly know”. 

Mike’s thesis was more than just a project for his masters.  Alongside Maeva Gauthier, Mike founded Fish Eye Project in 2013.  Its first live underwater foray involved installing an underwater camera onto Vancouver Island’s Fisherman’s Wharf in Victoria in 2014 using technology developed with another company Mike co-founded – Subeye Technology.  Staring Sammy the seal and other ocean creatures, the ‘seal cam’ has attracted over 100,000 views from over 130 countries its first year.  A shipwreck dive (the MV G.B. Church, sunk in 1991 as part of a naval artificial reef project) in October 2014 attracted 12 classrooms.  In November 2014, live dives of “The Wall” in Brentwood Bay attracted over 130 classrooms, equating to approximately 4,000 students. 

Much like in the thesis dive, students were able to communicate with divers in real-time.  For those watching on YouTube, questions could be sent by instant message.  From an engagement point of view, the project has received positive feedback from the very students it seeks to engage.  “You get to sea it. Realy life.  Its beter then a pichter you can sea there habitat and there habits” one child wrote in a survey after participating in a live dive at their school.  In addition, Mike notes that students didn’t just like seeing the underwater world largely alien to them, but also wanted to see more.  The ambitions of Fish Eye Project don’t just stop with the classroom.  This September the team are bringing the ocean to the IMAX audience.  “Beneath the Waves” will follow a similar format to the other live underwater dives with a live presentation from underwater, and the opportunity for the audience to communicate with the divers in real time. 

Underwater live streaming employs some of the latest technology, but photography still plays a key role in ocean literacy.  In 2012, XL Catlin Seaview Survey, non-profit Mission Blue and Google Oceans joined forces to take Google Street View underwater.  Using a specially designed camera – the SVII, the Catlin team took thousands of 360° panoramic images which were then stitched together by Google Maps to allow people to take a look around six sites.  The project was heralded a huge success, and more images from around the world have been added since.  For World Oceans Day 2015, Google Ocean together with XL Catlin Seaview Survey, NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and the Chagos Conservation Trust added imagery from 40 new underwater locations to Street View. 

Google’s involvement in ocean literacy goes beyond adding some striking images of the underwater world to one of their products.  In a separate project launched in 2014, Google together with non-profits Oceana and SkyTruth created a publically available interactive map depicting commercial fishing around the globe.  Global Fishing Watch is still a prototype, but so far it has 300 million AIS (Automatic Identification System) data points from over 25,000 vessels.  Users can see which fishing vessels have been fishing where, and even if they were probably fishing or not.  The project seeks to connect with the general public as well as fishery managers and those involved in the seafood industry; “Citizens can use the tool to see for themselves whether their fisheries are being effectively managed. Seafood suppliers can keep tabs on the boats they buy fish from. Media and the public can act as watchdogs to improve the sustainable management of global fisheries. Fisherman can show that they are obeying the law and doing their part. Researchers will have access to a multi-year record of all trackable fishing activity”.  Of course the project is not 100% fool proof.  Not all countries require fishing vessels to have AIS, and it is not unknown for those undertaking illegal fishing activities to alter the AIS data.  Nevertheless it can also highlight when vessels were potentially starting to engage in illegal activities.  In 2014, Google Ocean detected half a million vessels ‘disappearing’, indicating that either their AIS had malfunctioned - or had been switched off.

There is little substitute for personal experience when it comes to learning and engagement, but the ocean remains largely inaccessible for most of us. Fish Eye Project seeks to find a compromise by allowing its viewers to communicate with the divers about what they can see in real time. There is an interaction, albeit remotely. Visiting an aquarium may allow you to gain some of that personal experience yourself, but that experience is gained from an artificial environment. All the technologies discussed here offer something more than an aquarium cannot – a connection with place.

Connecting with place may create more tangible links to the marine environment than simply learning about a marine species. With connection to place, people may see the importance of reducing nitrogen runoff into their local coastal waters, the role of a in an inlet seagrass bed for providing a nursery area for many species, and the role of a fishing ground 100 miles off the coast to a sustainable fishery. It can help understanding that the ocean isn’t a monotonous environment, and that many habitats are in fact connected.

This isn’t just important for setting meaningful conservation strategies, such as effective marine protected areas. As demand for information about food comes from, small-scale fishers involved in ‘bait to plate’ traceability schemes are seeing financial benefits. For ocean-based industries seeking to undertake activities, ocean literacy combined with an understanding of place can help facilitate dialogue with the public to further marine spatial planning that provides more equitable and sustainable ocean use.

This story appeared in The Marine Professional, a publication of the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science & Technology (IMarEST).