“Health to the ocean means health for us,” oceanographer and explorer Sylvia Earle has said.
The ocean covers almost three-quarters of Earth’s surface and contains about 97 percent of the planet’s water. The ocean is home to an almost otherworldly array of rainbow-colored fish, exotic plants, large-winged seabirds, powerful marine mammals, living corals and vital microorganisms. We are just beginning to understand how those ocean creatures are interconnected with one another and with us.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is partnering with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, state and territorial governments and others to conserve the ocean and remote islands and atolls in it. The two federal agencies cooperatively manage four marine national monuments in the Pacific Ocean and one in the Atlantic.
Earle has called the marine national monuments “hope spots” for ocean health.
Hope Spots
Catlin Seaview Survey crew used specialized equipment to capture thousands of panoramas of the coral reef that were stitched together using Google's famous Street View mapping technology. The results are three-dimensional slices of individual reefs, allowing one to virtually dive around at leisure. The virtual dive begins inside the protected lagoon of Rose Atoll National Wildlife Refuge and moves through the channel on the ocean side of the reef crest, part of the National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa.
Interactive Virtual Dive
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries Pacific Marine National Monuments Program have partnered with the Udall Foundation to recruit and select Community Group members to seek input on the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (PRIMNM). The PRIMNM Community Group will provide input to the agencies on the management, proper care, and effective stewardship of the Monument.
Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument Community Group