Sylvia Earle has dedicated her life to marine conservation; she tells BBC Wildlife why protecting the ocean is essential to all life on earth.

“I dream, sometimes, of what the world would be like if whales made the rules, or tuna, or even trees,” says Sylvia Earle

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Published: Thursday, 04 July 2024 at 12:35 PM

When she was born in 1935, no-one had ever seen the Earth from space. Since then, American marine biologist Sylvia Earle has led more than 100 ocean expeditions and spent more than 7,500 hours underwater.

She was the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) first female chief scientist; has been a National Geographic Explorer since 1998; and was Time Magazine’s first Hero for the Planet. Currently aged 88, she still travels the world furthering her conservation work. 

Like David Attenborough and Jane Goodall, whose careers have run parallel with hers, Sylvia has become a conservation legend. As I wait to meet her, an excited pool of people gathers, hoping for a moment,
a word or a photo with ‘Her Deepness’ – a nickname she was given in 1989 by The New Yorker magazine that’s stuck like a limpet ever since. 

How did Sylvia’s interest in the ocean start?

Sylvia has been a champion for nature her entire life. “I mean, I can’t remember when I haven’t,” she says, “Even as a child, it just seemed logical.” She remembers being on holiday in New Jersey, aged around three, and hearing and smelling the sea before she saw it. She promptly got knocked over by a wave when she turned her back. 

Children question everything. Sylvia has kept this inquisitiveness and dedicated her career to following her curiosity. It’s in our nature to explore, she explains; wanting to know more about the world around us is part of being human. 

This led her to become a world-leading oceanographer at a time when women weren’t seen as explorers. In 1953, while studying at Florida State University, her professor, Harold Humm, had access to some of America’s first ever ‘self-contained underwater breathing apparatus’ (SCUBA) and gave Sylvia the opportunity to try it out. She was among the first recreational divers in the world to do so, before diving certification bodies even existed (NAUI, PADI and SSI were founded in 1960, 1966 and 1970, respectively). 

Today, getting certified as an open-water diver involves around three or four days of theoretical and practical training. Sylvia’s only guidance was being told to ‘breathe naturally’ before she went over the side (holding your breath while scuba diving is incredibly dangerous). 

In the past, researchers used to collect marine specimens using nets and examine the dead samples. But seeing the animals in their natural habitat changed this for Sylvia. She went down to observe the fish but soon realised they were just as curious about her. “The ocean is not just rocks in the water. It’s alive,” she says.

These experiences ignited her passion to spend time in the ocean when studying it – she wanted the ocean to become the laboratory. (Jane Goodall didn’t fly over and throw nets to collect chimpanzees to study, Sylvia rightly points out). “My role is to be a witness to the ocean,” she says. 

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Through her career, she’s “been privileged to live underwater and to be underwater for days and weeks at a time in underwater laboratories,” she says, using SCUBA and submersibles to learn more about the deep sea. In 1964, she was the only female onboard the Anton Bruun with 70 men for the International Indian Ocean Expedition, and in 1970 she led the first all-female team of aquanauts in the underwater laboratory Tektite II (she’d applied for Tektite I the year before and was not selected).

While men were known as aquanauts, this female crew were nicknamed aqua babes, aqua belles and even aqua naughties. But Sylvia didn’t care; she was too immersed in getting to know the marine animals down below and seeing the interactions between communities. 

In 1979, she set the female world record for the deepest untethered dive. After unstrapping herself from the submersible that transported her, she spent two hours walking along the seafloor at a depth of 381m. That’s well below recreational scuba limits (40m) and deeper than the Eiffel Tower is high (330m including its antennas). Her record still stands today. 

Without the ocean, there is no life: “no blue, no green

Sylvia Earle

The ocean is our life-support system. It holds around 97 per cent of the world’s water, is home to the greatest diversity of life on Earth, and produces the air we breathe. Without the ocean, there is no life: “no blue, no green,” is Sylvia’s famous expression. “The most important thing we take from nature, from the ocean, is our existence,” she astutely observes. “What else matters if you can’t breathe?”

Through thousands of hours of observation, Sylvia has been captivated by this underwater world: seeing that most of the ocean is dark except for bioluminescence; that living things such as whales and krill play an essential role in the nutrient cycle; and that a tuna can speed through the ocean for miles and return to the same place with no GPS. 

What are her thoughts on the future?

But she worries about the threats the ocean faces because of our actions, including warming, acidification and deoxygenation. Overfishing is still a problem, despite animals disappearing from the ocean at an alarming rate: oceanic sharks and rays have declined by 71 per cent since 1970 and southern bluefin tuna by about 90 per cent. 

She’s frustrated by the human tendency to want to destroy nature, break it apart and extract something that’s useful, “as if it isn’t useful keeping us alive,” she says. (And don’t get her started on deep sea mining…). “I dream, sometimes, of what the world would be like if whales made the rules, or tuna, or even trees,” she says. 

Currently, just three per cent of the ocean is highly protected and around 10 per cent has some form of protection. The High Seas Treaty is currently aiming to protect 30 per cent of the high seas by 2030. 

Marine conservation efforts are far behind terrestrial protections. “Ninety seven per cent of the land was proactively protected in the 1960s. They forgot about the ocean until much later,” she says. “Even then, they didn’t protect the ocean the way they protected the land.” Currently, just three per cent of the ocean is highly protected and around 10 per cent has some form of protection. The High Seas Treaty is currently aiming to protect 30 per cent of the high seas by 2030. 

Why did Sylvia start Mission Blue?

Sylvia founded Mission Blue in 2009 because, while there were lots of organisations doing great work towards setting the highest conservation goals, “there was a gap and the gap was looking at the ocean and starting somewhere,” she says.

“Mission Blue has been trying to get people everywhere to understand they have a role. They have a chance to use their power to go from wherever they are and get to a better place.” The initiative aims to harness the power of the collective and inspire people everywhere to protect the ocean. “Nobody can do what it takes all by themselves,” but, together, we can all do something to get to a better place. 

Supported by more than 200 conservation organisations, it runs expeditions, raises public awareness of the need for marine protected areas, and appoints Hope Spots: special places that have been identified as being critical to the health of the ocean. 

“We started out with Mission Blue just identifying a dozen places that seemed like no-brainers [to protect],” she explains. There are now 161 Hope Spots covering an estimated 57,577,267km² of ocean, including the Galápagos, the polar regions, the Great Barrier Reef (“Who would not want to protect the Great Barrier Reef?,” she asks), Fish Rock in Western Australia, White Shark Café in the Pacific Ocean and South Africa’s Aliwal Shoal. 

Each Hope Spot has its own champion – a local conservationist recognised by Mission Blue – who will help protect the area and raise awareness of the importance of restoring it to a better condition. Every place counts – big or small. Each one makes a difference locally and together they can create a network of protected areas that could be big enough to restore the ocean. “It’s hope leading to action,” she says. 

We only have a set amount of time on this earth to make a difference and Sylvia intends to make the most of every moment. Despite her 89th birthday coming up in August, she shows no sign of slowing down. While most people in their 80s are gently pottering around the garden, Sylvia is still travelling to some of the world’s most remote locations to continue her conservation work. She led a climate expedition to the Antarctic in 2023 and plans to visit the Arctic in 2025. The ocean “keeps me on full alert,” she says. 

Sylvia has an unwavering passion for conservation. “I think our highest priority in the 21st century is to do everything within our power to protect natural living systems,” she says, “and to restore to the best of our ability what’s been damaged.”

She believes there’s no better way to learn about conservation than directly experiencing the wonders of a destination through responsible tourism. She’s seen this herself when taking children, ministers and even presidents underwater to see, feel and understand what’s going on in our marine world. It inspires people in a way that looking at numbers, graphs and evidence can never do.

Her recent trip to the Antarctic was particularly heartbreaking as she saw how drastically the effects of warming had changed the region since she first visited in 1990. The crisp snowpack had been replaced by watermelon snow, containing a pinkish algae that blooms in warmer weather and makes the landscape look like a brutal crime scene. “It was transformative to see how fast things are really shifting,” she says.

Despite the declines she’s seen through her lifetime, she still has reasons for optimism. The climate crisis makes the headlines now, which it didn’t 20 years ago. We’re the first generation “to see what is now seeable,” she says. “Our predecessors could not look at the whole world and connect the dots,” but we can understand how much we affect our environment. This is our last chance, she warns, to use that knowledge to change the trajectory. 

“You can never go back to where it was, but you can make things better than they currently are by taking the pressure off, by giving nature a break, by not interfering too much with the wisdom of nature,” she says. 

Sylvia has dedicated her life to being a voice for the ocean, but how can normal people make a difference? Everyone can use their own unique strengths to help the ocean, she says, recommending that people find their own superpower – whatever it is they’re talented at – and use it to do good. 

Rachel Louise Carson: the renowned writer, scientist, biologist, and ecologist

“All creatures take from nature, we’re not unique in that respect. But we have taken more than our share by a lot,” she says. “We need to be mindful of our impact on what makes Earth habitable… That’s the trick.” 

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