Blue Frontier: Dispatches from America's Ocean Wilderness [Paperback]

David Helvarg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2006

In this compelling book, which Bill McKibben calls “the most comprehensive account available of the state of our nation’s oceans, and the best reporting on how they got that way,” veteran journalist David Helvarg fuses his passion for the sea and his reportorial savvy into a panoramic chronicle of America’s maritime history and the challenges that our coastal and marine environments face today. He dives deep into the cultures of those who know the sea in myriad ways—fisherfolk, oil-rig roughnecks, hurricane forecasters, coastal developers, navy personnel, scientists, and surfers—and profiles the growing efforts by coastal citizens and local governments to restore and protect the health of our oceans in the face of wide-open development along our coasts and offshore. Demonstrating how national policymaking on the oceans is enmeshed in a welter of competing jurisdictions, he argues for strong omnibus legislation and the creation of truly protected marine wilderness reserves.
Superbly researched, urgently written, and thoroughly updated, Blue Frontier is engrossing and essential reading for anyone concerned about saving America’s ocean wilderness.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

There have been enormous changes the environmental and political landscape since this book's first edition was published in 2001-among them government and private reports on the state of the oceans and the dangers of global warming, severe hurricane seasons in 2004 and 2005, 9/11, the Iraq War, and worldwide marine die-offs. Helvarg has seamlessly updated his immensely readable texts to cover new hurricanes (Katrina among them), rising sea levels, a radical pro-development federal government, growth of an ecological "Dead Zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, catastrophic blooms of hazardous organisms in rivers and estuaries, and the collapse of fisheries. Interwoven are useful histories of the offshore oil industry, ocean policy in Congress, and marine research institutes. Each chapter explores the links between the corruption of our political system and the destruction of critically important coastal resources. Helvarg's love for the sea and its natural inhabitants pervades the text, giving his precise catalog of enviornmental horrors an affecting poetic streak and a closing note of optimism, as he discusses marine sanctuaries and ongoing grassroots efforts to rehabilitate damaged coasts and preserve healthy ones. Supported by a hefty bibliography and copious interviews with scientists, policy makers, and ordinary people, this is a thorough examination of the ecological crisis in progress.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

David Helvarg has written many articles for major print media and commentaries for public radio, and he has produced award-winning documentaries for PBS, Discovery, and A&E. His books include The War Against the Greens. He is the founder and director of the Blue Frontier Campaign.

Product Details

• Paperback: 334 pages
• Publisher: Sierra Club Books; 2 edition (April 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578051576
• ISBN-13: 978-1578051571
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,179,536 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Helvarg is President of the Blue Frontier Campaign (www.bluefront.org) and the author of four books, Blue Frontier, The War Against the Greens, 50 Ways to Save the Ocean and Rescue Warriors. He's editor of the Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide, organizer of several 'Blue Vision' Summits for ocean activists, and winner of Coastal Living Magazine's 2005 Leadership Award and the 2007 Herman Melville literary Award. Helvarg worked as a war correspondent in Northern Ireland and Central America, covered a range of issues from military science to the AIDS epidemic, and reported from every continent including Antarctica. An award-winning journalist, he produced more than 40 broadcast documentaries for PBS, The Discovery Channel, and others. His print work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, LA Times, Smithsonian, Popular Science, Sierra, and The Nation. He's done radio work for Marketplace, AP radio, and Pacifica. He's led workshops for journalists in Poland, Turkey, Tunisia, Slovakia and Washington DC. He is a licensed Private Investigator, body-surfer and scuba diver.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book On The Plight Of The Oceans surrounding North America!, November 4, 2006

By 

DoubleLifeOfVeronique (Upstate NY) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Blue Frontier: Dispatches from America's Ocean Wilderness (Paperback)

David Helvarg has done a great service for all who cherish the ocean, by showing the devastation mankind has done, is doing, and unfortunately will continue doing (in less the masses become educated on just what is happening) to all the life forms in this realm. It's not all "downer" reading, but also David gives us glimmers of "hope", and some practical solutions for positive change. This book couldn't have been revised at a better time, as of this week (!0/29 thru 11/4) a major study published in the November 3 issue of the journal Science, published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society, warns that the world's wild-caught seafood fisheries could collapse by 2048 if current commercial fishing patterns continue. This is no surprise to anyone who's read David's work. Thanks again David Helvarg for writing such an important book, and also for your tireless conservation mission for the world's oceans.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely Important Work,--Tsunami of Data NOT Reaching Public, January 2, 2007

By 

Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Blue Frontier: Dispatches from America's Ocean Wilderness (Paperback)

There is so much solid, worthwhile information in this book, including valuable insights in why Western political interests are undermining proper representation of our national oceans, coasts, and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in Congress, that I would urge those interested in the oceans (hugely more important to our future than the Amazon or globla forestry, just to make the point), to buy this book, suffer its limitations, and ultimately benefit from the wisdom and experience of the author, for whom my respect is unqualified and whole-hearted. In passing, it would probably be helpful if the first thing we all demanded was that EEZ stand for Exclusive Environmental Zone, rather than treating the oceans as a for-profit target area.

There is one other information-related observation I would make that emerged from reading this book: both the United Nations and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are clearly doing heroic and deeply important work vital to the future of the oceans--and they are doing a terrible job of communicating the basic information about the oceans and their work to the larger world of voters and concerned citizens. What really came home to me as I reflected on what to emphasize in this review is that there is a very wide, almost impenetratable, barrier between what the UN and NOAA know, and what is being communicated to the citizens who have the right to know (they paid for that information with their tax dollars) and the need to know and the desire to know. From this I would say that the next big step for those who would seek to save the oceans, is to demand that all UN and US Government information paid for by the taxpayer be put online henceforth, available at no further cost to the public. It is this information, the bullets and beans of the information war between corporate and citizen interests, that will decide the future of the oceans.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Timely Update For a Must Read!, December 27, 2011

By 

Liz Holiday - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue Frontier: Dispatches from America's Ocean Wilderness, Updated 10th Anniversary Edition (Kindle Edition)

David Helvarg provides an accurate look at the changing nature of our oceans that is sometimes scary but also hopeful. In this updated version of the original hard copy, Helvarg's tales of the sea are very exciting as he goes off shore and below the surface with the Navy, scientists, explorers and even BP before and after their outrageous - yet totally predictable - deepwater spill in 2010. The recent updates on the oil spill, the politics of ocean policy and so much more make this Kindle version worth the purchase.
It's interesting that David Helvarg also has become an ocean advocate himself founding his own non-profit Blue Frontier Campaign. I guess he still has hope. Come to think of it after downloading and reading Blue Frontier - the updated 10th anniversary edition, so do I.
A great read!