Heal the Ocean: Solutions for Saving Our Seas (Paperback)

~ Rod Fujita (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

An oil tanker breaks up off the coast of Spain, contaminating beaches and killing over one hundred thousand birds. Colorful coral reefs turn a deathly white around the world. Six whales die in the Bahamas from bleeding near their ears after the Navy tests an active sonar system there. After so much bad news, people are thirsting for workable solutions to the oceans crisis.

Heal the Ocean provides a refreshing change in the literature by emphasizing success stories in the struggle to save the seas. The author—a marine ecologist dedicated to protecting and restoring ocean ecosystems—first describes the nature of ocean environments and then discusses current and emerging threats, including pollution, overfishing, poor land use, deep sea mining, and the search for new energy sources. Heal the Ocean then urges that we build upon efforts that have successfully countered such threats, including:

allowing natural processes to restore the San Francisco Bay and Delta
innovative wastewater treatment at Ecoparque, Baja, California
the world’s first scientifically designed marine reserve network in California’s Channel Islands
traditional stewardship of land and sea by native Hawaiians
economic incentives for sustainable fishing in Alaska
new international fishing agreements with teeth
shifting consumer demand to sustainable seafood
building constituencies for ocean conservation and creating a new ocean ethic using sophisticated social marketing and community-building techniques

Upbeat and inspiring, Heal the Ocean will appeal to professional environmental advocates, community leaders, opinion-shapers, and policymakers, as well as any citizen aspiring to protect the ocean.

Rod Fujita is a Senior Scientist with Environmental Defense, in Oakland, California. He has studied the ocean for over twenty years, logging hundreds of hours underwater studying ocean wildlife, as well as playing a key role in setting up marine reserves in the Florida Keys and the Channel Islands, California.

About the Author

Rod Fujita is a Senior Scientist with Environmental Defense, in Oakland, California. He has studied the ocean for over 20 years, logging hundreds of hours underwater studying ocean wildlife, as well as playing a key role in setting up marine reserves in the Florida Keys and the Channel Islands CA.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: New Society Publishers (November 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865715009
• ISBN-13: 978-0865715004
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #736,905 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars UPBEAT, REALISTIC AND FULL OF NEW IDEAS, January 30, 2004

By A Customer

Dr. Fujita's highly readable book is full of positive examples of changes we can make to improve the environment. It is a realistic insight into the science of environmental change. The book takes the time to present the problems facing our oceans but also shares success stories for change. This is a wonderful book for a non-scientist, non activist but interested reader.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Championing the Seas, June 16, 2005

By	Barbara Spring "www.geocities.com/barbaraspring" (Grand Haven, MI United States) - See all my reviews

Heal the Ocean: Solutions for Saving our Seas
by Rod Fujita
New Society Publishers
227 pages
www.newsociety.com


Championing the Seas
Dr. Rod Fujita does not write with the detached voice of a scientist, although he is one. He writes with the passion of a champion for the cause of sustainable development and he believes it is possible.
Some fisheries such as California's near shore waters collapsed through over fishing. The solution: California's Marine Life Management Act of 1999 that strives to protect whole ecosystems through marine reserves where no fishing is allowed. Fujita calls it "fish in the bank."
"Present economic activities should not compromise our own future need for resources or those of future generations," and according to Fujita, it is a view that is gaining acceptance all over the world. It is a view that makes sense.
Although the author shows numerous scenarios for environmental disasters, he is no prophet of doom. After showing how ecosystems can and do collapse, he shows solutions, and sometimes brilliant solutions that have worked as well as ideass that have not been tried, but should be. Solving problems with scientific knowledge and political know how makes Heal the Ocean: Solutions for Saving Our Seas an important book.
Some of the engineering solutions that Fujita shows are ingenious, yet there is not a single solution that fits all situations. Each problem, each place on earth and in its oceans has unique features that call for creative solutions. Each problem must balance human needs with the conservation of natural resources.
Rod Fujita's enthusiasm for his subject shines through. He provides a toolkit full of savvy solutions, some tried and successful and some waiting to be used to remedy modern day assaults upon the seas and their living ecosystems. His book draws upon a body of recent scientific discoveries and provides a wealth of fascinating details about the connections among rivers, oceans, land forms, mangroves, reefs and the life that is interdependent in ways that are understood, and ways we have yet to discover. This alone would make it an interesting book, but Dr. Fujita goes takes his subject further. He shows us a future full of possibilities for healing the oceans.
Dr. Fujita gleaned his knowledge from close observations under water and his scientific work at Woods Hole, (he received his PhD from Boston University's Marine Program), and his work as a Senior Scientist with Environmental Defense, an environmental activist group. He has served on many state and federal commissions and review panels. He looks at the big picture drawn from his experience of work on many environmental issues such as protecting marine ecosystems, global warming, ozone depletion, acid rain and new discoveries in the deep ocean abysses. Here is an authoritative author who opens our eyes to the beauty, intricate ecological relationships, and threats to our ecosystems as he raises our awareness of what is happening to the interconnected waters of this planet and the life in them. The book is interdisciplinary as books of this type must be.
He shows the importance of non-governmental organizations and what they can do to influence how state and federal funds are spent. By using examples, he shows the importance of local solutions. "People will protect what they love and can love what they understand...we too are part of the matrix of the coastal zone and the sea." He gives examples of commercial fishermen on the East Coast working hand in hand with the scientific community to find good solutions to conserve natural resources. Peoples such as native Hawaiians, who have lived on the land and gone to sea for generations, are wise in their knowledge of their particular environments. He shows where some government programs designed from afar have produced the opposite results than were intended.
He has documented losses of salmon on the West Coast through the damming of wild rivers. Pacific salmon are anadromous fish that migrate between oceans and freshwater rivers. These losses are disheartening but may be reversible. Scientists are using the concept of pysis, a Greek word that means self-healing. To reverse environmental damages, rivers can be returned to their natural states without levees and dams and with natural features such as wetlands and trees on their banks so that fish and wildlife can return to their intricate patterns of feeding and spawning in habitats that sustain.
Donning mask and flippers, Dr. Fujita has explored pristine reefs up close and observed how their ecosystems work as opposed to coral reefs damaged by global warming, pollution and destructive fishing practices. He advocates marine reserves as a way to study and preserve ocean species before it is too late.
The scope of the book covers various ocean zones from the near shore areas to the practically unknown abysses while revealing surprising new information insights and fresh ideas. Minerals in the deep ocean are there to be exploited by nations that need them; deep ocean mining needs to be regulated to protect deep water ecosystems that scientists are only beginning to study.
In the last chapter, "Creating A New Ocean Ethic," Dr. Fujita states that reasonable accommodations of competing interests-economic development and environmental protection can often be made. "True economic development is an increased quality of life, wherein people prosper not only in financial terms, but also in aesthetic and spiritual terms, sustained by natural beauty, wildlife and health ecosystems."
Hercules, hero of ancient Greek mythology, was given twelve seemingly impossible labors to accomplish and found ways to overcome enormous difficulties. There are lessons in this. Today, Dr. Fujita champions the Herculean tasks needed to heal the oceans of the world. With the precision of a careful scientist and the drive of a committed activist he has written a book that should be in every library and bookstore. Heal the Ocean: Solutions for Saving Our Seas makes complicated issues clear to scientists as well as the general public and writes with a fine style.
Review written by Barbara Spring, author of The Dynamic Great Lakes, a non-fiction book about the history of changes in North America's Great Lakes and The Wilderness Within, a book of nature poetry and essays from around the world.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dive into this ocean of knowledge!, September 16, 2006

By	wildflowerboy (planet earth) - See all my reviews

In "Heal the Ocean", Rod Fujita details the catastrophic state of our oceans as a result of global warming, overfishing, pollution, deep sea mining, military interests, and poor land use. More importantly, he describes the many ways that we can work together to protect and restore ocean ecosystems. As somebody who loves the ocean but has never before taken a marine biology course, I appreciate Fujita's accessible writing style. Thank you, Rod Fujita, for this educational and inspiring book.