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Since our Minding the Oceans issue (Summer 2003), two national ocean commissions have published reports, more books and films with anguished messages and amazing images of undersea life have appeared, and more citizen activist groups have formed. As required by the California Ocean Protection Act of 2004, the California Ocean Protection Council has been established, funded with a fiscal year 2005–6 appropriation of $1.2 million, $10 million in tideland oil royalties, and a total of $15 million in Proposition 40 and 50 funds. (The Coastal Conservancy has agreed to commit $5 million to Ocean Protection Council priorities and the State Water Resources Board has committed $10 million.) The Council is coordinating the activities of ocean-related state agencies in an effort to improve the effectiveness of state efforts to protect ocean resources, and shaping new proposed ocean policies in keeping with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Ocean Protection Plan, released in October 2004.

Among current Council projects are a pilot program to recover derelict fishing gear, kelp and eel grass restoration projects (Coast & Ocean, Spring/Summer 2005), and a proposed revolving loan fund to assist commercial fishermen trying to make a transition to sustainable fisheries in Morro Bay. Meanwhile, the Coastal Conservancy is implementing the Coastal Ocean Currents Monitoring Program (see Coast & Ocean, Winter 2004–5, and www.cocmp.org).

Recently, a videotape by the Algalita Foundation, “Our Synthetic Sea,” inspired a conference on efforts to reduce the flow of plastics into the ocean. In the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, midway between California and Hawaii, the volume of plastic microdebris now exceeds the volume of zooplankton by six to one. In our next issue we will bring you more on what is being done—or can be done—about this trash, which is killing seabirds and is now found in marine life at the cellular level.

In the often-quoted words of Senegalese ecologist Baba Dioum: “In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught.”

The morning after watching the sunset with the magic afterglow, I took a long solitary walk on the beach, crossing paths with only a few people, dogs, and an elegant raven. He was strolling along the surf line, inspecting the glistening sand with his beak as the tide receded. The sound of waves spending themselves gently on the sandy beach reminded me of the tamboura, the stringed instrument that, in classical Indian music, provides a background drone against which a sitar, tabla, or human voice can play, do acrobatics, sing passionately, and reach for the sky.

—Rasa Gustaitis

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