Transcriber: Chryssa R. Takahashi Reviewer: Judith Matz
When I was a kid, I was afraid of water.
I was OK as long as my feet could touch the bottom,
or if I had floaters to swim with.
So, in fact, I was afraid to dive.
Let me tell you, that is not cool, when you are Jacques Cousteau's son.
(Laughter)
I overcame this fear when I was about nine years old.
And the first thing you know,
my father had strapped a scuba tank on my back
and thrown me in the water.
That year, I was clearing my mask and diving with sharks for the first time.
And I loved it.
The fear had transformed into a passion.
Which I'm starting to discover is pretty much what happens
when you give a TEDxAcademy talk.
(Laughter)
It took me a really long time to actually get certified,
because every time I would go to a dive center
they would say, "Oh, your name is Coustaeu.
You don't need certification. Just go diving."
(Laughter)
Very dangerous and it was only about three years ago
that I became a diving professional,
and it was here in Greece, on Santorini.
And I have to say, I really enjoy it.
I love teaching people how to dive.
I love seeing people come out of the water after their first dive.
And I have to say, the greater their initial fear is,
the greater the pleasure and the joy when they overcome that fear.
So, if you haven't tried it already, I strongly encourage you to come diving,
and especially if you are afraid.
The sea leaves you no shortage of amazement and adventure.
Everytime I break the surface into this new universe
I am amazed by the beauty.
I am amazed by the abundance.
I am amazed by the diversity.
I am amazed by the fragility.
I also find a lot of surprises, like this engine of death and destruction,
that the sea has transformed into a haven of life.
In fact, today, we are losing this treasure.
Over the past century,
we have lost 90 percent of global fish biomass.
Ninety percent. Let that sink in.
Thirty percent of all commercial fisheries are collapsing today.
And at this rate, we may have lost all commercial fisheries
by the year 2040.
The loss of biodiversity in the ocean is five times greater than on land,
because the sea is a silent patient.
We cannot know when we look at it if it's healthy or if it's dying.
Cousteau's Society's archive has images
from the past century from all over the world
that witness the health of the ocean and its evolution.
On these images, you can see the evolution
of the health of the Mediterranean,
between the 1940s and the 1970s.
As you can see, it looks nothing alike.
Pollution, overfishing, and today, ocean acidification
are putting at threat these resources
that have sustained mankind and all its civilizations for millennia.
Jeopardizing as well the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
If you ask any diver, if you ask any fisherman
he will say the same story.
Every year we have less fish.
What will we do tomorrow?
So, about three years ago, when I was on Santorini,
I kind of put two and two together.
I love diving, my name is Cousteau.
Maybe I should do something about that.
(Laughter)
So I decided to create Cousteau Divers.
Cousteau Divers is a global network
of divers and dive centers united to study and protect the ocean.
There are millions of divers throughout the world,
and we're taking their passion and transforming it into action.
With each of these divers reporting observations, photos and videos,
we are creating a near real-time diagnostic of the health of the ocean.
And with this database of information
we can generate automatic alerts, we can monitor,
we can react in case there is an environmental alert.
A bit like an immune system for the ocean.
In fact, we're empowering the lovers to become the guardians.
One example of our actions is to take government officials diving.
Politicians, we take them diving.
And we've done this in Spain, as you can see on this picture.
And I think it's important because these people are mandated
to manage a territory,
and a part of that territory, most of the time,
they've never even seen at least once, in their life.
So I think if we take politicians diving they will be more aware
and hopefully they will make more sustainable decisions.
Now, I know what you are all thinking
and I've been told this everywhere I've gone and spoke about this,
"Don't bring them back."
(Laughter)
I know.
But if any of them see this talk, come diving, don't be afraid.
Actually, be afraid, and use this opportunity to overcome your fear,
and perhaps to discover a new passion.
A second example of our actions is to facilitate and encourage
the creation of marine protected areas.
This is what we are doing now in Santorini
with the support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.
And now I'm going to tell you a little bit about
what is a marine protected area.
And I'm going to do that by using the example
of the Medes Islands in Spain,
which is one of the most successful marine protected areas in the Mediterranean.
Basically, a marine protected area is very simple.
It's a place where you decide that you're not going to fish.
Nothing else.
So, it's a no-take zone.
Here in the Medes Islands you can see in the green
is a place where you can't fish, you can't anchor,
you can't take anything from the sea.
And round this area you have in yellow,
the place where the fishermen can go and fish.
The traditional fishermen.
And again, outside that, anyone can fish.
So, today there is less than five percent of the world's oceans
that are protected in this manner.
Now, how does it work?
Well, basically, inside this area where you stop taking,
the fish populations reproduce really fast.
And pretty soon, they are repopulating and developing very fast in this area.
So, what's in it for the fishermen, is that they can fish outside this area.
And after five years you have an increase of almost five times
the amount of biomass, the biomass of fish on average.
So the fishermen can enjoy everlasting fishstocks
outside this marine protected area.
So the excess fish will leave the area.
So if you fish outside, you get fish forever.
Now those two words usually don't go together.
But that's what happens in marine protected areas.
And they are very efficient.
They've worked everywhere they've been tested.
So not only is it good for the fishermen, it's also very good for ecotourism.
Last year, and this is the Medes Islands again,
in the Costa Brava of Spain, you can see,
these have been protected for 20 years.
And last year, the nearby town of L'Estartit,
which is in the background here,
generated 10 million Euro in tourism revenue
related to the marine protected area.
That's about 60,000 divers coming every year
to enjoy the beauty of the sea.
And many more snorklers, glass bottom boat users, etc.
So we can have the fish, we can enjoy the fish to look at,
we can have everything in these marine protected areas.
They're fantastic.
So what about Santorini?
Well, I love Santorini.
Unterwater, Santorini has very dramatic landscapes.
Very steep walls, caves, posidonia seagrass meadows.
But it's like a beautiful theater and all the actors are gone.
The fish are all gone.
Santorini happens to have one of the highest tourism pressures
in all of the Cyclades.
The Cyclades happen to have one of the lowest fish biomass
in all of the world because of overfishing.
And to this day, there is no marine protected area in the Cyclades.
So I think there is a really big opportunity here for Greece.
To create marine protected areas, not just on Santorini,
not just in the Cyclades, anywhere.
Well-managed marine protected areas will generate substantial revenue
from ecotourism.
It will generate jobs and it will give fish forever.
So it will ensure the future of fishing for Greece.
So, next month, in October, we have a team
from the Hellenic Center for Marine Research
who is going to come to Santorini to make a baseline study,
and to understand what exactly is the state
of the marine environment in Santorini.
Now we're also going to bring in the experts from the Medes Islands.
Remember that,
one of the most successful marine protected areas in the Mediterranean.
We're bringing in these experts, bridging them with the HCMR,
the Hellenic Center for Marine Research,
to help create the management plan of this marine protected area.
Determining the enforcement strategies,
determining who are the stakeholders
and how their interests can all be represented.
We're also using this opportunity to create a toolbox,
for creating marine protected areas in Greece.
So we are going to learn from this experience, create a toolbox,
and it will be absolutely available
and anyone can use it to replicate our efforts through Greece.
Hopefully save time, because time is running out on the ocean.
So, marine protected areas work everywhere they've been tested.
They work.
You do a marine protected area, you get more fish.
That's it. Bottom line.
If you stop taking from the sea, the sea can start to give to you again.
If we nurture and care for these guardians of life,
the sea can continue to fulfill our needs for the centuries to come.
I was giving a presentation, a similar presentation,
in the Canary Islands,
and at the end of my presentation
a young boy came to me and said,
"You know, if marine protected areas are so good,
why would we protect just a little place here?
Why don't we make a whole island a marine protected area?"
And the untamed imagination of this child
kind of made me rethink the situation.
And I thought, OK, what if we protected all of the Mediterranean,
and created specific fishing zones?
The sea would become so productive, so quickly
that inside these small zones
we could produce what we're producing today and even more,
without ever jeopardizing the productivity of our seas.
Let me finish with a quote from my father, about the Mediterranean Sea, from 1980.
"Today, we are beginning to learn that our sea means even more.
That we protect the ocean, not out of arrogant charity
or sentimental compassion.
In full truth, we are partners to the fish, the crab, the snail.
The grasses that grow in secret places beyond our sight,
upon their lives hang our own,
upon their survival hangs our own."
Thank you.
(Applause)