Ocean Science in 2020 - 7 News that Will Make You Feel Better about the Past Year.
BY TORI MASON
In a year where so many of our thoughts have been taken over by isolations and hand sanitiser, it has never been more important to remind ourselves of some of the positive things that have been happening. It’s been a difficult year for many of us, and sadly that remains the case over the festive season. And then there’s the ocean. Sometimes, it can feel pretty hard not to get depressed (and maybe a little angry) when we see all the damage being done to the oceans. This is all really important stuff and we need to know about it. But here we are, at the start of 2021 (2020 is over, phew), so let’s take a minute to forget about everything that’s gone wrong and think just for a little while, about some of the things that have gone right. Because there are a lot of really great people doing really great things that deserve a bit of recognition too. So sit back (festive beverage optional), relax, and enjoy some of the little wins our big blue friend has achieved this year.
Palau kicked off 2020 on a high, becoming the world’s first country to ban toxic sun creams. Ingredients such as oxybenzone can be extremely harmful to marine species such as reef-building corals and can become a particular issue in countries which rely heavily on tourism. Since Palau showed the world how it’s done, multiple countries and states have followed in their footsteps, with similar legislation having come in, or due to come into effect, in Hawaii, US Virgin Islands and Aruba.
Let’s talk about Kathy Sullivan. Already breaking down barriers as the first woman to complete a spacewalk in 1984, Sullivan was making waves (pun intended, sorry) again in June this year. On Sunday 6th June, on an expedition carried out by Victor Vescovo’s ‘Limiting Factor’ submersible, Kathy Sullivan became not only the first woman to reach the deepest known part of Earth’s oceans, but also the first person to reach this point and to have travelled to space. In a world where men seem to get to do everything first, this is pretty inspirational. As a child I grew up thinking ‘well, I can’t be the first person, but maybe I could be the first woman’. Now I realise how startlingly sad this is, and how wonderful it is that thanks to women such as Kathy Sullivan, young girls around the world could grow up thinking ‘hey, maybe I could be the first’, knowing they have as much as chance as anyone else. We definitely have a long way to go towards the goal of inclusivity, in all its forms, in ocean science, but moments like this show that it’s possible to get there.
Image: Enrique Alvarez
In August, Mauritius showed us all the true meaning of trash-to-treasure when they contained an oil spill by creating 80km of ocean booms out of waste and leftover leaves from sugar-cane processing. Between these extraordinary local efforts and international aid, 75% spilled oil was ultimately contained. What could have been a devastating turn of events for Mauritius’s marine ecosystems was still extremely harmful, but vastly reduced by the efforts of local people working to protect the oceans around them. There’s something pretty inspirational about that, don’t you think?
Image: Pierre Dalais/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
October kicked off with the long-awaited news of a ban on plastic straws, stirrers and cotton buds in England. Since England uses an estimated 4.7 billion plastic straws every year, this ban couldn’t come soon enough and is really great news for the marine wildlife around the UK and further afield. Legal changes like this inspire a little hope that maybe the demands for change, especially of the younger generations, are starting to be listened to after all.
Moving to slightly chillier climes, the blue whales (B.musculus) have returned to sub-Antarctic South Georgia after being hunted almost to extinction over 50 years ago. On 19th November this year, a team of scientists collaborating from institutions around the world, such as the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), published research having identified 41 blue whale individuals around South Georgia between 2011 and 2020. Commercial whaling has been banned in these waters since the 1960s and until 2018, there was thought to have been only 1 blue whale sighting in the last 20 years. That makes this pretty sensational news and shows us it’s never too late to start protecting endangered species.
On a bit of a smaller scale, maybe one of the best things to come out of this year is that we’ve all become a little better at appreciating what’s on our doorstep. Maybe we can’t fly halfway around the world to restore a coral reef, but I for one have realised quite how lucky I am to have such beautiful places closer to home. I’ve probably had about a tenfold increase on visits to my local beach this year compared to previous years. What’s more, whenever I’m there I usually see a few people, especially kids, picking up litter while they enjoy the beach. These small, yet fierce, acts of protecting our oceans are enough to restore my faith in humanity on even the gloomiest day. We might not all have been able to get to the sea this year, but hopefully we’ve all had chance to step outside, wherever that may be, and realise there’s a lot right outside our doors that’s worth saving.
And if all those things weren’t enough to bring a smile to your face, don’t forget that 2020 is also the year that the so-called ‘cutest octopus in the world’ was captured on camera at the deepest point yet. So if you need a win today, just take a look at this little guy, the “Dumbo” octopus. Problem solved.
Image: © Atlantic Productions for Discovery Channel
And that’s not even mentioning the thousands of other little wins happening all over the world, every single day. So yes, 2020 has been a tough one. Nobody’s going to argue with that. But maybe it’s drawn something pretty beautiful out of us too. It’s given us the chance to show the world that we will always fight for the ocean, whether it’s from a coral reef in the Maldives or from our make-shift bedroom desk in our parents’ suburban house. It’s given us the chance to step back and look at our lives and realise what matters. It’s shown us that no matter how many bad things are happening in the world, the women of ocean science are out and fighting in full force to make change happen – and, well, it’s working.