Ecocentricity Blog: How to Heal the Ocean

What is the ocean?

Not, “how do you define the ocean?” I mean, what is the ocean to you? What role does it play in your life?

If I’m being honest, as a city boy hailing from landlocked Atlanta, my answer isn’t a very good one. The ocean is primarily a vacation destination to me. In it, I seek some combination of entertainment, beauty and peace. Sure, I value that it plays a crucial role in climate systems and provides a wide range of amazing foods. Still, those aspects feel rather tangential to what the ocean has always been for me – a place I journey to when wanting an escape from “real life.”

Which means I am out of touch with those people whose “real lives” depend on the ocean every day.

I mentioned in my Great Barrier Reef post a couple of weeks ago that billions of people rely upon fish as their primary protein source. To back that claim up, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimates that number to be three billion people.

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