00:07Thank you, Jack Dangermond, and to all of you.

00:11Yes I have been called many things.

00:15Explorer in residence is one of the greatest I think.

00:18When I was chief scientist at NOAA, it was sometimes whispered that I was the sturgeon general.

00:29The title I think I am most happy with though is one that my four grandsons have dubbed me, and that's G-mom.

00:38It's really given me new eyes to see the world through theirs and to imagine what the world is going to be like...

00:47...when they're at the stage that we are at present.

00:51I mean they range in ages now from the oldest is 10, the youngest about 3 months.

00:58The world in my lifetime and yours has changed so much.

01:04It's almost inconceivable to imagine what it's going to be like in the next 30, 40, 50 years.

01:12It's really exciting to be around at this pivotal point in history as we embark on a new century, a new millennium...

01:20...which is just the way we account for time.

01:23I don't think the fish know one way or the other whether it's a new century.

01:27But certainly it's a new turning point, no matter how you account for time.

01:33I'm really excited to be here as a part of this partnership, partnerships everywhere I look.

01:41From my standpoint very personally, with the National Geographic Society and Esri...

01:47...I can't wait to see what new blossoms form from this alliance...

01:51...and from the others that are developing with NOAA, with Navy, with industry.

01:56Everywhere you look, this new technology that is embodied by the GIS approach is just amazing.

02:05And it's high time.

02:08Esri is everywhere, GIS is everywhere, and they need to be at this critical, pivotal point in history...

02:16...when, for the first time in human history...

02:20...we're beginning to know enough to know just how much we don't know.

02:27There was a point in time not so many centuries ago when the big news was that earth is not the center of the universe.

02:36It's sneaking up on us, but I think one of the equally stunning bits of news is just beginning to dawn on humankind...

02:45...and that is that the sea is not limitless.

02:50There are limits to what the natural systems that support us can endure...

02:55...as a consequence of what we do.

03:00And also, to some extent, what we do not do.

03:04But one thing is certain.

03:06We, who have come along at this extraordinary time in history with technology that has given us eyes in space...

03:13Just this past week we've been celebrating the 30th anniversary of the first footsteps on the moon.

03:21And that perspective of earth from afar by real people out there in space looking back on us.

03:27And just bringing home that this is a water planet.

03:31I mean, we know it, we look at the globes and those big blobs of blue that are represented as ocean...

03:38And on one face of the earth, of course, it's entirely blue looking at the Pacific from afar.

03:46But we don't really get it, or at least we haven't until recently, that the ocean...all that water...

03:53...is the cornerstone of our life support system. It's many things, of course.

03:59But fundamentally, water is absolutely vital for life. It's the single nonnegotiable thing that life requires.

04:07And most of it is out in the ocean. Of the freshwater, 97 percent is in the area locked up in polar ice.

04:17Think of the alternatives. Mars, for example. A planet that's at the same life history in many ways as...as ours...

04:26...four and a half billion years, but not a very hospitable place for humankind.

04:30Only in our time, recently, has it become clear that the oceans govern climate and weather.

04:38It's home for most of life on earth, some 97 percent of the biosphere is ocean.

04:45But our ability to explore it, to know it, to put it on our balance sheet, to think about what we're doing to the sea...

04:52...and how important the ocean is to us, has come about as a consequence of technologies developed largely in our time.

04:59Although we still to very good advantage use ships just as our predecessors have...

05:05...just as the first oceanographic expedition ever that set forth in 1872 from the shores of England...

05:11...the Challenger expedition, to explore for the first time all of the oceans in a single four-year mission of exploration.

05:19But pity those poor scientists, and I'm one of them...

05:22...who has sat on the deck of a ship, longingly wished to know what's in the depths below...

05:27...and we're stuck with the techniques that aliens might use if they were flying overhead in ships...

05:35...dangling nets, lowering bottles, and sweeping the...the area below trying to figure out...

05:41...well, what's it like down there? This three-dimensional realm, this aquatic realm, is still largely unknown.

05:48Less than 5 percent of the ocean has really been explored.

05:52We have fairly good maps thanks to new technologies, acoustic technologies and other means of exploring the sea.

05:59We know where the mountains are, the plains, and valleys and so on.

06:02What we don't really know, is the nature of that place...

06:06...that three-dimensional part of the planet that is home for most of the water and most of the life on earth.

06:14When we drag a net through the sea, we get often a scene such as this. Jelly soup.

06:21I mean, it's really incredible that we know as much about the sea as we do...

06:25...when much of what we now find in text, in our atlases, and so on, are based on little bites that are taken out of the ocean's bottom.

06:35Little scoops that are pored over by seagoing detectives that try to figure out who's who and what's what...

06:42...based on tiny samples that really are more like taking a spoonful of North America...

06:48...and trying to figure out what's it like in this part of the world.

06:53Imagine, for example, that you're trying to figure out what a city is like by dragging a net through the streets.

06:59Imagine your backyard, wherever it is.

07:01My backyard, San Francisco. I don't know what's going on there even though I live there.

07:05But if I were using standard oceanographic techniques, just think of it.

07:10Dragging a big trawl right down Market Street, or San Diego...

07:13...any other place that you can think of, and try to piece together from bits of, you know, cement...

07:21...a few puzzled pedestrians, whatever it might be, caught in the sweep that...of a net that goes down the backyards and alleyways...

07:32...and make sure you crunch it all together before shaking it out on the alien's deck of a ship in the sky to...

07:39...and then figure out well, what's it like down there?

07:43We know quite a lot about the...the nature of the kinds of things through there...

07:51...but not really what they are or how they live, how they interact one with another.

07:59So we have a very long way to go.

08:01But in our time we've been blessed with technologies, thanks to Jacques Cousteau and some of his colleagues...

08:09...of being able to take ourselves into the sea directly as our predecessors never could.

08:13And the first thing that anyone really discovers when they first put their face in the water...

08:18...and my mother waited until she was 81 before she did this.

08:23I mean, she came back and says, it's alive! It's alive! It's not just water, it's not just rocks and water.

08:30It's a living system. Every drop of ocean water, every drop of water is likely to have some form of life...

08:39...small, medium, sometimes very large forms of life.

08:42But alive...the ocean is alive.

08:45There are forests there. Just offshore from where we are right now, forests as tall, as mighty, as diverse as rain forests...

08:55...and they're even wetter than rain forests.

09:01Small...most of life in the ocean, most of life on the planet is small.

09:07But we have a bias. We are giants.

09:09And we take for granted some of the lesser creatures in terms of size.

09:14We notice the whales.

09:16We are just beginning to really appreciate whales and take care of them in ways that our predecessors did not...

09:22...just as we were on the verge of perhaps losing them.

09:25But the diversity of life in the sea is just monumental.

09:30And that too, is something that we're beginning now to...to tune in to.

09:35To realize that nearly all of the major divisions of plant and animal life and bacteria...

09:40...and the new kingdom of divide...of life recently discovered in the deep sea, the archaea...

09:45...nearly all of them are found in the sea.

09:47Only about half occur in terrestrial environments.

09:50So if you really want to tune in to this thing called biodiversity, go jump in the ocean. That's where the action is.

09:59Not that there isn't action on the land, of course, there is.

10:02But we've been ignoring the sea until recently.

10:06This place filled with jellies, with the counterparts of insects, the crustaceans.

10:13The counterparts of backyard earthworms, the souped-up version, the polychaete worms.

10:19Thousands that do not yet have names. Maybe millions that do not yet have names.

10:26Creatures that preceded dinosaurs in their history by a lot, and they're still here.

10:31These are, in a sense, living fossils.

10:34Every time I go into the ocean it's like diving into the history of life on earth.

10:39Because we see creatures with roots, with relatives that go back half a billion years...

10:45...when multicellular life first got up and running.

10:48And it's still there. At least their relatives are still there.

10:52We can learn a lot about what life must have been like hundreds of millions of years ago...

10:58...by really looking seriously at the sea with new eyes.

11:02By looking at fish with new eyes.

11:04I mean, I know because I have been there myself in terms of looking at fish...

11:09...thinking of lemon slices and butter.

11:12But now that I know fish face to face, nose to nose, I look at them in different ways...

11:19...the way many people have come to look at birds.

11:22Now it doesn't mean that we don't eat birds or we shouldn't eat birds or fish.

11:27We eat Kentucky Fried birds, we eat Christmas birds, Thanksgiving birds...

11:31...but we are pretty selective about what we eat in the ocean. I mean, anything is fair game.

11:37Perhaps the day will come when we'll see fish in the sea as we have come to view birds on the land...

11:44...for the many things that they are to the world in which we live.

11:49Values that transcend just how good they taste. But we aren't quite there yet.

11:55We are still, in many ways, frustrated by getting there.

12:00We look longingly from the decks of ships. We peer wistfully over the side.

12:07And only, relatively speaking in recent times, the last two, three, four decades...

12:14...have we had increasingly effective access to see for ourselves what's out there.

12:20It's still a pale shadow of our access even to the skies above, let alone to the land, but we're getting there.

12:27Thirty years ago, I had the pleasure of seeing what it's like to live underwater.

12:31In fact, I emerged from a two-week stay underwater on...guess what? July 20th.

12:38This was 1970, one year after Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong and Mike Collins returned...

12:44...or actually made their return from their famous moon walk.

12:49There was for a while a great parallel between sea and space, which is...

12:54...they have sort of gone separate ways more than not in the last few decades.

12:58But I think there is again a convergence as we are learning so much from looking at earth from afar...

13:05...and now, as we are beginning to look at the sea from within.

13:11There's the Yea, Team! picture of the so-called aquabelles.

13:15They couldn't quite begin to call us aquanauts like the guys.

13:19Remember, this is 1970.

13:22I don't think they would've called the astronauts astro hunks, but the women got called astro...I mean aquabelles, aqua babes...

13:31...aqua you-name-it, but there we were.

13:35I didn't care what they called me, just so they let me go, and they did.

13:40And here is a little view from inside the sea space version of living underwater.

13:47In a sense, our space station under the sea as of 1970.

13:52Just last week I went to visit the new space station under the sea, the Aquarius that is operated by NOAA.

14:00There have been a number of attempts by many nations to actually have underwater dwellings.

14:06And certainly the oil industry has used this technique for living underwater...

14:10...saturation diving...to prolong the time that people can stay and work underwater.

14:15But scientists certainly have a great deal of fun.

14:18I can tell you that the gift of time, being able to stay in the sea...

14:23...not just for an in-and-out 20-minute passport to a maximum depth of 100 feet or so...

14:28...as scuba divers go sometimes to 200 feet for an even shorter period of time...

14:33...but to be able to stay for a week or longer, to go in and out at will...

14:38...to be able to really get to know creatures and know the system as time will allow one to do.

14:45The new technologies that have come along in the last three decades have given us other means to explore...

14:51...at greater depths and for longer periods of time.

14:54The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute has made such good use of robotic technologies, as has the oil industry...

15:02...as have others, to explore the ocean.

15:05But this is new. This is really new.

15:08We're just beginning to have enough information to start being able to characterize the sea in new ways.

15:18Curiously, although many take the ocean for granted, many seem to think that the great era of exploration is over.

15:27Few people are aware that only once in all of human history...

15:32...have people made a descent to the deepest part of the sea, and it's only seven miles down.

15:39Well, a round-trip to seven miles. One-way trips are really easy anywhere in the ocean.

15:45But coming back, as well as going down, is the key...

15:49...and in 1960 two men, a Swiss scientist and a U.S. Navy Lieutenant, Don Walsh, Jacques Piccard...

15:58...made a descent to the bottom of the ocean, seven miles down, the Marianas Trench, and returned...

16:04...but here is the interesting thing. Nobody has been back there since.

16:08This robot, developed in Japan, is the only piece of equipment that has, as far as anybody knows at least...

16:14...made a round-trip journey to bring back the news that guess what, yes, there is life in the deepest part of the sea.

16:21And not just a little bit. Quite a lot of life prospering at a depth where the pressure is 16,000 pounds per square inch...

16:32...and sunlight is a very far distance away.

16:37Many new small portable robots have been put into use.

16:41We're using one presently with the Sustainable Seas Expeditions that I want to share with you, information about that.

16:48New manned submersible technologies are also coming along slowly.

16:53Not nearly as rapidly as our reach into the skies above, but you know...

16:57...I guess I’m just a bit more impatient than some, because I feel the sense of urgency. I feel the need to know.

17:04I understand how little any of us know about what's happening in the ocean, and yet, how important the sea is to every breath we take.

17:13It is so important that we understand what makes the planet tick.

17:19And if we ignore the sea, we're ignoring the cornerstone of what makes the planet what the planet is.

17:26Again, Japan has taken the leadership role with technologies now in use.

17:32This is the SHINKAI 6500, a manned submersible that goes to at least half the ocean's depth, to 6,500 meters, and brings people back.

17:45The Alvin, the workhorse of deep diving submersibles, has been in operation since the mid-1960s...

17:52...upgraded and revamped and brought up to speed with many alterations over the years, but still, there it is...

18:00...the workhorse of submersible technologies, operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

18:06Hundreds of scientists have been given access to the deep sea...

18:10...but instrumental in the discovery of hydrothermal vents and life in the deep sea, about which we knew so little.

18:16Didn't know anything before, even to gain access to some of our...our history, now submerged.

18:24Alvin can go to the average depth of the ocean, where the Titanic rests. Think of it. That's the average depth of the ocean.

18:31Scuba divers can go maybe a hundred, hundred and fifty feet, and here we are now still scratching the surface of this vast realm.

18:40In 1979 I had the pleasure of using a new twist on manned submersible technology, well, womanned submersible technology in this case.

18:49This one person, personal submersible, to be able to go walk around on the ocean floor 400 meters down...

18:56...offshore from the coast of Hawaii, and to see for myself those little fish with lights down the side and sharks with green, glowing eyes...

19:04...and other creatures, another project that the National Geographic sponsored.

19:09Soon thereafter, I was inspired to put together a company myself, to further the ways and means of developing ocean access.

19:17And one of the things that came as a result of that, was this little submersible called the Deep Rover.

19:23It's small, as you can see. This is a mighty kind of oceanographic support platform.

19:29It actually costs about $1,000 to build this raft.

19:33It was used in the national park in Crater Lake, Oregon, for dives down to almost 2,000 feet.

19:39We had to use a helicopter to fly it in. It weighs about 6,000 pounds.

19:44The whole idea behind developing this system was to get something that would be so simple that even a scientist could operate it...

19:52...and I'm living proof that the engineers involved, especially Graham Hawkes, the principal engineer who designed it...

19:58...got his sums right and got the human factors right, and it...you know, you can wear what you like when you fly it.

20:09But a new technology that is derived from all that has gone before is now on the scene...

20:13...and it...it is a primary tool that we're using with the Sustainable Seas Expeditions.

20:20A partnership that has developed in the last two years, or so, that came about because of funding provided by a private foundation.

20:28The Goldman Fund in San Francisco made a grant to the National Geographic Society for $5,000,000 for five years...

20:36...to go out and explore our own continental shelf with a focus on the national marine sanctuaries.

20:43Now some of you may not have heard of national marine sanctuaries, and I’m not surprised if you haven't.

20:47It's one of the nation's not only best ideas, but one of the best kept secrets.

20:53In a way though, it is a secret that is beginning to be spread as news all over the place.

21:01The book Wild Ocean is really a tribute to the marine sanctuaries...

21:05...as the counterpart to the national parks on the land, an idea whose time is well overdue in many ways because we are using the ocean...

21:15...but we are not really...do not really understand what it takes to protect the natural systems...

21:21...that are at the heart and soul of what makes the earth hospitable for us.

21:27By getting a piece of technology that is really transportable, small enough to throw in the back of a pickup truck or in a box...

21:35...and send around the world or across the country, wherever you want it to go, weighs half as much as the Deep Rover...

21:43...designed in Canada by a company called Nuytco Research with a visionary engineer, the guru behind it, Dr. Phil Nuytten...

21:53...who is the one who dreamed up this sort of a synergy of various technologies, to come up with a one-atmosphere shell...

22:01...much the way an astronaut walks around breathing a close-to-one-atmosphere environment...

22:09...so in the DeepWorker system, individuals can climb aboard, fly around for 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 hours.

22:18It has a hundred hours of life support.

22:20Come back to the surface and simply go about your business with no decompression.

22:25Now this group of smiling people on the screen represent a cross section of hardy souls...

22:32...who were encouraged to accept the invitation to come and try it out during this past year.

22:39This is the second year of the five-year mission of exploration, research, and education that is fostered by the Goldman Grant...

22:48...by the National Geographic; and our logical, natural partner, NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration...

22:55...because it is within their jurisdiction that the national marine sanctuaries lie.

23:00Moreover, of course it is our nation's ocean agency, and for mission exploration, research, monitoring, education...

23:09...and so on, in the sea, it just makes sense that NOAA should be a partner, but there is no guarantee.

23:15As it has turned out, NOAA has not only taken the program and embraced it, they have invested heavily in it...

23:25...so that during the past year alone, by providing ship time, personnel, and other resources...

23:31...a commitment of more than $4,000,000 has been made to this project...

23:36...and we hope that that partnership will certainly continue and grow.

23:42The concept, in a way, in so many ways, is outrageous.

23:47I was talking recently with Dan Basta from NOAA, who's been one of the champions of the Sustainable Seas Expeditions...

23:55...and that's a word he used too. It's outrageous! It's just outrageous!

23:59Imagine, getting scientists to pilot a submarine themselves.

24:04It's been thought that, you know, scientists get down under water and they get so busy with what they're there looking at...

24:10...and doing that they forget about things like life support.

24:14And so there's been a hesitancy about trusting a scientist to actually drive a little submarine around.

24:19You have to have a, you know, skilled pilot to do it and...and I’m all for hep...the training investment...

24:25...just as in driving a car or flying an airplane, but these little subs are so easy to drive...

24:32...it's said to be like driving a golf cart, in terms of ease of operation.

24:37Those of you who have done so can perhaps vouch for it, but since I've not driven a golf cart, I can't say for sure...

24:44...but I can say that DeepWorker is very user-friendly.

24:49And it is being used by dozens of scientists right now.

24:53Some are active in one of the marine sanctuaries in Gray's Reef off the coast of Georgia, one of those systems.

25:03You climb aboard, as you see Francesca Cava here climbing aboard.

25:08Francesca joined this expedition, bringing her mind and heart and spirit, formerly the head of the National Marine Sanctuary Program...

25:16...a colleague of mine when I was at NOAA, and now one of the guiding spirits and strong elements...

25:23...in making a success of the National...of...of the Sustainable Seas Expeditions.

25:30She's here, if you can catch her. Ask her, "Well, what's it like, Francesca?"

25:34Here are some other partners. Right there in the center is Nancy Foster, head of the National Ocean Service for NOAA...

25:41...without whose endorsement and strong support we might not be as far along with our partnership with NOAA as we are.

25:50And I really want to thank Todd Jacobs for helping me with the presentation that you're hearing today...

25:54...and that's my smiling face there on the other side.

26:00It's outrageous because we are pulling together through this effort...

26:05...agencies that sometimes don't work together very often or very well.

26:10We are actually pioneering a new kind of arrangement with the National Geographic Society...

26:17...an agency that is well known for making grants to others, but here the grant was made to them...

26:24...to actually explore the ocean using funds that were given to the...the society, and it is a beginning perhaps...

26:32...of a new approach for the National Geographic, for similar projects that may be forthcoming in the future.

26:40Certainly this one will prosper and grow with additional resources...

26:45...that may be contributed to the National Geographic and to the partners who are making this...this work.

26:51You saw in the initial presentation, which I love...

26:54...Jack Dangermond, that was a great introduction...

26:57...the Channel Islands, here off the coast of California.

27:00It's one of the national marine sanctuaries, or the waters surrounding it.

27:03The national park system under the Department of Interior actually has jurisdiction of the land and protects that...

27:09...but we involved with the National Marine Sanctuary Program...

27:14...have seen a time when the waters surrounding the islands have also been included in this...this protective umbrella.

27:24Northward, Monterey Bay...5,000 square miles of ocean embraced within the sanctuary program.

27:31And north of there, off of San Francisco, two other sanctuaries, Cordell Bank and the Farallon Islands, the waters around them.

27:37And then up to the Olympic coast in Washington.

27:41The sea, offshore some 3,300 square miles within the National Marine Sanctuary Program.

27:48These are logical places to put an investment in understanding how the ocean works from the inside out.

27:59Places where GIS is certainly a logical extension from what has been done on the land.

28:06To be able to integrate from many sides the kinds of information that has been growing over the years.

28:15We're beginning to see not just the excitement of exploration but the need for exploration...

28:22...for integrating information about what's happening in the sea.

28:26Why? Because the sea is changing...changing dramatically, just in the past 30 years.

28:34One sign of that is what's happened to coral reefs around the world.

28:39If the rate of decline of coral reefs continues over the next 30 years...

28:46...as my grandsons grow up and begin to become divers on their own right I trust, I hope all the coral reefs do not look like this.

28:57But it's frightening to get the news from my friends and from what I have...have seen myself as I travel around the world...

29:03...of places that I knew years ago that are no longer in the good, healthy state that they were.

29:10Jacques Cousteau said before he died, just a couple of years ago...

29:15...that he could not take his sons to places that he knew as a boy, they had changed so much in his lifetime.

29:24And here's the scary thing. Jean-Michel, one of his sons, says the same thing.

29:30That he could not take his children to places that he knew as a child because things have changed so much in his lifetime.

29:38The same is true with me. I'm sure it's true with you, not just in the sea, but the world over.

29:45What's happening to the ocean?

29:46Well, it's pretty straightforward. We're taking too much out of the ocean.

29:52Natural systems that have no way to really be prepared for the heavy level of predation that we bring to the scene.

30:01We're getting a wake-up call from nature as is evidenced by the collapse of some kinds of ocean wildlife...

30:09...that once we thought were essentially infinite in their capacity to sustain high levels of take.

30:17Bluefin tuna is one example, down to perhaps 10 percent of what it was 25 years ago in the Atlantic...

30:25...and certainly not in good shape elsewhere.

30:28True with sharks. Here a visit to the Tokyo fish market...

30:31...where these ocean giants are now really appearing as hold-in-your-arms individuals.

30:41The giants are basically gone. And it's happened in our lifetime.

30:47Every time you take a little bite of a succulent morsel of scallops or...or shrimp...

30:52...one should think about what the actual cost to the ocean ecosystems are to deliver that to your plate.

30:58I mean, here is an example of a scallop dredge going across the sea floor...

31:02...actually missed one scallop, that one disklike thing in the foreground.

31:08If we knew better, we perhaps would do better.

31:11It doesn't mean we shouldn't eat seafood or that we should avoid eating scallops or shrimp, but we should know what we're doing.

31:18The greatest threat to the ocean as big...big as these problems are, about what we're taking out of the sea...

31:25...about what we're putting into the sea, far and away the biggest problem is ignorance.

31:29It's not knowing. It's not understanding what the limits are.

31:33What can we do? What should we not do?

31:37I'll tell you that you'll never look at a calamari in the same way again once you've been inspected by one.

31:43I can say that from personal experience.

31:46I don't think the same way about grouper, having met some face to face. They're like the Labrador retrievers of the sea.

31:54It doesn't mean that some people don't munch on puppy dogs...

31:57...but it's just the idea that if we understand their total value to the natural systems that support us...

32:05...doesn't mean that we'll stop eating them, but we'll eat them with new respect and a new understanding about how many...

32:11...of what kind, and which ones perhaps should be kept just because they are fantastic.

32:17They're part of the system that keeps the world habitable, not just for them, but for us as well.

32:24This is the time, perhaps as never before, and never again, for a new ethic.

32:31To do for the oceans in the 21st century, through technologies, through new understanding, through new insights...

32:38...what was done in the 20th century for aviation, for aerospace.

32:43Certainly, as we go forward into the next century, it's going to become increasingly clear that the pressures on the planet are increasing.

32:53The size of the planet is not.

32:57Where does GIS come into all of this? Where does Esri come into all of this?

33:03I'll put it another way, where doesn't it? Where doesn't GIS come into the understanding of the ocean?

33:13I mean, after all, marine ecosystems, just as those on the land, are geospatial...

33:20...and therefore so are the solutions that we must craft as we go forward.

33:29We will go forward if technology will let us go forward.

33:37In my lifetime and yours, actually in the last 10 years, a very swift development of new tools that have provided...

33:45...literally a quantum leap in our ability to understand and manage marine ecosystems.

33:52We're going forward...I hope.

33:59SSE, the Sustainable Seas Expeditions, is making good use, a running start with the partnership with Esri...

34:09...with the ability now through software that has been given to the marine sanctuaries...

34:14...to start to integrate the databases that have been out there for years and that we're adding to.

34:19I mean, scientists have been looking here, there, and other ways for decades all through this past century...

34:25...but now we have the technology to begin to build an understanding of what it all means.

34:30About who lives...who and how many of what lives where.

34:35About the changes through time.

34:38We have real-time navigation and tracking of the submersibles, so we can, in three dimensions, get information.

34:44As the little submarines dive, and we can do this with remotely operated vehicles as well...

34:49...get a profile of salinity, depth, temperature, oxygen, and other factors, and little by little...

34:55...and in a growing sense, gather information about these very special places.

35:01Why focus on the marine sanctuaries?

35:04Several reasons. But first of all, they're acknowledged to be special.

35:08They've been set aside over the past 25 years...

35:10...a program that started in 1972, a full 100 years after the first national park was established.

35:18I hope it doesn't take a hundred years to catch up with where we are now with protecting the land...

35:24...with the ethic and actual policies of protection that we can apply now to the sea.

35:30But the sea is a little more complicated. It's truly three dimensional.

35:34Ask any fish. Ask any whale. Ask any diver just how three-dimensional the ocean is.

35:40We need the new technologies that have only come into focus in the last decade.

35:47By generating a series of GIS products to document and communicate the expeditions over the next several years...

35:55...we will begin to complement and put in the bank, if you will, new insights into how the ocean works.

36:03Is it enough to focus on marine sanctuaries?

36:06Of course not. No, it's a good start. It's a really good start.

36:10One other good reason is that if any place in the ocean is likely to have an enduring future...

36:17...in terms of an investment for research, for monitoring, some place that, you know, 5 years, 10 years, 50 years, maybe 500 years...

36:25...will still kind of be there protected, the investment in the research protected, it's probably in a protected area, in a marine sanctuary.

36:35Now there isn't a great deal of sanctity in the marine sanctuaries as they're presently crafted...

36:40...but it's the best hope that we have for having some enduring policy of maintaining a long-term research program.

36:49And we know already that they're special.

36:51And they can serve as models about what can be used elsewhere, not just in North America but of course, around the world.

37:06One of the great advantages, at this point, of enlisting these new technologies is what I...

37:14...I personally see it as a scientist who's been, you know, nose down looking at things close up...

37:18...and now suddenly, so much I can see as never before in context.

37:25It's that kind of ah-ha breakthrough, that this...these new integrated data systems allow.

37:34I can't wait to see what's going to happen as we begin to work together.

37:38I mean, right here in this room, there is the power to change the world...

37:45...the way we look at the world, the way the world goes forward henceforth.

37:49If we just use the technologies joined together with our minds and our hearts...

37:55...and our commitment to make a difference, there will be a different world.

38:00One that will be happy, that your children and mine, your grandchildren and mine, will have on into the future.

38:09What can you do? What can I do? What can anybody do?

38:12Well, I like to think that there's one piece of technology that really is the greatest. It's called a mirror.

38:21It's something everybody can use to hold up and say, Yep, here's what I am, and here's what I can do.

38:29I don't...I can't really advise anyone better than I can advise myself.

38:34And what I'm doing is perfectly clear. I'm making a commitment to do everything I can, in whatever time I have left...

38:42...to understand whatever I can about the ocean, to share the news, to protect the wild systems that are at the heart and soul...

38:51...of what makes the planet work, on the land and on the sea, in the sea.

38:57This I think is rather much in keeping with what my mom used to say to me when I was a little kid.

39:03She'd come into my room and see the disaster that was there and she'd say...

39:09..."Don't you remember, Sylvia, you're supposed to leave the place better than you found it."

39:13And so I went and cleaned up my room and tried to leave it at least as good as I found it.

39:17And that's our assignment I think.

39:19To use whatever powers any of us have, whatever it is we do, as businessmen, as scientists, as policy makers...

39:28...whatever it is, to leave the place better than we found it.

39:35So, that's what drives me when I see my little munchkin kids.

39:40I just am haunted by the vision that they're going to say to me at some point, "Gee, Mom, why didn't you do something?"

39:48This is like 30 years from now.

39:50Or maybe they'll look back on what I was and say, "Why didn't you...You know, you were there when there were blue whales.

39:57"You were there when there were still coral reefs.

40:01"And you didn't do everything you could to make sure that they didn't sort of go over the edge into infinity?"

40:09So, I guess whatever else today is, my chance to be with you, I'd like to think of this as a call to action.

40:15To use your minds, use your hearts, make a commitment.

40:20I'd love to work with any of you, or maybe just watch as you get an idea and take off on your own.

40:25Jack Dangermond and the National Geographic Society, Esri, will be this fall, hosting a meeting, a series of meetings that we'll follow...

40:36...to see what we can do to use the kinds of technologies that you bring to the world at this point in time.

40:45If you have an interest, a desire to make a commitment, I'd love to work with you. The Geographic would love to work with you.

40:51Jack Dangermond says he would like to work with you too, but he can tell you that for himself.

40:56I'd like to share with you a little piece of video at this point...

40:58...just to give you a taste of what's happening while we're sitting here in this dark room...

41:03...there're some lucky ducks who are out there splashing around in the ocean.

41:07Sustainable Seas, could we show this video please?

41:09[Video running]

41:18We should turn the...sound right down. Thank you.

41:23If anyone is inclined to hum or whistle we could have a soundtrack.

41:31But this is fresh from the field and so pulled together by Kip Evans who's working with the National Geographic...

41:41...to compile sort of the latest news and bring it to you.

41:45If you check out the...NOAA's Web site, the National Geographic's Web site, and of course, they're linked...

41:52...you will have access to more than a thousand pages that have been generated since April of this year...

41:57...when we began the training exercises to engage these wild and crazy scientists, and others.

42:06Teachers are attracted to our project.

42:09And one in particular, Mike Guardino from Monterey, went through the training...

42:14...and took the DeepWorker for dives off Monterey and shared the news with his classes...

42:21...and really was able to magnify his experience many times over.

42:28Just what all of those involved with this project are doing, and certainly have the potential for doing even more in the future.

42:36At each of the sanctuary sites, the sanctuary managers get involved very personally.

42:42Most of them have actually gone through the training.

42:44The training consists of agreeing to come and learn how to drive and dive the submersibles.

42:50We call it Driver's Ed Underwater. For about a week of book learning as well as hands-on, feet-on experience.

42:59You drive these little subs with your feet by the way, your hands free to operate cameras...

43:04...or scratch your ear or eat a sandwich or whatever else it is you want to do...

43:09...to manage the equipment that you care to put on the submersibles.

43:14We've had the pleasure so far of visiting the four sanctuaries in California as well as going up to the Olympic Coast...

43:23...and from there to the East Coast, to Stellwagen Bank off the coast of Massachusetts.

43:29We've operated so far from three different ships, two from NOAA and one from the U.S. Navy.

43:38Up in the Olympic Coast, we had a vessel called a YTT to deploy the little DeepWorker sub.

43:45They weigh about 3,000 pounds fully loaded, and that means with you inside, and your lunch...

43:53...and of course, if you're small and tiny you get more room, more lunch.

43:59If...if you're sort of tall and lanky, Jack Dangermond, the new three...or the 3,000-pound systems...

44:12...we had some trainer subs that were a little more petite, these are for you.

44:16And also for Boyd Matson. You'll see his smiling face on the screen here soon.

44:21The host of the National Geographic's popular Explorer series.

44:27Boyd is I think six foot four and exceeds by two inches the optimum length for occupancy in DeepWorker...

44:35...but even though his knees are a little bit scrunched up around his chin...

44:39...you'd never know it from the big smile on his face as he cruised around in the DeepWorker.

44:44And he's going to be with us again soon out in the Flower Garden Banks in the Gulf of Mexico.

44:52One of the sanctuaries that has been...an act...a wonderful bridge between the conservation community and industry.

45:01It's a place actually surrounded by oil wells, and at first there was some resistance and mutual suspicion.

45:08But over the years, since the Flower Garden Banks Sanctuary was dedicated in 1992 during the Bush administration...

45:17...an interesting kind of alliance has been developing between the oil companies that have an investment there...

45:24...and the scientists and others who are concerned about the future of that part of the world.

45:29It's not either/or. In fact, both are concerned, of course, about the future of the ocean, but with slightly different perspectives.

45:37And they are working together to conduct research and I see this as a blueprint for other areas as we all kind of "get it" ...

45:46...that it's not sound economy on one side, sound environment on the other...

45:49...but rather, not only are they not at odds, they're inextricably linked.

45:55Both are absolutely necessary and dependent on one another, on each other.

46:02This is my view from inside the submersible.

46:05Hold a little camera and look out at the action.

46:09Getting deployed by a NOAA diver that released little sub that once it was lowered over the side and down into the depths...

46:18...into the kelp forest, or into the rockish...rocky outcroppings off Stellwagen Bank off the coast of Massachusetts.

46:25Favored place by whales and other marine mammals and fish.

46:32But to be able to go down there where whales go and to stay, not just for the time that you can hold your breath...

46:38...not just for the time that a scuba tank would allow you to go, but literally hours, to spend the night if you'd like out there...

46:46...sitting like a bump on the reef to watch what goes on.

46:50I mean, people take for granted you can do this on the land.

46:53Go park on a log and watch what goes on, but to do this in the ocean, and to do it down to 2,000 feet...

46:59...which is the maximum depth for this particular version of DeepWorker, is such a gift.

47:05Now, onward and downward as they say.

47:08What's next? When do we get to go to 20,000 feet, and then 35,000 feet?

47:13It's right out there for us to do.

47:16What's lacking? It's just those things that have driven us to go skyward. It's the vision. It's the commitment. It's the imagination.

47:26It's the desire. It's the understanding that it's really important for us to make that investment.

47:34Here's...a glimpse of one of the critical areas that is now under consideration...

47:40...through the Sustainable Seas Expeditions along the coastal area of this country.

47:47Imagine that there is another North America out there. It just happens to be submerged.

47:53Go back 10,000 years. A lot of that which is now under water was dry land.

47:59In fact, next week I'll be going to such a place. Stell...right off the coast of Georgia. Gray's Reef, it's 20 miles offshore.

48:06Sixty feet down they're finding mastodon bones, saber-tooth cat relics.

48:12Twenty miles offshore, 60 feet down in this protected area, which may in fact have been home to some of our relatives as well...

48:22...during the time when human beings who loved the coast 10,000 years ago just as much as we love the coastal areas today.

48:31That was an ancient shoreline.

48:33The Florida Keys. That is a place that 10,000 years ago was much more land than the ocean that it...now surrounds the areas.

48:45So to be able to explore that, along with all of the coastal areas.

48:49There are remains of our culture as well as the creatures who now occupy the space that is within our exclusive economic zone.

49:0118,000 square miles presently embraced within the National Marine Sanctuary Program.

49:09Twenty-five years in the making. What is to be the case during the next 25 years?

49:14I can't wait to see that as a consequence of the new understandings that come about with the information that is now being gathered...

49:22...as we get a grip on really understanding, not just where the valleys are...

49:26...not just where the mountains are, but what kinds of events are taking place there. Who lives there?

49:33What kinds of forces are at play? Not just on a flat-surface basis, but looking at the three-dimensional characteristic of the ocean.

49:41I mean, I can imagine a Sim City for every one of the sanctuaries.

49:45Not just to look at what is or what was, but let's play with it a little bit and see if...if you do this, what will be the consequence?

49:52Just as we have done so effectively, just as you have done so effectively, for so much of the land.

49:59There's all that ocean out there just waiting for your attention and it really is fundamentally vital to the future of not just the fish...

50:11...and not just the whales, and not just my kids, but yours as well, to the future of humankind.

50:20I'm excited about the potential for what this year will bring.

50:24This is a so-called shakedown year, as we understand how do these systems work together...

50:30...and as we go forward next year to focus more on the California sanctuaries and the Florida Keys...

50:37...to have a smaller number of people for a longer period of time using new technologies...

50:42...and really investing as much as we can in developing databases for these areas...

50:48...ultimately for all of the existing marine sanctuaries and maybe inspiring the establishment of others.

50:56Around the world, there are presently some 1,200 so-called protected areas.

51:02Many of you know about the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

51:05That's the largest of all in the world.

51:08The second largest is here in California, the Monterey National Marine Sanctuary.

51:13But taken all together, all of these so-called protected areas that still allow a great deal of activity to continue...

51:22...it's less than 1 percent of the ocean.

51:26In the bank, less than 1 percent really protected as a heritage for the future.

51:33So do we have a job to do?

51:34I think so, and I really look forward to working with you to make that future more secure.

51:42As a final thing before I leave the stage, I have a special finale to offer.

51:50You know, I mentioned that, as my mom said, "You've got to leave the place better than you find it."

51:54Well, I serve on the board of the Conservation Fund.

51:58This is an organization that protects wild places, land and water.

52:05Aldo Leopold 50 years ago commented in Sand County Almanac that...

52:09...you know, wilderness is one thing they don't make any more of.

52:13It's easy to destroy but we don’t know how to put it back together again.

52:16And the Conservation Fund is one of those organizations that is dedicated to trying to protect the wild places.

52:23So it is very special for me to be associated with this organization.

52:29The Conservation Fund periodically recognizes individuals and organizations...

52:34...who make outstanding contributions to the conservation movement...

52:38...individuals and organizations that make a difference.

52:43In its 10th year, the Esri Conservation Program has donated software, training,...

52:52...technical support to over 4,000 conservation organizations worldwide.

53:00That just takes my breath away.

53:02Esri, Jack Dangermond, I really want to thank you, so all of you, whoever you are, thank you.