It’s a cliché to point out that everything is connected, but as scientists and environmentalists all know, changes in one area inevitably affect another. Evidence of the connectedness of everything around the Gulf of Maine is evident in the stories in this issue of the Times.
Slade Moore points out that aging structures, especially in the form of dams and other impediments, inhibit the return of river herring to their spawning areas. A lack of river herring means—among many other things in the food and ecology chain—less bait for fishermen.
Reviewed by Lee Bumsted, Carl Safina’s book, The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World, points out the effects around the world of human activities, unsustainable growth and climate change. He says, “By toxin and carbon, by chainsaw and fishing net, by appetite and sheer force of numbers, we survive by being way overleveraged on loans from generations yet to come.”
Kate Sampson focuses on one species in the Gulf of Maine, sea turtles, and shows how ship strikes and entanglements in fishing gear keep them endangered, while they also struggle with changes in water temperature.
On the hopeful side, Pam DiBona describes the New England Ocean Science Education Collaborative’s network of teachers and scientists, connected—like the environment they study—who are teaching future leaders about the vitality of the ocean and the importance of their relationship to it.
On a truly sad note, the Gulf of Maine and Nova Scotia in particular, have lost a friend. Peter Underwood, one of the original founders of the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment and an avid environmentalist devoted to sustainability, has died. Most recently, he served as a provincial deputy minister for special projects. He will be missed by everyone who knew him and his loss as an advocate for the environment will be substantial. The Times plans a larger memorial in a later issue.
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