Future Oceans
Jean-Michel Cousteau along with his two children, Celine and Fabien, are fi lmed swimming with
endangered Goliath Groupers. Right: Jean-Michel and the OFS team documented the massive
Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. Centre: June 15, 2006, President Bush makes historic declaration
creating the then-largest marine sanctuary in the world. Bottom: Jean-Michel with Keiko in Iceland
Fifteen Years of Ocean Celebration
TEXT BY JEAN-MICHEL COUSTEAU
In the fi rst-ever attempt to return a captive orca to the wild, I merged three non-profi t organizations together in 1999 to form Ocean Futures Society to continue research and care for Keiko, the captive killer whale of Free Willy fi lm fame. Working with Keiko, my team pioneered both husbandry techniques and scientifi c research on wild orcas. Keiko was returned to his native waters in Iceland where he was released to live free in the ocean. Our team continued husbandry and medical support of Keiko until his death in December of 2003.
T 12
I also wanted to honor my late father, Jacques Cousteau, and his pioneering work in ocean exploration and education through ongoing fi lm productions. Since 1999, Ocean Futures Society has produced Jean- Michel Cousteau: Ocean Adventures, and seven specials - 11 hours - of television for PBS that’s taken us from the Arctic to the Amazon, from Norway to New Zealand and many wonderful places in between. In the 2004 Voyage to Kure expedition, we traveled to the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands to explore some of the last pristine coral reefs in the Pacifi c. The beauty and horror of this exploration and fi lm inspired then- President George W. Bush to create the then-largest marine sanctuary in the world, Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, to protect these remarkable coral reefs, large shark populations, endangered monk seals and millions of seabirds from environmental degradation like the growing Pacifi c garbage patch. Truly, it was a fi lm that made a diff erence.
Magazine
wenty fourteen is a special year for Ocean Futures Society - this year we are celebrating our 15th anniversary: 15 years of ocean advocacy through our award-winning fi lms and educational programs that teach and inspire us all to protect our ocean planet. These past 15 years have been full of exciting adventures and hard fought battles, and we continue building more than just hope – but also a better future.
Need to Re-evaluate
In 2010, we celebrated the 100th anniversary of my father’s birth and explored the legacy and inspiration he left us all in a new fi lm My Father, the Captain: Jacques Cousteau. I also wrote a book with the same title, honoring of my father’s philosophy: “people protect what they love”. From space, we see a world swirling and alive with oceans and atmosphere. At 30 feet below the surface of the sea, we also see a world swirling with life we had never imagined. The more I look back on my father and his legacy, the more I realize how much he is still a part of our times and how, had we listened more carefully and taken the actions he suggested, things might be diff erent. Then, due to the catastrophic events that unfolded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, my team and I traveled to the region to document the massive oil plumes spewing from the Deepwater Horizon explosion. We quickly realized that our experience there would be a life-altering event, not only for the Ocean Futures Society’s fi lm and dive team, but also for the world. While we have all seen images of climate change in the arctic and deforestation in the Amazon, somehow the overwhelming devastation of this – the largest accidental oil spill in history – aff ected all of us in ways we never imagined. The sheer scale of the disaster in the Gulf brought our hearts to a stop. Our images of the underwater oil plumes were shown on national TV and witnessed by millions around the world, bringing awareness to the urgent need for humans to re-evaluate our thoughts and actions that led us to this catastrophe.
Photo: Carrie Vonderhaar, Ocean Futures Society
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