Message from Chairman Michael T. Moore

We are a Society of concerned, socially-aware individuals who share a common view that the only intelligent and practical solutions to the degradation of our oceans and to the changes taking place on our planet will come from plain, unadorned science-based facts. We are not concerned about whether these changes are man-made or natural. Facts – including the highly accurate and critically needed data being generated by SeaKeepers – will settle any dispute and lead to solutions. 

We are, however, extremely concerned by the terrible decline in the marine environment and the unthinkable consequences these changes augur for ourselves, our children, our grandchildren and the countless souls whose well-being depend on healthy, productive seas for their food and livelihoods.

It is with both concern for the sea and with a passionate belief in the importance of our fact-based philosophy and work that I accepted the position of Chairman of the International SeaKeepers Society. As an attorney, I value data and unadorned truth above conjecture and speculation. As a conservative businessman, I value efficiency and productivity, which SeaKeepers and its tiny, dedicated staff delivers in vast quantities.

Accordingly, I invite you to read the article in this issue of SeaKeeper Report about the volume and cost-efficiency of our efforts, and to visit our offices and lab in Fort Lauderdale for a first-hand look at how our monitoring systems are built, maintained and calibrated with our scarce financial resources to provide critically important scientific measurements of the sea, the weather and our changing climate.

These are troubling times, both from an economic perspective as well as from an environmental viewpoint. We face extraordinary challenges to the quantity and quality of marine resources at a  time when society is stretched to its financial limits. And yet problems such as overfishing, pollution and issues such as the rapidly increasing acidification of our oceans will not wait for economic recovery. In striving to cut costs and by the lack of resources to develop cleaner, more sustainable ways of conducting our daily lives, we may in fact accelerate some of the very processes that are contributing to the loss of marine abundance we are experiencing.

In the past, conservation of all type was viewed as a “luxury” item, something we could indulge in when we had an affluence of time and financial resources. But time and tide wait for no man, and so SeaKeepers is committed not just to surviving our current economic downturn, but with your help to strengthening our remarkable membership of private citizens and corporate partners and to parlay this powerful group of global leaders to build on our remarkable accomplishments of the first decade of our existence.

It’s our ocean, it’s our job, and we need your help. All the best in the year ahead.