Earth: it’s synonymous with dirt. The land is where most of the things we care about and think about take place. But we also vaguely remember hearing at some point that the Earth is 71% water. In practice, we do a lousy job of keeping that in perspective. Just look at any map or globe – for all the detail it provides about the land, it treats the vast majority of the Earth’s surface as uninteresting, undifferentiated regions of water separating the continents. Which, of course, does little to inspire curiosity, much less reverence.
Little surprise, then, that ocean conservation efforts have been treated like such an afterthought. While land-based species have a dizzying array of well-known conservation groups fighting for them, most of us would be hard-pressed to name more than two that focus on oceans. Consequently, most of the existing investment in oceanic innovation is coming from oil companies and militaries – two sectors hardly known for their commitment to the health of the environments they work in.
Enter Seaworthy Collective. This project out of Miami, Florida, aims to reverse this imbalance by creating a robust community of Sea Change Makers. Together with these innovators from the worlds of technology, environmental science, commerce, and finance, they aim to tackle the long list of existential threats facing ocean ecosystems in a holistic, regenerative way.
The holistic part is pretty straightforward, considering that both oceans and their challenges are massively large and interconnected. But why regenerative? Well, the founders of Seaworthy Collective recognize that existing attempts to limit new damage or mitigate existing damage are at best just stopgaps – that really solving these problems is going to require a sea change in how we interact with the oceans – along with a “tangible, solutions-based focus that reverses detrimental anthropogenic impacts.” To that end, Seaworthy is in the process of creating an “[i]ncubator program cultivating ocean innovation for a regenerative blue economy.”
This concept of a ‘blue economy’ is key to Seaworthy’s mission. It encapsulates the perspective shift we will need to thrive, and it highlights the magnitude of opportunity available in this neglected sector. The costs to the global economy of more frequent and severe storms, toxic algal blooms, pollution, plasticization, etc., are already catastrophic and projected to accelerate wildly, barring some significant change in trajectory.
It follows that the solutions to these existential threats are worth trillions of dollars since all of our other economic activity grinds to a halt if we continue failing our oceans. At this point, it’s not building a better mousetrap that will bring the world to your door; it’s making a platform that harnesses innovation and entrepreneurialism to bring the oceans back from the brink.
For these reasons, as well as their commitment to “creating sincere and positive relationships with our strategic collaborators & mentors” along the way, we seek your support of The Seaworthy Collective.
Article graphic designed by: Cevahir Ozruh
About the Author:
Bert McDert is a big fan of big ideas, especially in the areas of systems and the mind-body interface. He specifically digs permaculture, sociocracy, bioregionalism, open-source ecology, myofascial release, and about a billion different philosophical and spiritual rabbit holes. I do massage and MFR on humans and horses, I’m adjusting to being newly Midwestern rural life, and on weekends I DJ. I try to stay abreast of — and involved in — developments toward a truly regenerative culture because it’s about the only antidote I know of for the otherwise crushing dread and grief of living through biosphere collapse.
