This Friday marked the beginning of the third annual Blue Vision Summit, a gathering of diverse marine conservation leaders from a variety disciplines – academia, art, music, policy, management, science, and education. This event was kicked off in style, with ocean-themed films, bioluminescence-inspired dancers, a silent auction, and organic local food, including cookies decorated as crabs, seahorses, and dolphins! Excitement and cheer filled the historic Carnegie Institute of Science as dedicated professionals celebrated the start of this much-anticipated weekend event. Many Knauss fellows (and their guests) were in attendance, enjoying the delicious food and good company throughout the evening. The Blue Vision Summit and its Celebration of the Seas is spearheaded by Sylvia Earle’s Blue Frontier Campaign, sponsored mainly by emerging marine nonprofit top-dogs Center for Ocean Solutions, One World One Ocean, Ocean Foundation, and Mission Blue, to name a few. The effort these organizations are making to think outside the normal bounds of advocacy, resource management, science, and policy in order to raise awareness about ocean issues is inspiring.
One example of this inspiration came from Cousteau’s granddaughter, Celine. She has produced what I would call (for lack of an appropriate term) an “artful experience” entitled Ocean Inspiration, where viewers watch subtle underwater footage of schooling fish over coral reefs and listen to recordings of people expressing their appreciation for the ocean, all enhanced by a live music ensemble. The images, voices, and instruments of the piece all repeatedly builded up and subsided like the ocean itself, creating a very moving experience. This production was just one facet of another lovely evening with the marine conservation community in D.C.
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