Surfrider Foundation, MAKING WAVES, August 2003

MAKING WAVES, August 2003 issue: Table of Contents

SPECIAL PLACES—THE PROACTIVE FIGHT...

For nearly two decades in the United States, the Surfrider Foundation has organized much of its efforts around “answering the bell”, like a firefighter. Reaction and response came from a wide host of threats over a very big piece of real estate. Threats ran the spectrum, from plans to build harbors over irreplaceable waves and coasts, to point source polluters whose damage made beaches and receiving waters unusable, to seawall builders and easement thieves who sought to use the public coast at the expense of a national populationwhose birthright was a lifetime of access to safe, healthy and clean beaches. Line up at La Selva, Puerto Rico

In time, the reactive battles have only come to us at an increased speed and with the dull monotony of short sighted, poorly planned, usually fairly selfish “development” in the name of some kind of progress.

The faster pace at which the threats came led the Surfrider Foundation “movement” to reconsider approaches, and several years ago we made a subtle shift in priority and energy to fighting proactively rather than solely reactively. We have found that using the limited resource of our capacity toward protecting special places in perpetuity eliminated the chance that later someone might abuse the special place, causing us to answer the alarm yet another time. From big wins in the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary in California to saving the famous wave and reef at Rincòn, Puerto Rico, the switch is serving us well. In this issue of Making Waves you’ll see more of where and why we are adding this new approach to our quiver.

One reason we made the change is that things are just not like they used to be on the coast, which relates to a new concept called Shifting Baselines. Working with our partners and renowned oceanographer Dr. Jeremy Jackson, and biologist/filmmaker Dr. Randy Olson, we make the case that if we’re not careful we’ll “shift the baseline” and begin to accept as lowered standards, the current condition of the coastal ocean. (http://www.shiftingbaselines.org).

Another reason we need to fight proactively is that unlike our land, less than 1% of our nations oceans receive any form of legal protection whatsoever. Our partners and friends at SeaWeb and the Ocean Wilderness Network make the case pretty well. (http://www.lessthanone.org).

So we’ve made a change to use our limited energy wisely, and make this movement flourish into the future. In the short term, we’ll take this effort into the voting booth, the boardroom, and to our decision makers for specific issues and places. But in the long run, projecting this effort into the future helps to change attitudes in the greater society and that in turn will help to re-work America’s ocean ethos. That is, of course, the “characteristic and distinguishing attitudes” we have toward the largest single defining feature of our planet; the global ocean.

The only way we can do this is simply by “telling another person”. To succeed, we absolutely must grow our ranks and today we have made an investment in you. We spend a portion of every issue of this newsletter to put an important tool at its centera membership form. You could engage in a very powerful act of environmentalism by using it today to sign up someone else in this effort. Each person who joins makes an infinite differenceinfinite. Thank you again for your support and efforts to leave a better coast and ocean for those who come after us.

For the oceans, waves and beaches,

Christopher J. Evans, Esq. Executive Director

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