From the Inbox: Save a mile of ocean

Dear Friend,

People need the ocean to survive. Healthy oceans regulate our climate, feed billions of people and provide a home for a vast array of marine life from sharks to sea turtles.

Now our oceans need us. Extreme threats including overfishing, pollution, development and climate change are wreaking havoc on ocean ecosystems.

You can help. Save a mile of ocean today and help CI protect the life it contains and people it supports for generations to come.

Conservation International has a revolutionary four-point plan to protect our oceans. Your gift now can help us expand our work creating vast seascapes and protecting the life they support—from people to animals like endangered leatherback sea turtles, hammerhead sharks and humpback whales. You will also help support our work protecting other habitats, including forests that provide incredible benefits for us all.

Join us and save a mile today.

Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,

Beth Wallace
VP, Marketing Communications and Membership

Fishing boats © Olivier Langrand
Fish © CI/photo by Haroldo Castro

From the Inbox - Oceans: Every mile matters

Dear Friend,

Pollution, overfishing, climate change and oil drilling are threatening the very essence of our ocean ecosystems—which cover 70% of our Earth.

Without healthy oceans, people simply can’t survive. We depend on oceans for a stable climate, oxygen, food, and lifesaving medicines.

Today, you can help. Your donation to symbolically save a mile of ocean will help protect the life it contains and people it supports.

Our oceans have already suffered immense damage. 90 % of the oceans' top predators are gone. Entire populations of fish, and the communities and economies they support, have collapsed. Dead zones—vast swaths of ocean that can no longer support life—are spreading throughout the marine realm.

Now is our chance—perhaps our last—to reverse the damage. Your gift can help CI:

• Expand our work protecting three vast seascapes.
• Develop four more seascape projects in Brazil, the Central Pacific, Hawaii and the Western Indian Ocean.
• Reform fisheries to be more sustainable and less destructive.
• Work with businesses to develop sustainable guidelines for fish they sell.
• Advise policymakers, businesses and local communities on effective ways to balance economic necessities with the health of our environment.
• Protect other habitats including forests, that provide incredible benefits for us all.

CI has pioneered approaches that have protected some of the most beautiful, vital and threatened places on the planet. Help us do it again. Save a mile of ocean today.

Sincerely,

Beth Wallace
VP, Marketing Communications and Membership

Clownfish © Comstock Images
Boy with boat © CI/photo by Andry Randriantsoa

From the Inbox: Explore the Ocean with Me

Dear Friend,

I first traveled to the Galapagos Islands in 1983 on a study-abroad trip for college, and I have lived here most of my adult life.

I was drawn to the islands’ stark beauty and unique wildlife—sea lions, marine iguanas and the famous Darwin’s finches, to name just a few. I have stayed here because of the opportunity to make a difference in the conservation of these and myriad other animals and their remarkable habitats.

As the Andes - Eastern Tropical Pacific Regional Marine Program Coordinator, I believe we’ve made a difference—as have local governments, communities and a growing network of other partners—in helping to protect these islands and the ocean that surrounds them, along with the coastal areas of Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador and Panama that collectively make up the Seascape.

This Seascape aims to conserve more than 2 million square kilometers and the diverse sea life—including threatened leatherback sea turtles, hammerhead sharks, humpback whales and many commercially important species—within the Seascape. Taken together, this wildlife underpins the local economies and defines the local communities and cultures of millions of coastal-dwelling people who call this area home, just as my family and I do.

The Eastern Tropical Pacific Seascape is just one of many projects that increasingly offer working examples of Conservation International’s mission to empower societies to responsibly and sustainably care for nature for the well-being of humanity.

CI and our partners are striving to expand this work and establish four more Seascapes in Brazil, the Central Pacific, Hawaii and the Western Indian Ocean.

Over the next few weeks, our marine team will take you to the front lines of our work – the coasts, the mangrove forests, the open oceans and the coral reefs.

We will visit the spectacular animals that call the oceans home, explore the important benefits that oceans provide to humanity and examine win-win solutions we’re putting into practice to protect those benefits for generations to come.

Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,

Scott Henderson
Andes - Eastern Tropical Pacific Regional Marine Program Coordinator