Ocean Voices : Richard Harris

Richard Harris on the ice near the North Pole

Ocean issues have compelled NPR reporter Richard Harris to travel to hot—and cold—spots around the globe. About 400 miles from the North Pole, he joined biologists on the Healy, a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker as they conductes a census of marine life. Fred Gorell, NOAA

There are two vast and unfathomable domains on this planet that stir awe and trepidation in many a science reporter. One is the brain, full of unbelievably complex tangles of neurons and glial cells—and based on an architecture directed by an even more mysterious set of genes.

The other domain is the ocean. Its sheer size is intimidating. Even at jet speeds, you ultimately have to sleep (or read a couple of books) while traversing one. And breadth is just one of their dimensions. The ocean's depth is even harder to fathom, if you pardon the expression.

And while the brain is basically only responsible for creating a substrate for our marvelous minds, the ocean has many more dimensions for us to consider. It’s a source of protein (fish), pleasure (sailing), commerce (shipping), conflict (naval warfare), global chemistry (a carbon sink), energy (oil, wind and waves), weather (hurricanes) and, not the least of what it provides, a natural ecosystem much larger than the one on solid ground.

After all, the ocean not only covers more than 70 percent of the Earth, it has considerable depth. A marine biologist once told me that more than 90 percent of the biosphere is in the ocean.

So why, then does the ocean get short shrift when journalists sit down to write about what’s happening on our planet? The answers are multiple, and they stem from some of the basic characteristics of the ocean: it's big; it’s hard to get to where the action is, which is often not on the surface; and it takes a lot of time and a lot of money to even try.

For a science reporter, research cruises are the logical window into our watery world. But their port calls are often weeks apart—far more time than we normally invest in a single story that's not about Pentagon mischief or some other potential blockbuster.

Plenty of scientists and conservationists are more than happy to talk about the ocean, of course. But talking doesn't set a scene. There’s no whiff of brine over the phone. And hearing someone talk about a vast gyre of garbage, for example, is a far cry from seeing it.

It was against this daunting background that I decided about a year ago to turn more of my attention to the ocean. I would face the logistical nightmares head on in order to tell some of the most under-reported stories on our planet. I make no claim to have covered the waterfront (ok, sorry about that, too), but the rewards were well worth the trouble. I have had a chance to delve into some of the most important issues facing our ocean—indeed, our planet—this year.

Fisheries are of course critical. People depend on the ocean for food, yet some fishermen also overexploit the seas (often with the collusion of governments) to such an extent that whole ecosystems are put at risk. There are ways to do it right, of course. I spent a very long day off the coat of California in December 2008 with a Dungeness crab fishing crew to see how that valuable fishery manages to persist as a sustainable resource.

The Nature Conservancy took me on a tour of the Massachusetts coast so I could explain how coastal waters are gradually being zoned, just as cities are. These days, there are so many competing demands, even in the vast openness of the sea, that rules are needed.

Bonaire in the Netherlands Antilles (not far from Venezuela) provided me the perfect setting to talk about the plight of the world’s coral reefs, which are by some accounts the most endangered ecosystems on Earth.

Another trip to Monterey, California, gave me an opportunity to talk about the frightening prospect of ocean acidification. Carbon dioxide, we realize, isn’t just going into the air. It’s going into the seas and making waters more acidic. That’s bad news for shellfish and, as I learned in Monterey, it’s probably also bad news for many other forms of marine life.

And of course back in Washington I've kept track of efforts to create vast marine preserves and to rethink how we manage not only fisheries but also the nation’s ocean territories more broadly.

Most often, these stories take time. They also require a little cajoling: Few of my listeners have ever been over the horizon at sea, so the ideas seem abstract and rather removed from the things they experience, the money they spend and the issues right in front of their faces.

But these are issues that have a deep and long-lasting affect on our entire Earth. And, if I'm doing my job right, they are stories well worth telling—and hearing.

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