Posted:
April 22, 2012
Tags:
water
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In August 2010, Alexandra Cousteau’s Expedition Blue Planet crossed over the Arizona/Mexican border to follow the Colorado’s dry riverbed to its historic mouth in the Upper Gulf of California. The Colorado’s rivers once nutrient-rich waters no longer even reach the sea. This short film tracks the ghost of a mighty river that used to run free over this land just half a century ago.
The stately Colorado, that same iconic river of history that carved out the Grand Canyon and made the deserts bloom in the American southwest now ends in a hypersaline mudflat rather than a punctuation mark of aquatic biodiversity. The Colorado’s once-lush estuary is no longer a nursery for marine life. The people whose lives were intertwined with the river’s wealth in its flood plain are now culturally bereft.
© Blue Legacy International
Posted:
April 22, 2012
Tags:
water
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10 countries, over 100,000 kilometres, 45 critical water stories, 100 days. Expedition Blue Planet.
Alexandra Cousteau’s Expedition Blue Planet 2009 chronicled the interconnectivity of water. A key aspect of the project was its ability to show how individual stories are part of the larger, universal story of an inter-dependent and global water ecosystem. In this way, we created a new vision for what it means to live in a world where water is our most precious resource and plan for what we must do to protect it.
© Blue Legacy International
As Expedition Blue Planet explored the Colorado River’s headwaters, John Wesley Powell’s name came up again and again. In this short film Alexandra Cousteau, and the experts she interviewed, elaborate on the story of this remarkable man who rafted the Colorado’s uncharted waters in the late 1800s and foretold of its mismanagement long before it was tamed.
Four months after the Deepwater Horizon disaster Alexandra Cousteau visits the Gulf States to find friends, communities and livelihoods burdened and broken by distrust and uncertainty in the aftermath of the the largest oil spill in US waters. In a region whose heart and soul can be found in the marine bounty of the gulf’s rich waters, Cousteau discovers that people are not only losing their jobs, but their way of life. “Ocean of Doubt: Polluted Waters, Broken Communities” puts a human face and stirring voice to that story of incalculable loss.
A behind the scenes video introducing the 2010 Expedition Blue Planet crew.
Alabama is home to the greatest wealth of freshwater and marine biodiversity in North America. As the BP oil spill continues to cast its shadow over the Gulf Coast, scientists keep a vigilant eye on frogs, sharks, and sperm whales–all indicator species and proxies for ecosystem effects caused by the oil spill and its clean-up efforts.
In July, Expedition Blue Planet explored the headwaters of the Colorado River to investigate how this mighty river is overallocated from the moment its waters touch the ground up in the Rocky Mountains, where the Continental Divide rises like a spine and demarcates the Mississippi watershed that lies to the East from the Colorado watershed that falls to the West. Today we find that this iconic river still means life for the 20 million people who live in its basin — just as it did for the Native Americans, just as it did for the settlers who drove West and claimed it as their own. But the truth is, the minute it touches the ground, we’ve allocated every drop and too often we’re not even judicious in how we use it. In this short film, we speak to key voices in the headwaters region and chart the path of the river’s flow to investigate water use and management issues in the American West. Here, it’s all about what’s downstream.
© Blue Legacy International
In this behind-the-scenes video for Alexandra Cousteau’s Expedition Blue Planet, the team continue their cross-North America trek investigating water issues across the continent. Watch as they muck through the icy cold headwaters of the Colorado River filming “The Headwaters”, raft its biggest water through Cataract Canyon in Utah and make their way up into Canada.
© Blue Legacy International
Hoover Dam is the heart of the American west’s water supply, a powerhouse for irrigation and farming in the region. But today a combination of drought and overuse have drained it half dry leaving a 135 foot high “bathtub ring” mark around Lake Mead. Will America’s largest reservoir ever fill up again as the water wars between cities, farmers and nature play out? Alexandra Cousteau’s Expedition Blue Planet investigates.
© Blue Legacy International
Expedition Blue Planet 2009 chronicled the interconnectivity of water. A key aspect of the project was its ability to show how individual stories are part of the larger, universal story of an interdependent, global water ecosystem. In this way, we created a new vision for what it means to live in a world where water is our most precious resource, and a plan for what we must do to protect it.
© Blue Legacy International
Posted:
April 9, 2012
Tags:
TED
water
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Mission Blue Promo for TED.
In 2009, Dr. Sylvia Earle’s TED wish; to ignite public support for a global network of marine protected areas, hope spots, large enough to save and restore the ocean, catalyzed support around an initiative now called “Mission Blue”. Launched with the TED/ Mission Blue Voyage in 2010, the goals of the initiative are to inspire awareness and action urgently needed to protect and restore the ocean.
Washington DC casts a long shadow. Just a few miles from the Mall – famous for the White House, Lincoln Memorial, and Washington Monument – lies a troubled world that bears little resemblance to these iconic representations of democracy. No mobs of tourists throng the streets snapping photos there. Few world leaders ever visit.
Anacostia, in southeast Washington, D.C., is famous for entirely different reasons. It has one of the highest murder rates in the world. And its river is one of the most polluted in the country.
© Blue Legacy International
Anacostia, in southeast Washington, D.C., has one of the highest murder rates in the world. And its river is one of the most polluted in the country.
In this dark landscape, home to so much violence to nature and human beings alike, the Earth Conservation Corps shines a bright light. Part of AmeriCorps, a government-funded public service program, ECC’s mission for the past 17 years has been: “To empower our endangered youth to reclaim the Anacostia River, their communities, and their lives.”
Alexandra Cousteau interviews ECC President, Bob Nixon.
© Blue Legacy International
The longest river in the USA and third largest in the world, the Mississippi drains 40 percent of the country, including the majority of its farming heartland. At present, there are no federal laws governing pollution being dumped into the Mississippi River, and last year alone some 817,000 tons of nitrogen made its way into the Gulf of Mexico via the river. These agricultural chemicals have led to the largest ever ‘deadzone’ (an area so starved of oxygen that it cannot sustain life) in the history of the Gulf.
The Mississippi River is one of the largest rivers in the world and drains 40% of the USA. Chemical fertilizers from industrial agriculture and urban runoff are contributing to create one of the largest dead zones in the world in the Gulf of Mexico.
© Blue Legacy International
The longest river in the USA and third largest in the world, the Mississippi drains 40 percent of the country, including the majority of its farming heartland. At present, there are no federal laws governing pollution being dumped into the Mississippi River, and last year alone some 817,000 tons of nitrogen made its way into the Gulf of Mexico via the river. These agricultural chemicals have led to the largest ever ‘deadzone’ (an area so starved of oxygen that it cannot sustain life) in the history of the Gulf.
Farmers and fishermen share one thing in common: the Mississippi River watershed. In this video, the team compares how both impact and are impacted by degradation of the river and its natural systems.
© Blue Legacy International
Alexandra and the team spend their final days on the Mississippi River visiting again with the Cajun people living at the frayed edges of the bayou close to the Gulf of Mexico. Talk to any locals here and you’ll find that their biggest concern is land loss. Louisiana is disappearing into the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of 25 to 35 square miles of land a year, nearly a football field every hour.
© Blue Legacy International
Anacostia, in southeast Washington, D.C., has one of the highest murder rates in the world. And its river is one of the most polluted in the country.
In this dark landscape, home to so much violence to nature and human beings alike, the Earth Conservation Corps shines a bright light. Part of AmeriCorps, a government-funded public service program, ECC’s mission for the past 17 years has been: “To empower our endangered youth to reclaim the Anacostia River, their communities, and their lives.”
Alexandra Cousteau interviewed ECC volunteer, Patric Frazier.
© Blue Legacy International
Anacostia, in southeast Washington, D.C., has one of the highest murder rates in the world. And its river is one of the most polluted in the country.
In this dark landscape, home to so much violence to nature and human beings alike, the Earth Conservation Corps shines a bright light. Part of AmeriCorps, a government-funded public service program, ECC’s mission for the past 17 years has been: “To empower our endangered youth to reclaim the Anacostia River, their communities, and their lives.”
Alexandra Cousteau interviewed ECC eagle wrangler, Rodney Scott.
© Blue Legacy International
St. Louis marks a dividing line in the Mississippi River. To the north, in Minnesota, it is a national treasure attracting more people for recreation than Yellowstone National Park. To the south, it is hardly a river anymore. It more closely resembles a drainage pipe.
As it journeys through the middle of America, the Mississippi suffers the bombardments of human civilization, deteriorating with each mile. Several factors contribute to its degradation. For one, the river becomes more and more polluted with run-off from the whopping 40 percent of US land that it drains: chemical fertilizers from agriculture, industrial toxins, as well as sewage and waste. By the time it reaches Louisiana, the water is so filthy that the government advises against eating the fish or swimming in the river.
© Blue Legacy International
Alexandra Cousteau speaks with Louisiana native Tab Benoit, President of Voice of the Wetalnds. Benoit has watched the wetlands of Louisiana disappear over the years with his own eyes. He believes they can be saved by letting the Mississippi River run its natural course.
© Blue Legacy International
