September 29, 2005
9/29/05 - No Synergy, Spontaneity, or Leadership: Where Is the Ocean Conservation Movement in New Orleans?
I'm back. Been off making a documentary feature all summer that will be released in the spring and anger lots of people (yea!) as well as make lots of other people laugh (typical SB style). As of Monday things will get back on track here at Shifting Baselines. But I feel like getting started right now by asking a few questions about Hurricane Katrina, like why isn't there a loud voice coming out about ocean conservation?
There's a wrong time to say these things (less than 2 days after the event, as Robert Kennedy, Jr. tactlessly did on the Huffington Post in a gesture that should cause everyone to question his sense of diplomatic timing), and a right time -- namely a month after the event as all of the investigations and examinations are now underway.
WHY, oh, why, haven't all the major ocean conservation groups come together in a joint press conference to take advantage of the moment and say in a single, clear, loud unified voice, "This is what happens when you don't manage your coastal wetlands properly." This message is being written about extensively and was in National Geographic last year. Everyone "in the know" knows it. But there's a need for the big organizations to take a leadership role and instruct the nation on these things so that everyone can clearly learn the lesson -- not just the OpEd-reading minority of our society (its about time to come up with a nickname for that demographic segment).
And I don't want to hear about all the good things they are hard at work on right now related to this subject. I want to know why I haven't turned on the evening news and seen a story about the heads of the ten largest ocean conservation groups coming together to make a joint statement about "enough is enough in coastal wetland mismanagement" and announce the start of a new joint project to ... whatever. That hasn't happened. It should have by now. The moment has been lost. If it happens tomorrow, that's nice, but it should have happened by now.
This sort of thing requires synergy (a movement where the whole is greater than the parts, which is not the case in ocean conservation because the groups are so inwardly focused), spontaneity (the ability to act without assembling a committee to look into things before acting), and leadership.
Gone with the Moment: National Geographic was on top of it from the start, but where are the big ocean conservation groups?