Imagine giving up 1/2 of your income, in addition to taxes and payments for house, college etc., just so you can ensure your children have a chance for a future.   That's exactly what the desperately poor Vezo an indigenous group of nomadic fishing communities of southwest Madagascar did when they established the first real marine protected area in the Indian Ocean.   They risked everything just for the slim chance to save their ecosystem and indeed, themselves.  Every day is earth day for the Vezo.  As a local leader noted recently, "In order to be Vezo, a person must act in the present, for it is only in the present that one performs one's identity.  Read their story! 

As we celebrate Earth Day, how do we act in the present?  It's rather shocking to think that over half of the world's population live on 5% of available land space - our slim ribbon of coastal land throughout the world.  We have major magnetic attractants to the coast, we orient all we do around the coast - we build our major cities, we set up our major industries, hubs of transportation and trade, energy processing, and of course our favorite vacation destinations are along the coast.   In the developing world, the dependence on the coast and it's resources is profound!  In coastal Nicaragua - if you want to eat tonight, your families only meal of rice and beans, you must first find mangroves to cut simply to boil the rice and feed your family.  The people there know full well the value of mangroves as the lifeblood of their ecosystem - they KNOW how important mangroves are - but find no other alternative than to slowly kill the goose that is laying their golden egg. 

Our earth's ecosystem is the most productive along the coast - a margin of productivity that our civilization has depended - and where our footprint is the biggest.  As our climate warms, sea levels rise, our desire for seaside development and fresh fish increases - today may be a good day to pause and reflect on what stewardship really means.

Diving in the Red Sea for over three weeks just off the coat of Saudi Arabia, these thoughts are hard to ignore.  On several of our dives, we've seen amazing areas of diversity such as whales, sharks, whale sharks, sea turtles, manta rays, schools of hundreds of fish... but we have also seen areas of reefs that are decimated, virtually devoid of all life - and these sites are far offshore, away from human activity.  What's happening is anyones guess!  Warming that leads to bleaching is one possibility, a devastating outbreak of the "crown of thorns" starfish that eats live corals is another - nevertheless, we are witnessing a ecosystem in decline.  Go anywhere in the coastal realm and you will find the same.  It would be hard to find anywhere on earth that is spared, but our future does not have to be this.  When we listen, truly listen and hear with an open heart and open will to the relationship of people and place, there is great hope.   

A small british social enterprise called Blue Ventures lived with the Vezo, listened to them understood what they wanted and built a bridge for them to take their next step and established a huge marine reserve.  Imagine what they are giving up to protect their future.  What have we given up to protect our future?  A small Nicaraguan organization called CIDEO listened to the people of coastal Nicaraguans and created alternative livelihoods such as breadmaking and shellfish farming to generate resources, crated proteced areas for the mangroves.  These are small seeds of hope that need cultivation.   As you reflect on what you are doing for earth week - learn more about what you can do to help communities in Madagascar, Nicaragua and next door.