Scripps Institution of Oceanography, World Wildlife Fund Unite to Preserve Life in the Oceans; Launch 'Partnership For Sea Change'

4/23/2002

From: Cindy Clark of the Scripps Institutution of Oceanography, 858-534-3624, e-mail: scrippsnews@ucsd.edu; or Kerry Green Zobor of WWF, 202-778-9509 or 847-853-1383

WASHINGTON, April 23 -- World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography today joined forces in a bold new program designed to reverse the decline in the health of the world's oceans. The two organizations are pooling their marine conservation resources to form the "Partnership for Sea Change," a decade long collaboration aimed at harnessing the best possible science to create conservation solutions and inform policy to help save the world's imperiled oceans ecosystems.

"Our oceans and coasts are in crisis," states Kathryn S. Fuller, president of World Wildlife Fund. "There is an urgent need for more marine protected areas, better management, and a more supportive ocean policy framework. We hope that the coming together of the world's leading oceans research institution and the world's largest conservation organization will send a strong signal about the need to act now to save our seas."

The world's oceans have been battered by overfishing, habitat destruction, introduced species, pollution and climate change. Environmentalists have been working to create marine protected areas -- which protect biodiversity from overexploitation and destruction -- but there simply are not enough of these areas at present and those that exist are too widely dispersed to be optimally effective. One goal of the new Scripps/WWF partnership will be to develop the scientific methods for planning networks of marine parks worldwide.

The new "Partnership for Sea Change" is a marriage that unites scientific excellence with global conservation reach. Scripps scientists are leading the field in designing practical conservation solutions to save the most valuable areas of marine "real state." WWF has the world's largest number of active marine conservation projects and is working in all the major areas of marine biodiversity. The new partnership will provide conservation blueprints to save the full expression of worldwide marine biodiversity, immediately and well into the future.

"Science is essential to developing sound practices that will help restore our precious ocean resources," said Dr. Charles F. Kennel, director of Scripps Institution. "By teaming with the World Wildlife Fund, we are expanding our vision and developing the science that can help our coastal ecosystems recover some of the richness our forefathers once knew."

"The Partnership for Sea Change combines the extraordinary strengths of Scripps and WWF," continued Fuller. "Scripps brings to the table its unparalleled expertise in marine research. With more than 60 active marine protected areas projects, twenty or more of which lie in the coral triangle -- the region of the highest biodiversity on the planet -- WWF leads in the number of "on the ground" marine protected areas already in place. By putting these two forces together, our combined vision - to protect marine diversity by implementing at least 100 new MPAs over the next decade and to preserve biodiversity in the oceans -- can be achieved."

Scripps and WWF have a long history of working together on projects but today's announcement represents a new global partnership. In the Gulf of California, for example, Scripps scientists have worked with a team of local scientists and with the staff of WWF-Mexico to pioneer the design of a protected areas network that will protect the biodiversity and marine resources in this crucial marine system.

Other benefits to the new partnership are WWF-Scripps scholarships and conservation training courses, including a degree program in marine conservation offered through the new Scripps Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation (CMBC). In this degree program, students will work with both Scripps and WWF staff to gain both theoretical and real world training in the challenges and rewards of conservation work.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, is one of the oldest, largest and most important centers for global science research and graduate training in the world. The scientific scope of the institution has grown since its founding in 1903. A century of Scripps science has had an invaluable impact on oceanography, on understanding of the earth and on society. More than 300 research programs are under way today in a wide range of scientific areas. Scripps operates on of the largest U.S. academic fleets with four oceanographic research ships and one research platform for worldwide exploration. Now plunging boldly into the 21st century, Scripps will celebrate its centennial in 2003. Scripps Institution of Oceanography on the web: http://scripps.ucsd.edu.

World Wildlife Fund, known worldwide by its panda logo, leads international efforts to protect the diversity of life on earth. Now in its fourth decade, WWF works in more than 100 countries around the globe. The largest privately supported international conservation organization in the world, WWF has sponsored more than 2,000 projects in 116 countries -- and has more than one million members in the U.S. alone. More information is available at http://www.worldwildlife.org.