GBR and the Ocean

Like Rachel, I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef; a day trip my family and I took to snorkel changed the way I view the ocean forever.

The forecast for that day was heavy rain and predicted large swells in the ocean, but the tour group encouraged us to give snorkeling on the reef a go. Snorkeling on the GBR is incredible and I am happy that we went, but the decision to take the trip despite warnings is an instance where we paid little respect to nature.

To say that we encountered incredible weather is an understatement. I can’t think of a time where I had been more terrified, although it's comforting to remember that even our Australian friends (who are always calm) seemed anxious. The winds were so strong and the waves so enormous that the captain essentially lost control of the vessel to the ocean. Sitting in the cabin felt like being on an uncontrollable roller coaster ride. Instead of cutting across the waves, we crashed over them and rolled in between them for the entire trip. Water came into the cabin, people were screaming, lights shattered on the ground, and we were definitely air bound at one point, too.

It's a mistake to underestimate the power of the ocean. In retrospect, the decision to continue with the tour despite "warnings" of swells was made from an anthropocentric standpoint: both the tour guides (interested in the money, too...) and my family assumed that a large boat with the latest technology would protect us and allow us to be a greater force than the ocean. As we talked about in class today, we cannot see ourselves as above nature. Changing our attitudes from maintaining control over nature to engaging with and respecting it will be important for our overall experience with the non-human world.

Essentially, nature enables us to live on this planet and it should be our goal to protect and conserve as much biodiversity as possible (easier said than done.) Saving nature is/will be a process and the first step is to promote eco-literacy and educate people about biodiversity and environmental issues. As Emily said on Friday, environmental issues always come down to biodiversity, and environmental issues affect us, so it’s important that we care about biodiversity. The example she mentioned about how water became clearer after the re-introduction of wolves into Yellowstone Nat’l Park really emphasizes the importance of saving and protecting nature.