The nearest ocean is some 1,200 miles from Iowa, but the audience at tonight’s presentation in Des Moines may almost be able to taste and smell the salt air.
On this Earth Day, National Geographic Explorer Erika Woolsey will offer glimpses into the underwater world, focusing on coral reefs, especially Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Woolsey is a marine biologist, divemaster, and virtual reality filmmaker.
“I hope that I can just share how beautiful, strange, and interesting coral reef environments are, and how unique and special the Great Barrier Reef is, how colorful it is, how biodiverse it is,” Woolsey says, “and how many incredible stories there are, all the types of life that live within coral reefs.”
Coral reefs have flourished on our planet for hundreds of millions of years, Woolsey says, but they’re under attack. The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system, stretching 1,400 miles, and more than half of its coral has died. She says one of the biggest problems is coral bleaching due to rising water temperatures.
“That causes the coral animals to stress out and expel their algal symbionts, which is a special type of kind of plant-like organism that lives within them,” Woolsey says, “and without that, without that power to collect energy from photosynthesis, the whole system starts to break down and the corals turn white and starve.”
In addition to warming waters, she says other threats to reefs include marine pollution, overfishing, and habitat destruction. Iowa is a long way from the crashing surf, but she says Iowans can still offer help and become more responsible for our planet.
“That might be using your power as a citizen and a consumer to vote with your dollars, making decisions on our planet and in our country to protect our natural environments,” Woolsey says. “There are also things you can do to support sustainable seafood. It’s also a matter of just learning a lot and talking to each other and joining ocean communities, whether they’re online or in person.”
Woolsey is the chief scientist and CEO of The Hydrous, a non-profit organization on a mission to inspire ocean empathy and marine stewardship. She uses 360-degree photography to create immersive virtual reality videos to help people understand the ocean and reefs from anywhere in the world.
“There are so many barriers to ocean access and enjoying being underwater. I mean, people can’t breathe underwater without expensive, time-consuming training and equipment,” she says, “and I’m using virtual reality and other emerging technologies to try to make the ocean more accessible to everyone.”
If you can’t get to an ocean, there’s likely a lake or a river nearby that can also be enjoyed, as Woolsey says we need to appreciate that we live on a water planet.
Her presentation is at 6:30 PM at the Civic Center of Des Moines.
Hear Matt Kelley’s interview with Erika Woolsey below: