I hope for your help to explore and protect the wild ocean in ways that will restore the health and, in so doing, secure hope for humankind. Health to the ocean means health for us.

We still have the illusion that the ocean will recover. That even if we do have to lose sharks, people don't understand why this matters. The evidence is in front of us, and we fail to take it in and say, "Now I get it. Now I understand."

We are taking way more out of the ocean than the ocean can replenish.

Childcare is a huge issue for young women whose work may require them to leave their families for weeks at a time.

When I was 12, we moved from New Jersey to Florida. The Gulf of Mexico was literally my backyard. Every day, I could see the ocean. At low tide I went out and played in seagrass meadows that used to come right up to the shore, filled with tiny seahorses, pipefish and soft corals. There was so much life! But then I witnessed the change, the loss of the shoreline, the loss of the mangrove trees, the loss of the seagrass meadows. Shallow bay areas were turned into parking lots.

We don't have to be that greedy generation that just continued to take down the underpinnings of what makes the planet work in our favor.

Globally sharks have been killed for their fins, for their cartilage, for their livers, for their meat. But mostly what has driven some species of sharks to near extinction - including the hammerhead shark - is the new luxury taste for shark fin soup.