Even our rules and regulations, our laws, our policies, favor the destructive nature of taking too much from the ocean and using techniques that are horribly destructive. We know they don't work. We know it's not sustainable.

Ice ages have come and gone. Coral reefs have persisted.

Eating wildlife is probably not the smartest thing that we can do in terms of maintaining the integrity of natural systems.

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.

'Green' issues at last are attracting serious attention, owing to critically important links between the environment and the economy, health, and our security.

The ocean seemed like a sea of Eden. But now we are facing paradise lost.

Great attention gets paid to rainforests because of the diversity of life there. Diversity in the oceans is even greater.