DIVE LOG Australasia

Cast your mind back to when you were five years old. Your imagination knew all about hitching a ride on giant seashells. Sea Stars recite Fairy Tales of great wonder. You dreamed that ice creams would appear in your hand the moment that you wished for them and you had the power to change rocks into chocolate. Somehow, the reality of adulthood erased the magic. You saw humans were chopping down all the trees; stripping the fish and whales from the sea and dumping rubbish into the water. Mother Nature was direly in need of protection as the sadness grew in the world. Some of her precious spaces were turned into ‘The Nothing’, a zone of desolation and emptiness, which spread across continents and oceans. Fortunately, there are people doing something to remedy the problem. The solution is to rebuild the Garden of Eden. Our home, the Blue Planet is a rare gem in the vast emptiness of space. It is not ours to destroy for profit. The sooner we realise how precious it is, the sooner we can repair it. The days of seeing a whale and killing it on sight should be well and truly over. It is a crime against Mother Nature. All life is sacred. In 2024, we witness the gradual return of whales. Whaling was stopped in 1978 not because of any love of whales or environmental concerns. The whale population was down to 1% to 2 % and it was not worthwhile financially. Over the next thirty years, whale numbers were scarce. They are steadily recovering from the brink of extinction. The mass murder of whales in the previous centuries was an inter-generational crime! We all were deprived of wonderful marine encounters with these gentle giants. In the words of a famous teacher, I say to myself “Forgive them for they know not what they do.” Most of us know better now! Luckily, these days we can visit the ocean and listen for the whales. You will witness one of the great symphonies of the planet. The ocean is filled with whale song in winter. The music is loud and clear and full of joy; a song of love and romance that is simply brilliant to experience. We stand on the precipice of time, facing the future. We can set our minds to heal the planet in this moment. It is so easy! Go and plant a tree. If you own a house, plant lots of trees, grow some vegies. The birds and the bees will come. Life will proliferate. ‘The Nothing’ will vanish. My quarter acre block is a rainforest with hundreds of trees. We have so many wonderful visitors. Well fed Kookaburras and Magpies sing to us every day; a female Bower Bird visits often. We even get Tawny Frogmouth at Christmas. In short, it is alive. What will it take to fix our planet? OUR COVER PHOTO OUR FRONT COVER photo by Cathie Cummins shows a friendly Potato Cod. She captured this image using her Nikon Z50 on a recent trip to the Great Barrier Reef.

One of the first steps is to revegetate the Earth. We need to plant a trillion plants a year across the globe. Wildlife will find it and their numbers will rebound from the brink of extinction. We need to stop the over exploitation of the seas. I am amazed that Scientists tell us again and again that the world fisheries are on the verge of total collapse yet people spend their entire life trying to catch and kill those last few creatures. We need to protect the oceans right now. The ‘big solution’ is right there before our eyes. The ocean has always been exploited for food and money. It has been vandalized and treated like an never ending resource. To save the ocean, we need to put a dollar value on an ocean that is pristine, filled with life. It is not a worthless space to be exploited. It is a valuable aquatic real estate. How do we save the Great Barrier Reef? The answer, in part, is to use the positive side of economics. Revalue the reef from a worthless patch of nothing ‘real estate’ to a place of value where fish can breed, food can be produced and people can play. In short, see it as a resource to be protected. Mankind’s love affair with the almighty dollar has been the obstacle; now it is the way forward. It will give people the power to see a hectare of ocean as having worth. Instead of overfishing and destroying complete ecosystems, let them recover. They will return to be productive spaces that provide food, entertainment, pleasure and, of course, financial rewards. The result will be good for all. The Ocean Biome has its own feedback systems to restore the balance and to correct the damaged ecosystems. Few people talk about these important cycles in Nature but that are in operation all of the time. After all, every ecosystem I have ever visited in my life is seriously out of balance. These feedback mechanisms are always hard at work trying to fix the issue. Once the food producing vegetation is removed, the food webs are out of balance and top order predators starve and die. If allowed to recover, these ecosystems can rebuild in just a few years. It is called Nature and its powers of regeneration are legendary. One vivid example is the effect of the ruthless extermination of whales off Eastern Australia until 1978. Their natural predator, the Orcas had lost their main food source. I often wonder what happened to Australian Orcas. Did they starve to death or maybe migrate to New Zealand or Tonga or find somewhere where they could survive? Did they die of starvation? These days, as whale numbers increase, we are seeing the return of Orcas. Dive Log Australasia is a tool for education and a voice for Mother Nature. We like to highlight issues of concern and use education and photography as a tool to help to do out bit to protect the ocean. This issue is another blockbuster production filled with great travel articles, educational articles on Nudibranchs, sharks and Turtles. As usual, our excellent team of diving photojournalists and Vikki create a world-class production for your reading pleasure. Read on and enjoy our spring issue.

Mike and Vikki

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DIVE LOG Australasia #408 - October ‘24

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