| About Us | Why Marine Biology? | Why MarineBio? | Our Philosophy | Board of Directors | Board of Advisors | About This Site | Press |
Our Mission
MarineBio's global mission is to share the wonders of the ocean to inspire conservation, education, research and a sea ethic. Our goals are to:
- Share the wonders of the underwater world and raise awareness of marine conservation issues.
- Provide an online library of scientifically accurate information on the most endangered and the most common marine species.
- Provide an online introductory education in marine life science along with extensive information on marine conservation. We believe that science must be linked with conservation to ensure sustainable seas.
- Provide forums for marine scientists, conservation organizations and others with an interest in marine conservation to share information and communicate on issues of importance.
- Provide research tools for marine life scientists to find useful resources with information on current research, news, and trends and to highlight the impact of the work they are doing in the marine life sciences.
The ocean is our earth's greatest natural resource. It gives us life. It is the place of origin for most life forms. Millions of people rely on the ocean for survival. Twelve million fishermen operate three million vessels landing about 90 million tons of fish each year, providing work for over 200 million people worldwide. More than 60% of the global population live within 60 km of the coast. The ocean provides the majority of our oxygen and even the rain itself. The ocean buffers the weather and helps regulate global temperature and manages vast amounts of pollutants. More than 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide are absorbed by the ocean every year. It is home to some of the most amazing creatures on earth—80 percent of the world's biodiversity lives in the sea and there is still much to be discovered. At least 100 million unnamed species live on the ocean floor alone. Thousands of pharmaceutical compounds have been isolated from marine animals and plants. The cures for HIV/AIDs, cancer, malaria, tuberculosis and leukemia, etc. could lie beneath the waves. The ocean is in our backyard, yet more is known about the moon. We are just now beginning to understand the ocean and with that understanding has come the increasing realization that the ocean is in deep trouble. Marine conservation efforts are overwhelmed by the number and scale of the problems the ocean faces.
Learn more about the ocean, its life, the problems it faces, and what you can do today to help protect and restore our ocean, for all of us.
"We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronizethem for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth." - Henry Beston, 1928
About Us
Since 1998, MarineBio has been a nonprofit volunteer marine conservation and science education group working together to educate the world about ocean life, marine biology, marine conservation, and a sea ethic.
Donations and memberships to the MarineBio Conservation Society, a registered U.S. 501(c)(3) charity, are fully tax-deductible. MarineBio's tax identification number is: 14-1955707.
For more information about supporting the MarineBio Conservation Society please contact us at +1 (713) 248-2576 or David@marinebio.org.
If you prefer to make a contribution to the MarineBio Conservation Society by mail, please send checks or money orders to:
MarineBio.org, Inc.
PO Box 235273
Encinitas, CA 92023 USA
Join the MarineBio Conservation Society »
Board of Directors
David Campbell, P.G. - Founder/Director
+1 (713) 248-2576 PST (San Diego) :: David@marinebio.org
David is a graduate of Texas A&M ('93) and a licensed Professional Consulting Environmental Geoscientist and Project Manager. David has also been a Creative Director and Program Manager for large commercial website development companies. David grew up reading and watching Jacques-Yves Cousteau and National Geographic's books/films while traveling to more than 21 countries before he was age 14. He has been studying animals and our planet as long as he can remember. He is a big fan of Animal Planet (Jeff Corwin, Steve Irwin [RIP], etc.) and the BBC's Blue Planet and Planet Earth series.
David handles many of the day-to-day operations of MarineBio, working as the Director and Program Manager working with the various editors, writers, developers, photographers and interns/volunteers involved with MarineBio. He also enjoys planning and leading expeditions and is the lead forum administrator at the Plankton Forums. David hopes to work toward an MS/PhD in Marine Conservation Biology as soon as possible.
"Every creature occupying this terrain has earned a place at the great table of life, and each species is unique, with its own story to tell." - Jeff Corwin, Living on the Edge
An avid scuba diver since 1981 and underwater photographer/videographer, he dives frequently and is certified with PADI as an Advanced Open Water diver with additional experience/training in Enriched Air (Nitrox), Wrecks, Night Diving, Rescue and Deep Diving. To date, with over 700 logged dives, he has dove off Australia, Bonaire, Fiji, Galapagos, Honduras, Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and of course, the USA (California, Florida, the Gulf of Mexico). See MarineBio Expeditions for more information.
Joni Lawrence - Vice President/Editor
+1 (770) 262-7653 EST (Atlanta) :: Joni@marinebio.org
As MarineBio's Editor, Joni welcomes your feedback on site content and comments and suggestions for the quarterly newsletter. Joni is a writer/editor who's had a lifelong passion for the sea and its creatures. She currently spends her days writing about international health, but her experience working at the Carter Center on environmental issues sparked her interest in conservation. After learning to dive and reading Sylvia Earle's "Sea Change: A Message of the Oceans" she developed a serious passion for marine conservation and began working with David at MarineBio to use the power of the Web to raise awareness about the beauty of marine life and the urgent needs to protect it.
Joni writes and edits the content for the MarineBio Network and is working with David to run MarineBio as a successful nonprofit organization and implement many of the projects.
Like David, when she's not working at MarineBio, Joni loves to scuba dive and take underwater photographs for MarineBio. Although she doesn't have as many dives under her weight belt as David, Joni is also certified with PADI as an Advanced Open Water diver with additional experience/training in Enriched Air (Nitrox), Wrecks and Night Diving. To date she has dived the reefs of southeast Florida, the Keys, Bonaire, Honduras and Indonesia.
"There is a window in time, and that is now, when we could forever lose a precious ocean heritage, or, we could develop the foundation for an enduring legacy, an ocean ethic... an inspired gift from the 20th century to all who follow us." - Sylvia Earle
Dr. Martin Griffiths – Board Member :: Cambridge, UK
mgriffiths@cambridge.org
Martin is currently a commissioning life sciences editor for the Cambridge University Press (the oldest printing and publishing house in the world, since 1584). His work involves commissioning new titles and managing their publication from initial research to project development and final publication. Martin travels frequently all over the globe to promote, sell and commission new works. He earned his PhD in neurochemistry from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne.
When not immersed in academic publishing, Martin enjoys SCUBA diving (PADI Rescue Diver), running, weight training and walking. He has a keen ear for music and likes to dabble in the kitchen. Martin also enjoys fishkeeping and gardening. In 2002 he traveled extensively through southeast Asia including visits to Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and Fiji. Naturally, he did a lot of diving on this trip and enjoyed the underwater realms in Thailand, the Great Barrier Reef, and in the seas around Fiji.
Board of Advisors
Scott Nunez, Ph.D. – Director of Elasmobranchs :: Port Aransas, Texas
nunez@utmsi.utexas.edu
Scott is a marine biologist and an Assistant Professor at the Department of Marine Science and a Research Scientist at the Marine Science Institute (a research unit of the University of Texas at Austin). He currently teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in marine and molecular biology.
His research interests involve elasmobranch (sharks, skates and rays) and teleost (bony or ray-finned fishes) molecular endocrinology: "Animals respond to unexpected changes in their environment by altering their physiology and behavior in a manner that increases the probability of their survival. Steroid hormones called glucocorticoids (GC) are an integral part of this response to stress. In addition to this important function, GC are critical to normal physiological homeostasis and impinge on almost every physiological system, including osmoregulation, reproduction, the immune response, and energy metabolism. Because of their far-ranging and powerful effects, GC must be carefully regulated. My research interests concern how GC are synthesized and metabolized, as well as how active GC elicit their effects within target cells. I use molecular techniques to examine how GC synthesis and action is regulated in elasmobranchs. By isolating the genes which encode steroidogenic enzymes, I can determine what factors are responsible for the expression of these genes. Similarly, the role of GC within a particular elasmobranch tissue can be determined by isolating the genes that are regulated by these hormones. These investigations will lead to a better understanding of the physiological roles of GC in elasmobranchs in particular and to the evolution of GC action in general. Such studies may have a role in conservation as well. Many elasmobranch species are quite robust and adapt well to captivity. Other species, including the nearly endangered great white shark, are quite fragile and typically do not survive the trauma of captivity. Comparative studies between stress-resistant and stress-sensitive species may reveal differences in GC physiology. Such differences could be used to develop capture techniques that minimize stress in sensitive species, and perhaps help rescue endangered elasmobranch species."
Erich Hoyt – Director of Marine Mammals :: North Berwick, Scotland
erich.hoyt@mac.com
Erich has worked for the conservation of whales and dolphins and marine protected areas (MPAs) in more than 40 countries over the past 30 years. Senior Research Fellow with WDCS, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, Erich also directs the Far East Russia Orca Project (FEROP), which is doing pioneer research with Killer whales in Kamchatka. In 2001, the project won the prestigious German KlühPrize for Innovation in Science.
Erich was recently appointed to the Cetacean Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. His current work focuses on identifying cetacean critical habitat and establishing MPAs in the Mediterranean and Black seas for the ACCOBAMS Scientific Committee.
Erich has written 15 books (11 for adults, 4 for kids) translated into 20 languages. He often presents lectures about marine ecotourism, MPAs and cetaceans, and has written scientific papers for journals, articles for National Geographic and the Sunday Times, and the odd film script. His books have won many awards; he has twice been named a James Thurber Writer-in-Residence, and was Vannevar Bush Fellow at MIT in 1985-86.
A Canadian-American, Erich has lived in North Berwick, outside Edinburgh, since 1990, with his wife and four children. For more information on Erich's work, visit www.erichhoyt.com.
Dr. James B. Wood – Director of Cephalopods :: Long Beach, California
James is a marine biologist and Director of Education at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California. James has made a career out of his passion for discovery and sharing marine science with the public through teaching, online outreach projects and magazine articles. He is the author of numerous scientific and popular publications and was the first person to observe mating, hatching and to rear any species of deep-sea octopus in the lab.
Other marine life/science websites that Dr. Wood has been involved with include: The Cephalopod Page, Census of Marine Life, and OBIS.
Some of James' collaborative work on communication in Caribbean Reef Squid could be seen on the HDTV Discovery Channel special “Tentacles.” His deep-sea octopuses are featured on the Discovery Channel special “The Amazing Octopus.”
James is an avid diver (PADI 1989, AAUS science diver 2003), sailor, and underwater photographer.
Why Marine Biology?
Marine Biology is the scientific study of animals, plants and other organisms that live in or near the ocean and other saltwater environments such as estuaries and wetlands. We study marine life to understand and preserve the world we live in.
Approximately 72% of the surface of our ocean planet is covered by salt water. The average ocean depth is 3.8 km with a volume equal to a mile square column of ocean water over 300 million miles high. That's equivalent to 1,376 times the distance to the Moon, 3.5 times the distance to the Sun, and 2.3 times the distance to Mars. And life exists throughout this immense volume. The ocean constitutes the single largest (>90%) repository of organisms on the planet consisting of members from virtually all phyla—a tremendous diversity of life—life that is critical to the well-being of humankind.
Why MarineBio?
The ocean gives us life. It gives us oxygen, rain, food, excitement, wonder and mystery. The ocean can be simultaneously peaceful, beautiful, calm or incredibly powerful and violent. The ocean buffers our weather and helps regulate global temperature. It manages vast amounts of our pollutants. The biodiversity of the ocean supports all life on our planet. Humans and the ocean are inextricably linked. Yet the ocean is just beginning to be understood. As our understanding of this vast and powerful force of nature increases we realize that in spite of its seeming invulnerability—the ocean and marine life are in real trouble. Marine conservation efforts are vastly outnumbered by the problems facing the ocean. Government policies worldwide to protect our marine resources are severely lacking.
Our lack of knowledge about the ocean leads to apathy. So MarineBio is here to show you the wonders of the ocean and to also show you the problems so that you have a better understanding of what's at stake and what needs to be done. If you're inspired by what you see here, then please take action today and become a member.
We are creating an educational and research home page for every marine species (e.g., sharks & rays, fishes, squid & octopuses, reptiles, marine birds, seals & sea lions+, whales & dolphins, etc.), starting initially with the about 3,000 or so most common and endangered species. MarineBio also supports the study and protection of marine life. We hope to see humankind embrace the concept of a Sea Ethic to increase the sense of urgency and commitment to protecting the oceans. Together we really CAN make a difference.
"What we must do is encourage a sea change in attitude, one that acknowledges we are a part of the living world, not apart from it." - Dr. Sylvia Earle, Marine Biologist
Our Philosophy
MarineBio believes there are solutions to every problem and that most problems can be solved by understanding, cooperation, and compromise. We believe that smart management and moderation are the keys to long-term success for any industry—be it fishing, waste management, or the aquarium trade. We strive to be non-political and unbiased and to let science dictate both the problems and the solutions. If MarineBio is biased in any way it is a pro-environment/species bias, and we plan to keep it that way as we work to uncover the truths and myths surrounding the protection of marine life on this planet.
MarineBio.org, Inc.
Main office: PO Box 235273, Encinitas, CA 92023 USA
About This Site
This site is built to work for the greatest number of visitors and utilizes as few as necessary of the modern browser technologies (Javascript, etc.) and should not cause errors or problems in older browsers.
Every page is built and thoroughly tested on Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 using the latest following standard-install browsers: Firefox 2, 3+, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, and Opera at standard screens resolutions starting at 1024x768 pixels with 16-bit colors (highly recommend setting your monitor to its highest possible screen resolution and at 32-bit colors, email me if you need help with your settings). If you are using another browser or operating system not mentioned above and are experiencing problems with this site please contact us. Also, though most production is conducted via Intranet, DSL and Cable connections, the pages are also tested for acceptable download speeds on 56k modems before launch. All 80,000+ links are checked and fixed at least once a month.
