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Saving the Ocean

River of Kings, Part 2 (#107)

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In the second part of this two-part special, Carl Safina meets the tribal leaders who inspired the grand vision of restoration. [26 minutes] TV-G Closed Captioning

Series Description: Two thirds of the globe is ocean. And while most people are just starting to hear about problems with overfishing, pollution, coral reef troubles and other issues, a far-flung group of unsung heroes --marine biologists, fisheries scientists, and conservationists worldwide -- are already hard at work inventing, devising and implementing solutions. By focusing on those solutions, the series helps viewers understand both what the problems are and the vision forward.

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  • Shark Reef (#101)

    In the first episode, host Carl Safina travels to Glover's Reef Marine Reserve, a coral atoll in the central American country of Belize. Accompanied by a team of U.S. researchers, who've been studying the reserve for eight years, Carl catches, tags and releases a wide variety of sharks. He scuba dives to check out the shark-counting instruments that the researchers have placed around the atoll, and he also visits the shark fin trader in Belize City's fish market. The fin trade now threatens sharks worldwide, but the sharks in Glover's Reef Reserve are safe and thriving. [26 minutes]

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  • The Sacred Island (#102)

    In the second episode, host Carl Safina travels to the island of Pemba, part of the Zanzibar chain off the East African coast, to discover a remarkable story of local villages winning control over their vital fishing grounds. Once threatened by resort development, Pemba's pristine reefs and lagoons are now managed by, and for, the fishermen. Carl fishes with the locals in traditional dhows and dugout canoes, and meets the influential Imams whose sermons explained how the Koran requires good stewardship of the world and its resources. Pemba's fishing families are all Muslim, and Carl believes Islam could be a key to ocean conservation in the large parts of the world where fishing people are Muslim. [26 minutes]

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  • Destination Baja (#103)

    A remarkable success story of how local fishing people developed a whale-watching co-op that now caters to tourists from all over the world. The co-op runs not only the tourist accommodations, but also polices the lagoon, regulates access to the whales, and preserves most of the area as a quiet sanctuary for the whales and their calves. And it's not just whales -- there are now several other highly successful, self-regulated fishing co-ops along Baja's Pacific coast. [26 minutes]

  • Swordfish!, Part 1 (#104)

    This two-part special tells the story about sustainable harpoon fishing of swordfish focusing on a group of fishermen in Nova Scotia. [26 minutes]

  • Swordfish!, Part 2 (#105)

    Story about sustainable harpoon fishing of swordfish focusing on a group of fishermen in Nova Scotia. [26 minutes]

  • River of Kings, Part 1 (#106)

    For millennia, the Nisqually Indians relied on Chinook salmon caught in the Nisqually River. Now the river's wild Chinook are extinct, and the tribe runs a hatchery to keep their fishery going. But an unusual coalition of tribal leaders, private partners and government agencies is working to restore the river from top to bottom, from its source in the glaciers of Mount Rainier to the estuary that empties into Puget Sound. Led by the Nisqually tribe, the restoration aims to fill the river once again with abundant, magnificent wild salmon. In the restoration, urban rain gardens filter runoff and augment river flow, new logjams deepen and cool its waters and farms returned to marshland provide new places for young salmon to shelter and grow. [26 minutes]

  • River of Kings, Part 2 (#107)

    In the second part of this two-part special, Carl Safina meets the tribal leaders who inspired the grand vision of restoration. [26 minutes]

  • Trinidad's Turtle Giants (#108)

    After local leaders launched a crusade to end the slaughter of Trinidad's thousand-pound leatherback turtles, the turtles were transformed from shark bait to tourist attraction. Now Trinidad's beaches support 80 percent of the entire Caribbean's leatherbacks and nearby villages make a great living catering to the visitors. [26 minutes]

  • Cod Comeback? (#109)

    In the rich fishing grounds of New England and Canada, it seemed as if cod would never run out - until they did. Fishing communities from Newfoundland to Massachusetts fell apart. Widespread closures in the 1990s aimed to let the cod recover, but it's been a long wait. Carl Safina goes fishing to find some of the first signs that the famous codfish just might, indeed, be coming back. [26 minutes]

  • Scourge of the Lionfish (#110)

    Lionfish are beautiful, colorful reef fish found throughout the Indian and Pacific oceans - that's the good news. The bad news is they're now found all over the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic coasts of North and South America as well. Alien to those waters, lionfish are the perfect invasive species - aggressive, without predators, prolific breeders and tolerant of a wide range of conditions. Numbering in the millions, they are damaging to native fish species. Diving in the Bahamas to help clear lionfish from reefs, sitting down to a lionfish dinner in the Yucatan and joining a lionfish-only fishing derby in Florida, Carl Safina learns how people are fighting back. [26 minutes]

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