When I was 15 years old, a catastrophic blowout on an offshore drilling platform off Santa Barbara, Calif., spewed thick, oily sludge along the California coastline, killing thousands of seabirds and other wildlife. It was the first time in my life that I realized how vulnerable the natural world could be if we didn’t change our ways.
That 1969 disaster also served as a wake-up call to the nation about the fragility of our environment and sparked the biggest environmental movement our country has ever seen. It resulted in the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of laws that remain the foundation of our climate-protection system.
In the face of crisis, we acted. Now, as world leaders come together next week in Glasgow for what is expected to be the most significant climate conference since the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, we must act again — on behalf of the ocean. The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, is an opportunity both to recognize the role the ocean must play in mitigating climate change and to direct significant philanthropic funding to this endeavor.
Conservation and science were primary areas of focus for my parents when they founded the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in 1964. Over time, our family’s growing interest in the ocean led to the creation of the Monterey Bay Aquarium with a mission to inspire people to learn and care about the ocean. My father’s recognition that scientists lacked the technology to explore Earth’s greatest unknown frontier — the deep sea — led to the establishment of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Driving my parents’ philanthropic support was a realization that protecting nature meant prioritizing the largest part of nature: the ocean.
The ocean supports all life on our planet and represents 99 percent of the space where life can exist. It generates a large amount of the oxygen we breath, while providing food, supporting jobs, and driving global commerce. It offers relaxation, inspiration, and fun. And, importantly, it is a buffer against the worst effects of climate change. That fact was underscored in a report released in August by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which called for urgent action to safeguard ocean health as part of efforts to reduce climate disasters.
Ocean-based climate-mitigation measures have the potential to deliver up to one-fifth of the total annual greenhouse-gas-emission cuts required to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050. Those measures include expanding ocean-based renewable energy sources, decarbonizing the shipping industry, restoring and protecting coastal ecosystems like seagrasses and mangroves, which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and shifting human diets toward low-carbon protein sources from the ocean.
Why Help From Grant Makers Matters
Even if global policy makers commit to moving in the right direction, meeting this goal will take action from all of us and must include major philanthropic investments in ocean conservation.
A recent report from Our Shared Seas found philanthropic funding for marine conservation doubled over the past decade, from $520 million in 2010 to $1.2 billion in 2020. That’s encouraging news. But even with that growth, support for projects focused on the oceans represents a tiny fraction of all donations. In 2019, just 3 percent of all charitable giving in the United States went to environmental and animal causes, the report found, and only a minuscule amount targeted marine conservation.
We must do better. In addition to warding off climate change, a healthy ocean is directly connected to the food security and the livelihoods of billions of people, especially those facing the worst effects of climate-related disasters.
While the scale of the challenge is daunting, the activities of a growing number of philanthropists over the past decade offer a model for the types of concrete actions other donors can take. This includes investing in the creation of marine protected areas, ocean science, and sustainable fishing practices.
Venture-Funding Approach
Many philanthropic and business leaders are recognizing the power that technology, science, and business thinking can have in developing sustainable ocean-management solutions. For example, Eric and Wendy Schmidt’s Schmidt Marine Technology Partners uses a venture-philanthropy model to fund early-stage development of ocean technologies to solve problems such as unsustainable fishing practices that reduce the fish population and acidic ocean waters that harm shellfish, sea coral, and other ocean life.
To support ocean-based climate solutions, Oceankind, which was funded by an anonymous wealthy Silicon Valley family, invests in innovative technologies that reduce greenhouse gases associated with the shipping and energy industries and in community-led work focused on strengthening the resilience of the ocean ecosystem.
More donors should pick up the mantle and join in. Decarbonizing the shipping industry, expanding offshore wind energy, limiting further offshore oil and gas extraction, and other ocean-climate innovations offer tremendous opportunities for philanthropists but are all significantly underfunded. Improvements in each of these areas will profoundly affect our nation’s ability to transition to a clean-energy economy — a vital component for curtailing the most destructive elements of climate change.
Funding is also urgently needed to help people and organizations working in underserved communities across the globe that rely on the oceans, most notably in Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Arctic. This will require long-term, equitable investment in groups that are working directly to solve problems, including subsistence-fishing collaboratives, environmental-justice organizations, and Indigenous groups. The Packard Foundation, for example, is supporting efforts by the Northern Chumash Tribal Council to create a Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary to protect marine and cultural resources along California’s Central Coast. Efforts like these honor the power and rights of Indigenous peoples and coastal communities.
More than four decades ago, my parents had a vision not only to make the ocean more accessible to people, but also to understand and protect it for the benefit of all humanity. It’s time for a new generation of philanthropists to build on that vision and rapidly ramp up their commitments — and funding — for marine conservation.
The ocean has changed profoundly during my lifetime. Our vast life-support system is being altered in ways that put us all in peril. The good news is that the ocean is resilient and can recover — if we act now. Those of us in a position to do so need to do everything in our power to head off calamity. Waiting is not an option.
