By paddling from Miami to Maine, mother hopes to teach kids to safeguard oceans

This Mother’s Day, as families all over America drive somewhere for a special meal, most parents will carefully secure their kids with seatbelts. Meanwhile, I’ll be seated in a 20-foot outrigger canoe in the Atlantic Ocean, demonstrating to my young daughter and son that even though I’m far away from home this year I’m still working to safeguard their future.

These days, it seems like my husband and I worry about a never-ending list of threats that could one day affect our children’s lives. For some dangers, we can buckle up; for others, we must depend on good leadership. Unfortunately, U.S. policy-makers still don’t seem to take seriously a number of important environmental problems, despite the troublesome projected impacts on our health, quality of life and the ability to earn a good living.

That’s why I’ll be hundreds of miles away from greeting cards and flowers, paddling from Miami to Camden, Maine, to raise awareness about the problems facing our ocean and ensure that our seas remain vibrant and healthy for generations to come.

An irreplaceable natural resource, the ocean covers more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface and contains an estimated 80 percent of all life on the planet.

For generations, Americans have depended on this natural wonder as a vital source of nourishment, commerce, recreation and just simple inspiration. You would be hard-pressed to find parents who can’t recount, in detail, the first time they took their children to swim in the ocean.

But while we once thought that the ocean’s bounty and its ability to withstand any pollutant or discharged waste were near limitless, recent research paints a different picture.

Our ocean is in serious trouble. Global warming threatens not only to dangerously raise ocean temperatures but unrestrained carbon pollution is altering the very chemistry of seawater.

Indeed, due in part to global warming induced bleaching, more than 90 percent of elkhorn and staghorn coral – once the main coral species in the Caribbean – have disappeared from the coast of Florida since 1975.

Pollution hits the ocean pretty hard, too. Around the globe, 150 low-oxygen “dead zones” have been identified. Plastic debris in some waters outnumbers zooplankton. And increased coastal development deprives the ocean of the ground it needs to filter out land-based contaminates. In 2005 alone, due largely to water quality concerns, the number of closings and swim advisories issued for beaches across America totaled more than 20,000 beach-days.

And if those weren’t enough challenges, unsustainable fishing practices also threaten our ocean. Overfishing, bottom trawling, careless use of drift nets and open-net aquaculture all threaten to undermine the ocean’s interrelated ecosystem. The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that 52 percent of marine fish stocks are at, or near, maximum sustainable output levels. A study released last fall reported that unsustainable fishing and habitat destruction, if unchecked, could collapse the world’s fish stocks by 2048.

We are driving our marine environment to ruin. I fear that my children won’t know an ocean that’s robust and full of life, which provides them with healthy food, a clean place to play, and somewhere to relax in the summer or find solace in the winter. I worry they will only know toxic algae blooms, bleached coral and dead fish.

Responsible stewardship of our ocean and marine resources requires striking a delicate balance between our immediate needs and the long-term consequences of actions made here and now. That’s why it’s critical that we start thinking about the ocean as a resource that needs protection, before it’s too late.

Some may say I would serve my family better by being at home this Mother’s Day. But to me, being a mom is more than just worrying about the problems in my local community. Decisions made today in Washington about our environment, will have a tremendous impact on my children’s futures.

Margo Pellegrino lives in Medford Lakes, N.J. Follow her journey via www.Miami2Maine.com.