of all my childhood memories there is
one that stands above the rest and that
is the time that my brave parents rented
an RV packed it with me and my brothers
and drove West from our house in
Minneapolis out to Yellowstone National
Park we saw all the sights like the
geysers we stopped at the Badlands but
more than any of the places I remember
this as an adventure this was my
introduction to the Wild West but it
wasn’t until I got older and I learned
more about the National Park System that
I realized just how lucky I was one to
have that experience but also that
hundreds of years ago people had the
foresight to set aside the very best
places the very best ecosystems in the
country for everyone and for future
generations and to really appreciate
just how prescient that idea was you
have to go back and you have to look at
the history of the National Park Service
so a lot of people know the first
national park was Yellowstone in 1872 a
lot of people think of John Muir the
poet naturalist who was such a visionary
and getting people inspired by the idea
of conservation that we need to take the
best places and protect them he had an
audience in very high places so there’s
a great story of Teddy Roosevelt and
John Muir going hiking in Yosemite
during his presidency four days
completely off the grid jazz the two of
them can you imagine a president
actually just going completely off the
grid for four days
no tweeting like that idea but he had a
great impact on Theodore Roosevelt and
he created dozens of national parks
hundreds of thousands of square acres of
national wildlife refuges it was an
important administration but it wasn’t a
done deal
even in the year the you know less than
ten years after he created all of those
new places the future of those places
was very much in doubt and it wasn’t
until this guy Stephen Mather a
businessman from Chicago wrote an angry
letter to the Department of the Interior
saying you guys aren’t doing a good
enough job protecting and preserving
these places that something was done
about it
the Department of the Interior wrote him
back mr. Mather if you care so much
about this why don’t you come to
Washington and do it yourself
and he did he took a job at the
Department of the Interior but more
importantly he started a campaign he
actually had a meeting two blocks from
here in 1914 in California Hall and he
brought together the park
superintendents and a few other people
who cared about this idea of
conservation and they put together a
plan they hatched a campaign that
eventually led to the National Park
Service in 1916 and that’s really
important because it went from an idea
that we should protect these places to
an actual plan a way for people to
enlist and carry that idea forward for
future generations so little kids like
me can go and have these amazing
experiences that is the history of the
national parks on land the ocean what I
want to talk to you about today is a
completely different story and we are
almost precisely a hundred years behind
so the first Marine Sanctuary was in
1972 after the California oil spill in
Santa Barbara people got interested in
taking that concept in applying it to
underwater environments we’ve had
our own John Muir who’s dr. Sylvia Earle
who’s been a tireless advocate for
creating these marine protected areas
around the world so I know there’s a lot
of bad news about the ocean there’s
plastic pollution coral bleaching
overfishing it’s hard to take it all in
sometimes but this idea of setting aside
places for nature is working science
tells us that if you set these places
aside nature will come back and we can
keep the oceans healthy so we know this
idea works and dr. Sylvia Earle has been
influential like John Muir with
administrations George W Bush and Obama
were both fantastic ocean presidents
creating marine protected areas all
around the country this is not a
conservative idea or a liberal idea it’s
not even an American idea it’s just a
good idea but but here we are a few
years later and now the administration
is proposing to roll back a lot of the
progress we’ve made in the past 20 years
so so don’t warn organize we need to do
what Stephen Mather did a hundred years
ago we need to start a campaign to get
people engaged with this idea and I
think we need a League of citizen
scientists for the ocean and I’ve seen
glimpses of this future and I know that
it’s possible my friend Eric and I
started building underwater robots these
little swimming cameras with lights that
you can see underwater we started
building these in his garage five years
ago and we’ve watched that grow into
this community of thousands of people
around the world who believe that
everybody should have access to these
places we all deserve the tools to go
and explore our stories like Laura James
who used her robot to find out that sea
stars in her area were dying and she
started this whole citizen science
campaign collected data and drove
awareness for sea star wasting symptoms
to try and figure out what was happening
there there’s stories of fishermen in
Mexico who used the robot to create
marine protected areas where NASA
grouper were spawning too
the future of this species it’s really
amazing stuff we found that if you give
people the tools they’ll do the right
thing but we need to take it a step
further and actually I think we can dust
off Stephen Mathers playbook so what did
he do so the first thing that he did was
he focused on infrastructure so 1914
wasn’t just a time for the parks it was
also a time for the automobile the Model
T was rolling off the line and Stephen
Mather understood that this was going to
be an important part of American culture
and so we partnered with Highway
associations around the country to build
big beautiful highways out to these
parks and it worked these basically
invented car camping and people he knew
that if people didn’t go to these places
that they wouldn’t fall in love with him
and they wouldn’t care so that was a
really insightful idea that he had a
second thing they did was they focused
on visionary philanthropy so Stephen
Mather was a successful businessman from
Chicago and any time there was a parks
association that needed funding anytime
there was a highway association any
funding they’d step in write the checks
make it happen
there’s a great story of his friend
William Kent who recognized that there
was a small patch of redwoods left on
the base of Mount Tam and so he quickly
bought up the land and donated it to
this national parks effort that’s muir
woods today it’s one of most popular
national parks in the whole country my
parents are visiting here from Minnesota
and they don’t really even care about
this talk they just all they’re talking
about is going to muir woods but the
last thing is critical is Stephen Mather
focused on engagement in one of the
first meetings that they had around this
new system he said if you’re a writer I
want you to write about this if you’re a
business owner I want you to tell your
clubs and your organizations if you work
for the government I want you to pass
regulation everybody had a job each of
you all of you have a role to play in
protecting these places for future
generations each of you all of you I
love that that’s the plan simple
three-point plan
I think we can do the same so this was
the headline when Obama created a pop up
the papahanaumokuakea National Monument
lots to see but good luck trying to get
there but like Mather we should focus on
the technology of our time all of this
new amazing digital infrastructure can
be built to engage people with the
oceans so there’s the National Marine
Sanctuary has created all these
wonderful VR 360 videos where you can
actually go and see what these places
look like our team is continuing to
build new tools this is our latest this
is the Trident underwater drone it’s a
diving submarine it’s sleek you can fit
it in a backpack you can go down to a
hundred meters deeper than most divers
can go and they can see these
environments that most people have never
had access to new tools are coming and
we need even better tools we can also
use more visionary philanthropists so
when Eric and I started this we didn’t
have any money we were building this in
his garage but we went to Kickstarter
and we found over 1,800 people almost a
million dollars we’ve raised on
Kickstarter finding other people who
think yeah
that’s a good idea I want to be a part
of that we need more i more ways of
people to get engaged and become
visionary philanthropists themselves
we’ve also had traditional
philanthropists who have stepped up to
fund us in the sea initiative the
science education and exploration we’re
gonna help us get donated units out to
people on the front lines people who are
doing the science people who are telling
the stories inspiring communities you
can go on to open explore calm and see
what people are doing it’s hugely
inspirational and it’ll also hopefully
spur you to get involved because there
is plenty of room to get involved we
want to hear what you what ideas you
have for telling these stories because
that’s just it this is all about
engagement there’s all sorts of
interesting new ways for people to
participate in the protection of these
places and the understanding like reef
check scuba divers are going down in
swimming transects and counting fish
biodiversity data they’re getting the
information we need to protect these
places if you’re going down to the beach
participate in MPA watch document what
activities you see going on in these
different areas there is room for
everybody to participate here and that’s
just it that’s what we need we need to
build a future for our grandkids
grandkids I last month I went out
sailing in we got out to the Farallon
Islands 25 miles off the gate and most
people think of this as a kind of a bird
sanctuary but we took our robot and we
sent it in
and the people on the boat were
astonished at the life beneath the
surface I mean these are really really
important ecosystems really it this is a
whole wild world we haven’t yet explored
and we have an opportunity right now
just as they did a hundred years ago to
protect these places to put in a plan
that keep people engaged so last year
when the executive order came out
putting all of the progress we’ve made
all of these new marine protected areas
under review there were over a hundred
thousand people who commented online
almost all of these letters were saying
don’t do it this protecting these places
is the right thing to do my message to
those hundred thousand people those
hundred thousand letters is don’t wait
for Washington we can do this ourselves
thank you
[Applause]
one that stands above the rest and that
is the time that my brave parents rented
an RV packed it with me and my brothers
and drove West from our house in
Minneapolis out to Yellowstone National
Park we saw all the sights like the
geysers we stopped at the Badlands but
more than any of the places I remember
this as an adventure this was my
introduction to the Wild West but it
wasn’t until I got older and I learned
more about the National Park System that
I realized just how lucky I was one to
have that experience but also that
hundreds of years ago people had the
foresight to set aside the very best
places the very best ecosystems in the
country for everyone and for future
generations and to really appreciate
just how prescient that idea was you
have to go back and you have to look at
the history of the National Park Service
so a lot of people know the first
national park was Yellowstone in 1872 a
lot of people think of John Muir the
poet naturalist who was such a visionary
and getting people inspired by the idea
of conservation that we need to take the
best places and protect them he had an
audience in very high places so there’s
a great story of Teddy Roosevelt and
John Muir going hiking in Yosemite
during his presidency four days
completely off the grid jazz the two of
them can you imagine a president
actually just going completely off the
grid for four days
no tweeting like that idea but he had a
great impact on Theodore Roosevelt and
he created dozens of national parks
hundreds of thousands of square acres of
national wildlife refuges it was an
important administration but it wasn’t a
done deal
even in the year the you know less than
ten years after he created all of those
new places the future of those places
was very much in doubt and it wasn’t
until this guy Stephen Mather a
businessman from Chicago wrote an angry
letter to the Department of the Interior
saying you guys aren’t doing a good
enough job protecting and preserving
these places that something was done
about it
the Department of the Interior wrote him
back mr. Mather if you care so much
about this why don’t you come to
Washington and do it yourself
and he did he took a job at the
Department of the Interior but more
importantly he started a campaign he
actually had a meeting two blocks from
here in 1914 in California Hall and he
brought together the park
superintendents and a few other people
who cared about this idea of
conservation and they put together a
plan they hatched a campaign that
eventually led to the National Park
Service in 1916 and that’s really
important because it went from an idea
that we should protect these places to
an actual plan a way for people to
enlist and carry that idea forward for
future generations so little kids like
me can go and have these amazing
experiences that is the history of the
national parks on land the ocean what I
want to talk to you about today is a
completely different story and we are
almost precisely a hundred years behind
so the first Marine Sanctuary was in
1972 after the California oil spill in
Santa Barbara people got interested in
taking that concept in applying it to
underwater environments we’ve had
our own John Muir who’s dr. Sylvia Earle
who’s been a tireless advocate for
creating these marine protected areas
around the world so I know there’s a lot
of bad news about the ocean there’s
plastic pollution coral bleaching
overfishing it’s hard to take it all in
sometimes but this idea of setting aside
places for nature is working science
tells us that if you set these places
aside nature will come back and we can
keep the oceans healthy so we know this
idea works and dr. Sylvia Earle has been
influential like John Muir with
administrations George W Bush and Obama
were both fantastic ocean presidents
creating marine protected areas all
around the country this is not a
conservative idea or a liberal idea it’s
not even an American idea it’s just a
good idea but but here we are a few
years later and now the administration
is proposing to roll back a lot of the
progress we’ve made in the past 20 years
so so don’t warn organize we need to do
what Stephen Mather did a hundred years
ago we need to start a campaign to get
people engaged with this idea and I
think we need a League of citizen
scientists for the ocean and I’ve seen
glimpses of this future and I know that
it’s possible my friend Eric and I
started building underwater robots these
little swimming cameras with lights that
you can see underwater we started
building these in his garage five years
ago and we’ve watched that grow into
this community of thousands of people
around the world who believe that
everybody should have access to these
places we all deserve the tools to go
and explore our stories like Laura James
who used her robot to find out that sea
stars in her area were dying and she
started this whole citizen science
campaign collected data and drove
awareness for sea star wasting symptoms
to try and figure out what was happening
there there’s stories of fishermen in
Mexico who used the robot to create
marine protected areas where NASA
grouper were spawning too
the future of this species it’s really
amazing stuff we found that if you give
people the tools they’ll do the right
thing but we need to take it a step
further and actually I think we can dust
off Stephen Mathers playbook so what did
he do so the first thing that he did was
he focused on infrastructure so 1914
wasn’t just a time for the parks it was
also a time for the automobile the Model
T was rolling off the line and Stephen
Mather understood that this was going to
be an important part of American culture
and so we partnered with Highway
associations around the country to build
big beautiful highways out to these
parks and it worked these basically
invented car camping and people he knew
that if people didn’t go to these places
that they wouldn’t fall in love with him
and they wouldn’t care so that was a
really insightful idea that he had a
second thing they did was they focused
on visionary philanthropy so Stephen
Mather was a successful businessman from
Chicago and any time there was a parks
association that needed funding anytime
there was a highway association any
funding they’d step in write the checks
make it happen
there’s a great story of his friend
William Kent who recognized that there
was a small patch of redwoods left on
the base of Mount Tam and so he quickly
bought up the land and donated it to
this national parks effort that’s muir
woods today it’s one of most popular
national parks in the whole country my
parents are visiting here from Minnesota
and they don’t really even care about
this talk they just all they’re talking
about is going to muir woods but the
last thing is critical is Stephen Mather
focused on engagement in one of the
first meetings that they had around this
new system he said if you’re a writer I
want you to write about this if you’re a
business owner I want you to tell your
clubs and your organizations if you work
for the government I want you to pass
regulation everybody had a job each of
you all of you have a role to play in
protecting these places for future
generations each of you all of you I
love that that’s the plan simple
three-point plan
I think we can do the same so this was
the headline when Obama created a pop up
the papahanaumokuakea National Monument
lots to see but good luck trying to get
there but like Mather we should focus on
the technology of our time all of this
new amazing digital infrastructure can
be built to engage people with the
oceans so there’s the National Marine
Sanctuary has created all these
wonderful VR 360 videos where you can
actually go and see what these places
look like our team is continuing to
build new tools this is our latest this
is the Trident underwater drone it’s a
diving submarine it’s sleek you can fit
it in a backpack you can go down to a
hundred meters deeper than most divers
can go and they can see these
environments that most people have never
had access to new tools are coming and
we need even better tools we can also
use more visionary philanthropists so
when Eric and I started this we didn’t
have any money we were building this in
his garage but we went to Kickstarter
and we found over 1,800 people almost a
million dollars we’ve raised on
Kickstarter finding other people who
think yeah
that’s a good idea I want to be a part
of that we need more i more ways of
people to get engaged and become
visionary philanthropists themselves
we’ve also had traditional
philanthropists who have stepped up to
fund us in the sea initiative the
science education and exploration we’re
gonna help us get donated units out to
people on the front lines people who are
doing the science people who are telling
the stories inspiring communities you
can go on to open explore calm and see
what people are doing it’s hugely
inspirational and it’ll also hopefully
spur you to get involved because there
is plenty of room to get involved we
want to hear what you what ideas you
have for telling these stories because
that’s just it this is all about
engagement there’s all sorts of
interesting new ways for people to
participate in the protection of these
places and the understanding like reef
check scuba divers are going down in
swimming transects and counting fish
biodiversity data they’re getting the
information we need to protect these
places if you’re going down to the beach
participate in MPA watch document what
activities you see going on in these
different areas there is room for
everybody to participate here and that’s
just it that’s what we need we need to
build a future for our grandkids
grandkids I last month I went out
sailing in we got out to the Farallon
Islands 25 miles off the gate and most
people think of this as a kind of a bird
sanctuary but we took our robot and we
sent it in
and the people on the boat were
astonished at the life beneath the
surface I mean these are really really
important ecosystems really it this is a
whole wild world we haven’t yet explored
and we have an opportunity right now
just as they did a hundred years ago to
protect these places to put in a plan
that keep people engaged so last year
when the executive order came out
putting all of the progress we’ve made
all of these new marine protected areas
under review there were over a hundred
thousand people who commented online
almost all of these letters were saying
don’t do it this protecting these places
is the right thing to do my message to
those hundred thousand people those
hundred thousand letters is don’t wait
for Washington we can do this ourselves
thank you
[Applause]
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