Video transcript
The video is 8 minutes and 19 seconds long.
Produced by the American Museum of Natural History, September 2005.
Visual: Underwater images of fish and coral.
Speaker: Kate Holmes, Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, American Museum of Natural History
Almost three-quarters of the world is made up of the ocean. Considering that, it's surprising how little we know about it, and the more we learn the more we realize the ocean is just not capable of supporting the degree to which we're using it.
Visual: Images of fishing boat pulling in large catch, followed by images of industrial pollution.
We're over fishing, and we're polluting the oceans, and we're only now beginning to get a sense of the impact that we're having.
Visual: Title graphic “Our Oceans, Ourselves”
Visual: Scientists preparing diving and scientific equipment on a dock.
Speaker: Dan Brumbaugh, Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, American Museum of Natural History
The Bahamas Biocomplexity Project is a five-year project, through the National Science Foundation, to study the design and function of a system of marine protected areas in the Bahamas.
Marine protected areas are just one tool of many to protect the ocean, but there's certain things that they do better than other forms of management.
Visual: Four scientists in wet suits on board speedboat in open ocean.
One is that they set aside a whole area intact, and if we're really interested in large-scale restoration of marine areas that have been degraded over the decades, over the centuries, we probably need marine protected areas sprinkled throughout the global oceans, that basically will produce the seeds for re-supplying surrounding areas.
Visual: Exterior of laboratory with a sign reading “Perry Institute for Marine Science, Lee Stocking Island, Bahamas”, followed by interior of laboratory, showing scientists looking at satellite maps on a laptop computer.
One way that we're hoping to make some inferences about what a future network of marine protected areas will do throughout the country is by looking at the performance of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, the longest-standing park in the Bahamas.
And so we want to study conditions within the park and compare them to conditions outside of the park to see what effect that park has had since it's been established, almost 20 years ago now.
Visual: Dan Brumbaugh in the laboratory, examining a map, speaking to other scientists.
Speaker: Dan Brumbaugh
Next dive Lee Stocking Island central, dive number 10.
Visual: Kate Holmes speaking to camera on the dock.
Speaker: Kate Holmes
We just finished day 4 of our surveying, and we're actually here for another, about 18 days of surveying. We're going to be surveying down here a little bit more, and then we're going to go up into the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park.
Visual: Four scientists in scuba gear, including Kate Holmes, enter the water, followed by images of scientists swimming along ocean floor with measuring instruments and notebooks.
Speaker: Kate Homes
At the moment we're using two main methods to survey these areas. One of them is doing fish transects, and fish transects involve three divers in the water with lines, and then swimming along those lines and counting fish along those transects.
Visual: The scientists, still in the water, place white square gridded frames, about 3 feet by 3 feet, on the ocean floor and hold video cameras aimed at the grids.
The second part of our survey involves using square quadrats, which we put down and videotape. We videotape the whole square, and then we go through, square by square within that larger quadrat, filming the various organisms that are attached to the ocean floor.
We're surveying a diversity of marine habitat as part of this work, and that's because all of these habitats are important in the marine ecosystem as a whole. Of course we're surveying coral reefs. They support a number of fish species that are harvested by people in the Bahamas as well as throughout the Caribbean.
Visual: Scientists drag boat onshore
Speaker: Kate Holmes
We're also surveying some other habitats, such as sea-grass beds and mangroves.
Visual: Dan Brumbaugh in wet suit, talking to the camera.
Speaker: Dan Brumbaugh
We're going to be walking into this mangrove area. It's an old salt pond area actually, fringed with mangroves, and we're going to be doing some of the same sampling that we did in other locations.
Visual: Scientists in snorkeling gear survey mangrove habitat near the shore.
Speaker: Dan Brumbaugh
Mangroves are a really important part of a lot of tropical coastal ecosystems. A lot of organisms have nursery grounds in mangroves, so you'll see a lot of little things swimming in between the prop roots. A lot of big things also live in mangrove roots. It's an important part of the fishery in many areas.
Visual: Montage of cooks preparing food and customers eating at a restaurant in the Bahamas called “Big D's Conch Spot”
Speaker: Kate Holmes
In the Bahamas, fishing is extremely important in the local economies, and so that means it's both a challenge in order to create marine reserves, because you have to consider the economics and the needs of people that use these marine resources.
But it also means that you really have to think hard about the importance of
marine protected areas in terms of protecting these resources for Bahamians and their future generations.
Visual: Two Bahaman women researchers are interviewing a Bahaman fisherman while seated around a table, outdoors in a wide open lawn.
Speaker: First woman
O.K., well, the other area of interest would be the reefs. Do you fish around the reefs?
Speaker: Fisherman
Yes, I do fish around the reef a lot.
Speaker: First woman
And what would be the traditional catch from a reef?
Speaker: Fisherman
Well, snapper is the main thing that we really go for to sell to the fish fry restaurants, restaurants like this right here, you know what I mean? So that's something that put a few dollars in our pocket.
Visual: Jessica Minnis, School of Social Sciences, College of the Bahamas, seated in a classroom, speaking to the camera. Jessica is now identified as the second woman in the previous scene.
Speaker: Jessica Minnis
The social research that we're doing on Exuma is very important to the project because when you're telling people that you can't move into an area, you can't fish in an area, basically you're impacting their livelihood. They have to know why, and in order for the marine protected areas to be successful, you have to involve the people because they're the ones who make the MPA become a success.
Visual: Returning to the outdoor scene, where two researchers, one of them Jessica Minnis, interview a fisherman. As they speak, they point to a map of the marine area that is on the table.
Speaker: Jessica Minnis
O.K., so you know, they're starting to put a marine protected area in within the cays. Now how is that going, is that going to affect your fishing at all, or are you going to still be able to fish within the marine protected areas?
Speaker: Fisherman
Well, like they say, once you protect it you can't go around there, you can't fish in that place. So what would happen is, these same cays that they block out here, they're so productive. If they have to do it for a certain amount of years, I have no problem with it, you understand what I'm saying, I always could leave it and be happy for it for me too, you know?
And the younger generation. But if they just close it forever, I need to go have a word with them because that's my livelihood in the neighborhood.
Visual: Jessica Minnis, in the classroom, speaking to the camera
Specifically, on the island of Exuma, the individual, the communities are saying that they would like to have a marine protected area in partnership that the people as well as the government should be working together to make the marine parks work.
Visual: Montage of scientists on boat and in lab
Speaker: Dan Brumbaugh
My vision for this project is that we're going to change the way people think about doing applied research in marine environments. Hopefully we'll be very successful in integrating the biophysical and socioeconomic aspects. And then secondly I really hope that we have an impact on decision making in the Bahamas.
Visual: Scientists scuba diving, shots of coral reef
Speaker: Kate Holmes
The project is focusing on the Bahamas as sort of a model system, but hopefully a lot of the information that we find from this project can be extrapolated, can be extended to other areas in the Caribbean, and perhaps some of the findings too can be extended all over the world.