A Familial Fight to Save Oceans

April 19, 2009 — -- For a certain generation, the name Cousteau conjures up the mystery and majesty of the deep sea. From the late 1960s through the mid-'70s, millions of Americans tuned in every Sunday night to watch "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau."

He was the original undersea explorer, the fearless adventurer who virtually created scuba diving by inventing the aqualung. He was the first to take cameras leagues beneath the sea and among the first to sound alarms about the deterioration he was witnessing firsthand undersea.

But a new Cousteau has taken the mantle, Jacques' 29-year-old grandson, Philippe, is now leading the charge to save our oceans.

"My grandfather, just in 30 to 40 years, saw such changes in the world that so alarmed him and yet the world was slow to catch up. I think we finally are," he said. "The good news is that we're having this discussion right now."

Philippe has dedicated his life to making the Cousteau mission of education and conservation irresistible for the newest generation.

"The door is definitely open with a name like Cousteau. It gives you great opportunities but if you walk through that door and you don't perform, because there are high expectations, it's very quick to slam in your face," Cousteau said.

Doors don't slam for Philippe. He has hosted documentaries, testified on Capitol Hill and he speaks regularly to schoolchildren across the country as chief ocean correspondent for Animal Planet.

"It's never too late for us as a society, certainly as individuals, to make choices that can help to lessen the degree of damage," Cousteau said.

In 2004 with the help of his mother, Jan, and older sister Alexandra, he started Earth Echo International. The nonprofit's mission is to educate and inspire youth to protect and restore the ocean.

"Kids go home and say, 'Mommy and Daddy, what are you doing to make the world a better place?' So we like to think we're affecting adults by affecting kids," Cousteau said.

The difference of the Cousteau message today is the urgency required to save some of the ocean's most vital ecosystems. Coral reefs, home to one-fourth of all marine life, a major source of food for the planet and a natural barrier that protects coastline from hurricanes, are virtually disappearing from the map. Scientists predict they may be extinct by 2050.

The Florida Keys is the third largest barrier reef in the entire world, spanning 200 miles, and it is believed 80 percent has been destroyed.

"The Florida Keys is classified as a dead zone by the United Nations environmental program and it's just in our own backyard," Cousteau said.

To an untrained eye, the reefs are obviously brown and dead in spots, but still appear majestic with schools of yellowtail, parrotfish and barracuda swimming through them. When looking at video footage of the reef compared to that shot in the late 1980s, the devastation revealed is shocking.

"You kind of go down there, you see some fish and you think maybe it's not so bad. But then I look at this footage where there are huge schools of fish and healthy coral everywhere," he said.