The OCEAN Initiative Home Page

OCEAN Initiative is the UC Berkeley based Ocean Conservation and Environmental Action Network involved in coastal and marine issues world wide. Our coordinator is Professor Bernard Nietschmann of the Geography department.

Current Projects

• The Surf-Rescue Research Project
• People die at the beach for many reasons including rip currents and shark attacks. The task of the Surf-Rescue Research Project include gathering and mapping information on what make some beaches hazardous. OCEAN Initiative also hopes to develop signage and educational tools to interpret beach dangers.
  
• In cooperation with the U.S. Lifesaving Association.
  
• Your contact is Francis Smith or Bernard Nietschmann.

  Rip Currents

• Each year rip currents kill more people in the U.S. than do tornados and hurricanes togethter. Investigation and classification of rip current types and severity: design of rip current instrument unit.
• In cooperation with the International Life Saving Federation and the U.S. Lifesaving Association.
• Your contact is Francis Smith.
• Fishermen Divers/Submerged Realities
• Indigenous people and Third World citizens are used as divers to collect commercially valuable flora and fauna from the worlds oceans. OCEAN Initiative is researching the economics, methods, environmental impacts and human death/ disease that is a result. The goal for the 1997 seminar is to write an article, establish a database and make a map to expose the worldwide problem of exploited, paralyzed and dead divers who use scuba and hookah to dive dangerously for foreign market, luxury seafoods.
  
• In cooperation with Sub-Ocean Safety
  
• We are distributing informational letters aimed at divers and non divers.
• Your contact is Bernard Nietschmann.
• Manatees, Crocodiles and Environmental Education

  This project develop materials and information to help coastal communities conserve populations of coastal waterway animals along the Caribbean Coast of Central America. OCEAN Initiative is mapping the present day populations of manatee and will work further with the cooperative local population in a program to protect the marine mammal. In cooperation with the communities of Tortuguero, Costa Rica: Caye Caulker, Belize: Wawa Bar, Nicaragua and the University Research Expedition Program, UREP. Your contact is David Smethurst.

  
  
• Community-based Coral Reef Conservation
• The world's coral reefs are being stressed by over-fishing, terrestrial chemicals, and explosives in addition to natural bleaching. We are researching these causes and their affects as well as existing management techniques to formulate viable plans for a reef's survival. The group work to assist 13 communities of Sandy Bay, Nicaragua to assess and monitor the status of their coral reefs.
  
• In cooperation with Sandy Bay, Nicaragua and The National Geographic Society
  
• Your contact is Anne Sturm and Bernard Nietschmann