Protecting the Ocean’s Last Wild Places

Join Alan Friedlander as he takes us a deep dive into the ocean. Over the past 15 years, the National Geographic Pristine Seas program has redefined our understanding of life in the ocean by using a wide variety of tools to study everything from whales and sharks down to microscopic organisms to explore waters largely untouched by people. These efforts have helped in the establishment of 29 large marine protected areas worldwide, covering nearly seven million square kilometers of the last wild places in the ocean.

These remote locations offer an unparalleled glimpse into how these ecosystems function in the absence of direct human influences and are the only true baselines to understand what we have lost elsewhere and to provide the fundamental insights needed for effective conservation and restoration efforts.

There is now a global commitment to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030 to minimize the threats of extinction and the loss of valuable ecosystem services. Therefore, there is now an urgent and critical need to increase the support for ocean conservation so that both people and nature can thrive well into the future.

Over the past 40 years Dr. Alan Friedlander has spent > 12,000 hours underwater—from coral reefs to the poles and to depths of thousands of meters. Alan recently retired as Chief Scientist for the National Geographic Society’s Pristine Seas program, and is a researcher at the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology at the University of Hawai‘i. His work on marine protected areas ranges from small locally community-managed areas to some of the largest protected areas on the planet.

Alan started his career in the early 1980s in the Kingdom of Tonga working on sustainable small-scale fisheries. Following this, he obtained an MS in Oceanography from Old Dominion University working on coastal fisheries in Puerto Rico. He then worked for the territorial fisheries agency and the National Park Service in the US Virgin Islands where he conducted research on coral reefs throughout the Caribbean. Alan received his Ph.D. from the University of Hawai‘i and was a National Research Council Postdoctoral Associate. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Fellow of the Explorers Club.

5:30 pm Potluck 

7:00 pm Presentation

Please RSVP to attend the event CLICK HERE. Mahalo!

The HTMC clubhouse is located in a residential area, a block from Waimanalo beach at 41-023 Puuone Street, Waimanalo, Hawaii 96795.

HTMC events are open to non-members and guests, please CLICK HERE to pay the $5 clubhouse usage fee. Mahalo!