President's Letter: Oceans Rising

Carter Roberts headshot

Carter Roberts
President & CEO, WWF

Obituaries can make for fascinating reading. Not just because they celebrate the lives of remarkable people, but also because they often tell stories of moments that change the way we think.

In June 2024 The Economist remembered Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders, the mission’s lunar module pilot. Anders also took perhaps the most famous environmental image ever—Earthrise. Against the drab undulations of the moon, a small blue jewel of an orb rises, brilliant in the darkness. A precious finite refuge of life in a vast cosmos.

Gain some distance and you’ll see how much oceans define the dominant color of Earth. Covering 70% of our planet’s surface, they occupy so much of our world, yet we know so little about what lies under their surface.

In 2006 I’d just been certified for scuba diving and was eager to test my skills. I caught a series of flights, bounding from DC to San Francisco to Singapore to Jakarta to Sulawesi, bouncing along the archipelago of Indonesia before landing in Sorong on the western tip of Papua, where I boarded a wooden schooner. Two days later I put on my tank, flippers, buoyancy control device, and mask, and fell backward over the side and into the ocean in Raja Ampat (translation: Four Kings), one of the healthiest reef systems in the world.

Down I dropped past yellow and blueback fusiliers; schools of angelfish, manta rays, and butterflyfish; past hundreds of coral species, where batfish, surgeonfish, barracuda, wobbegong sharks, and more gathered. At 30 meters, I reached a P-47 Thunderbolt fighter plane that had crashed during World War II. As a kid I grew up fascinated with fighter planes, building them from kits and hanging them from my ceiling amid cotton ball clouds, and this real one was mesmerizing—the propeller, open cockpit, various meters, and fuselage, encrusted with corals and home to marine life. When I looked up and realized how far down I was, I had to remind myself to breathe deep, not to panic, and to ascend as methodically as I’d descended.

“WWF is taking steps to create more balance between our terrestrial and oceans work.”

Carter
WWF

Days later, I took a night dive and saw bioluminescent creatures, seahorses, frogfishes, nudibranchs, banded pipefish, and mandarinfish. I rose to the surface under a breathtaking sky full of stars and the ambient glow of lava streaming down the slopes of a nearby volcano. And I was smitten.

Oceans aren’t just visually stunning. They’re also foundational to spectacular ecosystems and biodiversity, including treasured wildlife such as whales, sharks, polar bears, and turtles. Some 70% of the oxygen we breathe is produced by the sea. Oceans absorb about 30% of the CO2 humans release into the atmosphere and fuel the water cycles that produce rain and freshwater and create oxygen.

Yet for all these superlatives, less than 1% of global philanthropic funding is dedicated to ocean conservation.

WWF is taking steps to create more balance between our terrestrial and oceans work. For example, nearly half of the projects in our Enduring Earth partnership—which seeks to work with all stewards of the environment to protect over half a billion hectares of lands, ocean, and freshwater by 2030—are marine-focused.

WWF is also fully committed to helping reach the global 30x30 conservation goal to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030. Currently, 17% of land and 8% of oceans are protected, according to Protected Planet, a joint project of the United Nations Environment Programme and the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The idea for 30x30 was inspired by renowned biologist (and former WWF Board member) E.O. Wilson’s proposal to conserve half the planet to protect wildlife and species and was enshrined in a 2022 United Nations deal.

For as much as we depend on the oceans—a reality you can read about in detail in our feature on Fiji—there is still so much for us to learn. Earth continues to reveal itself to us, and at WWF we are committed to keeping it as resilient and breathtaking as possible.

Carter Roberts

President and CEO

 

Explore More

About
World Wildlife magazine provides an inspiring, in-depth look at the connections between animals, people and our planet. Published quarterly by WWF, the magazine helps make you a part of our efforts to solve some of the most pressing issues facing the natural world.

View all issues View the current issue's PDF