How an aquatic meet-and-greet is pivotal to saving our oceans
Diver and educator Melanie Knight brings the ocean to eye level
In our ‘Trailblazers’ series, we bring you perspectives on creative leadership, social innovation, and positive change from THNK’s worldwide participant community. Today, Kate Inglis interviews Melanie Knight (BSc) — diver, educator, TED speaker and class two participant at THNK Vancouver. As CEO and co-founder of Ocean to Eye Level Consulting — which supports coastal communities around the world to open public marine education centers — Melanie opens the underwater world to the public eye.
You work within such an epic domain — the sea. The ocean is so close for so many of us, but it remains a mystery. Does our natural curiosity and taste for adventure help your mandate as an educator?
Epic is the right word! Anyone who wants to have positive impact in the world has to tell great stories in order to get people on board. And that’s the bulk of my work — facilitating the curiosity that people have, and hopefully turning it into action.
The ocean is powerful but so vulnerable, too. I live along the Atlantic, and I’ve kayaked the Pacific. They’re wildly different, aren’t they?
Oh gosh, yes. When it comes to protecting our ocean world, all the aquatic ecosystems have such different strengths and fragilities. The North Atlantic is a machine — historically, it has been a generator of monstrous quantities of protein. It turns the sun’s energy into plankton, fish, and everything else thrives because of it. It has such an impact on the planet, and we rely on it heavily. In contrast, the superpower of the Pacific Northwest is its diversity. In every way — among invertebrates, fish, mammals, algae and even nudibranchs — the variety of the Pacific is staggering.
Unfortunately, neither the Atlantic nor the Pacific are what they used to be. I’ve only been looking underwater for 15 years, and even in that sliver of time I have witnessed changes. It’s my job to not only interpret what I observe, but to enlist people into caring. We often don’t care about what we can’t see. If only the ocean were see-through! We can walk through the forests, feeling the ground underneath and touching leaves and needles and trunks. We can integrate that sensation emotionally. But we can’t travel through undersea kelp forests — not without training and equipment. Because we can’t see into it easily, we are blind to the beauty below.
What is it about humans that requires us to experience something before we really accept that it’s important?
With connection, there is curiosity. And with curiosity comes caring. Dog owners contribute to animal charities because they are connected to animals. Parents give to kid’s charities, and cancer survivors give to hospitals and research foundations. It’s connection that creates behaviour change. Confronted with so much information, we have to decide where we put our attention. It’s my privilege to bring connection, curiosity and caring to the issues of the ocean and help people see the need.
How can we connect more people to the ocean as an environmental rallying point?
That question is at the heart of my work and my life. Despite all our best intentions, the environmental movement of the past decade, people are overwhelmed with the doom and gloom of our planet. People feel hopeless and maybe guilty. If I feel this way, as a biologist, I know others do, too: I’m just one individual. What can I do about melting glaciers and vanishing coral reefs?
Environmental stewards have to figure out how to share our experience in a way that makes people feel hopeful. I think this is best done though play, delight, and surprise. We need to get people off their phones and up hiking the mountains, or onto bikes, or — best yet, for me — into a snorkel mask. When you hold your first hermit crab or rare starfish, and learn about their remarkable survival, you break out of your everyday concerns. Those creatures have the power to wake you up.
I remember snorkelling and putting my face underwater for the first time — wondering if I’d see any fish — and realizing I was absolutely surrounded by hundreds of them. I started laughing and my mask filled up with water, but I was smiling for days. I’ve grown up on the seaside, but I had no idea just how rich it was until I looked properly. What’s it like for you to facilitate that kind of discovery?
That’s almost everyone’s experience when they have the chance to peek underneath that big blue surface! It’s instant delight. Kids have adorable responses to cute critters, but what I love hearing are adults reactions. In Newfoundland, I’d meet fishermen’s’ wives — people who spent their whole lives deeply connected to the sea — but had never touched a sea star before. Their jaws would drop and they’d giggle like kids. People just love this stuff.
I’ve always been deeply connected to the sea. I was first drawn to the ocean for the waves. I didn’t think much past the surface at first. Within 10 minutes at the Ucluelet Mini Aquarium, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, my jaw had dropped sixteen times. And I was already in university studying marine biology! There was so much I didn’t know, and so much that you can’t really understand or truly respect until you experience it.
You’ve described sea creatures as having personality and charisma. Tell me what that looks like.
There’s so much more wonder to the ocean’s ecosystem that we can’t possibly grasp. It’s a such a thrill to meet the creatures who live there. They’re hilarious. There’s a lot of laughter in aquariums.
When we first opened the mini aquarium in Petty Harbour Newfoundland, our first volunteer was a local boy — a 10-year-old named Evan who used to scooter around on the wharf near the aquarium. So we gave him a job. When the animals first got put into the tanks, he was there and said, “What is that?” He was pointing to a sea cucumber, an animal that could be found not a stones throw away from the wharf he grew up on. We told him about how they breathe through their butts (their posterior end). He went and grabbed his friends and said; “you gotta see this!”
We opened the aquarium the next day, and we encouraged Evan to do a television news interview. When asked what he learned so far, he told the reporter all about the butt-breathing sea cucumber. It was headline news! So now everyone knows that sea cucumbers breathe out of their butts. It was a great little moment.
Is the power of storytelling on behalf of the ocean as simple as touching a sea star? As a creative leader, how do you augment and scale actual immersion in sea water to a wider audience?
Physical connection is what tweaks neural pathways in the brain, making lasting memories. That is hard to recreate remotely. The mini aquarium model is scalable, allowing any coastal community of any size to bring the ocean to eye level with tanks, intertidal creatures, and colourful storytelling. It can be complicated to allow people to interact with marine life, but it’s worth it. One hands-on experience can foster a lifetime of curiosity and stewardship for what’s beneath the surface.
“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”
— Jacques Cousteau
Would you say you’re more of a conduit than a storyteller, then?
Maybe more of a translator. At the aquariums, educators are called interpreters. We translate ocean science into language that’s accessible to everyone. That’s the job of all scientists no matter what they study — rocks, stars, tectonic plates, trees. If we’re going to protect it, the natural world needs interpreters.
“The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the Living Infinite.” ― Jules Verne
Tell me about the first moment that the ocean spoke to you.
I was 15 years old, in California. It was the first time I went surfing. A small wave worked me pretty badly — I was underwater for what felt like forever, and my board almost smacked me in the face. I was so blown away by the power of wave energy. That same trip, I met an oceanographer. I couldn’t believe someone could get paid to study that energy.
Since then, I’ve had so many amazing experiences. Swimming with dolphins, seeing whales in Hawaii, diving with sea turtles, seeing funny little creatures tucked into nooks and crannies. But what I’ve seen and learned in aquariums has been just as profound.
If the ghost of Jacques Cousteau asked you how it’s going these days, what would you say?
What a question! I’d have to tell him that we’ve had our hands in every inch of the ocean, and not for the better. The ocean is still vastly unexplored, but unfortunately, we see evidence of our negative impact even in places we’re exploring for the first time. The upside is that we know so much more now then we did then. He would be floored by the deep sea technology that we use to explore the deepest and harshest parts of the ocean. I hope he’d be inspired by the attention the ocean is getting now, and by the number of jobs, tourism opportunities, and diverse contributions of today.
If he could see what we have discovered about the ocean — if he could witness the research, science, and passion of people who devote their lives to its study — Cousteau would be amazed. He inspired so many of us. People are still inspired by his words and teachings. I know I am!
Sylvia Earle, the female Cousteau of today, won the TED prize with her talk. She told the story of people asking her, Aren’t you sad that 90% of the biggest fish in the ocean are gone, and that there may be no commercially viable fish by 2048? And she replied that there’s still hope. Do you agree?
There is hope. You have to have hope. There are pockets of the ocean that are prolific despite us. And there are pockets that are rebounding because we have changed our behaviour. Pockets. It’s a start. That’s my goal as an educator — to connect people to help their coastal communities and make it one of those pockets of healthy ocean. Sylvia calls them ‘hope spots’. If everyone takes care of his or her piece, there is hope for us all.
Read about Melanie Knight’s THNK Creative Leadership Journey at THNK.org. Interested in becoming part of the THNK community? Learn more.
Melanie Knight is the CEO and Co-Founder of Ocean to Eye Level, a Canadian consulting firm which supports coastal communities start mini, catch-and-release aquariums around the world. She is also the founder of the Petty Harbour Mini Aquarium, just outside of St. John’s Newfoundland. The founders of the Ucluelet Aquarium and Discovery Passage Aquarium are fellow co-founders of Ocean to Eye Level, bringing their collective expertise in aquarium infrastructure, marine education, non-profit governance, fundraising and digital storytelling to help their clients go from back-of-napkin dreaming to grand opening day. See Melanie’s TEDx talk about mini aquariums here.
