World Ocean Day- The Importance of our Ocean

We often hear that it is important to protect and conserve our oceans, but why exactly are oceans important? For World Ocean Day, we are sharing information on how vital the ocean is for humans & our Earth. Read below to also find what Mālama Maunalua is doing for our ocean here in Hawai’i & 10 fun ocean facts!

The Importance of our Ocean

Our world ocean provides countless benefits to humans & creatures of all kind. When we think of the ocean, we may think of some of our favorite actives such as swimming, paddling, & surfing. Recreation, however, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our oceans contribution to life on Earth. The article, “Why should we care about the ocean?” by NOAA outlines many more ways our oceans impact our lives greatly:

• THE AIR WE BREATH: The ocean produces over half of the world’s oxygen and absorbs 50 times more carbon dioxide than our atmosphere.
• CLIMATE REGULATION: Covering 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, the ocean transports heat from the equator to the poles, regulating our climate and weather patterns.
• TRANSPORTATION: Seventy-six percent of all U.S. trade involves some form of marine transportation.
• THE ECONOMY: The U.S. ocean economy produces $282 billion in goods and services and ocean-dependent businesses employ almost three million people.
• FOOD: The ocean provides more than just seafood; ingredients from the sea are found in surprising foods such as peanut butter and soymilk.
• MEDICINE: Many medicinal products come from the ocean, including ingredients that help fight cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, and heart disease.

Mālama Maunalua’s Efforts

• INVASIVE ALGAE REMOVAL WITH HUKI’S: large-scale, organized community events to “pull” or remove invasive algae at select plots
  • Educational huki events are intended for grade school students. These fun and informational events are a great way for students to learn more about the impacts of invasive alien algae on our island environment, specifically at Maunalua Bay. Students will identify both invasive and native algae species and will learn the important role that healthy watersheds play in maintaining healthy oceans. Students will put their knowledge into practice by participating in a huki (pull) and will remove invasive algae from the nearshore waters.
  • Corporate huki take place with local participating organizations or businesses who are interested in having their employees or staff get involved and volunteer in environmental stewardship for a morning. Participants have the opportunity to learn about Mālama Maunalua and the work we do to restore the nearshore marine ecosystem, while also having time to bond with their colleagues and making an active effort to remove invasive algae.
  • Community huki are volunteer-based events that bring the community together in order to restore the health of Maunalua Bay.  They are scheduled at least once a month on a Saturday, aligning with lower tides. Volunteers will learn about the problems facing the Bay as well as the three main types of invasive alien algae that we remove from the nearshore waters. On average, we host between 30-100 volunteers per event.
  • “Adopt a Plot” provides an opportunity for community members to continuously be involved in improving the Bay. Many of these plots are smothered with invasive algae and need to be worked on by volunteers. Even with the large community groups participating in hukis multiple times a month, more volunteers are needed to help maintain these plots. As and Adopt a Plot volunteer you will receive your own 10X10m plot that you can clear and maintain on your own time.

• URCHIN BIO-CONTROL: implemented to help mitigate the growth of invasive algae 
  • Phase I Project: Phase I of the urchin bio-control project was conducted in the summer of 2018 when 66 adult native collector urchins, Hāwa‘e maoli (Tripneustes gratilla), were relocated from the deeper water in Maunalua Bay to the nearshore reef flat. From July to December 2018, the Mālama Maunalua team monitored urchin health, invasive algal biomass, and urchin movement. Results found urchins were able to survive the relocation from deeper water to the nearshore reef flat and appeared to be eating all three three key species of invasive algae in the Bay, including leather mudweed.
  • Phase II Project: As of October 2021, Mālama Maunalua and DLNR-DAR implemented Phase II of a partner-led sea urchin project continuing to utilize the native collector urchins as a bio-control mechanism to curb the growth and regrowth of invasive alien algae in Maunalua Bay at within the Pāiko Restoration Area.
  • Phase II Action: During Phase II, 600 juvenile urchins reared at DAR’s Ānuenue Fisheries Research Center’s sea urchin hatchery were outplanted in Maunalua Bay. This was in effort to help scale up our fight against invasive algae by targeting areas in Maunalua Bay that Mālama Maunalua could not manually huki with community volunteers due to constraints such as access and water depth.

• CORAL RESTORATION WITH RESTORE WITH RESILIENCE: Hana Pūkoʻa – “Working together for coral”
  • The Goal: As a partner on Restore with Resilience, Mālama Maunalua is working with a consortium of NGOs, academic institutions, and government agencies to restore coral reefs in Maunalua Bay. The project goal is to outplant 4,000 thermal stress-resistant corals in the Bay to rebuild our coral reef and mitigate natural hazards caused by reef loss. This is a multi-year project that began in Summer 2021.
  • Why it is Important: Coral reefs are necessary for our marine ecosystem and human well-being. Worldwide, coral reefs are in danger. Maunalua Bay is no exception. As our reefs continue to degrade, Hawai‘i is losing our important recreational and commercial industries, protection from natural hazards, and marine life. With community involvement on this project, together we can  rebuild our Maunalua Bay coral reefs for recreation, culture, livelihoods, and marine life.
  • How it Works: This project is intended to be for the community, by the community. We seek dialogue and reciprocal collaboration with the community through neighborhood board meetings, talk story, social media, and partner communications before engaging in any in-water activities. From there, community members participate in the coral outplanting process, which requires many steps such as collecting, fragmenting, and monitoring. Check out The Restoration Process on the Mālama Maunalua website.

10 Fun Ocean Facts

1. The temperature of a turtle’s developing egg determines if the turtle will be male or female! Research shows that if a turtle’s eggs incubate below 81.86 Fahrenheit, the turtle hatchlings will be male. If the eggs incubate above 87.8° Fahrenheit, the hatchlings will be female. Temperatures that fluctuate between the two extremes will produce a mix of male and female baby turtles. Researchers have also noted that the warmer the sand, the higher the ratio of female turtles. As the Earth experiences climate change, increased temperatures could cause in skewed and possibly lethal incubation conditions, drastically impacting turtle reproduction.

2. Brain Coral can grow six feet tall and live for up to 900 years! Brain corals display what is called Meandroid tissue integration. This means that the polyps are highly associated to one another and not separated by skeletal structures like other coral. This allows them to easily communicate and transfer molecules such as nutrients, hormones, and oxygen. This type of tissue integration has many advantages, however, it can also lead to vulnerability, because if even one polyp gets sick, the pathogen can quickly spread to the rest of the colony resulting in mass mortalities.

3. Studies show that some corals can live for up to 5,000 years, making them the longest living animals on Earth! Research done off the coast of Hawai’i indicated that gold coral & deep-water black coral are much older than we initially recorded!

4. The name ‘Green Sea Turtle’ actually comes from its greenish-colored fat! Their greenish-colored fat is thought to be caused by the turtle’s diet consisting of only seagrasses and algae.

6. Scientists estimate that 91% of ocean species have yet to be classified, and that more than 80% of our ocean is unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored. We have explored more of outer space than we have the ocean! The world’s ocean remains mysterious with so much more to discover.

7. The deepest part of the ocean is 35,876 feet! The ocean’s average depth is about 12,100 feet. The name of the deepest location is Challenger Deep, which is located beneath the western Pacific Ocean in the southern end of the Mariana Trench.

8. Scientists estimate the Greenland shark lives at least 250 years & may live over 500 years. Recent breakthroughs allowed scientists to use carbon dating to estimate that a 5-meter female Greenland shark they found is between 272 and 512 years old. Greenland sharks also grow at a very slow rate of less than 1 cm per year and they can reach over 6 meters in size.

9. A jellyfish is about 5% solid matter & 95% water! They also do not have any brains, blood, or hearts!

10. In 2015, researchers announced that opah is the only known fully warm-blooded fish! Its blood is not as warm as mammals and birds, but it does circulate heated blood throughout its body giving it a competitive advantage in the cold ocean depths. Fish living at similar depths as the opah use ambush to catch their prey. The opah, however, uses its bright red pectoral fins to race through the water. The constant flapping of its fins heats the opah’s body, allowing it to move quickly and efficiently.

*Facts in this list were sourced from NOAA’S OCEAN FACTS