A Sea Full of Turtles
The Search for Optimism in an Epoch of Extinction
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
An inspired and impassioned story of adventure that explores the richness of marine life and charts a path of resilience and hope.
Everyone alive today is witnessing a mass extinction event caused by the more than eight billion humans who share this planet. At times, it seems there is little hope. Climate change, resource exploitation, agrochemicals, overfishing, plastics, dead zones in our oceans, drought and desertification, conversion of habitat to housing, farming, and industrial infrastructure—the list of impacts and insults goes on and on. We are, it seems, on an unalterable path that will continue to decimate biodiversity.
A feeling of hopeless, while not unwarranted, is part of the problem. Without hope, without some belief in the possibility of positive outcomes, the fight for nature is over. Why even try if the battle is already lost?
While staring the problems squarely in the face, A Sea Full of Turtles offers hope for those who care about our living world. Delivered as a travel narrative set in Mexico’s Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez), at one level the book focuses on dramatically underfunded but highly successful efforts to protect sea turtles. But the book goes beyond Mexico and beyond sea turtles to look at how some humans have changed their relationship with nature—and how that change can one day end the extinction crisis.
Enchanting, galvanizing, and brimming with joy and wonder, A Sea Full of Turtles will inspire immediate action to face the great challenges that lie ahead. Pessimism is the lazy way out. Optimism, it turns out, is both a reasonable and an essential attitude for us all as we fight for the beautiful diversity of life on our Earth.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this stimulating report, nature writer Streever (In Oceans Deep) recounts traveling around Mexico's Gulf of California to interview the fishers, nonprofit directors, scientists, and volunteers who are working to protect endangered sea turtles. Surveying the threats facing the reptiles, Streever notes that the black market for turtle meat has boomed since Mexico banned its consumption in 1990, that beachgoers sometimes unwittingly crush buried nests underfoot, and that tens of thousands of sea turtles are estimated to die each year after getting trapped in fishing nets and drowning. Among those striving to save the turtles are veterinarian Elsa Galindo, who runs a program that relocates nests away from well-trafficked beach areas, and Agnese Mancini, a scientist who evaluates the effectiveness of turtle hunting bans for a nonprofit organization. Streever sometimes drifts off topic, going on tangents about his fondness for Jainism (a religion that espouses an extreme form of "do no harm," to the extent that some adherents refuse to step in puddles for fear of killing microbes) and whether it's unethical for humans to continue reproducing at current rates. Still, the profiles of individuals leading conservation efforts offer reason for hope even as they make clear the direness of the sea turtle's situation. Animal lovers will be galvanized.
