Fresh Start

The squawking of gulls in flight syncopates with the arfing of sea lions. Monterey cypresses buffer the bay winds like a line of scented sentries, and iridescent hummingbirds feed on the blossoms spilling out of flower pots.

This is Heritage Harbor, Ocean Solution’s new home on Monterey’s downtown waterfront opposite Fisherman’s Wharf. The charming cluster of buildings is already a node of conservation work: Regional offices are leased by The Nature Conservancy, Oceana, Friends of the River and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Their landlord is the Center for the Future of the Oceans, an Aquarium program that aims to educate seafood consumers and influence national ocean policy.

“We’ve been trying to build a little node of ocean conservation in Monterey that would be unparalleled, and we are succeeding in doing that,” says CFFO Director Mike Sutton. “The Center for Ocean Solutions will be one of the linchpins for that effort.”

Ocean Solutions has leased part of the bottom floor in a building the color of cooked salmon. The space, big enough to hold 12 staff members, looks onto a harbor where white-bottomed sailboats float like cooked shellfish in a gray-blue broth. The buildings along the pier display their yellow, gray, teal and beige backsides. Gulls pick their dinner from the tideline.

By the time a full-time director replaces Caldwell in the fall, the center should have two early career fellows on board and be launching its first Fisheries Institute training sessions. Within a few years, Ocean Solutions may be ready to present ecosystem-scale solutions that might be technical, social, political, or a mixture of all three.

“Our sincere hope is that we can be super-flexible and super-nimble and timely,” Caldwell says. “I can’t promise you we’ll get to the solutions on time, but if we don’t try, we end up establishing policy on an ad hoc basis.”

Central to healing the sea, Caldwell says, is a paradigm shift – a massive change in thinking that prompts people to value a healthy ocean for the life-sustaining services it provides. That means recognizing that business as usual could imperil the future livability of the planet.

“Being very, very thoughtful about any manipulations of ocean ecosystems is very, very important,” she says, the only hint of urgency a slight raise of her eyebrows. “This is a grand experiment that we’re in, like it or not.”