San Francisco Ocean Film Festival

The Ninth Annual San Francisco Ocean Film Festival starts tonight over at the Bay Theater in the Aquarium of the Bay on Pier 39. A Thoreau Center for Sustainability tenant, the San Francisco Ocean Film Festival has brings filmmakers from around the world to highlight both the bounty and beauty of our oceans as well as the increasing perils the oceans face. Each screening is followed by Q&A sessions with filmmakers, panel discussions with industry experts and a free student program. The San Francisco Ocean Film Festival runs through Sunday March 11th and tickets are still available.

The Whole Earth Library at Thoreau Center also has number of books on issues affecting our oceans for those wishing to follow up with additional reading.

The Future of US Ocean Policy: Choices for the New Century, Biliana Cicin-Sanin and Robert W. Knecht. (2000)

The Future of US Ocean Policy is the culmination of an over twenty year research study of US ocean policy. This volume provides a comprehensive overview of the key issues and concerns that are essential to formulating and implementing a sustainable ocean policy. The Future of US Ocean Policy also provides the history and the evolution of the debate over ocean and coastal use. The book also examines the policy choices faces by policymakers as they address the issues affecting our oceans from overfishing to toxic waste dumping and off-shore drilling.



A Stain Upon the Sea: West Coast Salmon Farming, Stephen Hume. (2004)

Bringing together six leading experts from both science and government, A Stain Upon the Sea looks at the fastest growing part of aquaculture, salmon farming. The book takes a hard look at industry practices in British Columbia examining both health risks posed to humans and long-term environmental damage done to the coastal ecosystems where salmon farms are located. Journalist Stephen Hume examines the industry through the eyes of the Nuxalk and Heiltsuk Nations and incorporates case studies from Ireland and Alaska. Historians Betty Keller and Rosella M. Leslie explain the development of the industry in British Columbia, from small family operations to large chain farms owned by a handful of multinational conglomerates. Biologist Alexandra Morton analyzes the biology of sea lice in the pink salmon runs in the Broughton Archipelago. Former Canadian federal employee Otto Langer gives an in-depth account of the bureaucratic nightmare that exempted the industry from environmental review. And scientist Don Staniford analyzes the chemical stew that farmed fish are raised in and the health risk this poses to humans.

The Whaling Season: An Inside Account of the Struggle to Stop Commercial Whaling, Kieran Mulvaney. (2003)

Kieran Mulvaney has lead four expedition to the cold waters off Antarctica to demonstrate that despite a decades-long international moratorium on commercial whaling, whales are still being hunted. The book not only offers a vivid, riveting and extraordinary account of the dangers and hazards in trying to track, intercept and stop commercial whalers but also covers the long history of whaling. Additionally, Mulvaney covers the groups and people who have led the largely though not completely successful movement to eradicate whaling.