Sylvia A. Earle

Part of the reason for my wish was because of what I've seen, what I've explored, what I've come to know in a lifetime of diving in to see things in ways that most people will never get to see.

To use systems that make it possible to stay underwater for days, weeks at a time.

to explore places that most people will never get to see, and to be a witness to the change that's currently taking place.

I've had the chance to use more than 30 different kinds of submarines, sometimes sharing the view with government officials, such as the Minister of the Environment from Ecuador.

He was a little apprehensive.

But he warmed up to the idea thanks to a mola mola who kind of whispered in his ear, I've also witnessed how we're trashing the ocean more than just what we're putting into the ocean, what we're taking out, how we are stripping the ocean of the wild creatures that maintain Earth as a habitable planet.

When I voiced concerns when I served as the chief scientist of NOAA in 1990, I was called the sturgeon general.

And I was told not to worry.

But in a few decades, with billions of dollars in subsidies, we have de-wilded the ocean, taking these wild animals to markets globally.

Industrial fishing is simply too efficient, and the markets are too demanding.

Wild animals, they don't stand a chance.

Nothing in their history enables them to escape the mechanized killing, the fleets that move like cities across the high seas, taking and marketing wildlife.

We almost succeeded in exterminating the great whales.

We need squid.

We need the menhaden, the tuna, the shrimp, the sharks, ocean wildlife.

We need them alive.

This is the carbon cycle in action.

This is how the living planet works.

Elements of the universe are moving from one creature to another, keeping Earth's chemistry within safe operating space.

I was told 50 years ago to be afraid if I saw sharks.