One globe, one ocean?
Until, of course, there were five. In 2000 the International Hydrographic Organization declared the existence of a fifth ocean--the Southern Ocean. Research, they said, indicated a discrete and unique ecology that warranted the delineation of a new body of water. Lines were drawn and portions of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans now had a different name. Marine life were required to obtain new passports, and to now identify themselves as citizens of the Southern Ocean.
Maybe not. But it is worth challenging this idea of a divided ocean--particularly when it needs to be a united effort when protecting and managing its resources. We so rarely consider the planet from 10,000 feet up, but rather think in terms of the lines and boundaries that dictate our daily lives.
Margaret Dillon, a reader of Letters from the Maritime, wrote in to suggest that there is only one ocean circling the earth.
Our language supports that the earth is a place - or a conglomerate of places which we may extract or use or do with what we please. Is it possible - and this is a lifelong question for me - that if we revisit our contextual relationship with the earth, that we may begin to see a deeper relationship - that of a single species within a dynamic and living planet whose ocean serves as a circulatory system - its forests as lungs. If we have just one totally connected ocean, might it be just a little more difficult to spoil? To understand it as one system even deepen the sense of awe and mystery! Heighten our connectedness with the rest of the planet everytime we are near to it.