As a seasoned sea captain, I have a good idea what the ocean really needs from us. I’ve learned by spending decades at sea, being deeply involved with Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), sanctuaries, conservation, fishing, etc.

Now I’m ready to share.

What really hurts our ocean life (both flora and fauna) and mucks up water quality are urban runoff, pollution, herbicides, pesticides, fecal bacteria, plastic and other trash.

Creating MPAs, sanctuaries, and other forms of unbridled protectionism run amok helps little with those issues, nor do they help prevent global warming and ocean acidification.

Giving the ocean what it needs is truthfully up to us as individuals and companies, organizations and legislatures.

Our focus should be on keeping our bad stuff out of the ocean and on cleaning up the ocean, not on overt protectionism, which simply locks people out, or prohibits well-managed and sustainable activities such as fishing.

Here are some thoughts about truly harmful stuff with which we muck up the ocean and kill ocean life:

1. Urban runoff is the toxic mix of chemicals we use around the house and yard, farms and ranches. Anything that goes down the drain is treated until no longer harmful by our sanitary districts. Bless them for that. But our chemicals, fertilizers and such that run down the street into a drain and then into creeks and into the ocean, are deadly to sea life.

2.  Pollution often comes in large quantities and from unfortunate incidents like oil spills onshore or offshore. It can also come from poor practices by companies and entire industries that are not sufficiently careful about leakage and spillage of harmful materials.

3. Herbicides and pesticides kill sea life when they wash out to sea. Herbicides kill plants, and we have fragile plant life in the ocean which helps keep the ecosystem in balance. Pesticides kill pests (critters) and killing critters of the sea is not what we want to be doing.

4. Fecal bacteria runoff is a huge problem. It can come from not disposing of our dog and cat and other animal waste. It also comes from homeless encampments when they are abandoned instead of cleaned up. Some fecal bacteria is natural, from wild animals, and nature is able to handle that quantity, but we should not be adding bodily excretions from ourselves and our pets or farm animals.

5. Plastics and trash are deadly immediately and also into the future. When plastic slowly breaks down into micro-plastics it becomes deadly to a wider range of critters. Other forms of trash wash out to sea after rains and make the inshore waters unlivable for a period as the ocean slowly cleans itself up. Active and abandoned homeless camps are a major source of trash. Providing porta potties and trash cans would be helpful.

To help keep our ocean clean and our sea life healthy, my opinion is that we need to prevent those real evils. Do this real work rather than getting sucked into the media hype about unrealistic promises made by proponents of Marine Protected Areas and sanctuaries.

The real work we need to do involves cleanup projects, monitoring and enforcement.