Emily Jeffers: Staff Attorney at The Center for Biological Diversity

This past Wednesday I had the opportunity to interview Emily Jeffers, a staff attorney for the Oceans Program at the Center for Biological Diversity, located in San Francisco. Jeffers got involved in her program after graduating from UC Berkeley with a law degree and the desire to be an environmental attorney. After being asked what exactly the Oceans Program does and what its goals are, Jeffers stated, “our goal is to protect endangered species and the ecosystems they rely on.” Jeffers also listed some of the issues our oceans are facing including; ocean acidification, ocean warming, overfishing, fossil fuel extraction pollution.

According to Jeffers, the way the Oceans Program tackles these problems that marine life face is by presenting petitions to the EPA (environmental protection agency) asking them to record species as endangered under the endangered species act, and petition to the EPA to identify critical habitat for species that are protected through the act. A few other ways they go about protecting the species is by suing the government if failing to enforce laws they should be, reforming various harmful practices on species, and education/outreach to people.

The main focus of my interview with Jeffers was the connection to what exactly is threatening these species, what species are most at risk, and how does it pertain to us as human beings. When asked what the major threats facing the ocean’s wildlife and ecosystems, Jeffers replied, “the climate threat, which is ocean warming and ocean acidification… I think that were just starting to understand the magnitude of ocean acidification and how it’s going to totally change the ocean ecosystem.” Jeffers explained the expansion of scientific papers published over the past few years that tackled effects of ocean acidification on corals, shellfish and a many other organisms. Jeffers pointed out, “…Can you imagine there being no coral reefs in the next 100 years? That’s happening. Scientists say corals cannot exist under pH 7.8, and that’s predicted within the next 50 to 100 years. Shocking statistics like that you can’t avoid and you can’t avoid working on it.”

When questioned on what humans are directly involved with in threats, Jeffers noted “oil and gas development. I think that there’s always going to be another deep water horizon around the corner… there’s going be more oil spills and to discover the oil deposits and gas deposits they have to do these seismic surveys which are pretty damaging to marine mammals and they disturb essential fish habitat.” This detrimental hazard that humans are so closely linked to is only growing as Jeffers said, and especially in the arctic areas and in the deep water in the Gulf, where a multitude of ecosystems and organisms reside. Jeffers explained that the oil and gas development is, “pushing our wildlife to the brink, and pushing them out of their natural habitat, and it’s habitat we can’t recover if something terrible happens.”

After covering the threats and how people contribute, we faced the topic of what is being harmed by these threats? Jeffers started with saying, “Coral species have to be at the top of the list. They will not be able to survive if the pH drops to 7.8 and corals support an incredible diversity of the reef ecosystem.” Jeffers also emphasized the importance of corals due to the fact is we lost corals, it will effect many other organisms and ecosystems that rely on the corals. Jeffers also explained that sea turtles are a species people have a strong relationship to, and us as humans are the harming them through plastic pollution. They eat plastic debris that is floating in the ocean, get entangled in drift gill net fisheries, get caught up in trawl nets, and are ultimately losing their nesting ground. The last thing Jeffers explained that is being threatened was the deep sea, which we know so little about. “… We know more about the surface of the moon than we know about the deep sea. Going forward with deep sea mining before we even know what’s down there seems crazy, and it seems like a shame to loose that ecosystem before we know what it is.”

After touching on the complications of fisheries that pose threats as well, I posed the question that although bottom trawling, factory fishing, and fish farming are used to economically help and feed many people all over the world, why do the threats to the ocean, outweigh the economic benefits to people? Jeffers responded that she doesn’t see it as a black and white picture. She said, “I think there are certain lines that need to be drawn to say that’s not okay, we can’t totally destroy ecosystems before we even know what they are, we can’t bottom trawl in the bearing sea and destroy cold water corals before they’ve been discovered. I certainly think fish are an important source of protein for a lot of people all over the world, but we as a culture need to decide what’s important and I think a lot of people think that the ocean itself has a lot of intrinsic value and biological diversity is an intrinsic value that we all have recognized as a nation and as a society in the world. More broadly when people look at the ocean, not just people who live on the coast, but people who live in the middle of the country hundreds of miles from the coast, there’s something about looking at the ocean and seeing a huge expanse to the horizon and not knowing what’s below it, it really stirs your imagination and it would be such a shame to lose that diversity.” Jeffers highlighted not only the economic value of oceanic diversity, but also the personal connection we have as a culture with the ocean, and how important it is to maintain a sustainable relationship with it. Finding balance was a main focus of Jeffers in finding solutions to these threats that our marine life is facing.

To get more information on Jeffers and the Center for Biological Diversity and the Oceans Program, visit their website at: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/index.html.

-Natalie Kokka