My wife is an award-winning educator and artist, and during the summer, she shows her work at the Sawdust Art Festival in Laguna Beach, California. This year she is focused on illustrations of fishes, especially some of those commonly kept in the marine aquarium. As such, she is surrounded daily by her illustrations of flasher wrasses, hawkfishes, gobies, Banggais and the like, and she spends much of her time describing the animals to the people looking at her work. Why am I sharing this with you? Because in listening to her yesterday explain the natural history of the Banggai cardinalfish to a tour group from Hurley, I realized that her tagline—“conservation through appreciation”—should really be the tagline of the marine aquarium hobby.
Karen believes that if her illustration of a fish is appreciated, and the viewer learns a little about the subject, it is not such a big leap for the viewer to come to appreciate the species itself. That appreciation of the species, combined with knowledge about the species, can then lead to a desire to conserve the species. It’s similar to when someone comes to our house for dinner and watches the animals in our 135-gallon reef tank in the dining room. Inevitably the animals become the topic of conversation, and conversations about threats to reef ecosystems are never far behind.
I’m not suggesting that looking at an aquarium should always lead to preaching environmental education from a soapbox. An aquarium, like a piece of Karen’s artwork hanging in a gallery, is something aesthetically pleasing and should be appreciated at face value. But Karen always also includes an “Artist’s Notes” sheet with every illustration she sells that explains a little more about the animal and some of the conservation issues it (or the ecosystem in which it lives) faces. She does this hoping that someone who appreciates her art enough to purchase it may also come to appreciate the subject of the artwork enough to conserve it.
Conservation is a big concept, and it may seem overwhelming at first, but in reality, conservation can begin at home. Protecting the world’s reefs, and the species which inhabit them, can begin with something as simple as lessening your carbon footprint. Even if you live in Iowa (why does Iowa always get picked on? I actually really like Iowa!), driving less, carpooling more, turning off the lights when you leave a room, and a million other small actions can have a cumulative conservation effect that helps save tropical reefs worldwide.
Here in Laguna Beach, California, we are undergoing a review to determine if the entire coastline should become a no-take marine protected area. This would mean that fishing may be prohibited along the entire seven mile swath of coastline I frequently travel with a fly rod in hand. While I support the concept of marine protected areas, I also worry that categorically prohibiting fishing along this coast will remove those individuals who are most in touch day-to-day with the ecosystem: the anglers. Call it job security if you like, but many anglers (myself included) care deeply about the resources because, at least in part, we want to continue recreating there. In other words, anglers, like reefers, can and should be on the front line of marine conservation.
I appreciate my wife’s ability to accurately render the colors of a Red Sea eightline flasher wrasse or the bone structure of a longnose hawkfish. I appreciate her illustrations, and, as a marine aquarist, I appreciate how her illustrations help me to understand the species better. This is why I love talking to people viewing Karen’s work at the Sawdust Art Festival because I see people come face-to-face with animals they never knew existed. While Karen donates 10% of all her proceeds to organizations that work to conserve aquatic ecosystems, I think the much larger impact of her work is to inspire curiosity, appreciation and, ultimately, conservation in anyone who views her illustrations.
So this week I challenge you to share your aquarium, and your knowledge about the animals that inhabit it, with someone new. Conservation through appreciation—it’s really that simple.
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