Boat International US Edition - June 2018

THE OCEAN AWARDS 2018

The currents that cause sargassum weed to aggregate in the

Sargasso Sea have also caused it to become a gigantic gyre, or

agglomeration, of plastic waste, so endangering the unique

species for which it is a breeding ground.

Thanks in part to the American lawyer Kristina Gjerde,

adjunct professor at the Middlebury Institute of International

Studies at Monterey, California, and senior high seas advisor to

the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Global

Marine and Polar Programme, this “wondrous place” is now the

object of a campaign to protect it and its ecosystem.

The Sargasso Sea Alliance, which she co-founded in 2010,

aims to ensure legal protection for fragile ecosystems and

provide insight to aid the establishment of other Marine

Protected Areas.

Gjerde began her career as a specialist in admiralty law at

a firm in New York, but it was winning a three-year Pew

Fellowship in Marine Conservation that led her to specialize in

advocating the need for governance of the oceans and seabed.

Applying the rule of law to the high seas is one thing, enforcing

it is another. This, as she said in her TED talk, leads her to her

second passion – space technology. “I wanted to be an astronaut,

so I’ve constantly followed the tools available to monitor Earth

from outer space.” This enables the tagging and tracking of

fishing vessels.

The Visionary Award

KRISTINA GJERDE

US lawyer breaking new ground in ocean governance

Joint

Winner

Kristina Gjerde has brought her legal expertise

to bear on the issue of governance of the

oceans, a previously neglected area. Right:

crew members on board Team Alvimedica,

taking part in the 2014/15 Volvo Ocean Race,

encounter sargassum weed on the leg from

Itajai, Brazil, to Newport, Rhode Island. The

weed can cause havoc with rudders, keels and

propeller appendages on all sorts of craft PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES