Video
Kenai Fjords Nearshore
Transcript
I personally find this project really just an inspiring and exciting one. There is a lot of power that comes from long-term monitoring studies, and here in the parks, we've got almost 10 years. But this is also building off almost 20 years of monitoring that's been going on in Prince William Sound following the Exxon Valdez oil spill. So it's continuing a legacy of understanding the ecosystem around us, and what we're finding is that we really don't know enough. You know, you can come out here and say, this is what we're going to measure, but there's always things happening that are unforeseen. It's going to be changing. The planet is always changing. It only goes in forward and it doesn't stop or go in reverse. And so knowing things like the effects of climate change, or ocean acidification—or hopefully it wouldn't happen but—an oil spill happens once again, or some other catastrophic event, we would have a way to go back and say, here's what these communities looked like and here's what just natural cycles are, and here's what we think the perturbation caused. This Gulf Watch Program is intended to go on for at least 20 years. We hope for much longer, because the longer you watch, the more patterns you'll see, the stronger questions you can ask, and the better understanding everyone will have of this environment.
Description
Kenai Fjords Nearshore
Duration
1 minute, 18 seconds
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