And I think Arthur C. Clarke probably had it right

海洋覆蓋地球表面七成多。

when he said that perhaps we ought to call our planet

而且我認為亞瑟·克拉克 極可能是對的

Planet Ocean.

他說也許我們應該叫地球

And the oceans are hugely productive,

「海行星」

as you can see by the satellite image

海洋是非常具有生產力的，

of photosynthesis, the production of new life.

就像你們可以在這個衛星圖看到的光合作用，

In fact, the oceans produce half of the new life every day on Earth

也就是生命新生。

as well as about half the oxygen that we breathe.

事實上，地球每天的新生命超過一半是來自海洋，

In addition to that, it harbors a lot of the biodiversity on Earth,

海洋亦產出約我們吸進氧氣的一半。

and much of it we don't know about.

此外，海洋中還包含很多各式各樣的生物，

But I'll tell you some of that today.

且很多生物仍然是不為我們所知的。

That also doesn't even get into the whole protein extraction

但我今天會告訴你們其中的一部分。

that we do from the ocean.

那甚至不包括我們從海洋裡所做的整個

That's about 10 percent of our global needs

蛋白質萃取部份。

and 100 percent of some island nations.

那大約是全球需求的百分之十，

If you were to descend

且是某些海島國家需求的百分之百。

into the 95 percent of the biosphere that's livable,

如果你深入

it would quickly become pitch black,

95%生物存活的地方，

interrupted only by pinpoints of light

你會馬上發現那裡一片漆黑，

from bioluminescent organisms.

只有一些從螢光生物身上

And if you turn the lights on,

所發出的微弱光芒。

you might periodically see spectacular organisms swim by,

如果你把燈打開，

because those are the denizens of the deep,

你有時也許可以看到一些很壯觀的生物游過，

the things that live in the deep ocean.

因為那些是處在深處的居住者

And eventually, the deep sea floor would come into view.

屬於住在深海的生物。

This type of habitat covers more of the Earth's surface

最後，海底會進入眼簾。

than all other habitats combined.

這種棲地在地球表面的面積

And yet, we know more about the surface of the Moon and about Mars

比任何其它棲地加起來還多。

than we do about this habitat,

直到目前為止，我們瞭解月球和火星表面

despite the fact that we have yet to extract

比我們瞭解這種棲地還多。

a gram of food, a breath of oxygen or a drop of water

即使我們仍未從那些星球上取得

from those bodies.

任何一份食物、一口氧氣，

And so 10 years ago,

或是一滴水。

an international program began called the Census of Marine Life,

所以十年前，

which set out to try and improve our understanding

一個叫作「海底生物調查」的全球性研究開始了，

of life in the global oceans.

這個研究試圖加深我們對

It involved 17 different projects around the world.

地球海洋生物的瞭解。

As you can see, these are the footprints of the different projects.

這個計畫包括了17個子計畫。

And I hope you'll appreciate the level of global coverage

如你所見，這是各個計畫的分布圖。

that it managed to achieve.

我希望你們可以了解這個研究

It all began when two scientists, Fred Grassle and Jesse Ausubel,

涵蓋的範圍之廣。

met in Woods Hole, Massachusetts

這一切都從Fred Grassle和Jesse Ausubel這兩個科學家

where both were guests at the famed oceanographic institute.

在麻省海洋機構的Woods Hole

And Fred was lamenting the state of marine biodiversity

做客時相遇開始的，

and the fact that it was in trouble and nothing was being done about it.

當Fred正在感歎海洋生物

Well, from that discussion grew this program

事實上已經面臨危機而且沒有任何實行的解決措施時。

that involved 2,700 scientists

這個計畫就是從那次討論開始實行

from more than 80 countries around the world

包含了來自全球超過

who engaged in 540 ocean expeditions

80個國家的2,700個科學家，

at a combined cost of 650 million dollars

研究540個海域，

to study the distribution, diversity and abundance

經費超過六億五千萬元，

of life in the global ocean.

來研究全球海裡生物的分布、

And so what did we find?

多樣性、和豐富性。

We found spectacular new species,

所以我們找到什麼呢？

the most beautiful and visually stunning things everywhere we looked --

我們發現許多令人嘆為觀止的新物種，

from the shoreline to the abyss,

比我們看過的任何生物都更美麗驚艷。

form microbes all the way up to fish and everything in between.

從海岸線到深海，

And the limiting step here wasn't the unknown diversity of life,

包含從微生物一路到魚類等。

but rather the taxonomic specialists

而這之中的限速步驟並不是未知的生物多樣性，

who can identify and catalog these species

而是分類學家

that became the limiting step.

試圖鑑定並分類這些物種，

They, in fact, are an endangered species themselves.

這才是限速步驟。

There are actually four to five new species

他們，事實上，就是一種面臨絕種的物種。

described everyday for the oceans.

每天事實上大約有四到五個新物種

And as I say, it could be a much larger number.

在海洋中被發現。

Now, I come from Newfoundland in Canada --

如我所說的，還可以是個更大的數字。

It's an island off the east coast of that continent --

我來自加拿大的紐芬蘭，

where we experienced one of the worst fishing disasters

那是一個位於大陸東邊海岸的島嶼，

in human history.

也是我們的歷史上其中一個遭遇過

And so this photograph shows a small boy next to a codfish.

嚴重濫捕的地方。

It's around 1900.

可以看到這張照片有個小男孩在一條鱈魚旁邊。

Now, when I was a boy of about his age,

大約是19世紀左右。

I would go out fishing with my grandfather

當我跟這個小男孩大概一樣大的時候，

and we would catch fish about half that size.

我會跟我祖父去釣魚，

And I thought that was the norm,

然後我們會抓到只有這張照片尺寸一半的魚。

because I had never seen fish like this.

而我當時認為那是很正常的，

If you were to go out there today, 20 years after this fishery collapsed,

因為我從來沒有看過這樣大的魚。

if you could catch a fish, which would be a bit of a challenge,

在漁業瓦解二十年後的今天，如果你再去釣魚，

it would be half that size still.

如果你可以順利抓到一隻魚，這是有點挑戰的，

So what we're experiencing is something called shifting baselines.

那隻魚的大小也會是我當時釣魚的一半。

Our expectations of what the oceans can produce

所以我們正在經歷的是一個叫做變換底線的過程。

is something that we don't really appreciate

我們期待在海裡可以產生的東西

because we haven't seen it in our lifetimes.

是一個我們無法真正體會的事情，

Now most of us, and I would say me included,

因為我們從未在我們的一生中看過。

think that human exploitation of the oceans

現在大部份的人們，也包括我，

really only became very serious

會認為人類對海洋的浩劫

in the last 50 to, perhaps, 100 years or so.

大約是在過去50年、100年或更早

The census actually tried to look back in time,

才開始嚴重起來的。

using every source of information they could get their hands on.

這個調查試圖利用所有能找到的資訊

And so anything from restaurant menus

來回溯過去的時間點。

to monastery records to ships' logs

因此他們從餐廳菜單

to see what the oceans looked like.

到修道院的船行紀錄，

Because science data really goes back

來瞭解當時海洋的情形。

to, at best, World War II, for the most part.

因為科學數據大部分至多回溯到

And so what they found, in fact,

第二次世界大戰。

is that exploitation really began heavily with the Romans.

而他們發現事實上

And so at that time, of course, there was no refrigeration.

從羅馬時期漁業濫捕就開始嚴重了。

So fishermen could only catch

在那個年代，冰箱還不存在。

what they could either eat or sell that day.

所以漁人只會抓

But the Romans developed salting.

他們當天可以賣掉或吃掉的量。

And with salting,

但羅馬人發明出醃漬法。

it became possible to store fish and to transport it long distances.

有了醃漬法，

And so began industrial fishing.

存放及長途漁獲運輸變成可行了。

And so these are the sorts of extrapolations that we have

因此開啟了工業漁業。

of what sort of loss we've had

這些是我們目前的推斷，

relative to pre-human impacts on the ocean.

根據早期人類對海洋的衝擊

They range from 65 to 98 percent

牽連到我們現在的損失。

for these major groups of organisms,

他們將百分之65到98的受到危害的

as shown in the dark blue bars.

主要生物族群

Now for those species the we managed to leave alone, that we protect --

用深藍色長條顯示。

for example, marine mammals in recent years and sea birds --

然後那些我們已經開始維護的物種，

there is some recovery.

以近年來的海洋哺乳動物和海鳥來說，

So it's not all hopeless.

開始有復原的跡象。

But for the most part, we've gone from salting to exhausting.

所以也不是完全沒有希望。

Now this other line of evidence is a really interesting one.

但其他絕大部份，我們已經歷了大量醃漬到資源枯竭。

It's from trophy fish caught off the coast of Florida.

現在另一個證據是非常有趣的。

And so this is a photograph from the 1950s.

這是在佛羅里達海岸捕捉到的漁獲。

I want you to notice the scale on the slide,

這是1950年代的照片。

because when you see the same picture from the 1980s,

我要你們注意旁邊的比例尺，

we see the fish are much smaller

因為當我們看1980年代的相同照片時，

and we're also seeing a change

我們可以看到魚明顯地變小，

in terms of the composition of those fish.

且我們也看到

By 2007, the catch was actually laughable

魚的結構有些不同。

in terms of the size for a trophy fish.

到了2007，這些漁獲的大小

But this is no laughing matter.

已經有點可笑了。

The oceans have lost a lot of their productivity

但這並不是件好笑的事。

and we're responsible for it.

海洋已經喪失了很大部份的生產力，

So what's left? Actually quite a lot.

且我們得為此負責。

There's a lot of exciting things, and I'm going to tell you a little bit about them.

接下來談什麼？事實上還有很多可以聊。

And I want to start with a bit on technology,

而且我要來跟你們聊一點關於這些計畫的趣事。

because, of course, this is a TED Conference

我要從科技面來開始談，

and you want to hear something on technology.

因為這是TED會議，

So one of the tools that we use to sample the deep ocean

你們自然會想要聽到一些關於科技的東西。

are remotely operated vehicles.

我們用來採集深海樣本

So these are tethered vehicles we lower down to the sea floor

的其中一種工具是遙控汽車。

where they're our eyes and our hands for working on the sea bottom.

我們將這些綁在一起的運載工具降到海床，

So a couple of years ago, I was supposed to go on an oceanographic cruise

讓他們成為我們在海底工作的雙眼和雙手。

and I couldn't go because of a scheduling conflict.

像幾年前，我原本要去一趟海洋地質之旅，

But through a satellite link I was able to sit at my study at home

但因為時間上調度的問題無法參加。

with my dog curled up at my feet, a cup of tea in my hand,

但透過一個衛星連結，我可以坐在我家書房繼續我的研究。

and I could tell the pilot, "I want a sample right there."

我的狗就盤在我的腳邊，手上還拿著一杯茶，

And that's exactly what the pilot did for me.

跟艦長說：「我要這裡的樣本。」

That's the sort of technology that's available today

艦長就會完全照做。

that really wasn't available even a decade ago.

這是現今才有的科技，

So it allows us to sample these amazing habitats

這些科技在十年前甚至還不存在。

that are very far from the surface

所以這讓我們可以在這些離海面和光源

and very far from light.

很遠卻令人驚艷的棲地

And so one of the tools that we can use to sample the oceans

來採集樣本。

is acoustics, or sound waves.

其中一個我們可以用來採集樣本的工具是

And the advantage of sound waves

聲音，也就是聲波。

is that they actually pass well through water, unlike light.

聲波的優點是

And so we can send out sound waves,

他們能輕易透過水傳聲, 不像光一樣。

they bounce off objects like fish and are reflected back.

所以我們可以發射聲波，

And so in this example, a census scientist took out two ships.

聲波會碰到像魚之類的生物反射回來。

One would send out sound waves that would bounce back.

所以在這個例子裡，一個調查員帶了兩艘船出去。

They would be received by a second ship,

第一艘船會發射聲波

and that would give us very precise estimates, in this case,

之後反射回來的聲波會被第二艘船接收，

of 250 billion herring

這會給我們很精準的估計值，在這個例子中

in a period of about a minute.

兩千五百億隻鯡魚

And that's an area about the size of Manhattan Island.

在一分鐘內就被偵測出來

And to be able to do that is a tremendous fisheries tool,

那大概有一個曼哈頓島這麼大。

because knowing how many fish are there is really critical.

能這麼做對漁業來說是很有用，

We can also use satellite tags

因為知道有多少魚是非常重要的。

to track animals as they move through the oceans.

我們也可以用衛星定位

And so for animals that come to the surface to breathe,

來追蹤在海裡移動的動物。

such as this elephant seal,

也可用在那些會到水面上呼吸的動物，

it's an opportunity to send data back to shore

例如這隻海象，

and tell us where exactly it is in the ocean.

衛星定位可以將資料回傳給岸上

And so from that we can produce these tracks.

並且顯示牠在海裡的位置。

For example, the dark blue

這可以讓我們用來繪製路線圖。

shows you where the elephant seal moved in the north Pacific.

舉例來說，深藍色的點

Now I realize for those of you who are colorblind, this slide is not very helpful,

告訴你這隻海象搬到北太平洋。

but stick with me nonetheless.

我知道對色盲的人來說，這張投影片並沒有很有用，

For animals that don't surface,

但還是跟著我聽下去。

we have something called pop-up tags,

對那些不到水面上的動物，

which collect data about light and what time the sun rises and sets.

我們有一個叫做彈出標簽的東西，

And then at some period of time

它會收集光線的資料和日出日落的時間。

it pops up to the surface and, again, relays that data back to shore.

然後在某些時段，

Because GPS doesn't work under water. That's why we need these tools.

它會彈上海面上，將這些資料傳回岸上。

And so from this we're able to identify these blue highways,

因為GPS無法在水裡使用，所以我們才需要這些工具。

these hot spots in the ocean,

因此利用這些資訊，我們可以找出這些藍色路徑，

that should be real priority areas

這些海底熱點，

for ocean conservation.

應該是海洋保育

Now one of the other things that you may think about

優先採取的地帶。

is that, when you go to the supermarket and you buy things, they're scanned.

另外一件你們可能會想到的是

And so there's a barcode on that product

當你們去超市買東西的時候，這些東西會經過掃描。

that tells the computer exactly what the product is.

因為這些物品上有條碼，

Geneticists have developed a similar tool called genetic barcoding.

會告訴電腦物品是什麼。

And what barcoding does

基因學家也發明了相似的工具叫做基因條碼。

is use a specific gene called CO1

這些條碼利用一個叫做

that's consistent within a species, but varies among species.

CO1的基因，

And so what that means is we can unambiguously identify

這個基因在同種類中是相同的，但在不同種類中卻不同。

which species are which

這代表我們可以很清楚的分辨

even if they look similar to each other,

不同的物種，

but may be biologically quite different.

即使他們看起來很像，

Now one of the nicest examples I like to cite on this

但在生物性質上卻是很不同的。

is the story of two young women, high school students in New York City,

用其中一個我喜歡的例子來說，

who worked with the census.

一個在紐約市的兩個女高中生

They went out and collected fish from markets and from restaurants in New York City

與調查計畫合作的故事

and they barcoded it.

他們去紐約市的魚市場和餐廳蒐集魚

Well what they found was mislabeled fish.

然後掃描魚。

So for example,

他們發現有很多被標錯名稱的魚。

they found something which was sold as tuna, which is very valuable,

舉例來說，

was in fact tilapia, which is a much less valuable fish.

他們找到一些被當成很有價值的鮪魚販售，

They also found an endangered species

但實際上卻是低於鮪魚價值很多的吳郭魚。

sold as a common one.

他們也有找到一個瀕臨絕種的種類

So barcoding allows us to know what we're working with

以很常見的物種拍賣。

and also what we're eating.

所以條碼化可以讓我們瞭解我們是在研究

The Ocean Biogeographic Information System

以及食用哪些物種。

is the database for all the census data.

海洋生物地理資訊系統

It's open access; you can all go in and download data as you wish.

是用來儲存這些調查的資料庫。

And it contains all the data from the census

他是開放性的，你們大家都可以去那邊下載你們想要的資料。

plus other data sets that people were willing to contribute.

它包含了「海洋生物調查」的所有數據

And so what you can do with that

加上其它人們願意貢獻的資料。

is to plot the distribution of species and where they occur in the oceans.

所以你們可以利用這些資料

What I've plotted up here is the data that we have on hand.

來瞭解物種的分類和他們分布在海洋的位置。

This is where our sampling effort has concentrated.

這邊是我用我們現有的資料繪製的圖。

Now what you can see

這是用我們主要集中心力的的採樣的地方。

is we've sampled the area in the North Atlantic,

你們可以看到

in the North Sea in particular,

我們在北大西洋蒐集樣本，

and also the east coast of North America fairly well.

主要在北海，

That's the warm colors which show a well-sampled region.

在北美洲東部海洋也蒐集到很多。

The cold colors, the blue and the black,

暖色系顯示樣本數很多的地區。

show areas where we have almost no data.

冷色系, 像是藍色和黑色，

So even after a 10-year census,

代表我們幾乎沒有資料。

there are large areas that still remain unexplored.

所以就算經過了十年的調查，