We’re keeping the ocean wild — and you can join us | Sylvia A. Earle
TED Talks Daily
TED
4.1 • 12.1K Ratings
🗓️ 8 June 2026
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 2009, marine biologist Sylvia Earle stood on the TED stage and made a wish: to build a global network of "Hope Spots" and protect the ocean before it's too late. Seventeen years later, she's back to report on what's happened since — and the picture is both more urgent and more hopeful than you might expect. From 100,000 fur seals saved from near-extinction to coral reefs rebuilt clam by clam, Earle says we already know exactly what needs to be done; the only thing left is to find the will to do it.
(Following her talk, Elise Hu, host of TED Talks Daily, interviews Earle on how she uses AI to gather data on the ocean and what she saw in a one-person submarine surfacing off the coast of Hawaii during a storm.)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. |
| 0:08.6 | I'm your host, Elise Hugh. Today is World Ocean Day, recognized by the UN as a day dedicated to raising awareness about the crucial role oceans play in our lives, and to mobilizing a worldwide movement for its protection. |
| 0:23.2 | There's arguably no one better to mark this day than with ocean scientist and deep-sea diver Sylvia |
| 0:28.2 | Earl. She has spent more than 7,000 hours underwater. Yes, you heard that number right. |
| 0:35.4 | She's witnessed the ocean at its most breathtaking |
| 0:38.0 | and has watched it change in ways most of us will never see firsthand. |
| 0:42.9 | I was told 50 years ago to be afraid of ice-all sharks. |
| 0:47.5 | Now I'm afraid because I don't see sharks when I go diving. |
| 0:51.8 | We've eliminated more than half of them since I began diving. |
| 0:56.2 | Sylvia, who's known in the ocean and diving communities as her deepness is a marine biologist, |
| 1:01.7 | National Geographic Explorer at Large, and founder of Mission Blue, the organization behind a global |
| 1:06.7 | network of ocean protected areas called Hope Spots. In 2009, she was awarded the TED Prize and used |
| 1:12.9 | her wish to call for a global movement to protect the ocean's blue heart. 17 years later, |
| 1:18.7 | she returned to the TED stage to take stock of what's been lost, what's been saved, and why |
| 1:24.5 | it's still imperative to protect the oceans. We can stop trashing the ocean. We can stop industrial fishing. |
| 1:32.2 | We must never allow mining the deep seas to sweep away the security |
| 1:37.6 | that living deep ocean provides to all of us. |
| 1:41.7 | Armed with greater knowledge than has ever existed before, we are the luckiest people |
| 1:47.8 | ever to have arrived on earth. |
| 1:50.7 | We not only can choose the future we want. |
| 1:54.3 | We must. |
| 1:55.9 | And I feel so lucky I got to sit down with Sylvia in Vancouver after her talk to hear how she first fell in |
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