Mark Shargel kelp forest working group
Oliver Edwards | Published on 7/30/2024
Dear Dive Club Organizer,
Please forgive this rather impersonal email. You probably know me, or know of me. It’s likely we met me at one of the dozens of talks I’ve given over that last 30 years, maybe at your club. Perhaps you dropped in on one of my photo shows. I’m sending this email out in bulk because I’m doing my best to contact every dive club in northern and central California this week. As you probably remember, I volunteered to serve on the Community Working Group that the state has assembled to gather citizen advice on how to address the drastic loss of kelp forests along our coast. I’ve been asked to speak for you and your club as the “recreational diver” representative. It seems to me the best way to speak for you and your members is to ask you what you think.
I have created a survey that contains just 12 questions, and will take only about five minutes to answer (but there is room for you to send me as much info as you care to). I’ll use your responses to advise the state’s regulatory apparatus on what the diving community thinks. In order to collate the data in time to submit it, I need all the responses you can manage by August 5.
Please help by forwarding this email to all of your club’s members, to any other clubs you’re in contact with, and your circle of divers.
Thanks,
Author of Wonders of the Sea: North Central California's Living Marine Riches
and Wonders of the Sea Volume Two: Marine Jewels of Southern California's Coast and Islands
and Wonders of the Sea Volume Three: Hidden Treasures of California’s Far North Coast
and Yesterday’s Ocean: A History of Marine Life on California’s Central Coast
Current participant in the state of California’s Kelp Restoration Management Plan Community Working Group
Former participant in the Regional Stakeholder Group that placed Marine Protected Areas on California’s Central Coast