Biodiversity disrupts climate: Howard and Diane decided to set sail and collect what they considered to be the missing data that was needed to inform the climate change debate. Having read thousands of peer-reviewed papers and worked in the water and environmental clean technology sectors for decades, their observations on their travels around the world made them conclude that attention to the destruction of biodiversity was disrupting climate and the focus needed to shift from carbon to nature.
After sailing and undertaking research with other sailing vessels on plankton productivity, microplastics and black carbon on their own blue water sailing vessel, s/v Copepod, they published, and their peer-reviewed report can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364821580_Climate_Disruption_Caused_by_a_Decline_in_Marine_Biodiversity_and_Pollution
The more we learn: Their data told a sobering story about ocean biodiversity decline, and arriving in Panama, they both felt that they needed to take practical action and demonstrate what could easily be done on land to regenerate nature. They took a heart-wrenching decision, sold SV Copepod, and purchased a site in need of some TLC, with 10 acres of rainforest and surrounded by damaged mangroves, seagrass, and coral reefs that needed a big hug and some regenerative attention.
Love at first sight: From the hour they spent viewing the property on the Isla Bastimentos peninsula, they knew that Seahorse Point needed to be a place for learning and experiencing nature, a place for learning how to be nature positive and regenerative, a place where upcycling and recycling dominate decision-making, and above all, a place for being genuinely good neighbours with the indigenous population living in Bahia Honda. In the knowledge that 80% of the world's remaining biodiversity is looked after by 5% of people, the majority being indigenous, we know we have much to learn in our efforts to be good environmental stewards of Seahorse Point.
Impact through authentic engagement: Listening to what our neighbours think and need and sharing and including their emerging leaders in all that we are doing, we are finding sustainable ways of supporting their economic development, their health, their education and celebrating their culture. If you come to visit and stay with Howard, Diane and the wider Seahorse Point team, you will help them deliver even more.
A little more about Howard and Diane.
Howard Dryden is a marine biologist. He completed his PhD and founded www.DrydenAqua.com. He used his PhD research to invent and implement an ongoing programme of innovation to push the boundaries of glass as a filtration media for removing toxins from water. His work, focused around "AFM", short for "activated filter media", aimed to address the mountain of solid waste resulting from glass use, and in using waste container glass, work to provide a solution that could help avoid mining of sand suitable for water filtration, which is a globally recognised scarce resource.
With over 50% of all coloured bottles in Scotland and Switzerland now being used to make AFM, Howard's legacy has resulted in over 1 million water treatment systems around the world, using AFM to provide safe, clean drinking water and clean up and polish some of the world's nastiest wastewaters. Linked more directly to his marine biology interests, AFM is also used in many of the world's largest marine aquarium life support systems.
Howard continues to seek out opportunities for novel research but also use AFM in rural communities to remove microplastics, toxic chemicals, and especially water illnesses caused by waterborne parasites which impact the health of the most deprived
After over 30 years running Dryden Aqua, working and conducting research on the world's largest marine life support systems and most toxic industrial wastewater, he realised that lipophilic chemicals from municipal and industrial wastewater were destroying marine life.
Water and environmental regulators around the world chant a mantra that "the solution to pollution is dilution". Knowing that this statement is irrelevant for lipophilic toxic chemicals because they do not dissolve drove Howard to highlight how their removal from wastewater should be prioritised as a matter of urgency. These chemicals float on the ocean surface, known as the surface lipid layer (SML). Here they do NOT dilute but concentrate millions of times on the surface of microplastics and particles of black carbon soot. Plankton consume the toxic particles, giving them a fatal dose of toxic chemicals.
It is marine plankton that maintains the gas-regulating SML (surface micro-layer, 0.1–1 mm), which covers 71% of the surface area of the planet, regulating 50% of all gas diffusion, including humidity. It is well known that 70% of all the greenhouse gases (GHG) are water vapour, with carbon dioxide being less than 20%, meaning that it is the SML that regulates wind velocity, cloud formation, and 80% of our rain. Even today, with all the attention on CO₂, aerosols and the loss of plankton productivity, we get little or no attention on the climate disruption stage.
The oceans are the planet's life support system, and our addiction to petrochemicals and toxic personal care products, pharma and a global failing in treating wastewater and sewage from 8 billion people have destroyed more than 50% of ocean biodiversity since the 1970s and will destroy 90% over the next 10–20 years. For sure, carbon mitigation is important for climate change, but humanity cannot survive a cascade biodiversity loss of marine life in the oceans, which is becoming a looming but ignored threat.
Sitting one evening discussing his understanding and observations after decades of working in the wider water sectors supporting industry around the world, a decision was taken that if he and Diane believed what they were reading and saying, they needed to act. Howard sold 100% of his financial interest in DrydenAqua, identified a blue ocean vessel to undertake the necessary research, tested the research protocols, and he and Diane left Scotland to run one of the world's largest citizen science projects, focused on collecting data on oceanic microplastics, partially combusted carbon particle pollution, and plankton productivity across the oceans.
The equatorial Atlantic had over 1000 particles per litre of carbon and plastic and almost no marine life https://tinyurl.com/2s3tzx9j
Landing in Bocas del Toro, Panama, armed with a new level of knowledge and insight, Howard and Diane felt torn, but the opportunity to demonstrate what can and should be done to regenerate nature resulted in establishing Seahorse Point – a research facility, a place to learn and share environmental and marine science, a place to engage with and live in harmony with an indigenous community and host families and support executive groups who want to connect with nature and do more to look after this planet that we all call home and transition into biocultural leaders.
A bioclimatic solution to climate change will work if we implement it in time, and each and every one of us can think and act in a nature-positive manner.
A conversation with Diane will quickly tell you that she feels badly about how her generation has behaved: "I’ve been part of a wasteful generation that’s really messed things up for our kids." Prior to venturing onto the high seas, she was working in a government agency on economic development with a specific interest in environmental clean tech and microeconomic projects on island and rural communities. She was involved in setting up Scotland's newest university and establishing learning and skills infrastructure across a rural and island region the size of Belgium.
It is clear, however, that Diane's interest is the adoption of water technology to clean up the environment and support public health; that is her key interest. "We simply will not have an economy to worry about if we do not take care of our water environment. No matter which rural community I visit, the stories are the same the world over: dirty water causes suffering everywhere, and this impacts most seriously women and children and the poorest in society. Enough really is enough – people and animals should have clean water, and it is time to fight for nature and demand that we all treat and respect water from source to sea. Let's not take no for an answer".
