What The Wild Sea Can Be (shortlisted For The Women's Prize For Nonfiction)

By (author) Scales Helen
Short description/annotation:
An impassioned examination of the existential threats to the world''s ocean and cautious optimism for the abundant life within it.
Description:

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN''S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION
LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION

No matter where we live, ''we are all ocean people,'' Helen Scales observes in her bracing yet hopeful exploration of the future of the ocean. Beginning with its fascinating deep history, Scales links past to present to show how prehistoric ocean ecology holds lessons for the ocean of today.

In elegant, evocative prose, she takes us into the realms of animals that epitomize current increasingly challenging conditions, from emperor penguins to sharks and orcas. Yet despite these threats, many hopeful signs remain, in the form of highly protected reserves, the regeneration of seagrass meadows and giant kelp forests and efforts to protect coral reefs.

Offering innovative ideas for protecting coastlines and cleaning the toxic seas, Scales insists we need more ethical and sustainable fisheries and must prevent the other existential threat of deep-sea mining. Inspiring us all to maintain a sense of awe and wonder at the majesty beneath the waves, she urges us to fight for the better future that still exists for the ocean.

Table of contents:
PART ONE: OCEAN CONVERSION Chapter 1: Ancient Seas Chapter 2: Remixing Seas PART TWO: VANISHING GLORIES Chapter 3: Ice Walkers Chapter 4: Missing Angels Chapter 5: Poisoned Hunters PART THREE: OCEAN REVIVAL Chapter 6: Restoring Seas Chapter 7: Rebalancing Seas Chapter 8: Future Forests Chapter 9: Future Reefs Chapter 10: Living in the Future Ocean
Review quote:
In elegant prose the author offers a manifesto of hope: providing answers to global problems while inspiring a sense of awe at the majesty that has long existed beneath the waves
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Authoritative and entertaining...a passionate look at how saving the seas is an essential part of saving ourselves...The author''s writing is lucid and compelling, featuring a nice mix of personal experience and convincing scientific data
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In What the Wild Sea Can Be Helen Scales has created something remarkable: a thrillingly expansive, deeply personal and often startlingly beautiful portrait of the ocean and its inhabitants that also charts a path to a better and more sustainable world. Urgent, exhilarating and marvellously researched and written, it is necessary reading for anybody who cares about the future of the planet
Review quote:
Here is one of our greatest communicators whose brilliance as a scientist is matched by her sublime skill as a writer. Helen Scales paints a dazzling picture of our seas from top to bottom and all around the edges to show us why - and how - we must protect them. She is not afraid to spell out what we stand to lose if we don''t change our ways, and it is terrifying... This is a book of love and urgency and sense. What the Wild Sea Can Be dives deep into the titanic power of the ocean''s life-giving system. It is rich and fascinating, stirring and mind-expanding, and utterly essential
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A wonderfully wise and richly researched examination of our blue planet''s extraordinary and precarious living seas; I learned so much from this delightfully detailed book. Scales is the perfect guide on a dive into these fascinating ocean ecosystems, whence the reader surfaces newly galvanised to protect its wonders
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Written by a highly articulate expert in the field, [it is] so comprehensive and insightful that it will be a long time before it''s surpassed
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