Canada CHS update in the Marine GeoGarage

4460 : CHARLOTTETOWN HARBOUR

96 charts have been updated for Canada (CHS update published September 29, 2010) :

• 1234 :CAP DE LA TETE AU CHIEN TO CAP AUX OIES
• 1235 : POINTE AU BOISVERT TO CAP DE LA TETE AU CHIEN
• 1236 : POINTE DES MONTS TO ESCOUMINS
• 1311 : SOREL-TRACY TO VARENNES
• 1317 : SAULT-AU-COCHON TO QUEBEC
• 1350A : SOREL - TRACY TO RUISSEAU LAHAISE
• 1350B : RUISSEAU LAHAISE TO SAINT-ANTOINE-SUR-RICHELIEU
• 1350C : SAINT-ANTOINE-SUR-RICHELIEU TO ILE AUX CERFS
• 1350D : ILE AUX CERFS TO OTTERBURN PARK
• 1351A : BASSIN DE CHAMBLY TO ILE SAINTE-THERESE
• 1351B : ILE SAINTE-THERESE TO POINTE LA MEULE
• 1351C : POINTE LA MEULE TO POINTE NAYLOR
• 1351D : POINTE NAYLOR TO LAKE CHAMPLAIN
• 1435 : CARDINAL TO WHALEBACK SHOAL
• 1514A : CARILLON TO L'ORIGNAL
• 1514B : L'ORIGNAL TO PAPINEAUVILLE
• 1551 : CHATS FALLS TO CHENAUX
• 2123 : PELEE PASSAGE TO LA DETROIT RIVER
• 2242 : GIANTS TOMB ISLAND TO FRANKLIN ISLAND
• 3001 : VANCOUVER ISLAND ILE DE VANCOUVER JUAN DE FUCA STRAIT TO QUEEN CHARLOTTE SOUND
• 3419 : ESQUIMALT HARBOUR
• 3441 : HARO STRAIT BOUNDARY PASS AND SATELLITE CHANNEL
• 3475 : PLANS - STUART CHANNEL
• 3477 : BEDWELL HARBOUR TO GEORGESON PASSAGE
• 3539 : DISCOVERY PASSAGE
• 3543 : CORDERO CHANNEL
• 3547 : QUEEN CHARLOTTE STRAIT EASTERN PORTION PARTIE EST
• 3602 : APPROACHES TO JUAN DE FUCA STRAIT
• 3606 : JUAN DE FUCA STRAIT
• 3960 : APPROACHES TO PORTLAND INLET
• 4002 : GOLFE DU SAINT-LAURENT GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE
• 4003 : CAPE BRETON TO CAPE COD
• 4013 : HALIFAX TO SYDNEY
• 4015 : SYDNEY TO SAINT-PIERRE
• 4022 : CABOT STRAIT AND APPROACHES DETROIT DE CABOT ET LES APPROCHES
• 4026 HARVE-SAINT-PIERRE AND CAP DES ROSIERS TO POINTE DES MONTS
• 4375 : GUYON ISLAND TO FLINT ISLAND
• 4377 : MAIN-DIEU PASSAGE
• 4381 : MAHONE BAY
• 4432 : ARCHIPEL DE MINGAN
• 4529 : FOGO HARBOUR SEAL COVE AND APPORACHES LES APPROCHES
• 4617 : RED ISLAND TO PINCHGUT POINT
• 4820 : CAPE FREELS TO EXPLOITS ISLANDS
• 4839 : HEAD OFFOND DE PLACENTIA BAY
• 4862 : CARMANVILLE TO BACALHAO ISLAND AND FOGO
• 4911 : ENTREE ENTRANCE TO MIRAMICHI RIVER
• 4912 : MIRAMICHI
• 4913 : CARAQUET HARBOUR BAIE DE SHIPPEGAN AND MISCOU HARBOUR
• 4921 : HAVRE DE BEAUBASSIN
• 4950 : ILES DE LA MADELEINE
• 5024 : NUNAKSALUK ISLAND TO CAPE KIGLAPAIT
• 5048 : CAPE HARRIGAN TO AUX KITLIT ISLANDS
• 5049 : DAVIS INLET TOUX SENIARTLIT ISLANDS
• 7565 : CLYDE INLET TO CAPE JAMESON
• 1220 : BAIE DES SEPT ILES
• 1233 : CAP AUX OIES TO SAULT-AU-COCHON
• 1234 : CAP DE LA TETE AU CHIEN TO CAP AUX OIES
• 1313 : BATISCAN TO LAC SAINT-PIERRE
• 1429 : CANAL DE LA RIVE SUD
• 1430 : LAC SAINT-LOUIS
• 1550 : BRITANNIA BAY TO CHATS FALLS
• 2042 : WELLAND CANAL ST.CATHERINES TO PORT COLBORNE
• 2205 : KILLARNEY TO LITTLE CURRENT
• 3461 : JUAN DE FUCA STRAIT EASTERN PORTION
• 3462 : JUAN DE FUCA STRAIT TO STRAIT OF GEORGIA
• 3493 : VANCOUVER HARBOUR WESTERN PORTION
• 3515 : KNIGHT INLET
• 3545 : JOHNSTONE STRAIT PORT NEVILLE TO ROBSON BIGHT
• 3912 : PLANS VICINITY OF DE BANKS ISLAND
• 3945 : APPROACHES TO DOUGLAS CHANNEL
• 3947 : GRENVILLE CHANNEL TO CHATHAM SOUND
• 3984 : PRINCIPE CHANNEL - SOUTHERN PORTION
• 3985 : PRINCIPE CHANNEL - CENTRAL PORTION AND PETREL CHANNEL
• 3986 : BROWNING ENTRANCE
• 3987 : KITKATLA CHANNEL AND PORCHER INLET
• 4002 : GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE
• 4021 : POINTE AMOUR TO CAPE WHITTLE AND CAPE GEORGE
• 4307 : CANSO HARBOUR TO STRAIT OF CANSO
• 4308 : ST. PETERS BAY TO STRAIT OF CANSO
• 4335 : STRAIT OF CANSO AND APPROACHES
• 4342 : GRAND MANAN (HARBOURS HAVRES)
• 4381 : MAHONE BAY
• 4406 : TRYON SHOALS TO CAPE EGMONT
• 4416 : HAVRE DE GASPE
• 4420 : MURRAY HARBOUR
• 4432 : ARCHIPEL DE MINGAN
• 4460 : CHARLOTTETOWN HARBOUR
• 4466 : HILLSBOROUGH BAY
• 4498 : PUGWASH HARBOUR AND APPROACHES
• 4529 : FOGO HARBOUR SEAL COVE AND APPORACHES
• 4530 : HAMILTON SOUND EASTERN
• 4653 : BAY OF ISLANDS
• 4661 : BEAR HEAD TO COW HEAD
• 4820 : CAPE FREELS TO EXPLOITS ISLANDS
• 4830 : GREAT BAY DE L'EAU AND APPROACHES
• 4832 : FORTUNE BAY - SOUTHERN PORTION
• 4841 : CAPE ST. MARY'S TO ARGENTIA
• 4862 : CARMANVILLE TO BACALHAO ISLAND AND FOGO
• 4909 : BUCTOUCHE HARBOUR
• 4913 : CARAQUET HARBOUR BAIE DE SHIPPEGAN AND MISCOU HARBOUR
• 5032 : APPROACHES TO APPROCHES WHITE BEAR ARM
• 5138 : SANDWICH BAY
• 7777 : CORONATION GULF WESTERN PORTION

Note : don't forget to visit 'Notices to Mariners' published monthly and available from the Canadian Coast Guard both online or through a free hardcopy subscription service.
This essential publication provides the latest information on changes to the aids to navigation system, as well as updates from CHS regarding CHS charts and publications.

Scientists question widely used indicator of ocean health

If humans were fishing down the marine food web then catches of top predators, at trophic levels 3.5 and above, would be decreasing.

But catches at those levels have generally increased according to newly compiled information. Named next to each trophic level is the species most often caught, for example bigeye tuna is the most often caught fish at level 4.5.

The wider the line, the more fish are being caught at that trophic level.
(Credit: Trevor Branch/U of Washington)

From NewsWise

Scientists question widely adopted indicator of fisheries health and evidence for ‘fishing down marine food webs’

The most widely adopted measure for assessing the state of the world’s oceans and fisheries led to inaccurate conclusions in nearly half the ecosystems where it was applied according to new analysis by an international team led by a University of Washington fisheries scientist.

“Applied to individual ecosystems it’s like flipping a coin, half the time you get the right answer and half the time you get the wrong answer,” said Trevor Branch, a UW assistant professor of aquatic and fishery sciences.

In 1998, the journal Science published a groundbreaking paper that was the first to use trends in the trophic levels of fish that were caught to measure the health of world fisheries.
The trophic level of an organism shows where it fits in food webs, with microscopic algae at a trophic level of one and large predators such as sharks, halibut and tuna at a trophic level of around four.

The 1998 paper relied on four decades of catch data and averaged the trophic levels of what was caught.
The authors determined those averages were declining over time and warned we were “fishing down the food web” by overharvesting fish at the highest trophic levels and then sequentially going after fish farther down the food web.

The gray line represents the average trophic level of what was caught worldwide starting in 1950 according to a 1998 Science paper about fishing down the marine food web.
Newly revised and updated information, the black line, shows that the average trophic level of what is being caught has, instead, been generally going up since the mid 1980s.
(Credit: Trevor Branch/U of Washington)

Twelve years later, newly compiled data has emerged that considers such things as the numbers and types of fish that actually live in these ecosystems, as well as catch data.
An analysis in the Nov. 18 issue of Nature reveals weaknesses in assessing ecosystem health from changes in the trophic levels of what is being caught.

“This is important because that measure is the most widely adopted indicator by which to determine the overall health of marine ecosystems,” said Branch, lead author of the new analysis in Nature.
Those involved with the U.N.’s Convention on Biological Diversity, for instance, chose to use the average trophic level of fish being caught as the main measure of global marine diversity.

An example of the problem with the measure is in the Gulf of Thailand, where the average trophic level of what is being caught is rising, which should indicate improving ecosystem health according to proponents of that measure.
Instead, it turns out fish at all levels have declined tenfold since the 1950s because of overharvesting.

“The measure only declines if fisheries aimed for top predators first, but for the Gulf of Thailand the measure fails because fisheries first targeted mussels and shrimps near the bottom of the food web, before shifting to predators higher up in the food web,” Branch said.

Including the Gulf of Thailand, Branch found that changes in the average trophic levels of what was being caught and what was found when fish populations were surveyed differed in 13 of the 29 trawl surveys from 14 ecosystems.
Trawl surveys, generally done from research vessels, count the kinds and abundance of fish and are repeated over time to reveal trends.

Branch and his co-authors are the first to combine so many trawl surveys for analysis – no one had combined more than a handful before.
The trawl survey data came from efforts started three years ago by fisheries scientists and ecologists gathered at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, Calif.
They brought together worldwide catch data, stock assessments, scientific trawl surveys, small-scale fishery data and modeling results.
What emerged is the most comprehensive set of data yet for fisheries researchers and managers.
It paints a different picture from previous catch data and has revealed another major new finding: on a global scale humans don’t appear to be fishing down the food web, Branch said.

The new catch data reveal that, following declines during the 1970s in the average trophic levels of fish being caught, catches of fish at all trophic levels have generally gone up since the mid-80s.
Included are high-trophic predators such as bigeye tuna, skipjack tuna and blue whiting.

“Globally we’re catching more of just about everything,” Branch said.
“Therefore relying on changes in the average trophic level of fish being caught won’t tell us when fishing is sustainable or if it is leading to collapse.”
That’s because when harvests of everything increase about equally, the average trophic level of what is caught remains steady.
The same is true if everything is overfished to collapse.
Both scenarios were modeled as part of the Nature analysis.

“The 1998 paper was tremendously influential in gathering together global data on catches and trophic levels and it warned about fishing impacts on ecosystems,” Branch says.
“Our new data from trawl surveys and fisheries assessments now tell us that catches weren’t enough. In the future we will need to focus our limited resources on tracking trends in species that are especially vulnerable to fishing and developing indicators that reflect fish abundance, biodiversity and marine ecosystem health. Only through such efforts can we reliably assess human impacts on marine ecosystems.”

“In this paper we conducted the first large-scale test of whether changes in the average trophic levels of what is caught are a good indicator of ecosystem status,” says Beth Fulton, a co-author and ecosystem modeler with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia.
“Catch data might be easiest to get, but that doesn’t help if what it tells us is wrong. Instead we really need to look directly at what the ecosystems are doing.”

Other co-authors are Reg Watson and Grace Pablico, University of British Columbia; Simon Jennings, Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science and University of East Anglia, England; Carey McGilliard, University of Washington; Daniel Ricard, Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia; and Sean Tracey, University of Tasmania, Australia.

The work was supported by the National Science Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the UW School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences.
It used data from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis working group, used the stock assessment database funded by the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and used data from the Sea Around Us project funded by Pew Charitable Trust.

Sources willing to comment, who are not co-authors:

• Henry Gholz, program director National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology : "Monitoring all the fish in the sea would be an enormous, and impossible, task. But this study makes clear that the most common indicator, average catch trophic level, is a woefully inadequate measure of the status of marine fisheries."
• Phillip Taylor, section head, National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences : "The research shows the importance of synthesis to furthering an understanding of fisheries impacts and management strategies. For complex ecosystem interactions, answers can only come from repeated scrutiny of data, and comparisons of different scientific methods and systems. This synthesis points to a path forward to evaluate fisheries influences on ocean ecosystems."
• Stephanie Hampton, deputy director National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis, University of California, Santa Barbara : "Refining scientific concepts is a process of iterative testing. This group accelerated the call-and-response dialog that normally occurs among scientists, by doing what we do here at NCEAS - assembling experts with different perspectives under the same roof, with all the data they can find, and using some really sharp analytical tools to challenge important concepts."

Links :

• USAToday : Widely-used measure of ocean health flawed
• NSF : Inaccurate conclusions may have been reached in many ecosystems
  
• NewScientist : row erupts over number of big fish in the sea
• TheVancouverSun : new study questions work of celebrated B.C. scientist
  

The analysis being published in Nature was based on:

• Data compiled two years ago by a group led by Dalhousie University’s Boris Worm and University of Washington’s Ray Hilborn, conducted through the National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis,
  
• Science paper about that effort, “Rebuilding Global Fisheries,” July 31, 2009,
  

Fishing down marine food webs

• In 1998 Science published, “Fishing Down Marine Food Webs,” Feb. 6, 1998
• Wikipedia: Peak fish
• Trevor Branch faculty website
  

Other research led by UW in recent years concerning marine food web:

• People who fish for a living pursue top profits, not necessarily top predators, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, June 24, 2010,
• News release : fishing through marine food webs
  
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Feb. 14, 2006,
• News release
  

Perpetually sinking boat

From Julien Berthier

Love love’ is perhaps one of Julien Berthier’s more unusual sculptural installations.
The floating sculpture is made from a large sailboat that has been modified to appear as if it is capsizing.
Despite its battered appearance the boat is fully functional and able to move around thanks to a built-in motor.

To create the piece a 6.5 meter yacht was cut in half and a new keel was added to allow the boat to remain upright in the sinking position.

Since its construction Julien has taken the boat out on numerous trips inside harbours like canary wharf in London and in Normandy, France.

For this piece he adapted an abandoned 6.5 meter yacht so that it appears to be perpetually sinking.

To create this, the vessel was split and a new keel was constructed allowing it to be sailed by Julien at a 45 degree angle off the coast of Normandy.

Love-Love, like much of his oeuvre, is impressive, poetic and humorous.

In this project, the artist invests his energies and resources into creating an art of fiasco, aiming in his words to “fix an object at the moment of its deregulation.”

The image, and metaphor of the sinking ship is an iconic one – it signifies death, lost hope and sinking dreams.

Berthier’s Love-Love freezes those sentiments permanently both celebrating and overturning them.

On display in the gallery will be the boat itself as well as a series of accompanying photographs and documentary video showing the performance in Normandy.

The boat now belongs to some wealthy London Banker to whom he sold it for £50,000.

Julien Berthier is an artist with great sense of humor.

We recommend spending some time on his website, exploring his methods of work.

Max Hardberger: repo man of the high seas

Max Hardberger makes his living by stealing back stolen cargo ships,
beating pirates at their own game from Haiti to Russia.

From TheGuardian

May 1987. The day after the Naruda had finished offloading its rice cargo in Haiti, armed guards boarded the freighter.
Moments later the captain, Max Hardberger, had a grubby, badly photocopied piece of paper placed in his hands. "Pour les dettes," the guard said.

"What debts?" Hardberger asked.

The guard shrugged and said: "It's a matter for the courts. In the meantime my men will remain on board."

There were no debts, but that was beside the point. Haiti was a law unto itself; a place where court officials could be bought. And one clearly had been. The Naruda was about to be stolen from under Hardberger's nose.

He played for time. He pumped the guards with booze and waited for dark before ordering his engineer to lock them into their cabin. It was a toss-up whether they would try to shoot their way out, but they were either too drunk or not being paid enough to bother. Hardberger started the engines, switched off all the lights and sneaked out of harbor. If they were spotted, the Naruda would be seized, and he'd be slung in jail. Only when he was in international waters could he relax. Hardberger called down to the guards. He offered to set them loose in a lifeboat or take them to Venezuela; the choice was theirs. They chose the lifeboat.

This event was the making of the man who looks a bit like a salty Hulk Hogan, whose life could be a Hollywood film and whose name is a scriptwriter's dream. And the man with one of the world's wildest jobs. As far as he knows, Hardberger is the only man who makes a living by stealing back stolen cargo boats. When you think of modern-day piracy you probably imagine Somali gunmen holding men and boats for ransom. Yet there are many easier ways to steal a ship than making a mid-ocean boarding raid and hijacking a tanker. Throughout the more lawless ports of the world, piracy is a great deal more frequent than you might imagine. In fact, it's almost an institution in some places.

"The shipping business can be worse than the Wild West," says Hardberger in his southern drawl. "The normal rule of law just doesn't apply in some places; if you can bribe an official to say you have a claim against the boat or its owners, then you can have the boat impounded in that port indefinitely. Possession really is nine-tenths of the law."

Here's how semi-legalized piracy works: you wait until the cargo has been offloaded – the cargo's owner and the boat's owner are rarely one and the same, and you don't want to confuse the issue legally – and then bribe a local court official to validate your claim. And there's nothing the owner can do about it because the boat is subject to the court's jurisdiction.

"One of two things usually then happen," says Hardberger. "The owner either pays out on the bogus claim just to get his ship back, or the claimant uses his court order to sell it." It sounds absurd, but it's true. A chancer can't take the ship out of port, as once it is in international waters it would no longer be under local law and the claim would instantly be recognized as invalid elsewhere; but he can sell it at auction. Under International Maritime Law, all auction sales are deemed to be final; even if the claim against you is subsequently proven to be invalid, there is no means of redress, either against the new owner or the one who stole it off you. Once it's sold and renamed, it's out of reach . . . And it's financially rewarding; a 20-year old, 4,000-tonne freighter can fetch $500,000.

There is actually a third thing that can happen. You can get Hardberger to get your boat back. Word got round after he saved the Naruda, and since then Hardberger has retrieved "about 15" – he's not saying precisely how many – from ports in the Caribbean, South America and Russia. Though not Somalia. "That really is dangerous." It will cost you, mind; simple extraction starts at about $100,000, and the price rises sharpish the more complicated it gets. Even so, he reckons he's worth every cent.

"I've never actually failed to get a boat back," he says. This is less a boast; more a statement of the obvious. If he had failed, he'd probably be still stuck in a hellhole of a jail. "And I've got some basic rules. I never use violence and I don't accept jobs where there's a chance of someone getting killed."

Apart from that, pretty much anything goes. Over the years, he's distracted crews with prostitutes and witch doctors, bribed officials to look the other way, conned Russian mobsters and hidden from naval radar by riding out thunderstorms at sea; he's even taken a 10,000-tonne freighter out of Haiti while the 2004 revolution was going on around him. "It's basically a matter of planning," he says. "To get a boat out of port, you need a chief engineer and a one or two crewmen in your team, so everyone has to know exactly what they are doing.

"I make sure we all arrive in port separately. The aim is to draw as little attention to ourselves as possible, so none of us fly in; rather we come in by ferry or cargo ship. I always stay in lowlife hotels in the seediest part of town, as it fits with my usual cover story of a sea captain looking for work. During the daytime I will scope out the port, working out the easiest way to get the boat out of port; it's always best to have a plan where you can board it brazenly, rather than creep on surreptitiously. In the evenings I act the stereotypical drunk captain, tipping my whiskey down the sink while no one is looking. And when it's time, we move in."

Is it really that simple? "I guess not," he concedes. "I get scared each time I go in. Who wouldn't? You're in places where the normal rule of law doesn't apply. The secret is to be able to keep thinking straight under pressure and not panic. There have been times when I haven't been sure that everyone was on my side, and times when I've been fairly sure the local guys knew something was up. You just have to stay on your guard and try and stay ahead of the game."

And you can't help feeling it is the challenge of the game that is the main attraction for Hardberger. The job has already cost him his marriage – his wife couldn't stand the strain of not knowing if he was going to end up in jail each time he went away – but he keeps going back for more. He even lives for part of the year – "I'm not saying exactly where" – in one of the most lawless parts of Haiti.

"There's no real legal structure there," he laughs, "but it's surprisingly peaceful. Sure, you can have someone killed for $50, but the murder rate is very low. Apart from the passion killings. There's a lot of pilfering, but people leave me alone. I guess it's because I drive a white SUV with blacked-out windows and people aren't sure I'm not the local police chief . . . "

With most people, the longer you spend talking to them, the more normal they appear. With Hardberger, the reverse applies. Just when you think you've heard it all, he comes up with something wilder. He could just as easily have made a career in academia. He's got an English degree from the University of New Orleans, an MA in poetry and fiction from the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa (one of the best creative-writing programmes in the US), has a law degree from the University of Northern California, and has taught English and history at high school.

It's just that his seemingly hotwired need for an adrenaline rush kept tempting him away. First, to light aircraft, where he made a living flying dead bodies round the country, towing banners and cropdusting. "It wasn't the danger that stopped me," he says. "I had no worries flying so close to the ground; I just thought I was getting exposed to too many toxic chemicals." His piece de resistance was organizing a squadron of young pilots to help him spirit 47 light aircraft out of East Germany shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, by flying them under radar to Rostock on the Baltic.

He eventually settled on a career at sea in his late 30s. "Like most kids from New Orleans, I'd been messing about in boats since I was 15, getting work on the oil-rig supply boats to pay my way through college," he says. "And while I was at a loose end, I kept noticing cargo freighters being sold at super-cheap prices; so I thought I might get one. Within a couple of days I was a captain . . . "

For a long while he made a living by plying a junk route between Miami and Haiti, transporting buckets, bicycles and cooking oil, until one day someone tried to steal his boat. It was a defining moment. Hardberger made his choice, and has gone on to carve out one of the more unusual careers on offer, and is still going strong at 62. But for how long? "Who knows?" he says, though he's in no mood to quit any time soon. And what next? "There's talk of a Hollywood movie and a videogame of my life." Silly me. I should have guessed.

Links :

• www.maxhardberger.com
• Time : High-seas repo man Max Hardberger
• VessEx / Shiprotek : ship and aircraft recoveries, anti-piracy services
• 'Seized' book review (Daniel Sekulich)
  

Transcendent underwater sculpture acting as artificial reefs

The Silent Evolution : new installation currently in progress by Jason deCaires Taylor, installed in The national marine park of Cancun/ Isla Mujeres, Mexico. 250 of the 400 life size Statues casted from local members of the community to form an artificial reef.

From ArtistADay

Jason de Caires Taylor was born in 1974 and divided the earlier part of his life in Europe, Asia and the Caribbean.
Much of his childhood was spent on the coral reefs of Malaysia where he developed a profound love of the sea and a fascination with the natural world.
This would later lead him to spend several years working as a scuba diving instructor in various parts of the globe, developing a strong interest in conservation, underwater naturalism and photography.

In 1998, Taylor received a BA Honours in Sculpture and Ceramics from Camberwell College of Arts, but his scuba diving qualification would prove equally important to his art career—in May 2006 he created the world’s first underwater sculpture park in Grenada, West Indies, furnished with underwater sculptures of his design.
These sculptures create a unique, absorbing and expansive visual seascape, highlighting natural ecological processes while offering the viewer privileged temporal encounters.

His underwater sculptures, designed to create artificial reefs for marine life to colonise and inhabit, embrace the transformations wrought by ecological processes.
The sculptures are made from porous materials that will encourage coral to grow.
The works engage with a vision of the possibilities of a sustainable future, portraying human intervention as positive and affirmative.
Drawing on the tradition of figurative imagery, the aim of Jason de Caires Taylor’s work is to address a wide-ranging audience crucial for highlighting environmental issues beyond the confines of the art world.
However, fundamental to understanding his work is that it embodies the hope and optimism of a regenerative, transformative Nature.

The sculptures are sited in clear shallow waters to afford easy access by divers, snorkellers and those in glass-bottomed boats.
It is hoped the installation will provide a habitat for marine life, and relieve pressure on natural reefs from over half a million water-going tourists who visit the region every year.
Viewers are invited to discover the beauty of our underwater planet and to appreciate the processes of reef evolution.

Links :

• TheGuardian : 8 photos of Jason deCaires Taylor's sculpture submerged
• Jason is currently resident in Mexico as Artistic Director of the new Cancun Underwater Museum
• to see more of de Caires Taylor’s work, visit www.underwatersculpture.com