suz

Some folks are asking if there is a pre-meeting tomorrow night at the Northern California Underwater Photographic Society (NCUPS) monthly meeting ....

The answer is there is no pre-meeting, but please come early to socialize and help set up.

I look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow night.

Happy New Year!
Susan

Lynn Funkhouser, who was originally scheduled to present The Philippines tomorrow night (10/12), has been forced to cancel her appearance and in her place Chuck Tribolet will share some fantastic images from the Sea of Cortez.

Tribolet, was born and raised in the Arizona desert, Chuck is an avid diver and long-time NCUPS member. Past presentations have included the realities of rebreathers and his Ph.D. (Push here Dummy) underwater photography education series. Active in the local dive community, Chuck maintains a web page providing weather and dive conditions for the Monterey region, and is a moderator of the ba_diving e-mail list. Active in all sorts of nature photography, Chuck also belongs to the Bay Area Bird Photographers, Wildlife Photographers of Silicon Valley, and Monterey Peninsula Underwater Photographers. He supports his Nikon habit working in Silicon Valley as a software engineer. Though best known for diving Monterey over a hundred times a year, Chuck often makes a trip to warm water, traveling to Fiji, Cocos, Australia, Belize, Turks and Caicos, Hawaii, and Tahiti.

Last year, Chuck returned to his desert roots, diving aboard Rocio del Mar, a liveaboard dive boat operating in the Sea of Cortez. It mostly dives the Midriff Islands about in the middle of the length of the Sea. It picks up in Puerto Penasco at the north end, only about an hour and a half into Mexico. Tropical diving you can drive to, no TSA, no luggage limits. Chuck and life buddy Linda Reisinger loved it. The photo subjects are mostly macro, but divers occasionally get to snorkel with Sperm Whales and almost always with Whale Sharks. Chuck will present his images from the trip.

Jason Bradley is unable to join us tonight, but will come in August 2012.

Tonight we have two very special guests and I hope you can join us for what is sure to be a great presentation by Jay Ireland and Georgienne Bradley as they present "Using Your Images to Protect the Ocean"

In the 1990’s Jay Ireland and Georgienne Bradley leveraged photography and video to support conservation efforts and alter public policy. In 1993 they accompanied the UNESCO team to Cocos Island and helped convince them to induct Cocos Island onto the list of World Heritage Sites. For over two decades they have showcased illegal poaching efforts by using images to stand witness to this practice. Last year they worked closely with Assemblyman Paul Fong and his staff to insure the passage of the landmark bill - AB376. This was successfully passedfile://localhost/Users/brownsl/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0/clip_image002.jpg and will now make it illegal to possess shark fins in the state of California after 2013. This bill has served as a template for other bills that are now being passed across the United States.

Currently Ireland and Bradley are working once again in Costa Rica. For years it was virtually impossible to curb poaching at Cocos Island. Even if poachers were apprehended, the Costa Rica legal system was so lenient that the poachers were soon back at the island, finning, without any repercussions. This is changing.

A coalition of ten tenacious small nonprofits formed “La Frente” and have been working closely with the Costa Rica President and the Minister of Natural Resources. The objective is to change the entire ministry structure, ban special interest groups from the voting process, and create a more balanced governing body. Sea Save Foundation is one of the committed participants of this coalition and continues to use still images and video to thwart poaching and other threats to ocean conservation.

Sea Save Foundation is now launching an outreach program so that fellow underwater photographers can help with these efforts.