The big picture an overview of the Seafriends web site. www.seafriends.org.nz/overview.htm This page helps you navigate the Seafriends web site from what you want to know, particularly when you are in a hurry. It also tells you of our plans. Just follow the questions and click on your answers. The bold links lead you to the chapters of interest while the other links navigate within this page. Use your go back button to return to this page.

What are you interested in?

• how the planet works: oceanography, soil, ecology, biology,
• the world's problems: soil loss, polluted seas, climate change, fossil fuel
• the problem with people: history, science & technology, beliefs, population, wasting.
• New Zealand's problems: a special place, sensitive soils, erosion, plankton blooms, overfishing
• saving the sea: resource management, biodiversity, conservation principles, marine conservation, degradation, marine reserves.
• New Zealand's seas: look at many underwater photos of our seas taken in many places and inside marine reserves.
• particular things in the sea: habitats, ecology, species, biology
• the war for marine reserves: many people are concerned about the sea but do the wrong things
• Niue: a separate and growing section about the tiny island state of Niue contrasts NZ with a sparsely inhabited place in a pristine sea.
• underwater photography: how to do it and a display of galleries of beautiful photographs. Also the digital darkroom on computer.
• reference information: the extensive environmental library, dictionaries and more
• how to do business with Seafriends: hiring gear, booking the restaurant, school trips, ordering photos.
• information for schools: the Seafriends school programmes
• in-depth articles: articles on topical issues, suitable for schools
• challenging theories: during our research we encountered gaps in science and we filled some.
• scientific swindles: science should be entirely trustworthy, but unfortunately this is not the case. This web site exposes shoddy science.
• how to help: increase our non-profit business, make donations and legacies, sponsor us.

-- seafriends home -- Rev:20030710,20030922,20041210, 20050421,20050803,20070828,

There are two substances on which humans depend most: water and soil. Both are in trouble from loss and degradation. Water may no longer be sufficiently available to irrigate agricultural lands and to feed our industries. Our soils are farmed with ever greater productivity, which has its limits. It is important therefore to understand how soil works and how we are losing it through loss of fertility and erosion. The soil chapter is very large because it is such an important subject while also the world's worst problem.
This chapter also gives a quick primer on geology, how rocks form and how these form soil. How the availability of water determines whether soil can be farmed sustainably depends on its potential evapotranspiration.

Oceanography will later be extended with estuaries, global climate change, global warming and the El Niño weather patterns.

If you want to know how the organisms on the planet work together, a chapter on marine biology, ecology and evolution will appear in the future. Already the chapter on biodiversity may give you a glimpse of some principles.

This very large section will in due time be expanded with chapters on fishing and whaling, poisonous plankton blooms, chemical pollution, introduced marine species, ballast water and more.

One of the world's largest resources, energy, is also becoming one of the world's largest problems. A separate chapter will analyse what energy is, the present situation, alternatives and how fossil fuels affect the atmosphere and life on Earth.

The human dimension will be extended with chapters on the population explosion, how the mind works and how it fools us, how to teach yourself to think better, to solve problems, and to bring about change while minimising risks.

Because of its low population some of the problems experienced elsewhere on more populated continents are not pressing in NZ but government departments are active ratifying United Nations agreements.

This section will benefit from the planned chapters on planktonand its harmful algal blooms, and that on fishing and how to control it. There is a better way to save our seas.

If you want to take an active role, study the latest discoveries with the Dark Decay Assay method and begin to monitor the health of the aquatic ecosystems in your area. This chapter is now in its very beginnings and will be expanded as more results come in.

This section will be extended by detailing the habitat classification with more sample habitats. Already the rockpool habitat has been touched on and the rocky shore has been dealt with extensively, including 400 identifying photographs.

This section will be completed at a later date, with a priority for fishes, crustaceans and echinoderms.

This website we have doggedly pursued the many issues that are the real causes of the problems in the sea, as the main threat now comes from the land. Read the large chapters on degradation to become informed. Only by saving the land, can we save the sea!

Under the pretense of an integrated strategy with consultation of all stakeholders at all stages, DoC' s new Marine Protection Policy and Implementation Plan by-passes the Marine Reserves Amendment Bill and the Oceans Policy, becoming the summit of madness in the war for marine reserves.

This section will keep pace with new inventions of folly until a truly integrated policy is formed that recognises the new threats to the seas while abandoning the present policies of confrontation, deceit and secrecy.

Enjoy the many galleries of beautiful underwater photos, a section which is gathering momentum. From this index the many galleries of photos will be found. We hoped to have many slide shows about interesting topics and beautiful photographs but have not developed this concept further.
Most of the photographs on this web site have been taken by us and they can be ordered for commercial use as also a print of any photo can also be ordered. Our posters have been pre-printed. Read the introduction to the photolibrary for the latest informaiton and pricing. Just send us an e-mail and mention the photograph's file number (e.g. f123456). Payment is done through PayPal.

This section will hopefully one day be extended by 'light is all you see' or understanding what makes a photo (on land). Also a chapter on tips and tricks is in preparation.

If you wish to update a basic understanding of chemistry, read the periodic table of elements and what follows. It helps you to better understand our chapters. Rock and soil geology has been summarised in a compact number of tables. The tables of the abundance of the elements from humans to animals is a unique compilation containing the elements of life and world mineral reserves.

History comes at various levels. Read how the universe developed, the planets and life on Earth in the geologic time table. The history of our civilisation depended mainly on knowledge and technology as tabled in the history of mankind.
Be amazed about how easily people surrender to myths and strange beliefs in the belief systems of the world.

An amazing reference work, which is growing steadily is the table of units and measures which helps you to convert from one physical unit to another and to make your own calculations and informed estimates with the many natural constants and rule-of-thumb factors. This already formidable tool for understanding what scientists say, grows steadily.

This section is awaiting the completion of the basic education provided in the main sections, which is taking up all of our time. The planned worksheets have not yet eventuated.

The whole web site is now available on CD, including medium resolution versions of many photographs and diagrams. The CD can be downloaded on the school computer for fast and instant access.

By treating the beach-dune system as a living organism (because it absorbs wind and wave energy) we discovered how beaches work and the real reasons why these are disappearing. We formulated the six basic laws that govern every beach and seaside dune system in the world. These laws make far-reaching predictions. We formulated a method to ascertain the health of any beach. We also identified missing science about this close-to-home oceanography.

Soil is the Earth's and humanity's most precious resource, yet we are losing it precipitously. Hence a large section on geology, soil formation and fertility. We identified the seven basic laws governing soil sustainability and what is perhaps the main reason for global climate change, the disruption of the water cycle.
In the extensive chapter on soil erosion, we identify a new way of looking at landscapes by considering that they are the evolutionary product of processes that result in least loss landscapes. We also identify how erosion affects the sea, and the forces that return nutrients back onto the continental shelf, which makes plausible that the shallow seas tend to saturate with nutrients.

We have observed inexplicable distributions of marine populations and equally inexplicable mass mortalities of nearly all species. Our new plankton balance hypothesis explains that one important limiting factor, found only in the sea, has been overlooked. Plankton does not only feed but it also kills by its active decomposers. It explains many apparent paradoxes and makes frightening predictions.

In January 2005 we invented a new scientific method, the Dark Decay Assay, to measure the strength of the planktonic decomposers and thus the health of any plankton ecosystem. This epoch-making discovery opens a world of interest, gives strong support for the Plankton Balance hypothesis and resolves many paradoxes. Because of its universality, accuracy, simplicity and low cost, it is of immediate practical use to many who work with aquatic ecosystems, such as aquariums, ponds, aquaculture and marine research. Why not use it yourself to keep a watchful eye on the waters in your neighbourhood? School children can do it too. The DDA could become a formidable weapon in the fight against eutrophication! Read DDA for dummies first.
The Dark Decay Assay challenges the way we think about aquatic ecosystems. It discovered that planktonic decomposers are a large part, often exceeding the biomass of producers (phytoplankton) but they are not capable of completing decomposition unless an additional high-energy food is supplied. It also discovered that the main limiting factor in aquatic ecosystems is the availability of hydrogen ions, which makes acidic lakes far more productive than basic lakes. In the sea the conditions for plant growth are not favourable, reason why the insufficiently decomposed biomatter in the sea (slush) may well help plants become more productive with bacteria living in symbiosis on their slimy skins (the symbiotic decomposer hypothesis or slush hypothesis). As the seaweed or phytoplankter feeds the decomposers, they provide it with hydrogen ions, carbondioxide and nutrients. Symbiotic decomposition also explains why corals can grow productively in clear waters with little phytoplankton. It must also play an indispensable role in soil.
Work in this area is continuing as also aquarium studies are in place to document the process of progradation (improving water quality).

When nutrients, sewage and mud enter the sea, they feed plankton blooms that have disastrous effects on the environment, whereas the opposite is supposed to happen. The large chapter on marine degradation explains the principles behind this new and fast accelerating threat. Many images of degradation show what it looks like and what to look for. It builds further on and confirms the plankton balance hypothesis, also an important discovery. We may have entered a new era of rapid degradation of our lands and seas due to the vicious cycle created by di-methyl sulphide (DMS) produced by the rapidly increasing biomass of decomposers world-wide.

In the chapter on biodiversity we identify how problems accelerate now that we are entering the era of scarcity and we identify the seriousness of the situation with the mathematics of scarcity which makes sobering predictions.

In the large chapter on resource management, we identify the rules of resilience, derived from the survival and evolutionary strategies of living organisms. Ecologists speak of top-down or bottom-up control of populations but the economics of exploitation does a better job of explaining how populations interact.

In our own investigations of the kelpbed deaths due to dense plankton blooms, we find evidence that barren zones are created by storms, whereas urchins just maintain these. In Niue we found strong support for our barrens hypothesis as we formulated Niue's marine ecology. We also find support for the wave theory that the depth of the sand bottom is a measure of the destructive power of the worst destructive waves. It allowed us to construct a habitat zoning diagram for the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand, but the method applies equally to any coast on Earth.

Our expeditions to the Kermadec Islands and Niue island discovered symptoms of stress, caused by the difficulty of living in a small place, surrounded by a large empty ocean. We formulated the main factors in the ecologies of Niue and the Kermadec Islands.

You will enjoy minor discoveries such as where the giant heart urchin Brissus gigas lives, not previously known, and the mystery of Barren Arch at the Poor Knights, where large boulders can move at motorway speeds.

What will be next in this category? We really don't know because we never anticipated encountering such gaps in science.

Closer to home are the mistakes in marine science, rebutted in Science Exposed and Myths(7). Green activism and propaganda never stand alone, as there are always scientists behind them, who provide the arguments. Read the growing section about myths and fallacies about marine reserves and marine conservation and brush up quickly on a concise treatment of marine reserves, and then in more detail the Frequently Asked Questions about marine conservation.

For the sake of our children, it is important to do the right thing at the right time for the right reasons - not an easy task. Preferably we need to prevent problems and act pro-actively (in advance), but uncertainty may make us do the wrong things, a kind of dilemma (choice between two hells). Scientists who are at the source of society's understanding and knowledge, need to warn us for impending danger, but they must also refrain from scare scenarios, or at least be honest about what knowledge is missing. It is equally important for them to say 'we were wrong' and retract previous false statements. In this respect there is much to be desired, also because fear opens the taps for scientific funding.

The ocean acidification scare is a classical example where scientists have exaggerated the danger, while being dishonest about how much is not known, while also not considering all angles. Read it to make up your own mind.

We are interested in dissecting Global Warming and Climate Change, because society is already doing the wrong things.

Do you have interesting books about the sea gathering dust? Donate them to the Seafriends library.

You may have expertise in the subjects treated here on this web site. Please give us your feed-back to make it better. You may not understand part of this web site. Please tell us so that we can improve it.