The environmental movement is under attack. The slow, painstaking work of conservation, decades of research, legal protections, and fragile ecosystem recovery, is being undone at an alarming rate. Agencies that exist to safeguard our air, water, ocean, and biodiversity, such as the EPA and NOAA in the USA, are facing cuts and restructuring that threaten their very ability to function, perhaps even to exist. Regulations protecting fragile ecosystems are being rolled back. Policies designed to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change are being abandoned. In many cases, the losses are not just setbacks of months or years of work; they are irreversible.

When a single environmental protection is repealed, we don’t just lose research or funding. We lose entire ecosystems, species, and biodiversity that have taken thousands of years to evolve and stabilize. We lose forests that have stored carbon for centuries. We lose coral reefs that took millennia to build. We lose species we haven’t even discovered yet. We lose the opportunity to understand, protect, and restore life on this planet because once destruction happens, recovery is not always possible.

I was distracting myself by flipping through Instagram reels last night and stumbled on Jane Fonda’s Life Achievement Award acceptance speech. She asked, “Have any of you ever watched a documentary of one of the great social movements, like apartheid or our civil rights movement or Stonewall, and asked yourself, would you have been brave enough to walk the bridge? Would you have been able to take the hoses and the batons and the dogs?” She followed with, “We don’t have to wonder anymore because we are in our documentary moment. This is it. And it’s not a rehearsal. We mustn’t for a moment kid ourselves about what’s happening. This is big-time serious, folks. So let’s be brave.” [YouTube link of entire 8 min speech. Quote above at 7:06]

Then I felt the weight in my gut. And I felt it still this morning. I felt guilty, I promised to excuse myself from further activism for my own mental health. I dedicated my entire career and bankrupted myself on an attempt to save our ocean, biodiversity, the hope for humanity. Knowing that no matter how much I do, it will never be enough. 

But I am also reminded of something important: SEVENSEAS Media exists. At the very least, I have built this. I know that SEVENSEAS is an incredible and vital tool in the environmental movement. It’s not just about the ocean; it’s about connection. We are organizing without even realizing we are organizing. We are creating a global community where knowledge is shared freely, where environmental professionals, students, activists, and organizations across nations, cultures, languages, and incomes can support one another.

We cannot rely solely on governments or institutions to protect what we love. The environmental movement has always been about people- individuals and communities working together. SEVENSEAS is part of that solution. We now have over 36,000 subscribers to our weekly newsletter, making us larger and stronger than ever.

I ask everyone reading this: Use this platform. Share your needs. Offer your resources. Publish opportunities. Use SEVENSEAS to connect and organize, and make sure others in our movement are aware. Even if someone subscribes and doesn’t read our emails today, they may need that connection tomorrow. We are in a moment of crisis, and it will likely get worse, but we are not alone. Let’s be brave. Let’s stand together. Let’s keep fighting.

Giacomo Abrusci, Founder & Executive Director

If you wouId like to learn more about SEVENSEAS: 

• An Open Letter in Support of SEVENSEAS signed by 145 individuals (and counting) 
• 2024 Impact Report
• About SEVENSEAS
• Our Donate Link

The ocean connects us all, yet those working to protect it too often remain isolated. From researchers in Antarctica to policymakers in Washington, D.C., from coral gardeners in Thailand to Navy officers at sea, conservation takes many forms, covers countless issues, and focuses on so many species, they haven’t even all been discovered yet. Despite our shared mission, these efforts often remain siloed, disconnected in ways that limit their collective impact.

Look at the banner photo above- what are the chances that these individuals would ever end up in the same room? Zero. But what is the one thing they all have in common? SEVENSEAS.

It’s easy to assume that the greatest challenge in ocean conservation is funding. Others may argue that the problem is technology, policy, or government support. But even if a single person or organization had unlimited funding, they would still only be addressing one piece of a massive, interconnected puzzle. Someone could dedicate every resource to establishing marine protected areas, but MPAs alone won’t solve ocean acidification, sedimentation, warming, whale strikes, plastic pollution, or the countless other threats facing our seas. Even if 30% of the ocean were protected by 2030, we would still face unsustainable fishing, deep-sea mining, and biodiversity loss beyond those borders. No matter what someone considers the biggest roadblock in ocean conservation, it will always be just one fragment of a much larger, more complex system. The real issue is that no solution exists in isolation, and no single effort can address the full scope of challenges the ocean faces.

The solution lies in open-access networks like SEVENSEAS. We are not traditional media, and we do not push a singular agenda. Instead, we serve as a conduit for connection- a two-way street where ocean conservationists from across the world can share their knowledge, opportunities, and stories. We collect and distribute job postings, funding opportunities, and announcements. We highlight the voices of those who may never be published in National Geographic or Nature but who are making an undeniable impact in their own communities. With an audience of over 34,000 conservationists, policymakers, artists, students, and professionals worldwide, we ensure that a researcher in the Philippines can learn from a diver in the Caribbean, and that a high school student in Vanuatu has the same access to conservation knowledge and opportunities as a policymaker in Washington, D.C.

Do you think if that teenager from Vanuatu got ahold of an email address for someone at the EPA, they would get a response? Maaaaaybe not. But when both are part of the SEVENSEAS community, their stories are told, their voices amplified, and their ideas shared. We strive for diversity- not just in backgrounds but in disciplines. We actively seek out underrepresented voices, Indigenous knowledge, and individuals at all academic or career levels. We don’t just report on conservation- we make conservationists visible to one another.

At a time when government funding for environmental initiatives is being slashed and short-term economic interests are prioritized over sustainability, independence is more crucial than ever. SEVENSEAS remains independent. We are not bound by political cycles or corporate sponsors dictating our focus. We provide education, resources, and opportunities that reach the conservationists who need them most.

Attending a coral reef conference is valuable. So is networking at Capitol Hill Ocean Week or attending a brown bag lunch at Conservation International. But these gatherings, while important, still exist within their own circles. Familiar names and familiar faces. Rarely do the artists meet the scientists, the government officials meet the free divers, the Indigenous leaders meet the naval officers, or the researchers collaborate with the fishermen on the opposite side of the globe. And yet, it is only together, by sharing knowledge, learning from past mistakes, and leveraging the full spectrum of expertise, that we can move forward.

SEVENSEAS is the knowledge hub that bridges these gaps. Our work is more important than ever. Support us, tell your story, and invite friends and colleagues to join our community. The larger our network, the bigger our impact.

Giacomo Abrusci, Executive Director, SEVENSEAS Media

Authors note: In case you needed a clear reminder—this is YOUR formal invitation to contribute. Contact us here. Share your story. Feature your work or that of your organization. Because the ocean belongs to all of us, and its conservation depends on all of us working together.

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Photos at top:

1. Italian Climate Network. COP28 – Dubai.
2. Long Ma. People sitting on ice formation during daytime in Antarctica.
3. Chris Pagan. The bulk freighter, Federal Beaufort.
4. Luemen Rutkowski. Navy men standing while saluting.
5. Martin Colognoli / Ocean Image Bank. Eco-volunteers in Komodo National Park, Indonesia.
6. Guy Kawasaki. Asilomar – Conference Center, Pacific Grove, United States.
7. Duke Scholars in Marine Medicine Program.
8. Martin Colognoli / Ocean Image Bank. Coral restoration in Indonesia, Coral Guardian.
9. Paul Einerhand. Men fishing for mussels.
10. Shaun Wolfe / Ocean Image Bank. Science diver, American Samoa.
11. Ricardo Pinto. Team Malizia, The Ocean Race.
12. Vanessa Khan. Dr. Letise LaFeir (right) speaking on a panel on offshore wind as an invited CHOW panellist.

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By Cheryl Lyn Dybas

Threading their way through tangled undergrowth, biochemist Ilya Raskin of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and botanist Slavik Dushenkov of Hostos Community College in the Bronx, New York, are bushwhacking through the wooded maze of an Indonesian jungle. The biologists, who study plants and human health, are not alone. With them are Ernawati Sinaga and other researchers at Indonesia’s Universitas Nasional in Jakarta, and scientists affiliated with Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

Raskin and Dushenkov are training plant biologists in Indonesia in modern methods of discovering and validating botanical medicines for the treatment and prevention of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

Funded by an international research training grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, with additional support from the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research, the work is coordinated through the Center for Botanicals and Chronic Diseases. The center is headquartered at Rutgers University and directed by Raskin, along with Sinaga and Dushenkov.

“We’re working to merge two medical systems – ancient and modern – for the benefit of Indonesia,” says Raskin. “To do that, we’re fostering research scientists who can bridge these ways of thinking for the prevention and treatment of a range of diseases while conserving the country’s rainforests and other ecosystems that may hold leads to new cures.”

Their efforts are not a moment too soon. Indonesia, a land of biodiversity superlatives, is now undergoing massive deforestation, accelerating the loss of tropical species. The island nation ⎯ the largest archipelago in the world ⎯ is home to Southeast Asia’s immense coral reef, most of the world’s tropical peat forests, Earth’s largest mangrove forest, and more than 15% of the globe’s flora, including some 80,000 species of spore plants and more than 30,000 seed plant species. The Center for Botanicals and Chronic Diseases project addresses the need to conserve potentially life-saving bioactive compounds harbored in these Indonesian plants.

All plants produce primary substances for growth and, if they live in stressful conditions, secondary compounds, or metabolites, to protect them in demanding environments. Leads for new treatments, says Raskin, are often contained in secondary metabolites.

Initial research to find these compounds may now be performed right where the plants grow. It’s a new paradigm Raskin and Dushenkov have introduced. “Screens to Nature” brings pharmaceutical screens to nature in field-deployable bioassays rather than ferrying samples from nature to pharmaceutical labs.  “This new way of looking at medicinal plants,” Raskin says, “is important to advancing medical research and education in Indonesia and other countries.”

Nature Meets Human Health

In the Screens to Nature antibacterial bioassay, for example, investigators identify and collect plants in the wild. Each plant’s location is recorded with a portable GPS unit and two small samples are obtained: one for extraction and one for identification, the latter to be kept as an herbarium specimen. Then an extract is prepared from the parts of a plant that may have medicinal value, whether leaves, bark, fruit or roots. 

One screening involves placing a small, but bacteria-laden, saliva sample into each well of a 48-well plate.  Then the plant extract is added. The plates incubate overnight.  The next morning, they’re ranked on a scale of zero to three; the higher the number, the less bacterial growth in the sample. If a plant shows interesting results, laboratory-based assays often follow.  

Other Screens to Nature bioassays evaluate whether plant extracts might be used to regulate blood sugar levels, fight parasitic and viral infections, or increase immune function. “The bioassays provide a simple platform that’s great for students and others to gain insights into the complicated path of characterizing beneficial compounds from plants,” Dushenkov says.

Adds Raskin, “Ownership of all Screens to Nature data and discoveries is assigned to the country where the work was done.” In addition to its use in Indonesia, the researchers have deployed Screens to Nature in regions such as Central Asia, South America and the Mediterranean.   

From Cave Medicine to Metabolomics

Knowledge of botanical medicines likely goes back to the days of the Neanderthals, who disappeared between 30,000 and 24,000 years ago. Scientists have discovered evidence for the use of medicinal plants in a cave in what’s now northern Spain, trapped in the remains of a Neanderthal’s dental calculus.  

Fast-forward to the 1950s and 60s. Those decades were heydays of modern drug discovery from natural products – the chemicals produced by living organisms. Many of the antibiotics and chemotherapies we know today, such as the antibiotic Gentamicin from a bacterium and the anti-cancer drug Vincristine from the Madagascar periwinkle plant, were developed during that time. 

Now one-quarter of existing medicines is based on plants. The most common such drug is salicylic acid, or aspirin, extracted from the bark of the willow tree.  

To help find the next new botanical treatment, Raskin, Dushenkov and colleagues have taken Screens to Nature another step, with the development of what they call RAMES, or RApid Metabolome Extraction and Storage technology. The metabolome is the total number of metabolites in an organism, cell or tissue. Indonesian scientists such as Sinaga are using RAMES technology to create the first metabolomic library of Indonesian plant species, dubbed MAGIC, for the Metabolome and Genome Innovation and Conservation library. 

The Indonesia MAGIC library is a miniaturized, easily transportable collection that currently contains some 501 metabolome samples from 296 species. Among them are such plants as Crossandra pungens, known as firecracker plant for the seeds that shoot out from its pods like small firecrackers; Hibiscus tiliaceus, called the sea hibiscus or coast cottonwood, a flowering tree that lives along tropical coastlines; and Quassia amara, a small tropical evergreen shrub also referred to as Amargo, bitter-ash or bitter-wood.

Collection sites for Indonesia MAGIC library species include Rawa Barat in South Jakarta, the Bogor Botanical Garden in West Java, Tabanan in Bali, and Serpong in Banten, along with nearly two dozen other locales to date. “This first-of-its-kind Indonesia library will foster collaborative research into plant metabolomics and natural products across the Southeast Asia region,” says Sinaga.

According to Raskin, “The Indonesia MAGIC library was created solely by Indonesian scientists using technology developed in the U.S. then transferred to Indonesia. We enable local scientists, including graduate students, to research their own country’s plants.” 

The group held its first international workshop in Indonesia in July 2022, with a subsequent international workshop in May 2023, the latter in conjunction with the 8^th Indonesia Biotechnology Conference. The 2023 meeting featured 19 keynote speakers from four countries; 293 participants from 61 institutions attended. It took place in Bali and was organized by scientist Enny Sudarmonowati of Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency. 

Presentations addressed topics such as the history and future of plants and human health; Indonesia’s fruits, including rose myrtle (Rhodomyrtus tomentosa), as potential sources of functional foods for the management of metabolic syndrome diseases like diabetes; drug discovery and development from Indonesia’s seagrasses and other marine species; and the perils of doing too little to conserve biodiversity.

New Cures-in-Waiting

Can plants offer an unending stream of new findings for human health? Hundreds of new drugs may be waiting in botanical sources, scientists say.

Those discoveries can only happen if plant biodiversity is protected, according to a report by the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC). The GSPC’s aim is “to secure a sustainable future where human activities will support the diversity of plant life, and where in turn the diversity of plants supports and improves our livelihoods and well-being.”

With their efforts in biodiverse nations such as Indonesia, the work of Center for Botanicals and Chronic Diseases scientists takes us far down that viny trail. 

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About The Author

Award-winning science journalist and ecologist Cheryl Lyn Dybas (cheryl.lyn.dybas@gmail.com), a Fellow of the International League of Conservation Writers, is a Contributing Editor at Ocean Geographic magazine. She also contributes to numerous other publications. Eye-to-eye with the wild is her favorite place to be.

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