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So, of all my childhood memories,

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there is one that stands above the rest.

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And that is the time that my brave parents

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rented an RV, packed it
with me and my brothers,

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and drove west
from our house in Minneapolis,

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out to Yellowstone National Park.

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We saw all the sights, like the geysers,
we stopped at the Badlands,

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but more than any of the places,
I remember this as an adventure.

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This was my introduction to the Wild West.

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But it wasn't until I got older

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and I learned more
about the National Park System

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that I realized just how lucky I was.

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One, to have that experience,

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but also that, hundreds of years ago,

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people had the foresight
to set aside the very best places,

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the very best ecosystems
in the country, for everyone.

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And for future generations.

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And to really appreciate
just how prescient that idea was,

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you have to go back

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and you have to look at the history
of the National Parks Service.

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So, a lot of people know, the first
national park was Yellowstone, in 1872.

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A lot of people think of John Muir,
the poet, naturalist,

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who was such a visionary

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in getting people inspired
by the idea of conservation --

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that we need to take
the best places and protect them.

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He had an audience in very high places --

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there's a great story
of Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir

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going hiking, in Yosemite,
during his presidency,

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four days, completely off the grid,
just the two of them.

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Can you imagine a president

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actually just going completely
off the grid for four days?

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(Laughter)

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No tweeting.

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(Laughter) (Applause)

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Like that idea.

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(Applause)

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But he had a great impact
on Theodore Roosevelt.

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And he created dozens of national parks,

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hundreds of thousands of square acres
of national wildlife refuges.

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It was an important administration,
but it wasn't a done deal.

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Even less than 10 years
after he created all of those new places,

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the future of those places
was very much in doubt.

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And it wasn't until this guy,
Stephen Mather,

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a businessman from Chicago,

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wrote an angry letter
to the Department of the Interior, saying,

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"You guys aren't doing a good enough job
protecting and preserving these places."

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Then, something was done about it.

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The Department of the Interior
wrote him back.

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"Mr. Mather, if you care
so much about this,

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why don't you come to Washington
and do it yourself?"

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(Laughter)

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And he did.

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He took a job at the Department
of the Interior,

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but more importantly,
he started a campaign.

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He actually had a meeting
two blocks from here, in 1914,

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in California Hall,

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and he brought together the park
superintendents and a few other people

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who cared about this idea of conservation.

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And they put together a plan,
they hatched a campaign

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that eventually led to the
National Park Service in 1916.

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And that's really important.

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Because it went from an idea
that we should protect these places

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to an actual plan,

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a way for people to enlist
and carry that idea forward

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for future generations,

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so little kids like me can go
and have these amazing experiences.

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That is the history
of the National Parks on land.

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The ocean, what I want
to talk to you about today,

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is a completely different story.

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And we are almost precisely
100 years behind.

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So, the first marine
sanctuary was in 1972,

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after the oil spill in Santa Barbara,

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people got interested
in taking that concept

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and applying it
to underwater environments.

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We've had our own John Muir,
who's Dr. Sylvia Earle,

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who's been a tireless advocate

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for creating these marine
protected areas around the world.

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So, I know there's a lot
of bad news about the ocean,

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there's plastic pollution,
coral bleaching, over-fishing --

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it's hard to take it all in sometimes.

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But this idea of setting aside
places for nature is working.

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Science tells us that if you
set these places aside,

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nature will come back
and we can keep the oceans healthy.

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So we know this idea works.

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And Dr. Sylvia Earl
has been influential, like John Muir,

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with administrations --

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George W. Bush and Obama
were both fantastic ocean presidents,

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creating marine protected areas
all around the country.

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This is not a conservative idea
or a liberal idea,

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it's not even an American idea,

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it's just a good idea.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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But --

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(Applause)

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Here we are, a few years later.

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And now the administration is proposing
to roll back a lot of the progress

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we've made in the past 20 years.

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So, so, don't mourn -- organize.

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We need to do what
Stephen Mather did 100 years ago.

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We need to start a campaign
to get people engaged with this idea.

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And I think we need a league
of citizen scientists for the ocean.

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And I've seen glimpses of this future,
and I know that it's possible.

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My friend Erik and I started building
underwater robots,

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these little swimming cameras
with lights that you can see underwater.

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We started building these
in his garage five years ago,

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and we've watched that grow

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into this community of thousands
of people around the world,

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who believe that everybody
should have access to these places.

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We all deserve the tools
to go and explore.

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There's stories like Laura James,

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who used her robot to find out that
sea stars in her area were dying.

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And she started this whole
citizen science campaign,

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collected data and drove awareness
for sea-star wasting syndrome,

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to try and figure out
what was happening there.

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There are stories of fishermen in Mexico,

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who used the robot to create
marine protected areas

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where Nassau grouper were spawning,
to protect the future of this species.

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It's really amazing stuff.

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We found that if you give
people the tools,

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they'll do the right thing.

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But we need to take it a step further.

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And, actually, I think we can dust off
Stephen Mather's playbook.

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So what did he do?

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So, the first thing that he did
was he focused on infrastructure.

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So 1914 wasn't just
a time for the parks,

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it was also a time for the automobile,

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the Model T was rolling off the line,

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and Stephen Mather understood

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that this was going to be
an important part of American culture.

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And so he partnered with highway
associations around the country

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to build big, beautiful highways
out to these parks.

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And it worked, he's basically
invented car camping.

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And he knew that if people
didn't go to these places,

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that they wouldn’t fall in love with them
and they wouldn't care.

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So that was a really insightful
idea that he had.

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The second thing they did,

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was they focused
on visionary philanthropy.

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So, Stephen Mather was a successful
businessman from Chicago,

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and anytime there was
a parks association that needed funding,

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anytime there was a highway
association that needed funding,

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they'd step in, write
the checks, make it happen.

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There's a great story
of his friend William Kent,

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who recognized there was a small patch
of redwoods left on the base of Mount Tam,

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and so he quickly bought the land

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and donated it
to this National Parks effort.

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That's Muir Woods today --

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it's one of the most popular
national parks in the whole country.

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My parents are visiting here
from Minnesota,

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and they don't really even
care about this talk,

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all they're talking about
is going to Muir Woods.

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(Laughter)

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But the last thing is critical --

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Stephen Mather focused on engagement.

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In one of the first meetings that they had
around this new system, he said,

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"If you're a writer,
I want you to write about this.

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If you're a business owner, I want you
to tell your clubs and your organizations.

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If you work for the government,
I want you to pass regulation."

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Everybody had a job.

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"Each of you, all of you,
have a role to play

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in protecting these places
for future generations."

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Each of you, all of you.

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I love that.

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That's the plan --
simple, three-point plan.

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I think we can do the same.

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So, this was the headline
when Obama created

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the Papahanaumokuakea National Monument:

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"Lots to see, but good luck
trying to get there."

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But like Mather, we should focus
on the technology of our time,

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all of this new, amazing,
digital infrastructure

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can be built to engage people
with the oceans.

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So, the National Marine Sanctuary

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has created all these
wonderful VR 360 videos,

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where you can actually go
and see what these places look like.

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Our team is continuing to build new tools,

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this is our latest, this is
the trident underwater drone,

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it's a diving submarine, it's sleek,
you can fit it in a backpack,

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it can go down to 100 meters,
deeper than most divers can go.

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It can see these environments
that most people have never had access to.

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New tools are coming
and we need even better tools.

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We can also use
more visionary philanthropists.

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So, when Erik and I started this,
we didn't have any money,

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we were building this in his garage.

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But we went to Kickstarter.

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And we found over 1,800 people,

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almost a million dollars
we've raised on Kickstarter,

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finding other people who think,

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"Yeah, that's a good idea.

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I want to be a part of that."

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We need more ways for people
to get engaged

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and become visionary
philanthropists themselves.

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We've also had
traditional philanthropists,

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who've stepped up to fund us

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in the SEE initiative --
the Science Education and Exploration,

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who are going to help us get donated
units out to people on the frontlines,

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people who are doing the science,
people who are telling the stories,

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inspiring communities.

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You can go on to OpenExplorer.com
and see what people are doing,

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it's hugely inspirational.

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And it will also, hopefully,
spur you to get involved.

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Because there is plenty of room
to get involved.

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We want to hear what ideas you have
for telling these stories.

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Because that's just it --
this is all about engagement.

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There's all sorts of interesting,
new ways for people to participate

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in the protection of these places.

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And the understanding.

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Like, Reef Check -- scuba divers
are going down and swimming transects

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and counting fish and biodiversity data.

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They're getting the information we need
to protect these places.

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If you're going down to the beach,
participate in MPA Watch.

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Document what activities you see
going on in these different areas.

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There is room for everybody
to participate here.

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And that's just it, that's what we need.

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We need to build a future
for our grandkids' grandkids.

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Last month, I went out sailing,

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and we got out to the Farallon Islands,
25 miles off the Gate.

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And most people think of this
as kind of a bird sanctuary,

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but we took our robot, and we sent it in.

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And the people on the boat were astonished
at the life beneath the surface.

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I mean, these are really,
really important ecosystems.

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Really, and this is a whole
wild world we haven't yet explored.

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And we have an opportunity right now,

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just as they did 100 years ago,

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to protect these places, to put in a plan,
to keep people engaged.

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So last year, when the executive
order came out,

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putting all of the progress we've made,

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all of these new marine protected
areas, under review,

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there were over 100,000 people
who commented online.

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Almost all of these letters were saying,

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"Don't do it; protecting these places
is the right thing to do."

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My message to those 100,000 people,
those 100,000 letters is:

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don't wait for Washington.

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We can do this ourselves.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)