Cousteau Society, The

The Cousteau Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to marine research, especially underwater exploration and filmmaking. Created in 1973 by Jacques-Yves Cousteau and his son, Jean-Michel Cousteau, the Society provides educational materials, and sponsors or cosponsors scientific, technological and environmental research studies to gauge the health of the world's marine environments.

The Society's educational projects include award-winning television specials that inspire interest in the marine world. Special reports filmed and broadcast have included those on the Exxon Valdez oil spills and the natural history of the great white shark (Carcharodon charcharias). Cousteau films are broadcast in more than 100 countries and to schools around the world. Books and filmstrips on marine and environmental issues are produced for colleges, schools, and the public. The Society produces two periodicals that explain scientific and environmental issues, the Calypso Log for adults and the Dolphin Log for youngsters.

The Society's Project Ocean Search offers field study programs under the supervision of Society educators and scientists. Presently, the Society is developing Cousteau Center sites that will provide visitors with ocean experiences through the use of film and illusion technology. The Society also sponsors research to help the scientific community better understand the nature of a region or phenomenon, as well as studies designed to provide local policy makers with guidelines to protect their environment .

Two Cousteau Society research vessels, Calypso and Alcyone, are circumnavigating the globe to take a fresh look at the planet. Four hours of television documentaries are filmed each year about those expeditions. Scientific teams aboard the two research vessels are measuring the productivity of the oceans, studying the contributions of rivers to ocean vitality, assessing the health of marine and freshwater habitats, and exploring the global connections between major components of the biosphere such as tropical forests, rivers, the atmosphere , seas, oceans, and humankind.

The Society also provides assistance to the Marine Mammal Stranding Program, a network of scientists and others who study strandings of whales and dolphins . With the Smithsonian Institution, the Society sponsors the Marine Mammal Events Program, which gathers information on beach stranding reports from the United States and other parts of the world to create a centralized data base. The compilation is expected to lead to a better understanding of the phenomenon of beaching.

Currently, the Society is developing educational computer programs for young people that explore the consequences of various actions on the environment; and it is preparing environmental cartoon books for students in developing countries. It also supports the development of new technologies that will help provide solutions to environmental challenges.

[Linda Rehkopf ]

RESOURCES

ORGANIZATIONS

The Cousteau Society, 870 Greenbrier Circle, Suite 402, Chesapeake, VA USA 23320 (800) 441-4395, Email: cousteau@cousteausociety.org, <http://www.cousteausociety.org>