Blue Legacy

Blue Legacy is an initiative started in 2008 by Alexandra Cousteau. The mission of Blue Legacy is to tell the story of our water planet to the world, to inspire people to take action on critical water issues in meaningful ways and to help shape society’s dialogue to include water as one of the defining issues of our century and the primary vehicle through which climate change will be felt.

An important element of Blue Legacy's initiative has been to start giving “blue” equal emphasis to green in the media. Last Fall, Alexandra and her brother Philippe pitched the idea of doing the first ever “blue” issue to Women’s Health Magazine and were guest editors for that issue released in November 2007. The issue had a special section on water and how individuals can take part in helping to actively protect their water resources.

Alexandra has also been working with Elle Magazine Spain on the release in July 2008 of the first “blue” issue in Europe. This issue covers every aspect of water conservation and water conscious lifestyle choices from individual action to travel, water conservation tips, cooking, eco fashion, decorating, recycling, and more.

Most recently, Alexandra has established a relationship with Reader's Digest France to help keep "blue" messaging in front of the public and their efforts have been met with great interest and enthusiasm.

Today, the trend of "going blue" is rapidly growing and the messages are increasingly going viral. Alexandra's efforts to get water issues into the mainstream of pop culture, as part of a larger campaign that will grow over the next year, will consist mainly of strategies using both traditional and emerging media approaches.

Blue Legacy is currently planning a series of expeditions to chronicle the synergies and interconnectivity of water issues around the world and how they impact our lives. These expeditions, which will take place over the course of the next two years, will take the team from the American Southwest to Inner Mongolia, from the plains of Africa to the jungles of Cambodia, from the Amazon to the glaciers of the Arctic. The stories of those expeditions will be told across many different media platforms including the web, film festivals, short format films, and others. Alexandra will also be collaborating with top filmmakers to tell the story of what it means to live on a water planet.

The story of our water planet has never been more crucial and relevant than it is today. In our era of climate change, desertification, sea level rise, acid rain, drought, falling water tables, dead zones, and widespread pollution, water quality and quantity is becoming more critical by the minute. The new global culture of extraction and expansion is jeopardizing the very substance that supports life on our planet.

In 2000, the world’s leading scientists predicted that by 2025 a third of the world’s population would not have access to drinking water. That had already happened by 2005. The glaciers in the Himalayas are melting, which will mean massive erosion along the Ganges, Yellow River and Yangtze - endangering the quality and quantity of water in a watershed system that provides life support for 3 billion people or half the world’s population. The “dead zone”, an area of water starved of oxygen and therefore unable to support life, in the Gulf of Mexico reached a record 8,000 square miles this year, largely due to the runoff from fertilizers used in agriculture along the Mississippi. Dead zones are proliferating around the world at an alarming rate, endangering vitally important coastal ecosystems. Every 8 seconds a child dies from a water-related illness, most of which are completely avoidable.

The bottom line is that humankind will experience the next 20 years largely through its relationship to water – and how we succeed or fail at managing this precious resource that we increasingly depend on for life itself.

Alexandra has brought together an award-winning team to bring the expeditions, production and resulting multi-media products to fruition. Her team includes experts in various aspects of film, video, cinematography, writing and multi-media.

Please stay tuned for updates on the expeditions and blogs and videos from the field!

Alexandra has received support and funding from the Blackstone Ranch Institute, Aspen Institute, and National Geographic to bring together water experts from diverse fields in both ocean and freshwater disciplines to discuss what our most pressing water issues are today and how we must manage this precious resource for the future. The conclusions from this summit will be widely published and will help mold the vision for a larger campaign.

Alexandra will be releasing her first book in March 2010 with Dutton Publishing of the Penguin Group. Tentatively titled "This Blue Planet", her book will be an exploration of different water ecosystems around the world and how they are interconnected and interdependent. It will also be a poetic meditation on what it means to live on a beautiful, but threatened, blue planet.

Water sustains all life on our planet. It carves our geography and defines our humanity. It influences cultures and economies. Readers will learn about threats to this precious resource and be taken on an exciting adventure to understand critical issues and search for solutions. "This Blue Planet" will urge readers to share in the responsibility of taking care of the world – to become reconnected with nature and share in the passion of conservation and preservation that Alexandra exudes throughout the book.

Dutton’s Editor-at-Large, Amy Hertz acquired the book: “It’s an honor to be publishing the first book on our most important resource by someone from the most important family of water explorers and conservationists. Alexandra is in love with water and her love is infectious.”

Read the press release here.

Finally, Blue Legacy is working on another project, currently in the planning stage, that will address the kinds of water problems that people have been experiencing with the droughts in the US within the context of community watersheds. Through this project, Blue Legacy and its partners will provide opportunities for individuals and communities to assess their progress in dealing with these issues and find ways to be an active participant in solving these problems.