Forest for the Seas
Jean-Michel Cousteau expands on the family tradition.
Photography by Michael HaberThere was a time when Jean-Michel Cousteau was best known as the son of his larger-than life father, Jacques, the ocean explorer, the Aqua-Lung inventor, the spirited Frenchman in the red beret whose adventure films and television series of the 1960s and ’70s revealed the beauty of the undersea realm to millions of Americans. Upon his death in 1997, Jacques-Yves Cousteau was eulogized in the media as “the environmentalist emeritus of the global village.” In short, Jean-Michel’s father would be a tough act to follow for the average man. But not for Jean-Michel.
The explorer, educator, and film producer, who steadfastly carries on his family tradition of ocean exploration and environmental education, has seen an astonishingly productive decade since his father’s passing. At his Santa Barbara-headquartered Ocean Futures Society, the nonprofit venture he founded in 1999, he oversees a multitude of projects and efforts around the globe: films, books, newspaper columns, lecture series, audiences with politicos and heads of state, environmental stewardship and reef conservation programs, children’s education programs and, among his latest endeavors, the critically acclaimed Jean-Michel Cousteau: Ocean Adventures, a high-impact PBS television series of his own.
Like The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, which covered the lively adventures of his father and crew aboard the Calypso as they plumbed the sea’s depths, Jean-Michel’s series—joining him on it are his son, Fabien, and daughter, Céline—aims to raise awareness of challenges to the environment. Jean-Michel has long championed the conservation of everything ocean-related—from coral reefs to white sharks. But in an age when the ocean is heating up and everything is connected, it’s the Amazon rain forest and the very planet itself that weigh heavily on this Cousteau’s mind.
You’ve often said your favorite place to dive is Santa Barbara’s Channel Islands. Shortly after your father died, you had a rather profound experience there?
I was scheduled to go on a fish count. Like counting birds if you belong to the Audubon Society, we go on dives and do fish counts. Unfortunately, my father passed away. After his funeral, I went on the count. We got to Anacapa Island and it was completely overcast by fog. As I was still in shock, I asked all the people on the boat, “Could you give me a few minutes in the water by myself?” There were 80-some people on board. Of course, they all said yes because they knew what had happened. As I stepped onto the dive step, the fog opened up and the sun started shining. I jumped into the middle of this beautiful kelp forest. I felt like I didn’t weigh anything, like I was a bird or a fish surrounded by all this swaying kelp and the bright orange Garibaldi. And here I was, drifting down into a little open area and this white sandy bottom. I found myself on my knees there and … I was with my dad. It was a very, very magical moment. I’ve said it since then, I’ve said it jokingly, “He’s not up there, he’s down there.”
And the two of you had a conversation?
Oh, yes. I was just making sure he was okay, you know? He let me know that he was, and I was grateful. I am grateful every day. He was a special person—very tough, in many ways, but I think that helped me be better than I could have been otherwise. He demanded a lot of me. At the same time, I was able to tell him things that nobody else would have the guts to tell him—because I knew that I would not be fired! [Laughs.] But I had to juggle this all at the same time: He was my father, my friend, my boss, so I had to be very specific on which part of the relationship I was dealing with that day. I think that helped me become who I am, so I make no judgments about that.
“We should not have the pretension that we can dictate what nature is going to do. Nature will recover—with or without us. That is the choice we have to make.”
Ocean Adventures has been hailed as the “return of the Cousteaus.” It’s the first time you’ve worked with Fabien and Céline on a film project?
Together with both of them at the same time. It’s very exciting.
Why hadn’t you worked together before?
I’ve done with my children what my father did with me: I told them that whatever they wanted to do in life, I would support it. The difference is that when I was a kid, my father was unknown. When my kids were growing up, my father was very well-known, as was I; they had to deal with fame, which I didn’t have to deal with. They’ve done what they’ve wanted to do and showed themselves—or maybe their grandfather and father—that they could manage on their own. I’m very respectful of that. They created that psychological independence, which I think was very important for them.
And that gave them the freedom to join you on your expeditions now.
Absolutely. They’re doing it because they like it. They could leave tomorrow if they wanted. I’m never going to push them, but I’m demanding. If they’re going to take part, they have to be as active—if not more so—than anybody else on the team.
There seems to be considerable loyalty between you and your team.
I learned during my father’s days that we’re a nonprofit organization and our people don’t work for the money. They’re not making good money, but they have a good life if that’s the life they’ve chosen. They have the chance to go places they would otherwise never see. They discover the world. It’s a special kind of life. But it’s a tough life—they’re gone two, three months at a time. These people have been so dedicated. They are very loyal—for personal reasons, obviously. Some have been with me for nearly 40 years.
Do you think of yourselves as extended family?
In some ways we do. And that goes beyond the team that is physically involved today. The connections we have kept with people who have retired still exist today. As an example, [chief diver] Albert Falco. Everybody admired Falco on my father’s shows. He’s 80. He’s joining us on our Amazon expedition.
Reviewers have compared your series to reality TV.
It makes me laugh. We’ve been doing “reality shows” since the ’50s. All of our shows are real, though unlike what most reality shows are today—artificial, made up to scare or disgust people. I think those are, to some extent, an insult to the minds of the people who sit behind their TV sets with no idea what the real world is like. But we’ve done “reality shows” all along. We’re not doing documentaries. My dad and I always said we were doing adventure shows.
Did you undertake “Voyage to Kure” with the hope of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands becoming a national monument?
Not at all. I wanted to go and discover: What would we find on these islands? They’re 3,000 miles from North America, 3,000 miles from Japan, 5,000 miles from Australia—literally in the middle of nowhere.
The premise of the Amazon expedition you’re working on now is to examine the effects of development and deforestation of the last two decades?
We were there 25 years ago, exploring. We did not realize back then that the rain forest plays such a critical role. We convinced PBS it was one of the destinations we needed to cover and they agreed.
The series deems the fate of the Amazon as “the future face of the world”...
We are cutting down the world’s largest tropical forest. I am now campaigning—I went to the White House, I went to UNESCO—I am raising hell because we need to have a world conference so we connect the population of the planet to the importance of the Amazon. We need to get together now and come up with answers: How are we going to handle the Amazon so we don’t lose the rain forest—while addressing the needs of the 16 million people who live there? We need to manage this in a sustainable way. It can be done, but it’s going to take a lot of resources from rich countries—the ones who are abusing the system. Brazil and all the other nations of the Amazon cannot do it. They don’t have the resources. They are perfectly correct when they point fingers at us, saying, “Hey, you’re having a grand old time at our expense!”
Has the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate had any impact on your overall outlook?
It’s going to take a long time to repair the damage of climate change, but that report didn’t affect my focus. We’ve heard the same thing for the last 20 years. Let’s not forget that nature will recover no matter what. We should not have the pretension that we can dictate what’s going to happen, what nature is going to do. Nature will recover—with or without us. That is the choice we have to make, and we have the power to make that choice. •
Santa Barbara Magazine
By Trish Reynales. All rights reserved.
