A sea full of turtles shines the light of optimism about the crisis of our seas

“In this lovingly crafted book, Bill Streever both builds a case for optimism for the future and takes us on a grand adventure in the wake of Steinbeck and Ricketts. As much about the animals as about our own decisions, A sea full of turtles is a rare kind of honest reflection that shows us what survival can look like if we pay attention to it.”

—Juli Berwald, author of Spineless And Life on the rocks

From award-winning author Bill Streever A sea full of turtles: the search for optimism in one Age of extinction (Pegasus Books – July 2, 2024), an inspired and passionate adventure story that explores the richness of marine life and charts a path of resilience and hope in the face of environmental challenges.

Everyone alive today is witnessing a mass extinction caused by the more than eight billion people who share this planet. Sometimes it seems like there is little hope. Climate change, resource exploitation, agrochemicals, overfishing, plastic, dead zones in our oceans, drought and desertification, habitat conversion to housing, agriculture and industrial infrastructure – the list of impacts and insults goes on. It appears we are on an unchanging path that will continue to decimate biodiversity.

While a sense of hopelessness is not unfounded, it is part of the problem. Without hope, without any belief in the possibility of positive outcomes, the battle for nature is over. Why even try when the battle is already lost? While we look the problems straight in the eye, A sea full of turtles offers hope for those who care about our living world. Presented as a travelogue set in Mexico’s Gulf of California (Sea of ​​Cortez), the book focuses on one level on dramatically underfunded but highly successful sea turtle conservation efforts. But the book goes beyond Mexico and beyond sea turtles to look at how some people have changed their relationship with nature – and how that change could one day end the extinction crisis.

Enchanting, exciting and bursting with joy and wonder, A sea full of turtles will inspire immediate action to meet the major challenges ahead. Pessimism is the lazy way out. Optimism, it turns out, is both a reasonable and essential attitude for all of us as we struggle for the beautiful diversity of life on our planet.