Fish swim amid brightly colored kelp in the waters of Cashes Ledge. Photo: Cashes Ledge
Several summers ago, I worked at a backcountry hut in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, serving food, giving trail advice, and educating hikers about the local ecology. Each morning, from 4,100 feet above sea level, I watched the sunrise and listened to the trill of the white-throated sparrow and the chorus of the wind through the stunted spruces. When I awoke before sunrise to brew coffee for weary guests, the freshness and wildness of our mountain home struck me.
Around 420 million years ago, I would have been in the middle of an ocean. In a way, the hut was a vessel, a source of warmth, food, and protection from the elements amidst a rare swath of wilderness – the White Mountain National Forest. And although we were perched just below the peak of Mt. Lafayette, a hundred miles from the modern Atlantic Ocean, amid rolling waves of trees and the ambivalence of the weather, I didn’t feel far from the sea.
Working on marine conservation in the Gulf of Maine, I was compelled to consider the mountains that remain submerged beneath the ocean’s waters: a range roughly 90 miles off the coast of Portland called Cashes Ledge. Much like the White Mountains, Cashes Ledge is a specialized ecosystem that provides conditions for remarkable biodiversity. Rare, intact kelp forests grow thickly, creating a nursery for juvenile Atlantic cod and haddock. Wolffish and sponges, sea stars and blue sharks, even humpback whales, all seek out this habitat due to its geologic features that disrupt the regular currents in the Gulf, flushing nutrients to the surface and creating a haven of biodiversity.
The wilderness, whether it be a desert, the ocean, a forest, or a mountaintop, humbles us. In these places, we connect with a part of ourselves that we rarely access – the part that is the guest. We have constructed our world to cater to our wants, hopes, and desires. In the remote, we confront our tenderness, realizing how miraculous it is that we, as a species, have survived.
Aboard a vessel in the Gulf of Maine, I watched as the gannets plunged into the waves with utter certainty that this was what they were made to do. I saw North Atlantic right whales skim the surface of the water, mouths gaping, relishing their oily microscopic meal. Seals and white-sided dolphins, cormorants and eider ducks all diving and emerging – unfazed by the sway that made my stomach turn. They are perfectly suited to this home.
It’s within our power to protect vital places in the Gulf Of Maine, which is why CLF and a coalition of supporters nominated Cashes Ledge to become a National Marine Sanctuary. Designating the Cashes Ledge Area as a sanctuary would help preserve and protect its extraordinary and often vulnerable wildlife and habitats. Permanently protecting the area would also provide unparalleled scientific research and education opportunities and build climate resilience in a region that is among the fastest-warming in the world’s ocean.
But why protect something we may never bear witness to? Few people will have the chance to experience the wonders of this remote, nearly otherworldly place.
In a world that is increasingly structured to serve human needs, I want to advocate for the places where humans are still the guests. Maybe we won’t ever have the chance to be a guest there, but isn’t it essential that these places still exist?
Human influence has reached the furthest depths of the ocean – microplastics have been found in deep-sea sediment, as well as in our own bloodstreams. Isn’t prioritizing spaces that decenter humanity something that we, as a species with the capacity for empathy, have a responsibility to preserve?
Of course, there are reasons to designate Cashes Ledge as a national marine sanctuary that will serve our economy and lessen the blow of climate change. Commercially important species use the Ledge for foraging, refuge, and as a nursery habitat. Healthy kelp forests absorb carbon dioxide and have the potential to sequester carbon in the deep sea. These are excellent, strategic reasons to advocate for protecting this range.
But strategy and benefit aside, do we see value in leaving space? Can we dismiss our societal urge to maximize consumption, leaving some places as they have been? Even if we never see them or know them?
I believe it is imperative.
The closest I have come to exploring Cashes Ledge is hiking through the White Mountain National Forest. Maybe you have glimpsed the same kind of wild in the woods or wetlands, or looking out at the horizon from a beach. As we continue to advocate for a Cashes Ledge National Marine Sanctuary, I urge you to recall the wild places where you have been a guest and recognize the value in their protection – they are interdependent, and all, once, part of the sea.
You can help protect these unique places by adding your name to a list of Cashes Ledge supporters. Wilson Haims was raised in Portland, Maine. She is a graduate of Wellesley College with a degree in Environmental Studies and wrote this piece in her role as an Ocean Protection Ambassador with EarthEcho International.
