Jacques Cousteau's granddaughter continues his legacy

Georgetown University -

Using some of the underwater gear created by her famous grandfather, Alexandra Cousteau (C’98) and her international team, Expedition Blue Planet, traveled 14,500 miles across North America in 2010 to investigate global water issues.

At a recent luncheon sponsored by Georgetown College, she said Jacques Cousteau, who died the year before she graduated from Georgetown, taught her to scuba dive at the age of 7.

He educated her about the environment, biodiversity, and underwater ecologies, she said, but also kept her guessing.

“If you want to know about the world, you’ll have to go see for yourself,” she said he told her.

The Georgetown government major followed her grandfather’s advice, studying dolphins at the Harvard Oceanographic Institution, diving with humpback whales in Maui and helping fisherman in Costa Rica with sustainable fishing practices.

In 2008, she founded Blue Legacy, an initiative that explores and documents environmental change.

An outgrowth of that initiative, Expedition Blue Planet is resulting in blog posts, photo essays and short web documentaries to help viewers understand their role in story of America’s changing watersheds.

“When you poison your water, you destroy your community,” Cousteau explained to students at the lunch. “In the United States, Over half of our rivers are neither fishable, drinkable nor swimmable.”

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