Blue Hole featured on NBC’s Today Show
When viewers of NBC’s The Today Show tuned in this morning, they found Ann Curry in Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa; Meredith Viera in Australia; Al Roker in Iceland and Matt Lauer from the Blue Hole in Belize. Lauer toured the world renowned environmental site diving, in a helicopter, and by boat. In NBC’s Ends of the Earth series, Lauer and his co-hosts are bringing attention to sites threatened by global warming. Here are some highlights from Lauer in Belize.
Meredith Viera, The Today Show
“No, that is not a strange sea creature, that is Matt Lauer hovering to the surface of the Blue Hole off of Belize.”
Matt Lauer, The Today Show
“The great blue hole is a marine wonder that has been fascinating explorers above and below the sea for years. In 1972 legendary oceanographer Jacques Cousteau brought his, boat the Calypso, into the Hole and his cameras down into its mysterious waters. What they found was a unique underwater cave that plummets four hundred feet into its floor suspended along its walls and huge stalactites and rock formations usually seen only on dry land.”
“After a few short minutes below the surface, I understood why people have been coming here for decades.”
“The Blue Hole is truly extraordinary; it sits in the middle of the longest barrier reef in the western hemisphere. Unfortunately, there is some concern about that reef. A report card came out from a major environmental group just this last Friday that said about ninety percent of this reef is either in poor or fair condition, only a small percent is in good condition. So they are keeping an eye on this because if the reef dies, they lose a lot in terms of tourism dollars, important to their Gross Domestic Product, but if the reef dies, the most important thing is that the ravages of the sea head straight inland with nothing to block them and the low lying areas of Belize and other countries are in deep trouble.”
Matt was joined by Fabien Cousteau, Jacque Cousteau’s grandson. Today’s report from Belize also featured a story on ecotourism. Matt will be in Belize for another day and a half.
