ST. PETERSBURG - If local leaders can be persuasive, the home for Cousteau Divers in the western hemisphere will be St. Petersburg.

Pierre-Yves Cousteau, youngest son of underwater explorer, conservationist and naturalist Jacques Cousteau, just launched Cousteau Divers and will soon debut Cousteau Divers USA.

But Cousteau, who lives in France, has bigger goals if he makes St. Petersburg his American home.

“My hope is this area is the center for Cousteau Divers of the Americas,” Cousteau said, speaking at The Dali Museum Wednesday.

Cousteau Divers is an initiative to connect divers throughout the world and use this online community to share real-time information on ocean conditions to alert marine scientists to areas of need. The younger Cousteau likens the community to an immune system that would be able to respond in an instant to problems that threaten the oceans.

“If you look at a picture of the surface, it could be anywhere,” Cousteau said, as as a photo of a moonlit ocean surface was displayed over his head. “The only people who can look beneath the surface are divers. Dive [tours] are the only businesses that are underwater everyday.”

Cousteau Divers would use a website as a giant documentation of what divers have seen in the past, and current conditions. It is three parts, Cousteau said, science, community and multimedia.

The science aspect of the site is self-explanatory. The community aspect, Cousteau said, would be “a Facebook for divers.” The multimedia element is a platform that enables divers to upload photos and video as well as record data.

Documenting the conditions of the oceans is vital, Cousteau said, and ever-changing. He showed a video his father shot off the southern coast of France where marine life teemed amid the coral reefs.

Some 30 years later, Cousteau's father returned to the same site to shoot video, and the changes were stark. There was little if any marine life and the corals were gone. This was a result of bad conservation, the younger Cousteau noted.

“In 2010, it was not much better but on the surface, there was no change,” Cousteau said.

Cousteau also showed a video of a massive cruise ship anchor that was ripping through a pristine seagrass bed.

“They are destroying the very resources for which they are there,” Cousteau said.

He noted that areas of the world that were over fished and declared a no-fish zone, quickly became densely populated with fish. Though there was a no-fish zone, just outside the zone fishermen were able to harvest massive catches. It's a win-win, Cousteau said, both for environmental and economic needs.

“We do not want to stop fishing, that's not why we are here,” Cousteau said.

Without divers and scientists documenting areas of need for marine conservation, government officials are not aware of the necessity for marine conservation, hence the need for Cousteau Divers, which, in time, would have a massive database that anyone can access with a click of the mouse.

Cousteau Divers was launched in other areas of the globe, but not yet in the United States. That will soon change, Cousteau said.

“We forget how connected we are to the sea,” Cousteau said. “It produces half the oxygen we breath.”

So far, Cousteau's first impression of St. Petersburg is good.

“I woke up this morning and saw dolphins,” Cousteau said of his St. Pete Beach waterfront hotel room. “But I think they may have been planted.”