Sea-Changers – Making a Difference for Marine Conservation

By Helen Webb

In 2010, I along with the world, watched in horror as the disaster of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion unfolded. Over the following weeks my sense of helplessness and frustration about what was happening to the marine environment and the local communities impacted upon by this tragedy grew. And I knew I had to do something to make a difference.

For the previous ten years I, and my dive-buddy Rachel, had seen for ourselves a change in marine environments all over the world. Coral bleaching, less abundant fish, more rubbish on beaches and in the sea, polluted seawater and so on. It was becoming obvious that the sea was in trouble. We were no marine experts, just two people who loved the sea and felt privileged to be able to enjoy its beauty when we went diving. It was becoming hard to ignore the problems.

And then one day last year Rachel and I had an idea….the way that we could make a difference - our thinking went like this:

• No one has ever directly asked us to contribute to marine conservation or to give something back in return for the privilege of enjoying the sea and we love the sea and want to make a difference.
• Millions of other people who enjoy the sea (diving, sailing, surfing, going on boats) must have sometimes felt like we do and want to make a difference too.
• If we could harness that passion, which so many of us have for the oceans, it could make a real contribution to marine conservation.

And out of this thinking came a very simple idea…..

Imagine if there was a turnstile on the sea and every time anyone went diving, for a surf, sailing or on a cruise they were somehow asked to give a pound, a dollar or a euro as a kind of entry fee…..you could raise millions for marine conservation.  It would also make the person enjoying the sea feel good, and lots of small contributions like that would make a huge difference to the amount of money available for marine conservation work.

Out of this grew the concept that eventually became Sea-Changers, a charity set up in May 2011 with the sole purpose of raising funds for marine conservation (www.sea-changers.org.uk).  We haven’t quite set up a gigantic turnstile that anyone can see, but we are starting to create a slightly different variation on this basic idea. Our main fund-raising model is simple - we develop partnerships with retailers who are selling something to sea-users: a cruise holiday, a dive trip, a new piece of boat kit, a wetsuit. The retailer offers the customer the opportunity to make a small contribution to marine conservation when they are paying their bill. The donation is entirely optional. Other fund raising models we are developing include our text approach which will target sea-users more directly - after a great day on the beach or in the sea we want to encourage people to text their “turnstile” payment to us (Text SEAS10£1 to 70070).

It is early days for Sea-Changers. We are building relationships with other charities, membership organisations and most importantly with our future partners – the retailers. We started fundraising with our first retail partnerships which include a dive holiday company and a boat and boat supplies retailer. All our work is carried out on a voluntary basis and we have benefitted from the generosity of family, friends, colleagues who have contributed money, time, ideas and services to help get us started – it has been amazing and wonderful.

We think that Sea-Changers’ vision of raising money has huge potential and  believe that those people who enjoy the sea would be prepared to make small contributions to say thank you for the enjoyment it gives them. And we also believe that retailers involved in our ‘opt out’ approach benefit from being seen as giving something back and being socially and environmentally responsible. They become a Sea-Changer...something to be proud of.

If you want more details about Sea-Changers or becoming a Sea-Changer business contact: info@sea-changers.org.uk

Sea-Changers Helen Webb and Rachel Lopata

Katrin and Mathew would like to thank Helen and Rachel for their great work and for their article and to encourage all our readers to check them out and the great work they do.

Is the tide slowly turning for sharks?

Sharks populations have had a rather bad time of it over the last century. Their populations have suffered greatly and public perception had them painted as mindless killing machines. Sharks have been killed for simply existing, killed for sport and killed for food, more often than not, just for their fins. The release of Jaws in 1974 and its subsequent film the following year proved a watershed moment in shark hunting. Sadly the film led to a marked increase in shark persecution, especially for the great white shark as many where slaughtered from an unfounded belief that they were out to get humans and for macho sport. This increased persecution of sharks disastrously coincided with a great increase in the consumption of sharks fins soup. It is estimated that between 26-70 million sharks each year are killed for this industry. These events have seen shark populations decline great across the world, with species suffering over 70% drops in the population of some species.

Despite the continued threat to sharks, there does appear to be some hope on the horizon. The first breakthrough came back in 1991 when South Africa gave legal protection to great whites in its waters. More recently though truly major breakthroughs have occurred. In 2009 the Pacific island nation of Palau declared itself to be a shark sanctuary forbidding all commercial shark fish in its exclusive economic zone waters, which cover an area roughly the size of France. In 2010 Palau's example was followed by the Maldives and more recently the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Guam agreed to for join Palau in forming a 5200000km² region where sharks are protected and recently proposals for a similar sanctuary have been proposed for the Cook Islands. In addition to this, Kiribati, along with the United States formed the worlds largest marine reserve in 2009. Furthermore, Taiwan has declared a ban on shark finning commencing 2012. In North America, Honduras banned shark fishing in their waters in 2010 and the United States has given protection to 19 different species of shark and has banned finning on all US flagged vessels. The state of Hawaii has also implemented a ban on the sale and possession of shark fins with California, Oregon and Washington considering similar bans along with bans in numerous cities in Canada. In 2009 the European Commission proposed the first conservation measures for sharks in Europe. Progress has however been slow, although species such as the basking shark, the angel shark and the great white shark have protected status in European waters and as of November 2011 a protected status has been granted to the porbeagle shark as well.

Although there has been some improvement, progress has been slow and a great deal of work still needs to be done; many species of sharks are still in imminent danger, but slowly but surely there seems to be some hope for sharks. If we can continue to educate people on the importance of sharks to our ecosystems and show people that they are not mindless killers we can make a difference.

I would love to hear comments; I know this is going to be a long struggle, but has recent news given hope for sharks to anyone else?