Surfers Against Sewage’s 25th anniversary year has begun as frenetically as 2014 ended, with a myriad of exciting environmental campaigns, plans, partnerships and events rapidly being confirmed for the year ahead. Such an auspicious year gives the charity a wonderful opportunity to celebrate past successes, however more importantly it shines the spotlight on the urgent challenges ahead. Our waves, oceans and beaches have never been under greater pressure or threat.  We will use our 25th year to create an even sharper focus on today’s key marine conservation issues, from marine litter to climate change, coastal development to water quality.

We’ll be amplifying our call for a 50% reduction of UK beach litter by 2020 and building the road map of activity to help achieve this. We’ll be working with communities to empower, train and mobilise over 10,000 coastal volunteers. We’ll be calling for greater restrictions on the thousands of sewage discharges our beaches are subjected to annually. We’ll be demanding better protection of our coastline from inappropriate coastal developments that destroy habitats, waves and wildlife. We’ll take your voice, and perhaps even you to Parliament as part of our Protect Our Waves All Party Parliamentary Group, to call for legislative change and improved protection for the coastal places we love and enjoy. We’ll also be launching our own Surfers Against Sewage manifesto in the run up to the election – something we can all lobby our local MPs to support, in our continued struggle to protect our shores.

Towards the end of the year, we’ll be hosting the 4th Global Wave Conference, bringing together the world’s leading enviro-surf NGO’s, academics, activists, politicians, surf industry representatives and coastal communities to promote the global importance of protecting waves and beaches – and not just for surfers. We want to protect healthy coastal ecosystems for everyone.

Of course, no anniversary would be complete without some sort of celebration, so we are working on ideas for a couple of fun events where we hope to see you all, taking place later this year.

We hope you’ll join us on the ride this year – as a volunteer, an SAS member, a campaigner, a Regional Rep, a donor, a t-shirt wearer, a social media sharer – We rely on the support of people like you, because you enable SAS campaigns, education and community events to exist. With you on board, our collective vision of an ocean free from sewage, plastic and poison can become a reality. Thank you for being involved.

Here are a few key dates for your diary. More details and projects to follow very soon!

• The Big Spring Beach Clean – 27th – 29th March 2015 (Please email beach [email protected] to register your interest and beach!)
• Regional Reps Training Weekend – 24th – 26th April 2015
• The Barefoot Wine Beach Rescue Project – May – July 2015
• The Global Wave Conference – 11th – 14th October 2015
• The Autumn Beach Clean Series – 6th – 8th November 2015
• 25th Anniversary Celebration – 2nd October 2015

Join SAS as a 25th Anniversary Member to support the campaign and to join the celebration! ; )