With your support, we are proud to have inspired such an incredible year of engagement and action in 2021. Record numbers of Ocean Activists around the UK empowered to act on some of the most pressing issues facing the ocean, in this most crucial decade for the environment. The passion, energy and commitment from individuals and communities was crystal clear, as people joined the movement to give the ocean a voice. Thank you.

Together, we collaborated to gather evidence and illustrate the plight of the ocean, and projected our campaigns and actions through global moments. Moments like the G7 Summit and COP26 where our calls to protect the ocean reached tens of millions of people worldwide. It was a watershed year for our small charity.

But it was just the start. This year, we must reach and engage even more people on the journey of Ocean Activism as we help to give our seas and blue spaces a voice. We must make this the ‘Super Year of Ocean Activism’.

Our plan of action

We’re going to be redoubling efforts across all our campaigns in 2022. Our change-making programme will ensure that the actions of our network of Ocean Activists, on the ground, contribute to triggering change on our long-term goals to protect the ocean. Goals of improving water quality, tackling plastic pollution, driving ocean recovery and confronting the ocean and climate emergency.

What does this look like in practice? Well, we’ll be mobilising over 100,000 beach cleaners across a million miles to take direct action on plastics; we’ll be running the world’s biggest Plastic Brand Audit to help us hold polluting companies to account and call for the strongest possible Global Plastics Treaty; we’ll be calling for new Bathing Waters on rivers nationwide to help stop sewage pollution from profiteering water companies; we’ll be collaborating with the Climate Coalition to drive COP26 pledges into COP27 actions; and we’ll engage the public with the need for Highly Protected Marine Areas stopping industry from displacing and destroying marine life.

And we’re counting on your energy and passion for the ocean to make this year a success. The year the ocean fights back.

The ocean under threat

Because be under no illusion, the ocean is being systematically decimated by the nefarious forces of big business, poor regulation and weak legislation. Industrial fishing fleets, oil exploration; deep sea mining; sewage and agricultural run-off, and runaway plastic production, alongside the impacts of climate change are killing some of the richest, wildest remaining ecosystems on the planet. Ecosystems that we must now save and restore.

But we truly believe that by empowering communities, we can change the systems and structures that are destroying marine habitats worldwide. We believe that through building, educating, empowering, supporting and connecting diverse communities we can deliver even more impact. We believe that people coming together through grassroots campaigns can help create an unstoppable movement to revive the ocean.

From surf activists stopping Big Oil in Australia with the Fight for the Bight campaign; investigative journalists driving global public behaviour change via the award-winning Seaspiracy documentary; Greenpeace dropping boulders in the North Sea to stop industrial factory fishing boats; the Break Free from Plastic movement challenging plastics manufacturers in the global south; and the rise of the youth climate movement connecting environmental, social and ocean justice, we’re thrilled to play our part in the global movement for a bluer, better world.

Together, we will demand action. We will call for climate targets to be met. We will call for more ambition on both the scale and pace of environmental change. We will call relentlessly for the transition to business that is good for this fragile planet we call home. And we will put environmental villains out of business.

More than surfers

We are more than surfers. We campaign on more than sewage. We are a community that cares deeply about the planet we live on. That cares passionately about the ocean. And we care about each other. We are connected by our love of the water, from clouds to coastlines, but particularly by the ocean. The ocean which makes up 70% of the planet we share. The ocean that connects us all.

We are confident that the movement of ocean and environmental activists will win. But we need to muster all the energy and passion we can to ensure success. The time for action has come and we don’t have time to waste. Thank you for your continuing support.

For the ocean,

Hugo, chief executive

@HugoSAS