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Building a Network for Ocean Protection: Why Community Matters · How To Protect The Ocean

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  When you publish as many episodes as I do per week, like I do Monday, Wednesday,
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  and Friday, I publish a new episode. When you publish as many episodes, you
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  find that you see every once in a while a theme, whether
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  it's in your life or through the episodes, where a theme or
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  a topic just kind of keeps arising. And then you start to say, you
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  know what? I'm going to talk about that topic on
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  today's episode because, you know, sometimes you just like,
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  I see things that align and then you're just like, okay, now
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  I've got a clear, a clear way to go about this. And sometimes it
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  helps me with my life and other times it helps you with yours. So
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  hopefully today we're going to be talking about finding your
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  community. for ocean conservation. And
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  that way, it could be in a career, it could be in a volunteer position, it
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  could be anywhere, just so that you feel that you are
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  a part of a community that's helping the ocean. And
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  there was an interview that I did recently with Surf Rider, as well
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  as a dinner that I went to with a couple of colleagues and friends of mine that
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  really got me thinking about finding my community here
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  in Ontario, Canada. So we're gonna talk about that on today's episode of the
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  How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey
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  everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm
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  your host Andrew Lu, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean,
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  how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean
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  by taking action. And if you want more information, I
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  try and provide this as a resource, not only this podcast, but we have a
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  YouTube channel, we have Other podcasts that are part
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  of this little bit of a network that we have here, you can go to speakupforblue.com to
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  find those other podcasts, or you can find out more information. So
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  you go speakupforblue.com and you can find more
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  information. If you want stuff to come to you in your inbox, you
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  can sign up for our newsletter, that's speakupforblue.com forward
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  slash newsletter. Pretty simple, speakupforblue.com forward
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  slash newsletter. And that newsletter comes out every Monday to Friday, 8 a.m.
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  in the morning Eastern Time. You will get it to your inbox and you'll get
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  the latest podcast, the latest videos that we put out, the
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  latest ocean news that's happening, and the latest job ads that are
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  coming through. that you might be interested in at some point in
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  time. So today we're going to be talking about community and finding your ocean
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  conservation community, your ocean enthusiast community, your ocean practitioner
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  community, whatever ocean science community, whatever that
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  community might be that you are looking for. We're going to talk
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  about how important it is to find that community and how it can help you and center
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  you and help you drive sort of your goals forward in
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  terms of just being a good human being for the planet, right? Having
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  an impact for the planet. A lot of the times, I've
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  been thinking about this recently, a lot of the times we get caught
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  up in our own world, right? I have two
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  girls. Two teenage girls, great, fantastic kids.
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  I am very, very, very appreciative and grateful for the kids
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  that I have and how they are turning out and how
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  they're growing up to be great young women that they are. They have, you
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  know, they're in high school and they have pressures. They have their own sort of thing going
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  on. We have hockey, we're starting indoor soccer today as I record this
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  with one of the kids. You know, when one daughter's trying to get
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  into university, so she's, you know, working on marks and studying hard.
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  They've got jobs, they've got friends, there's a lot of stuff that goes on.
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  Myself, I've got the podcast, I've got a full-time job, I
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  coach sometimes, I coach my girls hockey, I go out
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  to their sporting events, we have socialized with my wife and I. We
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  tend to get caught up in our own lives, and a lot of the times,
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  you get caught up in that phone. you know, that you're just scrolling through or
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  maybe even listening to the podcast or you want to do outdoor activities and fitness and
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  you want to stay healthy and all those kinds of, there's so many things that you can get caught
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  up in and everybody has their own hobbies. They have what
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  they want to do. Some of them are more active than others. Some of them are
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  sitting in front of a microphone and doing podcasting. Others are fitness. Others
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  are, you know, doing puzzles or knitting or, uh, you
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  know, whatever that might be, reading a number of different books. Everybody
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  has their own kind of hobbies, but everybody wants
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  to be able to have an impact on life, right?
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  They wanna be able to go through life and have a purpose. And
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  if you don't have a purpose, sometimes it's difficult. You
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  can get into a, I'm not gonna say
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  it because I'm not a medical doctor, but a bit of a depression in life. I
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  mean, where's my life going? Where do I want to go with it?
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  I see this a lot of times with people who are trying to get careers, especially
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  younger people who just graduate, trying to build and
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  establish their career, trying to get a job, and they can't find it.
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  So they feel like the purpose that I want, my
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  dream, I can't get to. Right. And so it's harder
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  to find that purpose. And
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  sometimes, you know, we are facing some
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  pretty serious things in our lives, you know, from,
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  from this perspective of what we've been going through over
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  the last year, last couple of years, we've seen, you know, wildfires, droughts,
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  flooding, hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones,
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  earthquakes, you know, storm surges, massive
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  storms that come out of nowhere here in Ontario that have caused flooding.
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  And there's been a lot of damage to homes and things like that. And
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  then what happens is we feel helpless when it comes to this,
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  right? We feel like we can't have an impact on
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  the situation at hand that affects our lives and
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  the people within our community's lives. It's very difficult
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  to help in that situation when you're by yourself. It's
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  when you're by yourself and you feel like, hey, I want to do something, but I have no idea
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  where I begin. I have no idea where
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  I need to go. And I have to do better.
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  But I don't know where to start. And that's where you have to find your
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  community. And for me, I am a marine biologist in
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  Ontario. And a couple of, actually a number of years ago, we
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  had an aquarium that opened up, a public aquarium that opened up in Toronto. Now
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  I've been waiting for an aquarium to open up in Toronto my entire life. And
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  back in like the mid-2010s, the aquarium opened up.
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  And there was a marine biologist that actually lived in
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  Burlington, just outside of Toronto, the city that I live in, that
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  was a marine biologist. And his wife was a marine
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  biologist. And he worked at the aquarium. He was helping establish and
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  launching the aquarium. And it was cool to
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  have somebody that, you know, we know the same things. We
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  know, Andy DeHart, who's actually been on the podcast a number of times. We
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  know, you know, what issues face the ocean. We have a lot in common. We
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  actually like the 49ers as well, the San Francisco 49ers. So we had a lot in
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  common. So, you know, he became a pretty good friend over time. And
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  no matter where he is in the world, he's in Florida right now. But we, you know, we
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  kept in touch. We had that, like, we felt that bond. There was a bit of that community
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  there, right? Establishing, it was like just the two of us or just three of
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  us with his wife. There was like that community there. And
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  that helped me feel like I'm doing something. I can talk
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  about something that could be done. And I've been looking for
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  that community of people who are around. Like, I always see people
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  on the coastlines. I see, I meet people and
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  I meet with them over Zoom or I meet with them over Riverside that
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  I'm using to record this right now or Google Meet and
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  we have these talks and we have these discussions, but I
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  can't really do anything outside of having these meetings because
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  they live across the country on each side of the country. I live in the central
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  part of the country. And so sometimes it's difficult. I
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  don't know a lot of people within the Great Lakes area that are
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  marine biologists and stuff, and so it's difficult. But over
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  time, I was able to establish some friendships and meet
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  some colleagues that want to do more for the ocean, that live
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  in Ontario. You know, some of them are science communicators. One
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  of them is a business focus. Actually, two of them are business focus people,
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  but they want to have an impact on the ocean. They
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  want, from a Canadian perspective and from a world perspective, more
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  people to have an impact on sort
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  of the ocean, right? Be able to understand the ocean, be able to put
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  forward solutions for the ocean. Now, we're all working on
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  different projects and things, but we talk about it, we get together. And last night,
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  as I'm recording this, I got together with two of them to say, hey, let's
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  get an Ontario Ocean Group together and let's start meeting every
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  once in a while. Let's discuss the different projects, how we can help each other out
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  potentially and collaborate. But it was just so refreshing
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  to have people where we could talk about the big problems and talk
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  about how we can slowly sort of chip away at
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  addressing some of those problems and providing solutions for some of those problems. And
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  it just made me feel amazing. And
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  it brought me back to, and even I was talking to them last night
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  about it, where it was like, there are you
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  know, organizations out there that are based where they have chapters, where
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  they have volunteers. You know, they have a small staff or
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  as a growing like, and this is like I was talking to Surfrider of Chad Nelson that
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  we published last Friday. And, you
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  know, there's just a couple of episodes ago. So if you want to go back, I highly recommend that you listen to
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  that. But they, you know, Surfrider established this large network
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  of chapters along, you know, across the US, a
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  bit into Canada and a bit into other places around the world, where
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  they could help coastal communities, coastal water quality, surfing
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  sites, beaches, and so forth, and protect those and make sure that regulations
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  are being followed and that, you know, they had some pretty big wins.
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  And if you listen to that episode, you'll hear some of those wins. But
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  the basis of it all is this community of people that they've established through
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  their network of volunteers, 100,000 volunteers, 200 chapters, 80 full-time
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  employees. When they first started, it was really just three founders,
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  surfers, that saw that there was something happening to one of their major
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  surf sites, they didn't want it happening, and they decided to stand up for
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  it, and they created this organization called Surf Rider. And
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  now you have all these volunteers and you
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  can mobilize these volunteers to take action on
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  specific things, but you're also helping them find a community. So
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  by, you know, this, the headquarters is in California, but it's, they're
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  not always talking to the people in Florida, the people in North Carolina, the people in
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  New Jersey, the people in along like the Oregon coast or
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  the Washington coast. They have their own regional
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  communities, regional chapters, and each and every one of those in
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  the little counties and stuff all get together and they decide what they want to
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  do under the Surfrider name. They are provided with the training,
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  they are provided with everything, but they found their community within their
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  own local area through the Surfrider umbrella. Right?
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  It's a surfrider organization. You are a surfrider organizer or
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  you're a surfrider volunteer and you are working with like
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  to help surfrider, like help its mission by empowering people
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  to drive that. So people who are along the coastline, say here
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  in Burlington, there's no chapter here yet, but you
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  know, you look at what's happening in Ontario, Lake Ontario,
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  and you can say, well, there's a lot of plastic pollution that comes out when we get big rainfalls. Well,
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  that's not good. We need to do something about that. How do I do something by myself
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  about that? How do I approach the local council to
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  do that? I don't know how to do that. I feel lost when I
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  do it by myself because I don't feel like I have enough power. But
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  under the Surfrider name and you have a local chapter, you know, say in
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  like Vancouver or in other places in the US, you
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  have that number. You can go to somebody and be like, hey, have
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  you ever dealt with this before? Or have you ever, I've noticed this, I've noticed this. You
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  go through your training that's online, that's provided online, and you have all
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  this stuff. You have your community, you have your backing. You
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  know, one of the big stories that they talked about, that Chad talked about when
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  he was on the podcast, was the fact that, you know, there was a park
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  that was going to be changed and it was going to affect one of the best spots
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  for surfing, as well as a park, a park that's visited, one
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  of the largest visited parks in the world, or in
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  the U.S., and it was going to get changed. Something was going
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  to happen to it. I don't remember exactly what. You'll have to go back to the podcast and
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  find out what. But they mobilized people in the area and they
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  had like 2,500 people come out and to the public comment
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  period, and they basically said what they wanted to say. They had to change
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  the venue three times because so many people came out. Normally, you don't get that many people. That's
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  why they do these small venues. But Surfrider was able to get 2,500 people, probably
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  most of them in their chapter, right?
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  This is in California. So they had a pretty
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  big chapter there. So people came out to say, hey, you
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  know, we are not for this. We are against this. And it was a
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  David and Goliath kind of situation where a surf rider was the David,
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  right? And the government and the, I think it was like a highway or something. And the
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  people who were in charge of like the industry or developers were
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  Goliath. And they did not get that pass through. because the
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  people wanted something. So they found their community, they mobilized the
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  community on a specific action that everybody's aligned on, and
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  everybody had a chance to say something. And that many people, you
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  know, when you're talking about democratic government, they're like, well, the people spoke, and then we have to
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  listen to the people. Right? For the most part. That doesn't
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  happen all the time, but it happened in this situation. They found, but they found
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  their community. And although not every sort
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  of issue gets resolved by mobilizing people like that, and
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  I'm sure they've had their losses, you know, Surfrider and people along
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  the coastline. We definitely had our losses. But by
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  having people join in a community of
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  other volunteers, under one sort of umbrella to say,
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  hey, here are our values. If you believe in our values and our mission, come
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  together, volunteer, and you can help drive
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  some of the programs, right, that fall under their programs. Like
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  they actually, you know, Chad couldn't do something along their coastline that they observed and
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  they want to do something, can find a community
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  of people who want to do something and want to have an impact and you're part of
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  a larger thing, you bring it to their attention, you mobilize on that act.
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  And then under the Surfrider umbrella, you can be part
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  and you can do some great things. Imagine, just
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  imagine the beauty of that. Right?
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  I think that's something that we lose focus
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  on. We get caught up in our own lives. And
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  we observe stuff, but then we just get apathetic. We're just like, you know what? I can't do
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  anything about it. Not by myself. And I don't know where to go. You
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  just have to search. So if you want to have an impact, whether it
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  be on the environment, whether it be on fighting homelessness
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  or, you know, hunger and, or child
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  hunger or, you know, adult hunger, people's hunger, whatever
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  that might be, find your community. Find
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  the help so that you feel that you can have an impact. You don't have to volunteer every
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  day. You can volunteer once a week, once a month, whatever that might be, attend
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  some meetings, you know, get on their newsletters, right?
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  But you feel like you can have more of an impact as part of a group
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  than to say, I'm not gonna have an impact at all, right? You can
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  learn from each other. You can learn from the different exercises that have been
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  done in the past from this group, and then you can build on
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  that, and then you can do more in the future. And I think
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  that's what's important when we talk about life. We get, we feel like we have
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  more, have had more of an impact on our local community or,
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  you know, province or state or even country. Right. But
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  you have to find your community and it may, may or may not be
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  with Surfrider. You know, if you want to go to Surfrider, you can go and volunteer. You
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  can go to volunteer.surfrider.org. I'll put the link in the
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  show notes and in the description, but you
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  don't have to volunteer with Surfrider. And by the way, you don't have to be a surfer to be
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  a volunteer with Surfrider. But you can volunteer with whoever
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  you'd like, you know, whatever matches what you want to do and the impact that
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  you want to have and the purpose that you want to be able to fulfill. And
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  instead of scrolling on TikTok or on Instagram or
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  whatever, you feel like you get out, you meet people, you get more social, you
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  feel part of the community, and then you can build on that. It's not an easy
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  thing. It's gonna take a lot. It takes a change of habit. Some
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  of us are more extroverted than others, and that's okay.
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  But you can be a part of something, and you can help, even
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  by putting just your signature on certain petitions that the organization that
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  you're volunteering with wants to push through and wants to change. So
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  there's a lot of things that you can do, and the level
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  of effort changes, but find your community. I've been able to find
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  mine, and hopefully that will grow as we continue this. But
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  I've been able to find mine, and it makes me feel better, and it gives me
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  more purpose on what I can do in the future. So I hope you're able to
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  find yours. And let me know what you think. Put your comment down if
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  you're watching this on YouTube, put it in the comments. Or if you're watching this
• 16:54
  on Spotify, you can put it in the comments as well. Or if you want to
• 16:57
  just tell me, just Just me itself, I would be
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  happy to share, you know, or listen to what you
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  have to say. Just DM me on Instagram at HowToProtectTheOcean, that's
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  at HowToProtectTheOcean. I want to thank you so much for joining
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  me on today's episode of the How To Protect The Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew
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  Lewin, and I want you to have a great day and