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Oceans Day: A Message of Hope and Action for Ocean Conservation · How To Protect The Ocean

0:00
This is an Ocean's Day episode. Now
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you're probably going to watch this after
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Ocean's Day because
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Ocean's Day 2025 is on the 8th.
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I publish on the 9th and you're probably
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going to see this at some point.
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But I hope that this resonates with you
0:12
at any point in time you watch this,
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whether it's June 8,
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2025 or December 25, 2025,
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or even 2026, 2027 and
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further down the road.
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We see a lot of problems with our oceans.
0:24
We see a lot of problems with nature and
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a lot of the times and most of the time
0:27
it's due to us, the humans.
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We are in a wasteful world and we
0:31
continue to perpetuate that world through
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politics, through policies, through
0:36
actions and through promises.
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And whether we want to do it or not, or
0:41
we're just a victim of circumstances in
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this whole game we call ocean
0:45
conservation and then we call
0:46
world, we need to have hope.
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And that's going to be the message I want
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to drive home today
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is the message of hope.
0:53
There's been a number of different things
0:54
that have brought me to this lately that
0:56
I've seen lately on TV, including the
0:58
Star Wars, which is all about hope, but
1:01
it speaks to everything that we are
1:04
facing as a world population,
1:06
everything that we need to do.
1:08
And we need to feel hopeful to get
1:10
inspired and inspire others to take
1:13
action to do better for our oceans, for
1:17
nature and for our planet.
1:18
So we're going to talk about that on
1:20
today's episode of the How to Protect the
1:21
Ocean podcast. I promise you you're going
1:23
to feel better after this. So watch the
1:26
entire episode. Let's start the show.
1:30
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another
1:31
exciting episode of the How to Protect
1:33
the Ocean podcast. I'm
1:34
your host, Andrew Lewin.
1:35
And this is the podcast where you find
1:36
out what's happening with the ocean, how
1:37
you could speak up for the ocean, what
1:39
you could do to live for
1:40
better ocean by taking actions.
1:42
It is June 9th. Now, when I record this,
1:46
well, actually, I recorded a week early,
1:47
but when I published is going to be June
1:49
9th. I am getting ready to go to Nice,
1:52
France for the UN
1:54
Ocean Decade Conference.
1:56
The UN Ocean Decade is 10 years, a decade
1:59
between 2020 and 2030, where we are
2:02
dedicating towards the ocean. There's a
2:04
lot of action that is happening. There
2:06
are a lot of promises that are being made
2:07
by government as we speak because the
2:10
conference goes from, I think,
2:11
it's June 5th to the June 15th. It's a
2:14
long conference. I'm going to be there
2:16
from the 11th to the 15th. I'm going to
2:18
bring you more episodes later on next
2:20
week to be able to provide you with my
2:22
experience in one of these conferences,
2:25
the people I met. Hopefully, I'll get
2:26
some interviews as well, but there'll be
2:28
a lot of content driven around this. But
2:31
it's one of those days where I always
2:33
have trouble talking about it because
2:34
this podcast, every day we live, Ocean's
2:36
Day, right? Every day, June, Ocean's
2:38
Week, Ocean's Month, whatever you want to
2:40
say it, it's always over.
2:41
It's Ocean's Day here at this podcast.
2:43
Every time you tune in, it's Ocean's Day
2:44
because we live for the ocean every time
2:47
I either record or publish and every time
2:49
you listen and hopefully get inspired by
2:52
a lot of the guests by some of the
2:53
stories that I talk about and some of the
2:56
motivational stuff that we do.
2:57
And that's what today is going to be
2:58
because look, we're facing a world that
3:00
sucks right now, especially when it comes
3:02
to ocean conservation. We have
3:03
politicians in place that are either
3:05
causing problems for everybody else like
3:08
Donald Trump or you're in a country where
3:11
the politicians have to react to certain
3:13
politicians like Donald Trump to be able
3:15
to say, hey, we need to divest our
3:17
necessities or requirements to depend on
3:20
a place like the US and we need to build
3:22
something with other countries,
3:24
especially when it comes to oil and gas.
3:26
That means we may need to build more
3:28
pipelines. We need to get more oil and
3:29
gas out of the country, which means we're
3:31
not going to reduce our footprint with
3:33
oil and gas, which is what we've been
3:34
wanting to do for the last decade or so.
3:37
And the actions have led towards that,
3:39
which is disappointing. I guess I'm
3:40
talking about Canada, which is it's
3:42
disappointing to me and there's a lot of
3:44
worry that happens with that. You have
3:46
oil and gas, which is a huge fossil fuel.
3:48
It's dirty, especially when you take it
3:50
out of the ground like the tar sands in
3:52
Alberta and Saskatchewan, but it's also a
3:54
necessity for our economy because our
3:57
economy is essentially
3:57
based on oil and gas.
3:59
So we're in a bit of a pickle, a big
4:01
pickle, to be honest. It's not something
4:03
that I like, but because of what's
4:05
happening south of the border, we have to
4:07
free up our dependence on the US for
4:10
selling oil because we sell 95% of the
4:12
oil to the US and we have to go to the
4:15
different markets, whether it be
4:16
European, whether it be Asian markets.
4:17
And now it's starting to say, okay, well,
4:20
what are we going to be doing with that
4:21
oil and gas? How is that going to affect
4:23
our environment as well as the world
4:24
environment? Is that going to increase
4:26
our greenhouse gas contribution or are we
4:28
going to find ways to
4:29
decrease it in other places?
4:30
I don't really know. And it's giving me a
4:31
little bit of anxiety when I start to
4:34
think about it. In addition to that, we
4:36
have provincial governments like the
4:38
Ontario government here in Canada who are
4:40
putting forth, as I mentioned a couple of
4:41
weeks ago, a bill five that will replace
4:44
the endangered species act with the
4:46
species conservation act.
4:46
Species conservation act, which
4:48
essentially takes away recovery plans,
4:50
which is a huge part of species at risk
4:52
or endangered species act. They're going
4:54
to take away protecting the areas where
4:57
they could feed the
4:58
areas where they forage.
4:59
They're only going to protect areas where
5:01
they actually sleep. So they're dense,
5:04
essentially, which is not good. They're
5:05
going to put together special economic
5:07
zones, which essentially we can do
5:08
whatever we want in these zones. We can
5:10
develop, we can destroy
5:11
whatever we want to do.
5:12
It's taken away a lot of great recovery
5:16
and actions that have happened in the
5:18
past and that will happen in the future
5:19
to protect these species, to protect
5:21
biodiversity, which helps protect the
5:23
planet, which helps
5:24
protect the environment.
5:25
And of course, like the Ontario
5:27
environment and habitats, and as well as
5:29
will be prosperous for us and will stop
5:32
with flooding and all this kind of stuff
5:33
will increase without it.
5:35
It builds on the anxiety. We have these
5:37
politicians in place and they're saying
5:38
they're using what's happening down.
5:40
So as a way to do all these moves,
5:44
they'll say like the Ford government, the
5:46
provincial government, Ontario saying,
5:47
Hey, you know what? You gave us a
5:48
mandate. We said that there was a threat
5:50
from the south that we have to do this.
5:52
And this is something he's wanted to do
5:53
for a long time. He's just using what's
5:55
happening down south as an excuse. And it
5:57
just sucks. It really
5:59
does sucks to see that.
6:00
And so what I wanted to do today with all
6:04
of this stuff is really talk about hope.
6:07
I've seen two things over the last couple
6:09
of weeks that have really brought me back
6:11
into that hopeful feeling with all the
6:13
crappy stuff that's
6:14
happening in our world.
6:25
We have seen examples of that and it was
6:31
shown in the ocean documentary, the
6:33
movie, so that we can see firsthand, not
6:37
only the destruction that's in this case,
6:39
the trawl fishering takes, but also the
6:41
recovery that it can have when we allow
6:43
things to recover, right?
6:45
So we get this type of stuff and that
6:52
makes me feel better because even though
6:54
someone who sees the destruction and sees
6:57
the policies and the politicians make all
6:59
these crappy choices, having a video like
7:02
that, having a movie like that and being
7:03
able to get that distributed widely
7:06
because Sir David Attenborough is pretty
7:07
much the king of documentaries right now,
7:10
seeing him speak like that with his passion and his voice and just as a way to do that,
7:12
with his passion and his voice and just
7:15
everything about him really resonates
7:18
with a lot of people and people love
7:20
watching documentaries by them, whether
7:21
they're sad, whether they're happy, it
7:23
doesn't matter. They love watching this
7:25
and to watch a movie like the oceans, I
7:26
feel will really inspire people to take
7:30
action and I feel as though like looking
7:32
at stuff with oceans and Oceans Day and
7:34
Oceans Month will help
7:35
inspire people to take action.
7:37
That's the whole point of these Oceans
7:39
Day weeks month. That's the point of why
7:42
we're doing this is to say, Hey, you know
7:44
what? We can still save the ocean. We
7:46
just have to make a few changes. Some of
7:48
them are big and some of them are small,
7:50
but we have to make changes. It could be
7:52
in your personal life and your behavior,
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or it could be on a wider scale,
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provincial, national, even local
7:58
government scale and
8:00
international scale, right?
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There's all these different ways that we
8:03
can protect the ocean from a human side.
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And so today what I want to do is I want
8:07
to go over some of those. I want to go
8:09
over and say, Hey, you know what? There
8:11
are certain things that you can do, not
8:13
only to decrease your ocean anxiety or
8:16
your climate anxiety, but also really
8:18
help out with the movement.
8:20
Help out with data analysis, help out
8:22
with data gathering. There's so many
8:24
things that we can do. And I'm going to
8:26
talk about a few of those today to help
8:29
inspire you to take action, to say, Hey,
8:31
you know what? Some of these are really
8:33
doable. They won't take that much change.
8:35
It's just a matter of a little bit of
8:36
change behavior, which I know can be
8:38
tough on all of us, but something that we
8:40
can do that may actually save us money in
8:42
some places, but also make us feel better
8:44
about the environment because we're doing
8:46
something. That's part of it.
8:47
Talking about it, listening about it and
8:49
doing something about it really helps. So
8:51
here's some of the things you can take,
8:53
like personally actions that you can
8:54
take, like our personal lifestyle
8:55
changes. So we got eat sustainable
8:58
seafood. There are guides like seafood
9:00
watch and ocean wise in Canada and they
9:03
have apps that help you make more
9:04
informed decisions. Now, are they
9:05
perfect? No, but they're better than just
9:07
going blindly and just assuming that
9:09
everybody is buying sustainable seafood.
9:12
Go and look at these apps. Make sure you
9:14
cover. You can look at multiple if you
9:16
want, but make sure that you are covered.
9:17
And say, look, if the person behind the
9:19
counter or the waiter can't tell me if
9:21
this is sustainable, because of where
9:23
it's caught and how it was caught, then
9:24
don't eat it. That's the action that you
9:26
can take. That's the power that you can
9:28
have and tell them that's why I'm not
9:30
eating because you guys don't know. And
9:32
you can't tell me. Okay. So that's one
9:33
thing. The other thing you can do is
9:34
reduce single use plastics might be a
9:36
little hard at first. When you start to
9:37
realize how many single use plastics are
9:39
in our life, but you can carry reasonable
9:42
water bottles, bag utensils and say no to
9:45
straws. Use those paper straws.
9:46
As much as people don't like them, they
9:49
pretty much at the point now where you
9:51
can actually drink out of one drink and
9:53
you'll be fine. You have a metal straw
9:55
that costs like two bucks. You can have
9:57
straws. However you want. When we talk
9:59
about straws, we're talking about people
10:00
with disabilities that need those plastic
10:02
straws. I completely understand. Do what
10:04
you need to do, but these are the choices
10:05
you could make if this works out for your
10:08
lifestyle. But it's not just about
10:09
straws, but all single use plastics all
10:12
around. So like, for instance, I always
10:15
go when I'm out in the air, I don't know how to do it. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
10:16
So I'm in the office or I'm in the
10:17
office. We go out for lunch once a week
10:19
or so. I'll go to a place where I'll go
10:21
buy food or get takeout for the office
10:24
now I tend to go to a place that will
10:26
have the reasonable containers that are
10:28
compostable that tends to help me out. I
10:30
know they're composed. We'll have done
10:32
the research. I go to that place a lot
10:34
more than I normally do. I don't use or
10:36
compostable or
10:37
environmentally friendly utensils.
10:44
utensils. So I'm able to make those
10:46
better decisions. Now, if
10:48
we go to a different place
10:49
and they don't serve environmentally safe
10:51
or protected or non
10:53
single use plastics, if
10:55
they sell single use plastics, then I'll
10:57
be careful in terms of
10:58
how I'll use it. I'll
11:00
say no to a plastic bag, no to plastic
11:02
utensils, and I'll just bring the
11:04
container even though
11:05
that's plastic. You can't get away from
11:06
all of it. I don't want
11:07
people reducing what you
11:09
eat or where you eat from, but that's a
11:11
power that you have if
11:12
that's important to you.
11:13
You can avoid those places because that
11:16
is something that you
11:17
want to avoid. You don't
11:18
want to have single use plastics. You can
11:19
even talk to the
11:21
owner or the people behind
11:22
the counter and say, Hey, you know what?
11:23
Like I would love to
11:24
get that. I would love
11:25
for you to get like environmentally
11:27
friendly containers and
11:29
it's supposed to happen like
11:30
in Canada anyway, it's supposed to
11:31
happen. So just reduce
11:33
single use plastics to a point
11:35
where you can not have to have them at
11:36
all. Not depend on them
11:37
at all is always great.
11:39
Use reef safe sunscreen. This is
11:40
basically the non-enzene benzene type of
11:44
sunscreens. They have
11:45
harmful chemicals like
11:46
oxybenzone that bleach reef. So anything
11:49
that's mixed with zinc is usually pretty
11:51
good. It's harder to
11:52
put on. It's not the best, but they're
11:54
getting better at making
11:55
ones that are easy to put on.
11:56
They don't feel like when you put them on
11:57
and you can still see the
11:58
sunscreen. It could be a pain in
12:00
the butt. I use it as much as possible.
12:02
It's also better for your skin. So
12:03
there's always a secondary
12:05
benefit when using those. Now, of course,
12:07
you can also reduce carbon emissions. You
12:09
can bike, you can walk, you can take
12:10
public transit and you can
12:12
eat more plant-based foods.
12:13
Those are some of the things that you can
12:14
do that will immediately reduce your
12:16
footprint on the planet. That's something
12:18
that's really important.
12:20
Pick up litter, even if it's not yours.
12:22
So a beach on the street in your own
12:24
neighborhood, it all flows downstream.
12:26
Wherever it goes, it will find a waterway
12:28
and it will flow downstream. So the more
12:30
you can pick up, the better. Sometimes
12:31
like when I'm on a walk,
12:33
I'll even bring like gloves or something
12:34
in a bag and I'll just pick them up and
12:36
walk in the dogs or something. And I feel
12:38
like the dogs like it
12:39
when I pick up that plastic.
12:40
Because I don't know about you, but I
12:41
have one dog who likes to eat everything.
12:43
It takes away from her and especially
12:44
hurting her stomach when she eats it.
12:46
I don't catch it at her eating it. So
12:48
picking up that stuff, picking up litter
12:49
off the ground is always helpful. And it
12:51
takes care of your neighborhood, right?
12:53
It takes care of your city or town that
12:54
you live in. And it allows you to be
12:55
like, you know what? I help keep this
12:57
clean. This is something
12:57
that's really important.
12:59
Now, some of the mental and emotional
13:00
actions that you can take to turn your
13:02
anxiety down is join a community or an
13:05
online forum. You can join the undertow
13:07
community by going to speakupforblue.com
13:10
forward slash the undertow that
13:11
speakupforblue.com forward slash the
13:14
undertow to join our community where you
13:16
can talk about this stuff.
13:17
Get it off your chest. Read stories that
13:20
are a positive stories about the oceans.
13:22
Hear people talk about the oceans and be
13:25
like, Oh, I want to get in on this
13:26
action. You can do a lot of that. That'll
13:28
be really great. Many of us have social
13:29
media and we have these fees that we
13:31
could actually curate because the fees,
13:33
the algorithms based on what you interact
13:35
with and what you watch or what you read.
13:38
And that's going to be important. If you
13:39
want to read more about the ocean and
13:41
positive stories, start engaging with
13:43
those stories, share them, like them,
13:46
love them, whatever you have to do and
13:48
comment on them to say, hey, thanks for
13:50
sharing this positive stuff.
13:52
Then you could start to be like, Hey, you
13:53
know what? Like I'm starting to get
13:54
really interesting information on my
13:56
newsfeed and use it for what it's
13:58
supposed to be. Not just like Karen's
14:00
getting people arrested or people
14:02
complaining about everything.
14:04
You could find very good positive
14:06
environmental news on whether it be
14:08
TikTok or Facebook or Instagram or
14:10
whatever you're watching Snapchat,
14:11
whatever you're watching, you can find
14:12
out. But you have to curate that a little
14:14
bit. You have to do that for yourself.
14:16
You can practice ocean gratitude. So take
14:18
moments and reflect on the ocean's beauty
14:20
and importance and not just the ocean
14:22
lakes and streams as well. I was talking
14:24
to a friend of mine when I went away to
14:26
Vancouver last week. We were walking in
14:28
Stanley Park, which is a very famous park
14:30
in Vancouver and it's
14:31
right along the ocean.
14:32
We were walking along the ocean and we're
14:34
just smelling the air, looking at the
14:35
ocean, looking at the mountains in the
14:37
background and just enjoying the moment.
14:40
In fact, even when my buddy went in, he
14:41
went in swimming even though it was like
14:42
54 degrees Fahrenheit or something like
14:44
that. It was crazy cold. He went in and
14:46
had a nice swim because it was a nice
14:48
day. He wanted to cool off. He definitely
14:50
cooled off, but he enjoyed the moment.
14:52
Right? And then next, you know, about
14:54
five minutes later after he got out of
14:55
the water, we see some seals. We enjoy
14:57
the ocean. And I told him, I said, you
14:59
know what? We probably take it for
15:00
granted that he grew up in an ocean.
15:01
We don't get to be around or we don't
15:06
take in the moment when we're around Lake
15:08
Ontario, Lake Erie, all the different
15:10
great lakes that are here, the five
15:11
different great lakes and just like enjoy
15:14
the view, enjoy what they represent,
15:16
enjoy what we see each and every day that
15:19
like I have a 20 minutes away. I have a
15:22
beautiful walk like a beautiful lakefront
15:24
and I could walk that every day and I
15:26
don't. I don't even though I should every
15:28
time I do it. I'm like, I should do this
15:29
more. So don't take it for granted. If you really want to do this, I'm going to take it for granted.
15:30
If you live around a lake or even you can
15:32
walk by a stream or something, enjoy
15:34
nature, enjoy the moment, enjoy the green
15:37
space, the more you enjoy it, the more
15:39
politicians keep it around. So and the
15:41
more you'll enjoy that gratitude. Okay?
15:44
So now you can also share the ocean wind.
15:46
So talk about successful conservation
15:48
stories in your social circles,
15:50
especially when somebody
15:51
tries to bring you down.
15:53
There's somebody in your group that's
15:54
trying to bring you down by bringing down
15:55
like, Oh, it's so sucks that we have
15:57
climate change and there's flooding and
15:58
this and that's like, Oh, you know what?
15:59
There's actually somebody who prevented
16:00
flooding and one of their cities and talk
16:02
about those stories have like a roster of
16:04
stories to be like, Yeah, this is what I
16:06
want to do. That's really important.
16:08
And then limit doom scrolling. This is
16:10
what my therapist tells me all the time.
16:12
Like there's a lot of crappy things going
16:14
on in the world and they're shown on
16:15
TikTok, on Instagram, on social media in
16:18
general. Stay away
16:20
from that stuff, right?
16:21
Limit that type of scrolling, go out and
16:23
enjoy nature. Go for a walk. If you have
16:26
pets, take them for a walk. If you can
16:27
take them for a walk. If you go out and
16:29
you're near a water body and you can go
16:31
swimming, go kayaking, go whatever. Just
16:33
even walk along the side. Just take in
16:36
the breath of fresh air, enjoy it. And
16:38
that will help you recover from all this
16:40
doom scrolling. It'll help you really
16:42
enjoy nature and understand how nature
16:44
functions just by being in and watching.
16:47
Watch the birds and listen to the birds
16:49
and watch the animals and see what they do.
16:51
And look at their behaviors is so much
16:52
better for you. Let's talk about using
16:55
your voice, speaking up for the ocean,
16:57
speaking up for the blue. You can host or
17:00
join a World's Day event. Like I'm going
17:02
to nice. I'm not expecting everybody to
17:03
go to Europe, but there's always an event
17:05
on June 8th. I attended this in the past.
17:08
Of course I attended. I know doing this.
17:10
It's it'll be in the future. This week
17:11
I'm attending and I attended an Ocean's
17:13
Day event in a library in Milton, which
17:15
is just the city beside me.
17:17
And I got to talk to a lot of people who
17:19
are interested about the ocean, whether
17:21
it's careers, whether it's just about the
17:23
ocean in general, talking about the
17:24
ocean, even podcasting, talking about
17:26
speaking up for the blue is really
17:27
important. And so speaking up for that
17:29
blue and hosting a day event or being a
17:31
part of that attending one is always
17:33
great in the future when you can do so.
17:35
Right to elected officials emails,
17:37
letters, write stories, personal stories
17:40
of why you think the ocean important, why
17:42
you think your lakes and rivers are
17:43
important and the environment important.
17:45
I'm sure they cannot ignore that. They
17:47
have to read everything that you put.
17:49
They have to listen to everything you
17:51
say. They may not agree with you and they
17:53
may do something different, but you can
17:54
force them to listen to it.
17:56
Read it because that is your power. You
17:57
elected them there. They are there to
17:59
answer for you. Some politicians are
18:02
better than others. Those are not very
18:03
good. You don't elect them the next time
18:05
and you tell people about. I was like,
18:06
hey, I wrote to this person never
18:07
responded or he never said he said the
18:09
opposite of what's being done.
18:11
He understood my plight, but I'd said my
18:13
piece and this is how he treated me or
18:14
she treated me or they treated me and I
18:17
don't like it. And so you can talk about
18:19
that as well. And then you can support
18:21
indigenous ocean stewardship amplifying
18:23
the indigenous voices that are important.
18:25
And they're on social media that are on
18:27
the internet and initiatives in your area
18:29
can really help in terms of managing the
18:32
environment. So lifting those voices up
18:34
is really important. Nobody protects the
18:36
environment like indigenous people and
18:38
their culture. It's so important.
18:40
And now we're just starting to scratch
18:41
the surface of collaborating with and
18:44
having indigenous communities lead
18:46
conservation in and around their area.
18:49
Start ocean conversation. Talk with
18:50
friends, family, or even coworkers about
18:52
what they can do to like how they can be
18:55
in conservation. Some of them will be
18:56
very negative because people don't want
18:57
to change, but it's very important that
18:59
you talk to them because there's going to
19:00
be those few. They're like, oh, I could
19:01
do that. And they might do that. They
19:03
might respect you enough to
19:04
do that. So that's always good.
19:06
And then of course, post educational and
19:08
hopeful ocean content, you can share the
19:09
stuff in my podcast. We can look at
19:11
beyond jaws and all the stuff that's
19:13
going on there. There's a lot of hopeful
19:15
and great projects that we're talking
19:16
about. And you can share those clips that
19:18
I send out on social media. You know, the
19:20
ones you've probably seen them quite a
19:22
bit. There's a lot of different things
19:23
that you can do that will help you share
19:26
these types of stories.
19:27
Let's get into like the hands on action
19:29
so you can support and volunteer or even
19:32
provide financial help. You can donate to
19:34
ocean conservation organizations, even $5
19:37
a month to the ocean Conservancy or any
19:39
kind of local organizations will really
19:41
help them a lot, especially that monthly
19:43
spend is what a cup of coffee, maybe even
19:45
less than a cup of
19:46
coffee that could help out.
19:47
And if more and more people donate the
19:49
same amount, then you can really get
19:51
something moving and support these
19:52
organizations, especially local
19:54
organizations that need your help. You
19:56
can volunteer for beach cleanup or river
19:58
cleanups or any kind of cleanup. Anything
20:00
that helps the environment, even going on
20:02
walks and stuff like that. Nature walks
20:04
is always a great thing and doing it
20:06
yourself. You can support ocean focused
20:08
businesses. This is a huge thing. Look up
20:11
B Corps. These are corporations that have
20:13
a social enterprise twist to them. These are for profit purposes.
20:16
These are for profit businesses that want
20:18
to protect and help their employees. They
20:20
want to protect and help the environment
20:21
and they want to protect and help
20:22
society. These are great businesses that
20:24
you can support very easy by just buying
20:26
their products and or services. You can
20:29
adopt a sea creature or you can adopt a
20:32
tag like follow FA hlo. You can actually
20:35
go on their app and their website. I've
20:37
talked about this before. I actually have
20:38
their bracelets have two other bracelets.
20:40
Their shark, their regular shark and
20:42
whale shark where they actually team up
20:43
with organizations that tag and
20:46
animals, whether they be in aquatic or
20:47
marine or even on land and they tag
20:50
animals that you can watch them. You can
20:52
actually get an animal and you can watch
20:53
them forever. If that tag falls off, you
20:56
get another animal. You can see where
20:57
they go. It's really cool what you can
20:59
see. It's all on an app. So really great
21:01
thing that you can do there. You can
21:03
offer your skills so you can write you
21:05
can design you can code you can market
21:07
all those can help nonprofit
21:09
organizations and citizen science
21:11
projects who don't have the people with
21:12
those skills in their organization
21:14
because they might
21:14
just be a one-off project.
21:16
that just is very tight on budgets.
21:18
Everybody's tight on budgets.
21:19
So the more you can
21:19
volunteer, the better.
21:20
You can also go on a board of directors,
21:22
that would help as well.
21:24
Now you can look at taking more action
21:26
and be curious and contribute.
21:27
So you can participate in
21:28
marine citizen science projects,
21:30
apps like iNaturalist,
21:32
eBird for shorebirds,
21:33
or ReefCheck, or even
21:34
citizens of the reef.
21:35
If you go on their website,
21:37
they have a way that you can,
21:38
we talked about with Andy
21:39
Ridley a couple of weeks ago,
21:41
where we talked about
21:42
identifying boulder corals,
21:44
plate corals, branching corals,
21:46
all these different types of formations
21:48
and helping the AI be
21:49
as accurate as possible.
21:51
It's really kind of fun.
21:52
I've done it before
21:53
and it's a lot of fun.
21:54
It's really easy.
21:54
You can just do it with your hand.
21:55
You can do it with a
21:56
couple of clicks of the mouse.
21:57
It's really great.
21:58
You can do that.
21:58
I'll put a link in the show
21:59
notes to get access to that,
22:00
but citizen science of the reef.
22:02
It's basically being able to gather data
22:04
for the Great Barrier Reef.
22:05
But you can also take in a free ocean
22:07
course or a webinar.
22:09
The MOOCs, these are, I
22:11
forget what it stands for,
22:12
but there's a shark one,
22:13
Shark MOOC, that's available.
22:15
These are massive online courses, I
22:17
think, ocean courses.
22:18
And it's all about sharks.
22:19
You get to learn all about sharks
22:20
and help identify
22:21
them and stuff like that.
22:22
It's really cool.
22:23
You can read ocean conservation books.
22:24
We have lots of books.
22:25
There's some books behind me.
22:27
I've talked about books.
22:28
I've had authors on.
22:28
You can read lots of ocean
22:30
books and conservation books
22:31
and learn about the
22:32
oceans and the heroes,
22:33
like Dr. Sylvia Earle, Dr.
22:35
Ariana Elizabeth Johnson,
22:37
Octavia Bell, Jasmine
22:39
Graham, Dr. David Schiffman.
22:42
There's so many people, Dr. David Ebert,
22:43
who's my co-host on Beyond Jaws,
22:45
that you can get to know by their books
22:47
and their ocean stories and
22:48
share those ocean stories.
22:49
You can watch ocean
22:50
documentaries with family and friends
22:52
and talk about those
22:53
movies with other people.
22:55
Just had Oceans, Sir David Attenborough,
22:56
which is always great.
22:58
There's so many out there.
22:59
Just be careful which ones you go for,
23:00
because some of the
23:01
messages aren't always the best,
23:02
but most of them are pretty good.
23:04
And you can follow local marine projects
23:05
or any kind of environmental projects.
23:07
It doesn't matter if you're on the coast
23:08
or outside the coast,
23:09
you can follow them on.
23:10
You can stay informed and
23:11
engaged with what's happening
23:12
near your coast.
23:13
That's the list, but of course,
23:15
there's so many other
23:15
things that you can do.
23:17
That was a list of 25 of
23:18
them that we went through
23:19
in about almost 25 minutes.
23:21
And so these are things that you can do
23:23
just on today's Ocean Day.
23:24
The next year, you can start to focus.
23:26
You don't have to do all of them.
23:27
You can pick one, you
23:28
can pick half of one,
23:29
you can do whatever you'd like.
23:30
But the more you act, the
23:32
better you feel about the ocean,
23:34
the better you feel your contribution,
23:35
the more you lower your
23:36
anxiety, which is always great.
23:38
Now, I'm not a therapist by any means,
23:40
but I am somebody who worries about the
23:42
ocean on a daily basis.
23:44
Sometimes I get really
23:45
worried based on what people say
23:47
and some of the
23:48
policies that are put in place
23:49
and laws are put in place
23:50
or even worse taken away.
23:52
But the ocean always wins
23:53
out, whether we're here or not,
23:54
the ocean will always win out.
23:56
And it's better that
23:56
we're here and we protect it
23:58
and we reduce our
23:59
negative influence on it
24:01
and start to benefit the ocean.
24:03
So that's my message for you today
24:05
with all the crap that's
24:06
going on with the ocean,
24:07
with the environment,
24:08
with the world today,
24:10
there are ways to find hope and that
24:12
could include education,
24:13
that can include
24:14
action, whatever you might do.
24:16
And to get both of those all in one shot,
24:18
you can go and join
24:19
the undertow community
24:21
by going to
24:21
speakupforblue.com forward slash the undertow.
24:24
We're going to be launching soon.
24:26
And I'd love to see you part of it.
24:28
I'd love to see you in there and I'd love
24:30
to interact with you.
24:31
That's the best part of
24:32
the undertow communities
24:33
that we actually get to interact with
24:35
people virtually on video,
24:37
on audio, whatever that might be.
24:39
And also written.
24:40
So it's a great online community.
24:41
Highly recommend that you join us
24:42
speakupforblue.com
24:43
forward slash the undertow.
24:46
And I also want to say thank you so much
24:48
for what you do already.
24:49
Just by getting education, if you're
24:51
acting for the ocean,
24:52
I'd love to hear more about it.
24:54
You can hit me up on
24:55
Instagram at how to protect the ocean
24:57
or you can go to speakupforblue.com
24:59
forward slash contact.
25:00
Fill out the form goes right to my email,
25:02
but you can also see me
25:03
in the undertow community.
25:05
So speakupforblue.com
25:06
forward slash the undertow.
25:07
I want to thank you so much for joining
25:08
me on today's episode of the how to
25:10
protect the ocean podcast.
25:11
I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the true
25:13
north strong and free.
25:14
Have a great day.
25:14
We'll talk to you next
25:15
time and happy conservation.