World Oceans Day: Protecting the Seas, Protecting our Future Through Environmental Philanthropy

Our world, our oceans, our future

2021’s World Oceans Day on June 8th focuses on something that the world has recently learnt – that every aspect of our world is connected and interrelated. The aim is to influence decisions being made by global leaders and encourage them to protect 30% of our oceans by 2030.

We all know by now that we live on a blue planet. And as every traveller knows, the easiest way to get off the beaten track is to explore the vast untouched waters. 80% of the world’s oceans are essentially unmapped – paths untrodden, secrets unknown. Humanity has always been fascinated by the power, the beauty and the potential destructive force of the oceans, from early sailors’ tales to Moby Dick to The Perfect Storm. 

Why environmental philanthropy matters when it comes to protecting our oceans & the air we breathe? Perhaps we need to think differently – learn to see the ocean as the vast protective blanket it really is for it plays a major role as the lungs of our planet, providing most of the oxygen we breathe, where 50% of our oxygen is generated by plankton in the sea. This is troubling, given that the most recent Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services assessment claims that 66% of oceans are already negatively affected by human behaviour. While environmental philanthropy is already keenly focused on this issue, as shown by the work of Tompkins Conservation Chile in creating protected marine areas, there isn’t the global awareness yet that would help protect our essential oceanic environments from coastal regions to deep oceans.

Image credit: Atlas of Marine Protection

And yet there’s so much we can do today. As well as lobbying and campaigning to let leaders know that we see oceans as a priority, we can focus our energies on more sustainable tourism activities, we can make consumer choices that help protect fragile environments and we can celebrate the role of the ocean in sustaining life by giving back life through developing a relationship with our local marine conservation organisations, discovering what the priorities are in our nearest coastal region, and supporting initiatives that restoring the oceans, even if those oceans are hundreds of miles from our office or home.

There’s a huge movement to support this process: amongst the top 5 environmental philanthropists in the world we have to count people like Ben Goldsmith and Gordon Moore, who are committed to trying to reverse environmental damage. World influencers like Leonardo DiCaprio are outspoken in their desire to get people to focus on making real change, and the top 5 donors to marine conservation all agree that ocean degradation is a huge issue that we still have time, and resources, to reverse. 

So what’s the message for 8 June – World Ocean Day? It’s that we are cradled in our oceans, swaddled by their diversity, enriched by their treasures, and it’s time that we gave them the stewardship they deserve, with every purchase you make, commitment you take, one decision at a time. 

“Why is it that scuba divers and surfers are some of the strongest advocates of ocean conservation? Because they’ve spent time in and around the ocean, and they’ve personally seen the beauty, the fragility, and even the degradation of our planet’s blue heart.” 

~Sylvia Earle, marine biologist and National Geographic explorer-in-residence