The Ocean A-List: Meet the heroes and heroines of ocean conservation

Cristina Mittermeier

Co-founder and president of SeaLegacy

Cristina Mittermeier/Paul Nicklen

With the ever-increasing threats facing the world's oceans, protection and conservation is a task for the many not the few and where the heroes and heroines of ocean conservation lead, the rest of us would do well to follow. By Olivia Falcon.

Cristina Mittermeier

Cristina Mittermeier and Paul Nicklen are both photographers and marine biologists who harness the power of the lens to show the real story about what’s going on underneath the ocean. In 2015 this talented duo launched SeaLegacy, a collective of highly acclaimed photographers and film-makers who share their images and films with scientists, conservationists, policymakers and selected media partners to spread their ocean-saving mission. This inspirational group of storytellers is on the front line and sees first hand the damage that is inflicted on marine life. “When there is an emergency, like an oil spill or a hurricane, we are able to deploy a team of photographers to the site immediately so that they can document the crisis and we can share the images with partners and the media,” says Mittermeier.

With a social media reach of more than 70 million and National Geographic as a partner, this group of snappers is punching well above its weight and proving that pictures speak louder than words.

sealegacy.org

Leonardo DiCaprio

Actor and founder of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation

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Donating his megawatt celebrity and more than $30 million to date to help advance UN climate negotiations and protect coral reefs and endangered marine life (most notably sharks and rays), Leonardo DiCaprio’s commitment to and passion for protecting our planet has galvanised everyone from politicians to millennials. As a keynote speaker at the Our Ocean Conference in Washington DC last year, DiCaprio reported on his first-hand experience of the horrors of coral bleaching. “I saw this with my own eyes while filming my new documentary Before the Flood. Marine scientist Jeremy Jackson led me underwater in a submersible to observe the reefs off the coast of the Bahamas. What I saw took my breath away – not a fish in sight, colourless, ghost-like coral, a graveyard.”

DiCaprio is also focusing on using innovative solutions. Tackling the problem of overfishing, his foundation has partnered with Google, SkyTruth and Oceana to launch Global Fishing Watch, a website that invites the public to track fishing vessels, with data collected by satellites, thus making fishing practices transparent, and politicians and fisheries accountable to us all. “I am consumed by this,” DiCaprio has said of his work to protect the planet. “There isn’t a couple of hours a day where I’m not thinking about it.”

globalfishingwatch.org

Alexandra Cousteau

National Geographic Emerging Explorer, film-maker and founder of Blue Legacy International

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Having led countless expeditions across six continents and produced more than 100 award-winning short films about water issues, Cousteau is dedicated to continuing the work of her renowned grandfather Jacques-Yves Cousteau and her father Philippe Cousteau Sr. In 2008 she founded Blue Legacy International with the mission of empowering people to reclaim and restore the world’s water supplies, one community at a time.

“The ocean has always been a part of my life. I was seven years old when my grandfather taught me to scuba dive in the South of France, but climate change, ocean acidification and overfishing mean the waters my grandfather introduced me to don’t exist any more. This year I’ll be filming in the Philippines, the USA and Peru, and joining Oceana for some deep-sea exploration in Canada. I have also been working on a documentary about how we can save the oceans and feed the world. Just 30 countries control 90 per cent of the world’s fisheries. If we can work with them on policy solutions that will end overfishing and expand marine protected areas, we could have an enormous impact by rebuilding populations of marine life to close to their historic levels. It’s ambitious and bold and I love it. We need big, hopeful solutions right now.”

alexandracousteau.com

Anisa Kamadoli Costa

Chairman and president, the Tiffany & Co Foundation

"People often wonder if the inspiration behind the work of our foundation is our brand colour, Tiffany Blue, which recalls the beauty of the sea,” says Kamadoli Costa, who heads up the Tiffany & Co Foundation, a philanthropic initiative established in 2000 that is dedicated to helping preserve the world’s most treasured seascapes and landscapes. “We are, in fact, driven by something much bigger. The ocean is a critical resource for all of the world’s people and yet many are still unaware of its plight.”

The foundation awards grants to a wide range of non-profit organisations, from Sailors for the Sea, which engages sailing communities in ocean conservation with its Clean Regattas programmes, to Oceans 5 and Pew’s Global Ocean Legacy, which protect coral reefs and create new marine protected areas. The foundation also focuses on education and last year helped finance Valen’s Reef, an underwater virtual reality film that transports viewers to Bird’s Head Seascape (one of the planet’s most biodiverse reefs) in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. “We hope this will inspire younger generations to become future champions of oceans,” says Kamadoli Costa. “There has been noteworthy progress in the last few years, notably in the Coral Triangle in the western Pacific. My experiences always remind me that we are at a crucial tipping point with our oceans, but that it’s not too late.”

tiffanyandcofoundation.org

Prince Albert II of Monaco

Founder of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation and patron of Blue Marine Yacht Club

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It has been just over a decade since Prince Albert II of Monaco followed in the footsteps of his great great-grandfather and visited the Arctic, reaching the North Pole to explore the effects of global warming on the weakening ice. In the aftermath of this expedition, the Prince created his eponymous foundation, which is dedicated to environmental protection and focuses specifically on projects in the Mediterranean Basin and the polar regions and on identifying the richest and most fragile areas of biodiversity in the least developed countries. These include areas such as Cambodia, where the foundation has helped to implement new initiatives to manage fisheries.

fpa2.com

Bryan Adams

Rock star, photographer and co-founder of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Preservation Fund

Rex Features

"I had been working as the chair of the environmental committee on Mustique for four years, when I became aware that the issues facing the island were just a microcosm of the entire region,” says Adams, who set up the St Vincent and the Grenadines Preservation Fund in March 2015 with funding from many of Mustique’s homeowners.

The singer, who has been holidaying on the island since 2002, has witnessed coral bleaching, overfishing and works to protect endangered species. “I’d say the biggest threat by far to this region is overfishing. It’s done on an industrial scale, by commercial and pirate fishermen and the knock-on effects are catastrophic for local fishermen. The lack of fish is putting the reefs under stress and causes larger predators such as tiger sharks to come into shallower water when deep-sea fish are scarce. The main thing we are focusing on with the fund is the protection of turtles and whales, and educating people that killing off these rare and beautiful creatures is killing off the ecotourism that is the backbone of the future local economy.

It’s counter-intuitive to the government’s plan to develop tourism – having just spent millions developing a new airport. There needs to be a shift towards greater conservation. These islands are like the Caribbean Galápagos. They have a rich biodiversity from the seabirds, marine life and amazing leatherback turtles – there is so much to see. There are signs that there is a shift towards more conservation, and that is very encouraging.”

svgpf.com

Agnès B

Designer and co-founder of Tara Expeditions Foundation

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Since acquiring Tara, a 36 metre research schooner in 2003, Agnès B and her son, Étienne Bourgois, created Tara Expeditions. It is a project developed from their shared passion for the ocean, designed to take action, protect the environment and promote scientific research. To date, Tara has completed three major expeditions to the Arctic and Mediterranean as well as a round-the-world “oceans” voyage to study plankton and coral species. This year Tara continues with another odyssey, started last May, of nearly 54,000nm that will see her criss-crossing the Pacific from the Panama Canal to the Japanese archipelago and New Zealand to China, to study the evolution of coral reefs in response to climate change and the pressure of human activity.

“Over the years, I’ve seen Tara sail off with her captains and sailors at the helm, carrying on board our dear scientists and artists,” says Agnès B. “We now have reliable analyses concerning the contents of this vital element – the sea. So many possibilities will come from these discoveries.”

taraexpeditions.org

Helena Christensen

Model and environmentalist

Splash news

"I have wanted to be a mermaid since I was a little girl,” says Christensen, who grew up in Denmark, spending summers in the family’s seaside cottage. “I have huge respect and admiration for the sea. There is hardly anything more magical; its power is infinite and ever-changing. Ocean life depends on a thriving coral reef and we are destroying it. I went to an ocean conservation gathering in the Maldives a few years back at the Six Senses Water/Wo/Men Event and we went diving to see with our own eyes how the corals had turned colourless and dusty, looking like a site after a nuclear bombing. It was heartbreaking and chilling.”

An ardent supporter of the Turtle Conservancy’s annual Turtle Ball in New York, Christensen says: “This initiative has made me realise how much our precious sea life is now hugely dependent on humans committing to conserve it.” Spending much of her free time combing beaches on both sides of the Atlantic for harmful plastic rubbish, she says: “I will bring a large bag with me and pick up whatever waste I see. I curse people who enjoy nature only to leave their waste behind. Such behaviour is atrocious.”

Plastic Oceans Foundation

Educational charity

This pioneering charity was set up by TV producer Jo Ruxton and lawyer Sonjia Norman when Ruxton was making A Plastic Ocean. This impactful documentary film, first shown in 2016 and now on general release, is a heartfelt call to action in response to the neglectful way we dispose of plastic and the heinous effect it has on marine life and consequently human health as it enters the food chain. “I wanted the film to have a legacy,” says Ruxton. “I wanted to take it forward through education and science programmes. The film is the first of our education tools, but it’s just the beginning because there is so much work to be done.”

What started as an expedition to the Pacific garbage patch in 2009 has turned into a life’s mission to change people’s behaviour within a generation. Ruxton is working with exam boards that operate in 170 countries to get this issue into the curriculum. “Once people realise what’s going on then the right minds are going to come up with solutions… it’s the most crazy situation we’ve got ourselves into and it’s the easiest one to solve.”

plasticoceans.org

Ralph Lauren

Designer and philanthropist

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Honoured by Riverkeeper for leading the Ralph Lauren Corporation with a deep commitment to protecting the environment, the fashion mogul gave $100,000 to the New York charity. Riverkeeper has worked for 50 years to reverse the decline of the Hudson River and ensure more than nine million New Yorkers have clean, safe drinking water. Lauren landed the coveted Big Fish award at the 50th anniversary Fishermen’s Ball last May. “I’m a New Yorker. I was born here. I was married here. I raised my children here. The Hudson is my river – it’s our river,” he said.

riverkeeper.org

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