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

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

Adrian Grenier

Actor and founder of the Lonely Whale Foundation

Lukas Waterman; Adam Slama

"Sadly, I became connected to the ocean late in life,” says Grenier, who set up the Lonely Whale Foundation in 2015 to develop a community of ocean advocates through education and interactive social media campaigns. “I grew up in New York City but never thought of myself as living near the ocean, even though I was. When I finally learnt to scuba dive, I quickly realised how much I had been missing.” Grenier’s new passion led him to co-produce 52: the Search for the Loneliest Whale, a documentary that chronicles the quest to find the mysterious and solitary 52 hertz whale, a mammal scientists believe calls out at a frequency that no other whale can hear.

Grenier also navigated choppy waters when he was challenged last summer by Richard Branson (pictured above) to swim the Strait of Messina to raise awareness for World Oceans Day. “My training for that race took me to waterways all over the world, from the dead zone off Mississippi, to the second largest shipping port in Singapore. I’ve seen and swum through different levels of environmental degradation of our waterways.” Grenier is mindful of his own personal choices at home, too. “My house has an open door policy to my friends and family, with one exception: no plastic bags allowed! I have also committed to saying no to plastic straws and sharing their detrimental effects on our ocean with the restaurant industry.”

Education is also at the core of the Lonely Whale’s work. “We are particularly proud of our kindergarten to fifth grade marine science-based education initiative. We’ve partnered with the Academy for Global Citizenship on the southwest side of Chicago to build a unique education initiative that is rooted in empathy [co-developed with practising scientists and marine researchers, children learn about seven sea creatures and the polluting challenges they face]," he says. “The biggest threat to our oceans right now is non-action. Our oceans are resilient but only if we take collective steps towards protecting and rebuilding them. We need to protect 30 per cent of our oceans by 2030. Today, we’ve protected just three per cent. We have a long way to go but I’m ready for the challenge and the opportunity to engage a new community of environmental leaders.”

lonelywhale.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

Sarah Kauss

Founder of S’well water bottles

On a mission to rid the world of plastic bottles, S’well founder Sarah Kauss has turned an inspired idea – reusable bottles that keep drinks cold for 24 hours and hot for 12 – into a multimillion-dollar business that has supported many eco-friendly charities including WaterAid. With approximately nine million bottles sold globally, limited edition designer collaborations with artists such as Gray Malin and Yoon Hyup, and celebrity fans like Tom Hanks, a S’well bottle has become the "it" accessory. “Prior to creating S’well, I learnt of the Pacific garbage patch, which is a patch of plastic waste in the ocean that’s something like the size of Canada and in places one mile deep,” says Kauss. “This plastic will never biodegrade. It will just become smaller bits that will eventually make their way into our food system. In creating S’well, I set out to convert the non-converted and to encourage others to stop using single-use plastic bottles. I’m so proud to have been able to turn an eco-conscious item into a fashionable one.”

swellbottle.com

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

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

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"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.”

David Miliband

President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee

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As co-chair of the Global Ocean Commission, which ran from 2013 to 2016, the former UK foreign secretary took on an unpaid role to highlight problems and promote the protection of the high seas – vast areas of ocean that make up 45 per cent of the world’s surface but lie beyond the jurisdiction of individual states. With plastic pollution, pirate fishing (often using slave labour linked to drugs and weapons smuggling) and the future risk of illegal dredging and geological mining at stake, “it’s the ecological equivalent of a financial crisis”, said Miliband. Working with former Costa Rican president José Maria Figueres and South Africa’s former finance minister Trevor Manuel, the commission set out practical proposals for action, most notably a call for an international ocean police force to prevent plunder and pillage on a massive scale. “We are living as if there are three or four planets instead of one and you can’t get away with that,” Miliband has said.

Marc Hayek

President and CEO, Blancpain

"For more than half a century, Blancpain has been intimately connected with the ocean,” says Blancpain’s president and CEO, Marc Hayek. “While our legendary Fifty Fathoms timepieces have played a central role, we see our mission as extending far beyond the creation of the world’s finest diving watches.” In 2014 the company launched its Ocean Commitment programme, which supports a large number of scientific endeavours including exploration initiatives, underwater photography and environmental forums. The company also launched a limited-edition Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe Ocean Commitment watch and donated the proceeds of €250,000 to a range of oceanic endeavours and charities including the 2014 Gombessa Project, a marine expedition in French Polynesia. Following the success of this project, which is now studying newly observed hunting patterns of sharks, a Fifty Fathoms Ocean Commitment II watch was launched in October 2016 and proceeds from every sale will be donated to the Ocean Commitment programme.

blancpain-ocean-commitment.com

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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