Sea Champion gets Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall to pledge for Marine Protection

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall was on the beach yesterday filming for his new series of Fish Fight for Channel 4. From Thailand and the Phillipines to Antarctica, Hugh has been focussing on Marine Protected Areas all around the world.

Sea Champions showed their support when Hugh arrived at Weston-super-Mare yesterday. Whilst Hugh demonstrated the impact some trawlers can have on the sea floor, Sea Champions Katie Macer-Wright and Kirsty Lynham were on the beach gathering pledges for marine protection in England and distributing campaign materials. 

Hugh was asking the public to think about where their fish comes from, whilst our Sea Champions were distributing Pocket Good Fish Guides to the audience.

"It was an amazing day packed with visual impact, and lots of the kids loved it. It really helped the public see the destruction some fishing methods can cause and the need for MPAs" says Kirsty.

You can help stop this destruction by pledging for marine protection here.

Demonstrating the impact some trawlers can have on the sea floor.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall pledging for marine protection with Sea Champion Katie Macer-Wright

A Cry for our Oceans

New Sea Champion holds art installation to raise awareness on the impacts beach litter poses to marine life

We have developed into a throwaway society. Plastics are lightweight, inexpensive and durable and can be fashioned into just about anything. We love plastic stuff, so why is it a problem? In short, plastic isn't the issue, it's the way we use it that has created the problem. A material that lasts forever has been cast in the role of a throwaway commodity and as a result is accumulating in the environment.

Sea Champion Tania Long from Eastbourne, has been hard at work cleaning beaches in the south east of England. Not only is she ridding these areas of plastics and other man made debris, she has used her finds to create a whimsical underwater world in an educational art installation at the Leaf Hall Arts Festival.

Tania has turned plastic bags, tubes and plastic bottles into fish, jellyfish, sea fans, sponges and even a mermaid!  Children will have the opportunity to make their own fun fish and sea critters in a recycled art workshop where they can share ideas on how we can help our oceans.

The event will be running between 21st July 2012 - 5th August 2012 at Leaf Hall in Eastbourne. Visit www.leafhall.co.uk for more information. 

Tania's whimsical underwater world!

 

Stuck for inspiration?

2 men, 3 years, 15 countries, 10,000 miles. On foot.

A charity walk across the globe from Cardiff Wales, to Cardiff Australia.

Kieran Rae and Arjun Bhogal have the ambition to help make the world a better place, and have made a statement of truly global proportions.

Raising funds for the Marine Conservation Society and Water Aid, they will be starting from Cardiff in Wales. They are walking for around three years, through fifteen countries, covering over ten thousand miles and crossing areas such as the Eastern European forests, Kazakhstan plains, Taklamakan desert, Tibetan Plateau, Himalayas, Vietnamese jungle and east Australian coast, finishing in Cardiff, New South Wales, Australia.

In addition to raising funds, they will be producing a documentary raising awareness of environmental issues, issues that have no borders and affect us all, from the luxury apartments of Regent Street in London to the Karol Bargh Market district of India.
You can sponsor the team and keep up to date by following them on Twitter. 

Find out more.

Tallulah laid how many eggs?!

Tallulah, our lifesize inflatable leatherback turtle, is becoming rather a celebrity! She is travelling far and wide accompanying our Sea Champions at events all over the country.

 She's a great talking point to introduce our turtle projects, and here’s a great idea to interact with people at your MCS stand - a competition to guess how many eggs Tallulah laid!

At 50p a go, not only did people learn a little about turtles, but £32 was raised at the recent Bristol Festival of Nature. Every penny counts to help save our seas!

The lucky winner was Daniel Jones from Wiltshire, who guessed just 3 eggs away from the overall total and won an Adopt-a-Turtle gift.

To run this competition at your event, all you need is a box full of ping pong balls which look very much like turtle eggs!

We are extInked!

Three years ago, a hundred volunteers became ambassadors for Britain’s threatened species. 

Ultimate Holding Company, a British Art Collective offered 100 tattoos of endangered species to people committed to preserving them. The project, called extInked, is raising awareness of endangered species since tattoos usually make for great conversation.  From deep sea shrimp and native oyster to leatherback turtles and basking shark, many people became ambassadors for threatened marine species.

Scottish Sea Champions went along to the exhibition to celebrate our amazing wildlife and to raise awareness of biodiversity loss.

You can find out how sea horses and other species are benefiting from this unique arts and ecology project by heading down to the “We are extInked” exhibition which is running in the Gateway Gallery, at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh from 12 May to 29 July 2012.  Click here for more info!

The tattoos were done by the UK studio, Ink Vs Steel. Check out more pics of Ext Inked tattoos on their Facebook page or at www.extinked.org.uk.

Are there any events coming up in your area that it might be worth attending?  Then get in touch with your Sea Champions Volunteer Coordinator!

Short snouted seahorse. Photograph by Thomas Bing, at Ultimate Holding Company.