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Blue Marine Foundation has teamed up with one of its leading yachting media partners Boat International to launch The Ocean Awards, which will celebrate individuals, companies, legislators and projects that have made outstanding contributions to the health of the oceans.
Star judges of the awards will include Sir Charles Dunstone, profiled in the August issue of Boat International on sale soon, chef and filmmaker Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and financier Ben Goldsmith. The panel will be chaired by BLUE’s Chairman and environmental journalist Charles Clover, whose book, The End of the Line, was turned into an award-winning documentary of the same name.
The Ocean Awards are broken into 10 categories:
Visionary – politician or thinker who has achieved most for ocean conservation in the past year.
Project – ocean project of a scale or brilliance to have outshone all others in the past year.
Policy – political or corporate policy that has made the most valuable contribution to solving the oceans crisis.
Personality – person who has done most to promote awareness of the oceans crisis.
Science – piece of science or paper that made the most original, important or insightful contribution to ocean conservation in the past year.
Technology – the new technology or application thereof that made the biggest contribution to ocean conservation in the past year.
FitzRoy award – named after the captain of the Beagle, on which Darwin made his famous voyage. This is for the adventurer or explorer who did the most for ocean conservation in the past 12 months.
Restaurateur – the most sustainability-literate, influential and talented restaurateur, judged by their works.
Corporate responsibility – the company that has done most to address ocean conservation, whether through sustainability issues or addressing pollution threats, such as plastics.
Retailer – the retailer that has done most through corporate policy and/or public engagement to address ocean issues in the past year.
“Problems beset the oceans: plastic, pollution, acidification, climate change, deep-sea mining and over-fishing, still arguably the biggest threat to the ocean of all,” says Charles Clover.
“Yet positive developments in fishing and aquaculture are making fishing and fish farming more sustainable. Technological developments are making the seas cleaner and innovative projects are giving communities a way of combating the overfishing of the resources on which they depend. It’s time to honour these projects and the people behind them with The Ocean Awards.”
To make a nomination, email theoceanawards@bluemarinefoundation.com. The results will be announced in the January issue of Boat International.
