To Surf And Protect: A Climate Change And Surfing Conversation

Editor's Note: Emma Pollard is the Chief Operating Officer of the Climate Council.

Western Australia, host of the third and fourth events of the 2021 WSL Championship Tour, is home to some of the world's most alluring surf breaks including Main Break, South Side and The Box where you can catch all the action from the Boost Mobile Margaret River Pro presented by Corona. It is also home to some of the most remarkable marine environments in the world, including the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Coast and its most famous resident, the Whale Shark. Western Australia is also famous for its coastline.

As a surfing community, we share a love of the ocean. This why the WSL is committed to raising awareness around issues relating to protecting and conserving our global ocean.
We recognize that climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, is already affecting the health of our ocean, altering wind and swell patterns, as well as the shape of our coastlines including the world's most iconic waves and the people and communities that have been grown up around them.

To Protect And Surf: A Climate Change And Surfing Conversation

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Learn about what you can do to mitigate the impacts of climate change, protect the beaches and breaks you love, and have a positive impact on the health of our marine environments.

Just as the ocean is impacted by climate change, so too is it a critical part of the solution; giant kelp forests, sea grasses and mangroves, for example, play a pivotal role in drawing down and storing climate-warming gases from our atmosphere.

Through the We Are One Ocean campaign, the WSL is committed to protecting and conserving the global ocean and we encourage surfers from around the world to join us.

To learn about what you can do to protect the beaches and breaks you love, tune in HERE to an important conversation facilitated by WSL Commentator, Ronnie Blakey, on the value of our oceans, how they are changing as a result of climate change and the role we can all play in protecting them.

Australia's Isabella Nichols walks down to the water's edge at Margaret River in May of 2021. - WSL / Matt Dunbar

Blakey is joined by panelists:

• Ace Buchan (WSL Championship Tour surfer and WSL PURE Ambassador)
• Belinda Baggs (Co-Founder, Surfers for Climate)
• Billy Bain (Darug Indigenous Artist, Surfers for Climate Ambassador)
• Cat Dorey (Marine Parks Campaign Manager, Australian Marine Conservation Society)
• Dr Simon Bradshaw (Acting Head of Research, Climate Council of Australia)

You can also join the WSL and a coalition of over 80 organizations from around the world in raising our collective voices to protect and conserve our global ocean. Learn more about the We Are One Ocean campaign by visiting WeAreOneOcean.org.