How Sustainable Surf is Revolutionizing Ocean Conservation

From Ecoboards to SeaTrees: Innovative Solutions for Marine Health

Though we call it planet Earth, we live on a water world that’s 71% liquid. According to the movie Chasing Coral, over 90% of the heat created by burning fossil fuels has been absorbed by the ocean. If the ocean hadn’t absorbed that heat, the average temperature on the planet would be 122 degrees.

“The ocean has already saved the entire human race from annihilation!” exclaims Michael Stewart, co-founder of the non-profit Sustainable Surf. “The ocean gives us a stable climate and is also a carbon bank for the world. We started Sustainable Surf in 2011 hoping to become the blueprint for how to restore and bring back ocean health and reverse climate change.”

Co-founders Stewart and Kevin Whilden and Sustainable Surf’s staff of dedicated globe-trotting surfers believe the ocean is the hidden hero in our collective story about combating climate catastrophe.

“Trying to solve any of those seemingly intractable global problems without including ocean ecosystems as a core part of the solution is pure fantasy,” Stewart explains. “Marine ecosystem restoration is the key to saving carbon-based life on our planet.”

Even though most efforts to fight climate change focus on terrestrial actions, the ocean takes the brunt of the impact. “Pollution, loss of biodiversity, all those things show up first in the ocean,” explains Stewart. “As surfers, we’ve seen this more than most people. I’ve seen coral reefs and beaches disappear, kelp forests completely decimated, all from the impacts of a warming world, a warming ocean.”

Yet surfing culture and business falls far behind other land-based outdoor adventure industries when it comes to fighting climate change. Sustainable Surf aims to change that by combining innovative programs and digital storytelling with surfer stoke. “There is already enough education and awareness out there,” Stewart says. “What we need is very specific fins in the water action. We wanted to provide an on-ramp, a pathway for others to take action and become part of the solution.“

The Ecoboard Project

Stewart and Whilden decided to start with the surfboard. “There’s nothing more central to being a surfer than their surfboard. But a modern surfboard is a solidified toxic stew of petrochemicals,” explains Stewart. “That’s the core ingredient we base all this love and passion for the ocean on. So what would a more sustainable surfboard look like?”

Surfboard manufacturing has remained remarkably consistent for the past half century. “Think about a cell phone or a car, asking someone to build those things using only technology from the ‘60s, that would be ridiculous,” Stewart exclaims. “But that’s where the surf industry was at when we started our Ecoboard  program.”

The Ecoboard Project is a certification program for surfboards, similar to the organic label for food, aiming to define and measure sustainability in the materials used to build surfboards. “We thought, we could create a process for folks to demonstrate they’re adhering to a more rigorous standard to reduce carbon footprint and use plant-based or recycled materials,” explains Stewart. “That was the birth of our Ecoboard program.” Thirteen years later, they have 141 partners.

“There’s a misconception that an Ecoboard will take away from the performance,” admits Ecoboard Program Manager Tyler Fox. “But we have some absolutely shredding surfers on our boards.”

And while buying a new surfboard may not change the world, it can change the way people think. “It’s a conversation starter,” explains Fox. “It’s a simple small step folks can take towards understanding how climate change affects their ocean, their waves. Ultimately we want to shift the needle so it becomes a normal thing for folks to get boards produced in an environmentally friendlier way.”

But Stewart and Whilden weren’t satisfied with impacting the consumer market. “We wanted to be the ounce of prevention, not just the pound of cure,” explains Stewart. So they started a program called SeaTrees.

SeaTrees Program

“SeaTrees is not the actual fins in the water, but we partner with folks all over the world who are,” explains Leah Hays, SeaTrees Program Manager. ”We also fund science impact measurement and do a lot of media production. As our partners are able to tell their stories more effectively and reach a wider audience, they can attract more funding and partners.”

SeaTrees currently has 23 projects on every continent except Antarctica, in six critical marine habitats: mangroves, kelp forests, coral reefs, coastal watersheds, seagrass meadows and oyster reefs.

Kenya is the epicenter of their mangrove restoration work, which will be featured in the upcoming BBC series Blue Horizons. Community partners collect seeds and propagules, raise them in nurseries and then transplant them to designated areas. A community sensitization program shares knowledge about how mangroves buffer rising sea levels and increase biodiversity. Some locals report that fishing is improving in areas where mangroves are protected.

Perhaps most importantly, SeaTrees aims to understand the underlying issues in each location where they partner on projects.

“We know the main cause of mangrove degradation is poverty,” explains Hays. “So we support local partners in starting a woodlot program to encourage folks to grow wood they can harvest instead of cutting mangroves. We employ community members to collect seeds and raise seedlings. Community groups have pooled their earnings to begin alternative livelihood projects like beekeeping, raising chickens, goat rearing, and making climate resilient food forests.”

The issues underlying kelp forest decimation vary with location, and Sea Trees adapts their approach to each project site. In California, they focus on removing purple sea urchins. Warming ocean temperatures led to massive sea star die offs, which resulted in overpopulation of ravenous purple sea urchins. “There is no point in planting kelp there, the urchins would eat our efforts,” explains Stewart. “So we go in and remove the urchins from specific reefs and allow natural regeneration to take place.”

But in the marine environment around Sydney Australia, kelp (or crayweed as they call it down under) was eliminated by polluted runoff over forty years ago. “The underlying water pollution problem has been addressed — Sydney invested in better water treatment systems,” explains Stewart. “So we work with local partners to transplant healthy kelp from nearby forests. We attach it to rocks and boulders.”

In the SeaTrees Portugal project they are starting a nursery of baby kelp plants inside a submerged shipping container. They impregnate tiny rocks or gravel with kelp spores, grow them in a protected environment until they’re viable and then release them on top of a reef system. “They’re already growing when they hit the ground!” explains Stewart.

Cool reefs all over the world are endangered by ocean acidification — which dissolves their hard bodies and shells — and warming, which bleaches their vibrant colors when algae die off. “Coral is the biggest warning sign of what we are doing to the operating system of the earth,” explains Hays. “These reefs are diverse charismatic underwater wonderlands. Nobody wants to see them disappear.”

So SeaTrees works on coral restoration all over the world. On a small island off the coast of Bali, they are using indigenous seaweed farming techniques to propagate coral and create new reefs. In the Caribbean they study which corals are resilient to bleaching events so they can grow and plant thermally resistant ones. And they’re about to sign a contract in Fiji to eradicate crown-of-thorns starfish, which are ravaging reefs there.

Their work restoring coastal watersheds is focused in Launiupoko, a town on Maui near where the devastating fires occurred. Two weeks before the fire, their project partner cleared a bunch of invasive species which essentially acted as a fuel break, slowing the fires advance. “That site sits right above what’s commonly known as the Mother Reef, because it holds the oldest coral on the island and acts as a nursery for three islands,” explains Hays. “By removing invasive species and planting natives we are able to restore this historic watershed and assist the reef below by mitigating run off, controlling erosion and filtering chemicals from farming.”

SeaTrees is also studying the benefits of seagrass meadows in Mallorca and Portugal, as well as oyster reefs off the coast of Maine.

In just twelve years, Stewart and Whilden have changed surfboard manufacturing and contributed to scientific and community-based marine climate solutions. “Our secret sauce is fun,” explains Stewart. “Yes, we may be working on some of the most difficult environmental issues in the world but we do it with optimism. We make it cool and interesting, we feed the stoke. That’s really the bread and butter of Sustainable Surf.”

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Read more articles by Leonie Sherman here.