Ocean Ambassadors Canada: Connecting Youth With the Ocean

Passion is a powerful motivator for positive change. Yet, many Canadians, especially youth who face barriers, feel disconnected from marine environments, despite how integral water is to all of our lives. With the right education and experience, however, we can ignite a love for our waterways that leads to far-reaching impact.

We spoke with Alison Wood, Executive Director of Ocean Ambassadors Canada, about how this organization is inspiring meaningful action by connecting disadvantaged youth with the ocean.

What was the “spark” that inspired you to start your organization?

My co-founder Jennifer Wesanko and I noticed that people are increasingly disconnected from nature. Young people are spending hours each day on their electronic devices, are over-programmed after school and on weekends, and are not permitted to play in nature without adults due to safety concerns. As a result, young people are not spending time playing in and exploring nature. We believe that unless people feel a connection to something, they will not care for it. As Jacques Cousteau said, “People protect what they love.”

Ocean Ambassadors was created as a response to this disconnect. Our mission is to connect people with nature, educate them about marine pollution and ocean health, and inspire them to take meaningful action. 

What do you consider to be your biggest success? Can you share any stories of the impact your work has had that have surprised you?

Since our founding in 2017, we have connected roughly 30,000 young people with the ocean through our beach programs. Participants are encouraged to continue advocating for our oceans as part of a lifelong passion to “protect what they love,” and many go on to work on waste reduction projects at their schools after learning about the threats to marine sustainability. Helping inspire thousands of young people to love and care for the marine environment is an ongoing success, the results of which continue to amplify in ways we cannot fully account for. 

The other work we do as an ocean-focused charity is through our zero-waste initiatives. Since beginning our zero-waste work in 2018, we have worked with close to 500 small businesses to decrease their waste output through our zero-waste coaching programs, which has led to an ongoing partnership with Metro Vancouver. Increasingly, our work is focused on waste reduction at festivals, and in May 2024, we launched our first-ever Zero Waste Festival pilot at Hyack International Parade and Festival, dramatically reducing single-use item waste at the event. 

We speak to thousands of people every year at local festivals, and one thing that has been surprising and impactful is how many people are enthusiastic about the work we are doing. While levels of popular support for a transition toward a circular and low-waste economy are not currently being reflected in changes at the levels of policy and business practices, people understand the problem and want to see things change, which is incredibly hopeful.

How can protecting oceans and waterways help make the world better?

An expression heard from Indigenous activists and land defenders, “water is life.” Similarly, the oceanographer and marine biologist Dr. Sylvia Earle, an inspiration for us at Ocean Ambassadors Canada, gave a lecture titled, “No Water, No Life. No Blue, No Green.” That water is essential to — and the cradle of — life on Earth is not a surprising point, but the more we consider this reality, the deeper its implications become.

The health of oceans and waterways worldwide is suffering as a consequence of global heating and acidification, industrial runoff, global marine shipping, commercial overfishing, and plastic pollution. If we take seriously that there is a direct connection between water and life, it means that when oceans and waterways are harmed, it is humans who are ultimately harmed (though not equally), along with all life forms with whom we share this planet. But when we work to protect and care for oceans and waterways, we are working to safeguard life now and for future generations.

We believe the most effective way to inspire positive action is through education and advocacy and by giving people opportunities to experience the ocean for themselves and explore what this relationship means to them. Our experience has been that this emotional connection often leads naturally to the desire to protect oceans and waterways from harm.

What are some of the challenges you typically face in carrying out your purpose?

Our purpose at Ocean Ambassadors Canada is to connect people directly with the ocean, nurture that connection through education, and inspire action to protect the marine environment that sustains us. As for connecting people with the ocean, the demographic we serve is primarily the urban youth of the Lower Mainland, and this comes with a number of challenges. 

We want to provide opportunities for youth, especially youth with otherwise limited access to the marine environment, to help them build lifelong relationships with the ocean, and a challenge we face is getting disadvantaged youth into our programs. Socioeconomic barriers to accessing our programs, and to accessing the natural environment more broadly, mean that we have to work harder to ensure historically underprivileged youth — children of new immigrants, urban Indigenous youth, youth from working-class backgrounds — are included in our programs. Initiatives addressing this inequity mean extra funding, and as a small charity, funding from outside our normal program revenues is what we require to ensure more equitable access to our youth programs.

Are there any upcoming initiatives or projects you’d like to share?

One of the areas where we see a lot of opportunity for positive change is in supporting festivals in Metro Vancouver to go zero waste. Public festivals, particularly those serving food and drinks, generate massive amounts of waste, contributing to the crisis of plastic pollution in the marine environment. We want to play a part in helping lead the necessary transition away from single-use items and toward circularity, and festivals are a great place to begin implementing and normalizing these changes. Currently, there are no policies in place to limit single-use item waste at festivals, and we aspire to provide resources and support for festivals to make the transition toward zero waste, sharing our insights with our partners at Metro Vancouver to inform potential policy measures. 

On the water, we will continue to inspire the next generation of Ocean Ambassadors through our school programs and summer camps. Connecting young people with the ocean so that they feel inspired toward advocacy is where our roots are as a charity, and this experiential approach will always be central to the work we do in protecting the marine environment.

What can people do to help support your mission?

To support our mission of addressing the crisis of marine pollution, we are asking people to reuse the items they own, refuse environmentally harmful items and products, and reduce unnecessary consumption in their lives and communities, opting for quality over quantity. Systemic changes in production and consumption globally are required to address the causes of marine pollution, and we are working to get this change underway right here in our own region, where we can connect the impacts of our own actions on the marine environment with the health of the planet and with movements for sustainability around the world.

Another way people can support our mission is to get connected with the ocean. This could be through volunteering with Ocean Ambassadors Canada to support our community initiatives and programs. It can also be through connecting with the ocean in whatever way feels most meaningful to you: watersport, activism, walking the coastline, relaxing at the beach, or learning about coastal ecology and Coast Salish relationships with these waters. The ocean can help heal our disconnection and remind us what it means to be alive on Earth. Find your own way to feel that power and let it guide you forward.

You can also support our mission by donating to our organization via our website.

Editor’s Note: Thank you to Max Abu-Laban, Zero Waste Coordinator, who also contributed to this piece.

This story was featured in the Make The World Better Magazine: