Blue Water Edufest: 8 Ocean Heroes That Are Advocating for Marine Sustainability & Why We Need to Care

From promoting eco-consciousness through community campaigns and education, researching the impact of plastic pollution, preserving fragile habitats, and involving policy makers, these people are inspiring the next blue generation to safeguard our oceans and coastlines together! Let’s meet some eco-heroes featured at Blue Water Edufest 2022….

For Lungs of the Earth

The ocean covers 71% of the planet, supporting humanity’s sustenance and producing at least 50% of the planet’s oxygen. How badly are our earth’s “lungs” affected by the changing climate? And what are we doing to prevent constant degradation, especially with the growing number of violent weather events? What does ocean plastic reduction and responsible boating and fishing look like? By curating the inaugaral Blue Water Edufest this November, ONE°15 Marina Sentosa Cove Singapore raised these questions and highlighted the efforts of ocean heroes in the region to influence and inspire. 

Blue Water EduFest 2022 is organised by ONE15 Events Management (“ONE°15”), a subsidiary of SUTL Enterprise Limited (“SUTL”) and is the brainchild of Mr Arthur Tay, CEO of SUTL Enterprise. The four-day event comprised a two-day conference, “The Ocean Collective Summit”, organised in partnership with International Seakeepers Society Asia featuring international and regional speakers with content that focuses on urban reef conservation and efforts to stop ocean plastic pollution. It also comprised a nightly fund-raising event, and a marina clean-up. Proceeds from the financial surplus will go to ocean conservation funds and beneficiaries such as WWF-Singapore and International SeaKeepers Society Asia.

Mr Arthur Tay, an avid diver and strong advocate for the protection of marine biodiversity, tells Green Is The New Black, “The big vision for Blue Water EduFest is a call to action; to increase public awareness and drive change so that more will join us in this movement to make our oceans and coastlines blue again. The event serves as a platform to create dialogues and discussions on how corporations and governments can use their respective power of influence, and areas of expertise, to work hand-in-hand with communities and advocacy groups to reverse the worsening coastlines and promote marine conservation.”

Mr Arthur Tay is one of many heroes committed to tirelessly furthering marine conservation that we’re stoked to spotlight…

1. Melati Riyanto Wijsen, Co-Founder of the social initiative Bye Bye Plastic Bags

2. Thanda Ko Gyi, Founder and Director of the NGO, Myanmar Ocean Project

3. Dr Louisa Ponnampalam, Executive Director and Co-Founder of the MareCet Research Organisation

4. Fabien Cousteau, Aquanaut, Oceanographic Explorer, Environmental Advocate, Founder of The Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Centre and Proteus Ocean Group

Fabien Cousteau, the first grandson of the famed ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau and one of the keynote speakers, kicked off the Blue Water Edufest on a powerful and rallying note. Unfortunately, conservation in the non-profit world has been largely underfunded and undervalued by people who are not in conservation. He reminded us that “it’s essential for all of us to be conservationists in our mindset because, not because we want to save the fish and the trees and all this because we as a species are by nature self preservationists. And if we are to consider being self preservationists, we must by default be conservationists because we depend on that entire web of life for us to live and thrive. And so if nature is healthy, we become healthy and we have a healthier future.”

Fabien spent his early years aboard on his famous grandfather’s ships, learning how to scuba dive on his fourth birthday. Early in 2016, he founded the Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Centre to fulfill his dream of creating change in ocean conservation. Under this non-profit, he’s currently working on a whole range of projects, from coral reef resilience and beach clean ups to sea turtle conservation. According to Fabien, despite all of modern day ocean exploration, we’ve explored less than 7% of the entire ocean ecosystem to this day – this drives him to continue to explore and learn from the vast ocean. 

5. Mr Arthur Tay, Chairman and CEO of SUTL Group

Mr Arthur Tay is the Chairman and CEO of SUTL Group, a thriving enterprise with a diverse portfolio of businesses with expertise in Consumer Goods, Leisure and Environmental. Mr Tay’s vision is to create and develop marina infrastructure internationally. He identified the need to cater to the burgeoning superyacht community to expand the yachting infrastructure in the region. SUTL Enterprise, a subsidiary of the SUTL Group, remains as the only marina business that is listed on the Singapore Exchange. As an avid boater and diver himself, Mr Tay has immense passion for ocean conservation and is also the man behind the inaugural Blue Water EduFest. 

When asked about the first trigger or moment when he decided to commit to protecting and raising awareness of the ocean, Mr Arthur told us, “I wouldn’t say it was a first trigger moment but it’s through my frequent diving trips that I saw an increased amount of litter in the ocean. Plus, we had to go further to deeper waters to see more fish species due to overfishing, increased pollution and climate change. In addition, being in the marina business means that we really rely on the ocean for our livelihoods. This experience caused me to think of all the communities closely tied with our coasts, and how the health of our waters has been compromised due to selfishness and the lack of awareness. It was then that I decided something had to be done and very quickly.”

6. Anna Marsden, Managing Director, Great Barrier Reef Foundation

Over 50 percent of the world’s coral reefs have died in the last 30 years and up to 90 percent may die within the next century. As Managing Director of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation (GBRF), Ms Marsden has driven record fundraising growth for the Great Barrier Reef. Bringing together corporate and private philanthropy with government and science, she has charted the development of a portfolio of Reef programs that take practical action and deliver the science and innovation needed to protect and restore the Reef for future generations. Ms Marsden has worked in leadership roles across the not for profit and creative industries for almost two decades. 

7. Sam Shu Qin, Co-Founder of Our Singapore Reefs

Sam is an avid diver, coral scientist and educator. Spending a lot of time underwater gives her the opportunity to experience first-hand impacts of human destruction. As part of her coral restoration work, Shu Qin dives to plant corals and observe their progress and condition periodically. Often, she returns to find the corals strangled by fishing lines or caught in traps and rubbish. On one of these dives, she was shocked to discover a washing machine in the water. “We see a lot of illegal dumping but that was the last straw for me,” she shared in an interview with Prestige. Together with her co-founder and fellow marine biologist Dr Toh Tai Chong, Shu Qin decided to do her first marine clean-up and Our Singapore Reefs (OSR) was born.

With the main intention to raise awareness about marine debris, Sam co-founded Our Singapore Reefs to connect like-minded marine enthusiasts through diving and educational outreach programmes such as regular marine clean ups to combat marine debris. Sam is also an aspiring science communicator and currently exploring creative ways to increase public knowledge and appreciation in marine science. Through these efforts, Sam hopes to inspire stewardship among the youths to do their part in environmental conservation.

8. Carol Phua, Global Coral Reef Initiative Leader, WWF Oceans Practice

Coral reefs are among our planet’s most vulnerable ecosystems. These dynamic, diverse habitats support a quarter of all marine life, provide shoreline protection to coastal communities, and food and economic security to billions of people. It’s hard to imagine a planet without them. Becuase of the real and urgent need to safeguard coral reef ecosystems from potential collapse, Carol is working as a Global Coral Reef Initiative Leder to manage the iniative and build on the work led by CRE lab (50 reefs), led by Prof. Ove Hoegh-Guldberg for the University of Queensland. Carol has been with WWF for over 16 years, and in that time, she has initiated, set up and managed national, regional and global programmes. She started her WWF career at the European Policy Office working on European marine and fisheries policy, and then moved back to the Netherlands to join WWF Netherlands where she led development of the WWF Sharks & Rays Initiative and managed the MPA Action Agenda and & MPA Action Group. While with WWF Netherlands she was seconded to WWF Malaysia as Head of Marine and set up the WWF Malaysia Marine Programme. She is also the lead author and editor of the Living Blue Planet Report. 

FEATURED IMAGE: Blue Water EduFest – Blue Water Heroes Award Winners and Mr Arthur Tay