Susan has lived on the Isle of Wight for 30 years, brought up her 3 children (so knows all about the joys and problems that families face) and is proud to call this beautiful biosphere her home. She is also the secretary of Blue Seas Protection – a marine conservation charity which is dedicated to acting and raising awareness of the issues faced by our oceans today and to fight marine ecocide.
Blue Seas Protection was inspired by Captain Garry Oates and his father Captain Silas Oates after lifetimes at sea as professional divers, tugmasters and marine salvors. During this time they saw many “Crimes at Sea” that many of us will never see and in the 80s donated a boat to Greenpeace that became known as “Rainbow Warrior”. Patrons include Joanna Lumley and Brian May.
Susan campaigns against overfishing which has decimated the world’s oceans of 90% of fish. She is very concerned about the addressing the increasing amount of plastic in our oceans. In 2018 it was estimated that one in 4 fish contained plastic and that by 2050 there would be more plastic in the sea than fish. At that time, the UK was exporting household waste including plastic and recyclables to Malaysia and China which was then dumped straight into the sea which has ended up in gyres, inside marine animals, sunk to the ocean floor and spat back onto land, on the beach, by the ocean. Today (2021), as well as finding plastic 7 miles down in the Mariana trench and in the furthest reaches of both poles, plastic has been found both in human faeces and human placenta.
Plainly, something must be done now to mitigate mankind’s destructive actions and influence. Fifty years ago we had “ignorance” as an excuse. Nobody realised what we were doing to our planet. We had tupperware parties. Now? Today? There are no excuses. …