Peat is made up of layers of moss that can trap carbon dioxide and become as thick as arctic sea ice. The Flow Country peat bog in the north of Scotland is the largest in Europe, he explains, and also stores double the carbon of all the forests in the UK combined. UllapoolSharkAmbassador December 31, 2021įor the first issue of Oh-Wake magazine, Pringle wrote about how we need to protect peat bogs, because he says they are one of our best ways of dealing with climate change. Just time to squeeze in another beach clean for 2021.ġ50kg removed today, bringing Ella's beach clean challenge to a close having removed over 2T (2072kg) since July & raised over £1800 for marine charities & for your support & generous donations /vvIWBgNXJF “So you know, it doesn't feel like I’m doing anything controversial by trying to protect it - it just feels like you're trying to protect your second home or a friend.” “I’m seeing plastic nets in the water and I’m seeing the maerl beds dissolving ,” he says. Pringle loves snorkelling but has seen increasing damage done to life below water. “And because of that, my interest in it has just grown and blossomed.' “I live right next to the ocean and so from a very young age I've been swimming in the sea and I've always had that connection with the ocean,” he tells Global Citizen.

He is also a “shark ambassador” for the direct action marine life protection organization Sea Shepherd, which has involved campaigning to get shark fin soup removed from restaurants. He joined last year’s Ocean Heroes Bootcamp but had been shouting from the rooftops about ocean and climate issues for a while - since he was 10 in fact, when he started the UK’s first school climate strike.

Finlay Pringle, 14, Scotland, UKįinlay Pringle is a 14-year-old campaigner and ocean enthusiast from Ullapool, a port town in northern Scotland. Here is what some of the inspirational young activists in the network from around the world have been doing to help protect the planet's oceans, their tips for other young people wanting to follow in their footsteps, and what urgent action they want to see from world leaders. and Lonely Whale, called Oh-Wake, a magazine about ocean protection and climate activism. Many of the young activists in the network have gone on to write for Ocean Heroes’ new quarterly publication that's been created by HP Inc. Members of the network can join events such as the regular Ocean Heroes Bootcamps - three-day workshops held either in person or online, which give young people the skills to raise awareness and campaign to protect oceans in their local communities, like organizing beach clean-ups. The Ocean Heroes Network was set up by the marine protection nonprofit Lonely Whale, and the youth engagement organization the Captain Planet Foundation, and it links activists from all over the world. The latest analysis from the UN’s global biodiversity report in 2020 found that not a single one of the targets set in 2010 for protecting biodiversity in the ocean or on land had been met.įaced with this slow pace of change, young activists from the Ocean Heroes Network are taking matters into their own hands. In 2021, a survey of 8,000 Brits found that 94% believed that the fate of oceans and humans were inextricably linked, and over half rated the ocean’s health as “poor or very poor.”īut leaders have been slow to act. This is perhaps why protecting the oceans has become such a focal point for young environmental campaigners and the public.

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