13 Leanne Hepburn on saving both the seas and us with the Ocean Literacy Project

We’re sitting at the edge of land and sea on Mersea Island, the tide is out. There are terns and gulls, bees flying, a perfect place to hear from Leanne Hepburn, director of the Ocean Literacy Project. All is dependent on a healthy ocean. It absorbs heat, pollution, plastic; it influences us in return. Leanne talks of her step away from academic security, the sense of freedom and scary vulnerability. Science is vital, yet it is only part of the story of how we change how people care, how they feel. She was the first person in her family to go to university, and has felt the value of education. Now she is creating new language to lead to collective action. it’s also, she says, ok to be changed by the natural world. 

Leanne reads a poem by Emelina Corrales Cordero called “Grandmother Ocean Speaks.”

“I am the Grandmother. We are one, one planet, one ocean.”

“I am the one to remind you.”

Her hero: Satish Kumar, the Peace Pilgrim.

Her top recommended actions: check where your money or pension is being invested. And find a way to reconnect with the natural world. Just notice things, pay attention. 

Leanne’s website: https://www.oceanliteracyproject.com/ 

A link to Emelina’s poem and book: https://www.grandmotheroceanspeaks.com/

My new book will be supporting this podcast, and will be published in March 2027 by Unbreaking/5m. It’s called "Bamboo and Butterfly: Transformation and Story for Climate and Nature Recovery." 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Well here we are on the edge of the ocean. Actually we know this well as the North Sea, but it used to be called the German Ocean, and I'm with Lianne Hetman. We're going to talk about ocean literacy, about good news for communities by the shore and also the challenges. So Lianne, welcome.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

So tell us a little, let's jump straight in and talk a bit about ocean literacy and what are you trying to do and how does this fit with climate and nature recovery?

SPEAKER_02 0:35

So thank you for having me, Joe's. It's lovely to be here, and you know, we've got perfect weather, it's stunningly, stunningly beautiful, and the perfect place to talk about ocean literacy, actually. So ocean literacy is is kind of gained a lot of momentum recently because of the UN decade for ocean science, sustainable development. Um, the term itself has been around for a long time. I think it was coined originally 20 odd years ago by a group of American scientists. But the UN have defined it as our influence in the ocean and the ocean's influence on us.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

That's nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Um, which is really nice, but I also think it's a little bit passive in terms of people really getting to grips with what that means, you know. Um, and I think essentially we have to understand that our economy, our food system, our health is really all dependent on a healthy ocean. And that's that's that's the link, you know, understanding how the ocean influences us and how we influence the ocean and how our economies are built on it, um, and everything that we rely on, really.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

So that's lovely. So the suggestion there is that this is this is not um in thinking about the ocean, this is not something that's at the edge of literally our land, but uh at the edge of our thinking or the edge of our conversation, it's central, as as all nature is, and we need to get that thinking and practice into the centre ground and not on the edge of the ocean.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Yeah, exactly that. I mean, you know, as we sit there or as we sit here, you know, obviously our oxygen comes from all these beautiful green leafy things, but half of our oxygen also comes from the ocean. You know, the phytoplankton is the basis of the food chain, and these tiny wee beasties, microscopic beasties that make up a huge biomass are actually producing half the oxygen that we breathe. You know, and people don't always think about that.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

I think more hidden from view, so we need to talk about it more.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

We do, it's invisible, invisible in the symptoms, uh in the systems, you know, and I think if we think about trade, if we think about the clothes you're wearing, the car you drove here in, all of that travels over the ocean. You know, I think global trade across the ocean is something like $2.5 trillion, $3 trillion a year. You know, people sit all day in front of screens on Wi-Fi, email, all of that, probably assuming that this data is travelling via satellites, when actually it's not. You know, 99% of data is travelling via the ocean floor, these fibre optic cables that are across all of the ocean, that's where we're getting our data from all the time you tap your phone, your transactions, you know, all of the things.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Pink, ping, ping, zipping along on the along the ocean floor.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

All of that is coming from the ocean floor. So you're absolutely right when you say um all of this is invisible but integral to all of the systems that we use kind of day-to-day. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

So the major threats then um are uh the things we would know about, changing climate, pollution into the oceans, plastics in particular. Um it's that kind of stuff really, isn't it? That's where you where you start from if the it is. I mean, it is.

SPEAKER_02 3:57

And you know, you think about the importance if you think the ocean's been absorbing 90% of the heat that we're producing, yeah. You know, so as you say in terms of threats, we look at it around importance that's it's absorbing 90% of the heat, and of course, 90% of that heat, it can't continue to absorb that heat. So one of the major threats, of course, is warming and ocean warming.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Um just describe what that's how that's happening because as we sit at the in the liminal zone at the edge of the land and the sea here at um at Mersey in in Essex, um, people's ideas about climate change are often framed by sea level rise, which is going to be, unless there's something super catastrophic, it's going to be quite small. It's just extreme events that we'll see it. But for quite a long time we're talking about small numbers of millimetres or centimetres. But actually it's the warming of the oceans and the changing of ocean currents and the changing of of the animals and plants in the sea with that warming, that's much more dramatic.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

It is, it is. I mean, my career was spent um as an academic for 20 years. A lot of that was studying tropical coral reefs, and of course, they're absolutely at the forefront of warming and and everyone's aware of bleaching and you know what that the effect that that's having on reefs. But more locally, here, if you think you know, the the ocean isn't the temperature's not just changing in the tropics, it's changing across our whole ocean because it's been absorbing all this heat for decades. So other changes are um changes in distribution of fish species, you know, the fish that we eat, the commercial fish species that we eat, um, they're where they are spatially in the ocean is changing. So, for example, if you're uh some kind of flat fish and you're quite happy around the sand and you know, sandy areas, and that's getting warmer and you start to move to get away from that the increase in temperature, which can be very small, but if you think about your body temperature increase by one, two degrees, you know, it's it can be catastrophic.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Yeah, three three degrees of kind of getting into fatal territory. I mean, it's tiny amounts.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

So obviously they're gonna move and they can move, but when they move, what if they move and they're falling off the edge of a clay like that? Habitat is no longer a sandy bottom. You know, the habitat that they have to move to doesn't actually suit their life history traits, and and the pace of change is obviously so fast that they're not going to be able to adapt evolutionary to suit those new habitats. Um so yeah, ocean warming is is having an impact. Um, and then of course you could think about the ocean as absorbing our um carbon dioxide that we're producing as well, absorbing the greenhouse gases.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Um that makes the water more acidic, um, and that's another kind of challenge. So it's yeah, it's not just temperature, it's the chemical constituents of water, which in tropical reef areas that's also part of the concern, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 6:57

Yeah, it is. So it not just tropical reefs, anything anywhere or anything or any organisms that precipitate calcium carbonate, you know, that take up calcium carbonate from seawater to produce their shells. But of course the skeletal mineralogy of organisms are different. So in the face of increasing acidification in oceans, you're gonna have winners and losers, you're gonna have some organisms that are maybe adapting well to the changing kind of chemical composition, or other organisms not so much, and that of course, again is corals, so they're really at the forefront of temperature and acidification. Um, yeah, and then of course, oxygen, biodiversity, food security, all of these, all of these things if we look at it from the aspect of how important the ocean is, and then of course you can turn that on its head and look and see where that relates to threats to our ocean as well.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Um so you've set up a new project, ocean literacy, on ocean literacy. So um, as you've just said, having um had a long and distinguished career in the university system and stepping out of that now, um, to develop your own kind of ideas and businesses, if we put it that way. You've got to work in order to provide, put food on the table. Um, but that takes a while to do that, so it can feel feel uh um you can get a sense of freedom from moving away from institutions, but it's also a moment of kind of scary vulnerability as well. Um tell us a little bit about that project, but also how's it felt as you're developing kind of new ideas based upon your understanding of the oceans and the changes that are happening?

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Yeah, so I mean I've kind of never left university or never left education and most recently left, yeah, left academia, and I guess the reason really for that was um a feeling almost as you describe it sometimes, Jose, as being in a hole because I felt like a lot of the work that I was doing, you know, again a lot of my research was documenting the decline of coral reefs. Um and I felt like it wasn't the work I was doing wasn't creating the change or the impact that I really desired. I mean, don't get me wrong, my impact with students and the education side of things, um, I can really I could really see the impact there, but with everything else as a whole and in terms of time as our most valuable asset and how I was spending my time and the the the impact of that time on um on the environment and the changes that we're seeing, it just didn't it didn't really follow through for me. So um yeah, so I left academia last year and I formed the Ocean Literacy Project, which is a community interest company, um, and the aim of that really is to be able to help people make better decisions, I guess. And it's still education, I'm an educationalist at heart, um, absolutely, and education as I see it is one of, if not the most powerful enabler of change, and I really strongly believe that.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

And it's in this in the in the education of students and the changes that they go through, but you can broaden that to all ages.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

Yeah, absolutely, it really is, and so but I believe it's only that powerful enabler of change if it um influences the decisions that we make. Right. Which it doesn't always. So knowledge doesn't always equal behaviour change. Um and quite often doesn't, quite often a gap. Quite often doesn't, you know, people still smoke despite these graphic images on cigarette packets, and we've had climate change legislation for decades, and you know, look look where we are now. So I think the challenge is really helping people understand the system enough that it changes how they think, that it changes their values, that it changes their behaviours, that it changes the decisions that they make. And actually, as we've discussed earlier, you know, all the decisions we make, and actually the ocean is our life support machine. So it's our life support system. So people are making decisions about this when they don't fully understand the system. And that was sort of the point, I guess, um, of the Ocean Literacy Project because I started to understand that the science that I was doing, and 90% of the science might not actually be the solution, that the solution might actually be more around narratives, incentives, your you know, around story, narratives, incentives, values, um emotions, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

How do you feel about it?

SPEAKER_02 12:02

How do you feel about it? How connected are you to it? And also I think that state capacity, you know, the capacity of governments to implement the policy if we're thinking about top-down change, um, only exists when people care, when people care enough to uh support or take action, you know, and so the Ocean Literacy Project is trying to fill that gap, really. So we're trying, I'm trying to help people, communities, leaders, business leaders, people who are making decisions fully understand the system so that those decisions can be informed and understand the the impact and the value of the ocean and as our life support system.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

So, how do you move from that um that sort of premise and diagnosis into um finding ways to help people care more? I mean, as you've just said, there's a just telling stuff doesn't always work because we've got lots of information. I mean, in the end of our end of our fingers in our phones, you've got access to terabytes of information, huge amounts. You can find out about stuff, but that might not change how you care. So I know you've worked a lot in tropical countries with communities living at the shores. Um perhaps kind of pick a couple of examples of the of the practices and the values that people have and how they enact them and celebrate them, and also what you see in the ocean in terms of abundance, because maybe part of the story is is um we're sitting at a rocky shore here and it's muddy, and there are the wildlife we've got are skylarks and dogs in the pack train and and fish and gulls and terns and so forth. But um you sometimes will see a lot more when it comes to abundance, and maybe the story is to is to talk about what it really is like in terms of the positive upside rather than focusing on the problems that are going wrong. There's quite a lot there to unpack, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:16

Well, I think um I think as we've said, like technical evidence and science is insufficient to tip systems, it's just not gonna work. So, what what else is needed? And I guess your question is where can we look across different places around the world um for success stories of that? Um and they exist, they exist everywhere, but if mostly they exist where people are more connected to their natural environment, you know, where people are actually um I guess directly influenced by the ocean and by the environment. So obviously here in the West and in the UK and in modern society, you said it right at the beginning, it's invisible, people aren't connected to it anymore, they don't see it, and I think that invisibility of the value is what disconnects people. So I could give you numerous examples, I guess. My a lot of my examples do come from the tropics and tropical reef systems, um, and sustainable methods of fishing, I guess, is is is an interesting one, and I could give you an example from a uh traditional sustainable method of fishing in Fiji, which is the Yavi Rao, it's called. I hope I'm pronouncing that right from memory. But essentially villagers come together for days, weeks if I remember rightly. This was a long time ago I was involved with this, and they they um come together as communities and and take the palms from you know your typical coconut trees and palm trees and weave them together, and then um they form kind of mile miles-long um chains, you know, of weave together's palms, and then when the tide's high, they'll go out into the ocean, and it's a huge celebration and form a big circle, it's maybe huge, maybe I don't know, 50-70 meters wide, something like that. And then as the tide goes out, the everyone walks. We were all part of this circle, and we all walk closer and closer and closer and closer together. So it's essentially like a persane fishing method, I guess. And as you walk closer and closer together, the palm leaves um keep everything within this purse, I guess. So you've got turtles and huge fish, and this huge abundance of reef dwelling organisms, and of course, it's um very selective, which most fishing is not these days. So you can take the turtles, pick them up, remove them, remove anything that you don't want. So there's zero bycatch, super selective, um, and you know, that's able to sustain those communities, and obviously, as things grow with marketisation, they can sell things on, but but I know that that that fish that method of fishing still exists today. And so those people are you know they're very connected to their local environment. I mean, again, you could you could compare it to where we are here on Mersey and and the oystermen, you know, who've been fishing these shores for generations, and um, you know, there's a and this is what I mean with that gap between technical evidence and science and and everything else that creates change. Because if you sit with some of the oystermen uh here from Mersey, you know, it's it's cultural, it's almost sort of spiritual to them, it's it's it's in them, and so there's this capacity for care that you don't get from evidence and you don't get from science. So you don't necessarily have to go to the tropics as I've worked a lot in my life to get these examples. You could pick anywhere in the world where people feel more connected actually to each other and to nature.

unknown 18:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

So there are oysters here. I mean, let's just press on with that a little bit. Um they're still celebrating in Colchester, just up the road here, um, the former Roman capital of Britain. There were oysters then, and it's pretty clear that oysters have been cultivated and looked after in various ways for a couple of thousand years, and very possibly longer. And so that kind of deep care that you've described there emerges from practice, it emerges from doing stuff.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Um it can emerge from watching by going out with with uh oyster men, for example, or as you've described, standing in the Pur Seine, bringing the palm and palmettos closer together. It's lovely, lovely image. Um but the really deep stuff comes from doing it over and over again and seeing the detailed changes in the environment across seasons, across years. I presume that's where this kind of ecological literacy comes from as well.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that you know people can see it naturally, you know, all you have to notice is if you've got a garden and you've got daffodils and you see the different time, you know, they're coming up from the ground in December, you know, like those small connections, you know, like it doesn't have to be anything grand. You don't have to be a fisherman. Um, you know, you can be a corporate finance leader. It doesn't, you know, I think this is the point really. It's about you know, if we're going to shift systems and and sort of tip the scales in the right direction, it's about in some way reaching as many people as possible across all aspects of society. Um, so for example, you know, some of the work with the Ocean Literacy Project is working with executive leaders, working with executive leaders to try and help them understand how the decisions they make affect systems and also even for for people who are investing, you know, those long-term investments depend on a healthy environment, you know, so it's just it's connecting the doors.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Recovery and towards abundance, as you've said, but it's also to allow that to shape us um and to allow it into us. So if you're working with with XX, as you've you've said, um, is it also opening them up to allow them to feel it's okay to be changed by the natural world in some way?

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

More than more than just understanding, but that starts with that.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

It starts with understanding and it also starts with understanding how it relates to them, like how it relates to you, you know, and perhaps if we're thinking about executives who work in business or finance or anything at all like that, um it's very surprising sometimes how it actually, not not all, but you know, it can be surprising actually how it influences or how it will influence their their work, their business, their investments, everything else. So I think yeah, that the aim of the Ocean Literacy Project really is to is to help people be more informed about the type of decisions they're making. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

And that that concept of the tipping point is a lovely one to apply to this, isn't it? Because that implies that that we understand that change can look as though it's kind of linear, but there comes a point where it can flip right over, and that could be that can be negative. But it also can be positive. But we can also think of those tipping points for us as well as individual humans as part of the wider system. Is that there were realization comes and you go, Oh, you know, I didn't hadn't thought of the world in that way, or I now want to do this, which is the link between the thinking and the doing. What sorts of things do you talk about that people can then do if they say, Oh, that's really interesting. What what should I do now? You say, Well, you know, there might be practices related to their business, their institution, their organisation, but there may be things in their family, their home.

SPEAKER_02 22:39

Yeah, absolutely. And I think you know, it's not up to me, first of all, to tell them anything at all about what to do. Um, so part of the Ocean Literacy Project courses, the certification courses involves an ocean pledge, and that's very much individual-family work, you know, and if if we're working with individuals, that's often about um they think first about themselves and they think first about their families, but then they start to think about their work, and then what I really like when it happens is when people join the dots between all of those things, you know, um, and that's that's really encouraging, and then um you know that's maybe working with individuals, communities, it can also be working with with businesses. Um but it's I'm really I love collaboration so when people then start joining up the dots, and then they start thinking about other people that they can bring in and people who they can collaborate with, and then ideas that are actually shared between people, um, and then new ideas forming and things bubbling up, and and all of that happens when you ask people to think about what they would like to do individually in their ocean pledge. And you know, I think it's really important to to to put this into context as to why this is important now, like right now, because you know, we're we're sort of on this tip of it's been called the blue economy, it's been called the blue acceleration, whatever you want to call it, you know, we are going to be using the ocean more in the future. If we think about aquaculture, how we're gonna feed people, if we think about I mean, mining minerals, what we're extracting from the ocean, um, offshore energy, wind, all of those things. Um, and the blue economy, you know, the philosophy around that and and and what we teach is is that we're not we're moving from extraction, and that's what we've been doing for a long time, is just very much extraction, extraction, extraction. Trying to move from extraction to to regenerative processes of of how we use the ocean. Um and I think you know, I think if we get this right, then you know, this could we talk about tipping points, this could tip the skills, this could redefine humanity's relationship with the biosphere if we get it right. If we get it wrong, it has these hugely profound consequences for for people and planet, you know, for our lives. So that's why I chose to leave academia, that's why I chose to set up the Ocean Literacy Project, to try and um, you know, make education this powerful enabler of change that affects people decisions outside of the boundaries of higher education, to try and reach as many people as possible in society to to create the maximum impact because you know where we are now we have we haven't got the luxury of time to be, you know.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Time is pressing.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

Yes, it's our most valuable asset. So so yeah, I think in in in the context of of why now I think I think it's I think that's really important.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Yes, exactly. Um so early in in your life, did you have an inspirational person that brought you into working in in biology or marine interest, or did that come later? I mean, was there quite often we can kind of go back and we say, oh, there was somebody there who might have been a teacher or a community person or a family member or somebody who just pushed us in a particular direction. The reason I asked that is that you're describing doing that for others at the moment is kind of being that that um uh that spark, that thing that tips people into a different way of thinking and then doing, because that's that it's the theme here, isn't it? It's is the education. Kind of the the word education quite often implies just a transfer of knowledge, but you're describing it as as knowledge and action. So there's there's there's definitely something different from formal education there. But the knowledge and action that may have come about from an inspirational character or person, was there something? Sometimes it's just from young from when I was younger. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

Um well I think I'm the first person in my family to ever go to university, so I think um I didn't really have um you know that that kind of inspiration, you know, of of seeing what people were doing, but I was um for some reason innately drawn to water ever since I was born, pretty much, as the story goes, as my family will tell you, you know, I they just couldn't keep me out of the water.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

So you had an inspirational biology teacher?

SPEAKER_02 27:29

I did, I had an inspirational biology teacher for sure, and she um she sort of she really encouraged me. I was quite good at biology. I was, you know, I was I enjoyed science, I always enjoyed science, and I was I was quite good at it, but probably um, you know, I probably wasn't um you know, I probably wasn't as confident, you know. Um but she did really encourage me and I do I do always remember her. So I think from my younger days it was her, and then probably my you know my my dad actually, my dad never had an education himself, and so he was obsessed with education, um, and he went on about it all the time. So it was somewhere in my head, um, you know, and and just stay in education, and and that can provide opp it was all about opportunity. That can provide opportunity for you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Open up, yeah. Open things up, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

To things that I guess they never had.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

But you were a water baby right from the start, so the water the drawn back to water was washing.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

It was always about it it was always about the water, yeah, for sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Well I like what you were saying about um uh cultural practices, cultural and biological, ecological practices, the oyster, largely men here, the oystermen, um the communities in in Fiji where you can talk as part of the idea of ocean literacy about what people are doing in different places and how it looks and feels. It looks very different because it's oysters or it's fish or it's or very different ecological components, but how it feels is probably quite similar in different places.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

Yeah, absolutely, and it's um you know, I think we all recognise that you have to be connected to something really before you care. So I think that's that connection before care for sure. Um, and I think something that Ocean Literacy does, or something that we try and do with an Ocean Literacy Project, is create a shared language. You know, you're thinking about feeling and culture, a shared language, a shared framework, you know, and recognising that shared language can lead to or helps lead to collective action, you know, it helps cut through boundaries, I guess. Um, and I think that's so important, you know. So much of what we do, and I'm you know really deeply an educationalist, and so much of what we do in education as well is is is siloed. Um and I think in terms of people who inspire me, that's people who are trying to rethink education, I also find really inspiring. You know, rethinking education to cut through uh these boundaries and think really about what future generations are gonna need, what skills they're gonna need, what methods they're gonna need to solve these interconnected problems. Um I don't know if that answers your question.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Yeah, no, absolutely. Um so next steps for ocean literacy project, what what is it bringing together some of these stories from different places and saying, look, there's uh uh as part of a of a kind of bank of ways of talking about the the ocean side. Um maybe as part of that.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

Um yeah, so it's trying to make knowledge accessible for for more people and ensuring that in the way that knowledge becomes more accessible, it it changes or influences how people work, how they live, and how they lead. And we do that through different types of courses. So you can have an ocean literacy certification for an individual person, we have executive education for business, and we have place-based programmes which is kind of grant-funded, where we've got work going on in different places around the world, um, you know, trying to ensure that as many people as possible really recognize the value that we get from the ocean and the influence that it has on us.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

You described a sort of creative moment as people start to engage with thinking about the ocean in a different way, and they start talking about it and start caring for it, and then options open up, and that's that's actually creativity. That's kind of that that quite often you know gets us going because you think, oh, I've never done this thing before, and or that thing over there, that that intrigues me. And there's a sort of creative moment from getting into something a little bit different.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Yeah, exactly. And also opening up, you know, I've been working in academia and marine science and sustainability for 20 years, so you know, you obviously have this huge network of organisations, government, um, NGOs, charities, all of these people. So if someone has a little spark of an idea or something creative that they think they're interested in, they can go, oh well, actually, I know somebody who works on this, or they know somebody who works on that, and and opening up, you know, you know, people involved with the Ocean Literacy Project are then opened up to this huge network of people, which which is what I really love doing. I love connecting people, I love collaboration, I love the ideas that come from those those collaborations. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Yeah, yeah. There's there's there's something about this kind of zone here as we sit here on the edge of the land and the sea, the liminal zone often talked about as the water comes in and goes out again. And and we're on an island on Mersey, and we don't talk about the settlements inland as being on them. You're not on Colchester or on London, you're in those places. Whereas when you're on an island, you're on it. Yes. Like a ship, actually, you're on a ship. You never say I'm in a ship, um, you always say I'm on the such and such a ship, and you're on islands, which to me suggests, and you know, it's on Mersey or on Canby or on Faulness, but in um uh Clackton on the other side, a little bit round the corner here. Um, and that suggests to me that the islands are already partly off the coast, already they're like ships that are tethered. Um and when we see places slightly differently, I think that also opens up creativity. That allows us to think differently about these processes that make islands, that sea coming in and out, the water part of things, which is what we're talking about here.

SPEAKER_02 34:09

Yeah, and that's that's a really interesting nuance of language, actually, isn't it? And I think that's so important that we need to get people speaking the same language. I mean, an example is um obviously there's lots of offshore wind. We're trying how we're going to use the ocean, we need to get lots of energy from from wind, we need to waves, whatever it is. And then you maybe have um, you know, you have government organizations, you have policy, you have um communities, and they're all speaking a different language. So, you know, we don't want wind farms here. No, you have to have wind farms here, but you little uh energy, etc. You know, and I think part of that again coming back to ocean literacy is getting everybody together to have this shared language. And it's exactly as you say, these nuances of language when people go, ah, ah okay, we actually are we actually all want the same thing. Yes, exactly. We just don't, we're not speaking the same language.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um something you're very proud of, Ian. Um there's a kind of slightly tricky word at times, pride, but it's also to do with identity and achievement and doing stuff. Um what would you what would you identify as something you feel is uh an achievement that that stands to record, I suppose?

SPEAKER_02 35:24

Well I think um I think sitting here today with you actually, Jose, because it it it you know, I as I say I was the first person in my family to go to university, kind of worked my way up through the ranks to the sort of higher highest academic rank and um and then left. And not many people would choose to do that, you know, get to the sort of top of your career and s and and say, no, I'm gonna I'm gonna try something else. And you know, that's diff it's a really difficult thing to do, and I'm you know, it's do feel quite vulnerable about it, and it's um it's not the easy option. So I'm very proud of myself for for you know having the courage actually to make that decision because I believe so passionately in in how education outside, I need to show education outside the boundaries of higher education can have this impact to create the change we need, to get more people on board to actually tip tip systems because as I said the science alone just just just it's very important and it you know we need it, it's foundational, but it's not enough to tip systems. So I think I'm most proud, or I am one of the things I'm proud of, um, is is um is yes, the career that I developed, but also the courage to leave when I felt that there was other things to do. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Very, very well put. I mean there were three women who were the founders of in the late later part of the 1800s who led in their individual actions to form uh the concerns that that milliners were taking too many feathers for hats and they were killing whole populations of birds because people were going out and collecting them. Etta Lemmon was one, Emily Williamson, um, and they formed the brought the organizations together which led to the formation of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, so RSBB, which is a big organization of more than a million members in the UK and reserves up and down the coast, um uh came from people being brave.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:41

You know, and I must remember that in my moments of date, because you do have them.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So why not same for for ocean literacy? It could be, should be something really great and big. Um a heroine or a hero?

SPEAKER_02 37:58

Um well I sort of have um heroes in different ways. Like I say, like you know I guess I have memories of taking groups of school children to the beach and they've never seen the sea, even though they live 20 minutes and the their faces and their you know um joy and awe and all of that is they're they're like little heroes to me, you know. I find that really, really inspiring. Um I do have huge admiration for Satish Kumar, who is the founder of the Resurgent Trust Peace Pilgrim writer speaker. Um, and I think because again, as a scientist, what he was bringing um to me was again what I've been talking about, it's not just about that, it's about the layers, it's about relationship, it's about connection. Um, so I really admire him. And then, as I say, anyone who's rethinking education for future generations is is a hero to me right now.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

Exactly. Well what you've described there, just bringing children onto the onto the beach and who haven't been exposed to the sea before, is that we're sitting on a beach here with stones and lots of seashells, um uh um uh bits of oyster actually, yeah, right at our feet here. Um uh but this is a common. You know, this is part of the commons of the country. We all can come here. There's nobody saying, oh no, you can't do that. So it's a it's that kind of common land. And um 20 years ago I did a big project of walking around the coast of the three counties of East Anglia, Suffolk, um, Norfolk and Essex, um, and wrote a book about it. But there I remember at one point um coming to a beach deserted at the end of the day, and there was a a man with two young daughters, and they could just come to the edge of the coast and they'd come across from the northwest of England on the train, you could hear it in their accent, and they said, Dad, Dad, are we allowed on the beach? And there was just a kind of a moment there where you think, ah, that's interesting. Um, yes, of course you are, but actually you start off thinking you probably aren't in some way. So opening up those opportunities to people, yes, you can go on the beach, yes, you can go in the water whenever you want, actually, within the boundaries of safety. So there's something there that's quite interesting about how we how we in allow people to engage or encourage them to engage or just organise stuff.

SPEAKER_02 40:52

And also that you don't need lots of equipment. I think sometimes people feel um that it, you know, it's obstructive that they don't have particular bits of kit, you know, whatever it is, a wetsuit or some wet shoes or you know, all that kind of stuff, you know. Um it's actually accessible to everybody, you don't need all that kit. But I think sometimes it can be obstructive if people see other people with all of this kit and think, well, I don't have those bits of equipment, I can't, that's not a space for me. Um but actually it is.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

Yeah, it is, it is, absolutely. Um uh a kind of book or cultural item or or um a poem or something like that that you'd like to recommend.

SPEAKER_02 41:37

I mean, this was a tough one because obviously there's lots, um, but I decided on a book, um it's a book by a woman called Emmelina Corales Cordero, and she had a poem at the UN Ocean Conference in Nice last year, and she's published a book which is called Grandmother Ocean Speaks, and it's really beautiful, and I think again it comes back full circle to what we're talking about in terms of the science and the technical evidence is not enough. We have to connect culturally, spiritually, emotionally, and we can do that through art. That's why I'm I'm always interested in collaborating with all different kinds of artists too, um, to help people feel something, you know, and and establish connection and emotion. And um, yeah, so she's written this really beautiful um poetry book, which I don't have with me, but I do have a poem if you would like me to. Yeah, exactly. So I just took a photo of the page. So this poem is called All Waters, the Ocean of Life. I am the grandmother of every drop of water on this planet. I am the vast ocean that dives into the darkness of the oceanic ridges. I am the force of a storm. My waves sing lullabies to all beings. My ocean currents are rivers of life. I, Grandmother Ocean, gave life to this planet. I am the source that sustains life. My ancestral wisdom flows from the history of the earth. Each and every one of you needs me, strong and flourishing to live. I am the spring in the mountains. I am the groundwater that nourishes rivers, cities, and forests. I come from the cosmos and belong to the story of the stars. I gave life to this planet. From my waters, Earth was born. I am in the clouds, in the fog that wraps a cold morning. I am the hydrological cycle that sustains the planet. I am present in every place on Earth. Earth. In the deserts I hide in the stems of cacti, and in deep aquifers I bloom in oases. My waters reach the highest peaks of the Himalayas, covering the surfaces in white. I travel through the depths of the oceans where light dissolves in the water column. I am the thread that connects life in every corner of the planet. Here I am, calling your attention to remind you that we are one. One planet, one ocean.

unknown 44:39

Lovely.

SPEAKER_01 44:42

Fantastic. I'm the one to remind you. That's good. I like that, that's fantastic. Lovely, I'm glad you read that. I could feel myself relaxing and looking at the water, and it's very nice. A top action? An action to recommend? Top action.

SPEAKER_02 45:03

Check where check where your money is invested. Especially your pension. Because I think you know, we can go through life trying to lower our footprint, do all these things, and all of that's really important, but you know, it could be that where your pension's invested is actually harming the systems that you're trying to protect. So I think that's an often overlooked action that we can do that that has great impact actually for systems change. And if you haven't got pensions and investments and all of that, I think find a way to connect or reconnect with the natural world. Um you know, spend time in your local natural environment, and you don't have to have lots of equipment and bits of gear. Um just notice things, pay attention to your environment.

SPEAKER_01 46:05

Perfect. Diane Hapin, what a pleasure. Lovely to have you on. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.