Our future is tied to the ocean. Its shared seas connect us through food, culture and sport. The home of amazing, abundant life, it’s also a powerful climate solution. Yet the practice of bottom trawling threatens to destroy this precious resource—bulldozing our ocean floor, undermining small-scale fisheries and deepening the climate crisis.
Keme Nzerem was appointed trustee of the Ethical Journalism Network in December 2020. He is an award-winning TV news correspondent, presenter and filmmaker who has reported from around the world on issues from corruption, politics, and human rights, to sport. His focus has been on how global events affect the lives of ordinary people. He has spent most of his staff career at Channel 4 News and has covered major stories including the #blacklivesmatter protests of 2020, the Grenfell fire, the election of Barack Obama, Hurricane Katrina, paedophiles in football, and World Cups & Olympic Games. Keme is currently making a feature documentary about the legacy of the enslavement of Africans. He is also a media trainer, running his own consultancy company.
Hugo is a surfer, campaigner, and environmentalist.
He currently heads up the global marine conservation NGO Oceana in the UK. He previously led the NGO Surfers Against Sewage, campaigning from the beach front to the front benches of Parliament. Hugo founded the Plastic Free Communities movement, the Million Mile Beach Clean & Safer Seas Service and has been instrumental in exposing water company sewage pollution. Hugo was awarded a Doctorate of Science by Exeter University for his services to the marine environment; Environmentalist of the Year 2021 by Save the Waves; ENDS Report 2023 Top 100 Environmental Campaigners Power List, and has been shortlisted as Leader of the Year in the 2023 Purpose Awards. You can follow Hugo on Twitter at @hugoSAS
Cal Major is a vet, ocean advocate, adventurer and storyteller. She is passionate about reconnecting people to our ocean, and founded the charity Seaful to help others experience the ocean and waterways and become Ocean Citizens. She produces and presents films for broadcast and online; her latest project is a 3-part docuseries called 'Scotland: Ocean Nation' which follows her stand-up paddleboarding expedition around Scotland, exploring our human connection to the sea, and the ocean's vital role in the climate and biodiversity crises through stories of wildlife, people and conservation. She loves to surf, kitesurf, scuba and freedive whenever possible, and is currently learning to sail.
Danny Renton is former BBC Scotland radio documentary maker, who’s also worked for over a decade in Macedonia and Albania in the field of media, archaeology and cultural heritage. Having spent much of his life on the west coast of Scotland, he has a lifelong passion for the sea and after completing a Masters in Climate Change and Development, in 2018, he founded Seawilding to work with communities to restore marine habitats in Scotland.
Ella heads up stakeholder engagement at Câr-Y-Môr, a community benefit society in Pembrokeshire. They are the first 3D regenerative ocean farm in Wales, growing seaweed and shellfish. They have developed a range of food and non-food products, focusing on the circular life that seaweed can have in our worlds. Ella comes from a public health background and a huge love for the ocean. She worked as an outdoor instructor for a couple of years before moving into aquaculture and firmly believes in Câr-Y-Môr’s main aims: to use regenerative ocean farming, food security and sustainable job creation to improve the coastal environment and the wellbeing of the local community.
Children of Zeus came to break the trend and bring a soulful music to the forefront which was felt with the introduction of ‘Story So Far’ and repeated with ‘Travel Light’ providing a much needed continuation Manchester’s rich musical history. Working with the likes of sometime collaborator Beat Butcha (Jay Z, Westside Gunn, Beyoncé, Sza etc) on their latest project ‘Balance’ Children of Zeus have built up a solid fan base and reputation for a serious live show.
North London artist Louis VI’s new album EARTHLING, centering the climate justice movement amid more personal musings in his woozy, psychedelia-tinged soundscapes" - " Weaving together a love for melody and a multitude of genres (hip-hop, sweet licks of Afrobeat, jazz, funk, electronic), all produced by Louis himself, it’s cut through with atmospheric field recordings that pull from his time spent in the natural world: storm sounds from the Amazon rainforest sit alongside lush birdsong from woodland in the UK. As both a musician & a nature geek, the mixed-race (Dominica, France & UK) artist's "EARTHLING" is full of timely lyrics ruminating gently on questions about individualism, climate justice, race, love, colonialism, capitalism and the state of the nation (on Orange Skies he observes: “Politicians got me moving cutthroat/ Scapegoating migrants into sunk boats/ While they spend our taxes on some top coke/ Chopping down our forests till we cough smoke”)." As the artist says himself: "Music connects where words fail, we've had the data & the science for years but that has failed to compel people, normal people like me and you to take action. This album is more than music, it's a tool to reconnect us, especially as diaspora back to the planet, because this album is a travel blog of love through the worlds ecosystems told from a black and brown perspective, with a psychedelic, London ends born and raised lens. This is more than music, this is about creating a collective resonance, where people can put aside their differences and vibrate on a level to reconnect to our natural selves & our role as Earthlings as a planet - and allow safe space to imagine a better future".
