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PREVENTION IS BETTER THAN CURE - WHAT IS BROWN AND STINKS? G7 CLIMATE POLICIES!
Miss Ocean™ is an award given to women who make a significant contribution to ocean research. Our Foundation focuses on raising awareness of pollution and climate issues.
We are a not-for-profit entity dedicated to marine conservation, to include activities on land that inevitably affect the sea. We work with other like minded institutions and academics looking for ways to repair the harm that man has done, and is doing to marine life, with especial focus on climate change, plastic waste, ghost nets that kill whales, over-fishing and dwindling wild fish stocks. We also promote ocean literacy.
PROJECT ON ICE - In May/June of 2017 our Foundation took over the SeaVax project from Bluebird Marine Systems. Since development funding proved to be problematic. That did not change, leading to shelving in 2020, as we identified a lack of political will. We thus determined to continue with our ocean awareness campaigns as we await more proactive policies from grant makers. We should live so long!
The present sargassum plague, may be one issue that spurs politicians to action, from millions being spent on cleaning beaches, that is largely ineffectual, and counter productive where the machines employed are mostly diesel powered. The stinking brown mess reminds us of the G20 politics that caused it.
OCEAN AWARENESS - We aim to produce a graphic novels about ocean plastic, whales and climate change. A movie script to accompany this conservation adventure is available to actors (or their agents) and film companies on request - suitable for live action or animation.
VITAL RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
We promote the use of machines and systems by third parties, designed to remove macro and micro plastics from our oceans and rivers. Tackling the problem from the source, which ultimately involves removing microplastics from rivers without harming the extant biota. Or even better making plastic packaging illegal.
The solution we should like to have sees developed relies on advanced autonomous robotic fleet control. We applied three times for European funding since 2017, under the Horizon 2020 banner, the last applications in 2020. Clearly, by their actions, the EU and G20 have indicated that they are unprepared to work towards a mechanical solution - leaving the oceans thick with plastic waste. They appear not yet to value healthy fish stocks high enough to warrant action. Yet plastic continues to pour into the oceans at an increasing rate. They do fund academic research, that may one day lead to operations, but as with climate change, that is unlikely to happen until we reach a critical point and can no longer feed people, without a high risk of cancer. If there are organizations out there with deeper pockets, if you are in a position to take up the torch, please, please, step up to the lectern. We are more than happy to support newcomers.
The
new kid on the block is sargassum, emanating from the Sargasso
Sea, and polluting beaches in the Caribbean,
Gulf
of Mexico, and West coast of Africa.
...
LACK OF CONVENTIONAL FUNDING - Funding is not available for our kind of Blue Growth innovation. Our work falls in between pure research on the one hand (academics) and business development on the other, where social innovation is not about making money, meaning that a conventional for-profit business plan cannot be drawn up, such as to attract venture capital, because we have no intention of trading, only encouraging entrepreneurs to fill the technology voids caused by poor policy making. Some of our projects may benefit our research financially by agreement. One such project being the John Storm, 'Innerspace' franchise. Another being the proposed hydrogen powered Jules Verne Trophy.
OCEAN CLEANING INNOVATION - This amazing autonomous boat called "SeaVax", was on display at the Old Billingsgate exhibition centre in London on the 9-10th of November 2015 for Innovate 2015. Since that time a company called Bluebird Marine Systems (BMS) has built a test tank and a robotics laboratory - and worked out a low cost method of launching and recovering the full size vessel, proved in December 2021 by the Foundation. All of this was achieved on a small budget at cost, with the help of volunteers, students and an experienced steering committee, including Nelson Kay and Chris Close. BMS was wound down to put a halt to mounting costs.
OCEAN ECONOMY IN JEOPARDY - The ocean is a vast resource that is underutilized in terms of energy generation and over fished to feed a growing world population as land is being absorbed to build on for housing and factories, so reducing agricultural potential. In short, we are exhausting our natural resources in order of ease - for maximum profits - a short term strategy. It is easier for us to take all the fish we can in the short term and fill the ocean with garbage and not worry about the consequences.
The use of plastic for packaging is just one horrifying example of major stakeholders using the most convenient means to get their product to market, while ocean literate policy makers watch marine life suffer as they grapple with ways to juggle economics and morals, hoping for a miracle.
This website is copyright © Cleaner Ocean Foundation Ltd (COF) (Company No: 4674774) 2021 Solar Studios, BN271RF, United Kingdom. COF is a charity without share capital. The name Miss Ocean™ is a trade mark of the Cleaner Oceans Foundation™. *Subject to funding.
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