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The Surfers Saving Our Seas

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Joseph Arthur

A killer whale named Lulu washed up along Scotland’s coastline in 2017. Scientists uncovered that she had an enormous concentration of toxic PCB chemicals present in her system, enough for her to be deemed one of the most biologically contaminated organisms ever discovered.

Alex Ford, a University of Portsmouth researcher specialising in marine ecosystems said: “Lulu was in her 20s and had never had a calf. It turned out the group of whales she belonged to had been studied for over 20 years and the rest of her population had never had a calf either. So, that pod of whales is doomed to go extinct due to infertility.”

“What’s especially scary is, in terms of chemicals we still use, we don’t really know what their effect on marine life is going to be because we haven’t had time to study them yet – it could be anything. Just like PCBs, many of these chemicals are clear, tasteless and more or less undetectable without proper equipment.”

Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, are manmade chemicals used as coolants and lubricants in electrical equipment. They were banned in the UK in the early 1980s due to the harm they were causing to the health of both humans and the environment. Prior to the ban, over half a billion kilograms of these chemicals were produced and released into the air, water and soil wherever they were used, resulting in catastrophic contamination.

Killer whales may be extremely dangerous, you certainly wouldn’t want to see one while swimming in the sea or having a surf, but now Britain’s surfing community has become just as concerned about the plight of Lulu and other marine creatures as they are about how big the swell is.

Perhaps you thought surfers were nothing more than the stereotypes Hollywood films and popular culture portray them to be – beach bums living in camper vans moving from break to break in search of the perfect wave. In reality, those preconceptions may not be too far from the truth…who wouldn’t love moving up and down the coast in search of sun, sand and surf? But there’s more to surfers than you might think. Crucially, many UK-based surfers have become painfully aware of the countless threats that the oceans they depend on for their sport are facing. For these surfers, they understand the ocean is more than a place to catch waves, it’s an ever-changing ecosystem crucial to the future of our decaying planet.

According to the latest water quality report released by Surfers Against Sewage, the marine conservation charity established by concerned surfers, the UK’s rivers and seas are in a critical state. The report points to research which shows that 14% of UK rivers are currently rated as having ‘good’ ecological status, its bathwater is the worst in Europe and 75% of rivers tested posed a significant threat to human health. Additionally, SAS CEO Hugo Tagholm, 47, said in 2021 there was “2.7million hours’ worth of sewage discharged into UK waterways across 370,000 separate sewage pollution events”.

Tagholm has been in the role since 2008 and in that time, SAS has developed into “one of the strongest marine conservation charities in the world”.

Based in Cornwall, SAS has chapters all over the United Kingdom and global connections within the environmental conservation sector. It hosts beach clean-ups and engages in protests to raise awareness for the issues it’s fighting but as Tagholm will tell you, “we don’t just do the nice fluffy stuff in the foreground, we also recognise the importance of changing policy and engaging with Parliament”.

Most recently, SAS gathered over 300,000 signatures for a proposal which was delivered to 10 Downing Street outlining how to better limit plastic pollution. The organisation also played a key role in pushing the 2020 Environment Act which, according to Tagholm, “is the biggest piece of environmental legislation this country has seen in decades”. Further, former Chair of SAS, Ben Hewitt, 48, played a critical role in helping a 30km stretch of North Devon’s coastline gain a World Surfing Reserve nomination from American-based NGO, Save The Waves, earlier this year. Now, SAS and its surfers are spearheading the public campaign to stop sewage pollution.

Ford said: “I think surfers are quite uniquely connected to the water and therefore water quality as they’re the ones who get bad tummies and infections from swimming.”

“I grew up surfing along the Welsh coastline and we were always told drink a can of Coke after we’d been in the water because the drink’s acidity supposedly kills any bugs in the stomach.

“It’s not just the surfers, but also the paddleboarders, wind surfers, fishermen and dog walkers who could be at risk. Those are the people connected to the ocean because they’re using it every day.”

Having grown up amid Welsh surfing folklore and learning all the tricks of the trade to keep himself healthy, Ford’s research has put some of these theories to the test as he has attempted to uncover how real the threats of ocean pollution are.

He said: “Unfortunately, these threats are very real. For humans, put simply, recreational water users are more likely to get ill. If they’re in water when there’s been a storm and sewage has been discharged and left untreated, those swimmers are likely to get nose, throat and stomach infections.”

In fact, surfers are three times more likely to have antibiotic bacteria in their guts, according to a 2018 study conducted by the University of Exeter. This refers to contaminated E. coli bacteria found in sea water that can be extremely harmful when ingested by humans and cannot be treated by antibiotics like Cefotaxime.

The deadly threat posed by these bacteria became apparent in 1999, over two decades ago, when eight-year-old Heather Preen died after contracting E. coli 0157 while holidaying in Devon. An inquest into her death found the infection was likely caught from sewage discharged into the sea near the beach she was swimming in.

Despite the health-consequences, water companies across the UK have increased their sewage dumping in recent years. Per SAS’s latest water quality report, in 2021, sewage discharge notifications issued for bathing waters increased by 80% on the previous year; bathing waters being rivers, lakes and seas where people swim. Sewage dumped into domestic water-ways flows directly into these rivers, lakes and seas and has a devastating impact on the marine environments it compromises. This impact has both short term and long-term ramifications and in some instances, can induce irreversible decay within an ecosystem.

Considering its detrimental influence on the environment, it’s a wonder why sewage dumping has been allowed to increase. Unfortunately, finding an effective image or ‘poster boy’ to reflect this devastation has been difficult. Large-scale campaigns for land-based environmental change have relied on cute, furry friends as key reasons to protect an ecosystem. Think how many times you may have seen a chimpanzee and their little children in a devastated forest at the forefront of an anti-deforestation campaign. Perhaps the faces of fish, crabs and octopi don’t quite tug at the heart strings in the same manner – not every fish looks like Nemo – but regardless, attacks on their natural habitats have been just as sinister.

Ben Hewitt has been surfing the UK’s coastline for 40 years. Now settled in north Devon, the surfer and environmental campaigner is battling to repair the damage done to his rivers and seas.

“The coastline is changing. I can see it every season here. We have more storms, more erratic weather and in fact, these changes have been occurring for the last 15 years,” he said.

“I would say every single season, you could take a picture of our coast and you’ll see the erosion. Looking back on years when my now teenage kids were tiny, they used to play on massive sand dunes, those same dunes have simply vanished all these years later.”

Hewitt, who himself was Chair of SAS for several years until 2018, said the UK has been historically behind the curb when it comes to ocean and river conservation, only slightly improving its standards upon joining the European Union in 1973. Now, in the wake of Brexit, the UK’s seas are more vulnerable than ever to increased sewage dumping, storm water overflow and plastic pollution.

“Brexit is a major threat to the environmental standards in this country,” he said. “Essentially, when we joined the European Union we had a nickname which was ‘the dirty man of Europe’ and our seas were disgusting.

“Then, we had to raise our standards to European ones. It wasn’t something that we did because we thought it was a good idea – it was a necessity of being part of the EU. Now, I think there’s a lot of nervousness that as we start to have our own rules again, there’s an ability to roll back on European commitments; they can be watered down and be a lower level of effectiveness.”

However, it isn’t all doom and gloom and a group of academics and surfers have identified a creative potential solution to the threats posed by water pollution which Hewitt is helping to champion in the UK – wave reserves.

The idea of wave reserves was introduced into the surfing community in the 1970s by surfers from Australia’s south Victorian coast, specifically Bells Beach. Wave reserves can protect a certain coastal area by making it a designated surfing location. Initially, wave reserves were introduced to keep developers away from surf spots but a study out of the University of Portsmouth has found that wave reserves can also promote conservation of ecologically valuable coastal areas.

Several organisations have created programmes to facilitate implementation of wave reserves, one of the most well-known is Save The Waves’ World Surfing Reserve programme. There is currently 11 WSRs across the globe with a 12th nominated and pending designation. This latest nomination is located in the UK – a 30km stretch of north Devon’s coastline – and will soon become the 12th WSR and the first one in Britain.

World Surfing Reserves

  • Bahia De Todos Santos, Baja, Mexico
  • Ericeira, Portugal
  • Gold Coast, Australia
  • Guarda Do Embau, Brazil
  • Huanchaco, Peru
  • Malibu, California, USA
  • Manly Beach, Australia
  • Noosa, Australia,
  • Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica
  • Punta De Lobos, Chile
  • Santa Cruz, California, USA
  • North Devon, United Kingdom (nominated)

Hewitt played a key role in north Devon’s successful WSR nomination bid. Part of the core group of north Devon’s Local Stewardship Council, he helped bring together organisations such as North Devon Council, SAS Devon, Blue Marine Foundation and Plastic Free North Devon to craft the bid.

Hewitt said: “The official WSR designation will mark a really important step in the right direction towards better preserving north Devon’s coastline. It’s an attitude change.”

Trent Hodges, 35, is Save The Waves conservation programmes manager who oversees the WSR programme. He said north Devon’s application was selected due to the quality of its waves, its unique surfing culture and “it’s concrete vision for how it wants to protect its waves”.

He said: “North Devon has lots of local non-profits, as well as local councils and some agencies of government who are working to protect waves. Really, that’s what allowed north Devon to rise to the top and set it apart from the other applications. Different elements of north Devon’s locality really came together to craft their vision for the WSR.”

The designation will not only help north Devon’s coast but serve as a broader signal of positive environmental intent from the UK’s surfers, swimmers and other ocean users. There is a clear desire among these communities to raise the bar and set higher standards for ocean conservation in the UK and any avenue is viable. Legislation and government action, protests and beach cleans are all critical, but creative solutions like wave reserves underpin these folk’s true endeavour – to change how we approach ocean conservation.

The UoP’s study into the benefits of wave reserves highlights just how critical they could become for successful coastal preservation. Waves aren’t just for surfing and play a vital role within a marine ecosystem. Gregoire Touron-Gardic, 30, a surfer based in Brittany, France, and researcher on the UoP’s study, said waves play an active role in the gas exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere, causing movement of sediments and helping to create favourable living environments for many aquatic species.

Touron-Gardic found that the creation of wave reserves as a measure of preserving areas for surfing and other recreational activities has aligned with initiatives to conserve the coastal environment, creating a win-win situation.

He said: “By protecting waves, of course you protect surf spots, but this also benefits adjacent coastal areas through a natural cascading effect; there are great interconnections between coastal protection and wave conservation which is a prerequisite to having a great environmental attitude.”

“Although wave reserves rarely involve any legal implications, they are an effective civil action and as an amateur surfer who lives in a very nice and preserved part of the world, I’m interested in using all tools that are in our hands to protect the environment.”

Touron-Gardic’s findings have helped to galvanise the wave reserves movement in Europe, his research even prompted him to create France Hydrodiversité, an organisation which established the first wave reserve in France in February of this year. Having historically been behind the European curb when it comes to protection of its oceans, to see the establishment of a wave reserve in Britain shortly after France is a welcome sign of progress.

Although they are an incredibly exciting and innovative solution to these issues, not everyone is afforded the opportunity to be creative and wave reserves, for now, remain relatively niche. A crucial part of the fight is raising awareness of the influences and tyranny of water pollution. Fortunately, thousands of environmentalists, campaigners and concerned citizens have been doing this for decades and in recent years, ocean conservation organisations like SAS have been gaining momentum and paving the way for reform by galvanising people to incite change. Despite these efforts however, researchers have found that much of the UK is still unaware of these debilitating environmental issues, not just in terms of the threat’s pollution is posing to marine ecosystems, but to human health too.

According to Ford, large segments of Britain are “blissfully unaware” that their waterways are flowing toxic chemicals into oceans and rivers. This neglect isn’t due to ignorance however, but in fact a lack of visible consequences. If you don’t live by the sea, how are you to know the coastline is suffering?

Ford said: “A phenomenon I’m quite interested in is the fact that people can see the condoms, sanitary towels, wet wipes and nappies that end up on the shore; people seem outwardly bothered by this. What they don’t see is the chemicals which might be more harmful for the marine environment and the wildlife, but because they’re invisible and dissolved in the water, people are unaware of the issue.”

The nutrients present in sewage discharge can cause a lot of problems for marine life, as subjecting environments to unnatural chemical cocktails can “make the wrong things grow in the wrong places”.

A common issue is toxic algae blooms in coastal areas. Sewage chemicals “can make some algae grow unnaturally quickly and smother other plant life” which can prevent natural seagrass and healthy seabeds from being maintained.

“Unfortunately, it’s these chemicals which really spread disease among the marine life and you end up with cases like that of Lulu the whale and her pod.”

For the sake of both our coastlines and human health, the calamitous pollution and sewage dumping can no longer afford to continue. According to SAS, sewage dumping threatens to cause some UK rivers and seas to become irreparably uninhabitable for marine life.

As part of its strategy to raise awareness of the critical state of our coasts, SAS partnered in developing an app, Safer Seas & Rivers Service, which notifies users when a body of water is safe to swim in. Last year, there was 5,000 occasions when the app notified a user not to swim due to the water being unsafe. Of the 365 days, 16% of ‘swimmable days’ were lost because of advice not to swim in sewage polluted water for 48 hours after a discharge. These discharges and storm water overflows were the biggest issues preventing swimming in 2021.

Tagholm said: “We’ve done a lot of citizen science and water quality testing. We’ve consistently challenged water companies at the highest level, not just for a media headline, but for policy and legislative change.”

“Currently, were amid a whole new wave of activity around calling for stronger testing regimes for our bathing waters and rivers so we can pick up on some of the really chronic emerging threats like antibiotic resistant bacteria and microplastics.

“This will help to safeguard not just people using the sea surface but also the entire marine environment – you can’t surf in a dead sea.”

Emily Saunders, 22, is a regional ambassador for SAS’s Devon chapter and a BSc graduate in ocean science and marine conservation who is currently completing an MA in environmental consultancy. She said her studies have uncovered some frightening realities.

“As a conservationist, my one role if an ecosystem is not in a reasonable state is to put forward suggestions of how that could improve in the future, but if I’m getting to a point now in research where it seems there’s nothing more we can do, people might give up,” she said.

“From a consultancy perspective, there’s only so much I can say and I don’t want to have to go ‘well, you just have to preserve what you currently have because it won’t improve’.”

For most people the ocean is a mysterious entity, its importance somewhat vague yet under consideration as an area of significance within the realm of the global climate crisis. For surfers however, the ocean is everything. It’s freedom from anything holding you back on land, it’s an escape from the mundane and most importantly, it’s a relationship so personal the depth of which is known only to you.

The environment is suffering and something must be done; these surfers are fighting a war on many fronts. However, they remain hopeful and are steadfast in raising awareness of these issues while also finding creative solutions themselves, like wave reserves.

Saunders said: “We are at a critical point. I’ve seen it in both my research at university and throughout SAS’s water quality report but in layman’s terms, the ecological status of some of our rivers is falling irreparably low. Meaning those ecosystems have fallen into a state where they can’t be preserved or restored in the future.”

“From where we are now, education and awareness are of the utmost importance. Even if you don’t live by the coast, you need to be exposed to the consequences of these threats and be taught how you can best help. The environment is an enormous part of everyone’s future.”