Hello Explorers!

I am Clarice, a final year Civil Engineering student and marine life enthusiast. I have been on snorkelling (and recently diving) trips throughout my life, I love how the ocean is like an almost separate world from life on land yet they are interconnected. I have always been a “Sustainable habits, watch BBC documentaries, save the Environment” kind of hippie but I could never imagine the impact of human activities more than when I visited Krabi, Thailand in 2018.

I had previously visited Krabi around 10 years ago to snorkel. However on this trip, one of the beaches we stopped at had more anthropogenic marine debris than seashells. Underwater, it was no better, the corals bleached white. My mind went back to that first trip, I clearly remembered seeing more fish, sharp red corals that we had to take care not to step on them. It saddened me to seee that this was happening. A while later, I learnt that Maya Bay, a beach made famous from a film starring Leonardo di Caprio, had to be closed “after a sharp increase in visitors severely damaged the environment”.

Oceanographer, Dr Sylvia Earle once said “No water, no life. No blue, no green”. This quote stuck with me, because indeed all living things need water to survive, and we rely on the ocean for more than we imagine. I think it is one of the roadbloacks that conservationists face when talking about the issues regarding the oceans. Reaching out to people especially those living in denser urban cities far from the sea could be tougher as they may not see the direct impact. Unlike our concrete jungle dwellers, people living by the sea or rivers whose livelihood depends on the ocean could be better testimonies to how pollution is affecting their lives.

I named this blog Ocean Green after the two major components of Earth – land and sea, or any other interpretation of the name is welcomed too! In this blog, I hope to help bridge that gap a little more – what happens to the ocean will come back to us on land – as well as cover some of the pollution related issues the ocean is facing in this crucial period. I’ll add my opinion in too, feel free to build on my posts in the comment section!