Making Waves x Ocean Edition 🫶🏼 🌊 🇵🇹

Written by: Linzi Hawkin

It’s been a week since we wrapped this year’s Ocean Edition of Wavemakers - and honestly, it’s taken me that long to really ‘land’ back home. And then yesterday, as Mike Guest shared an amazing collection of images to add to the already awesome shots that Jack O'Donovan Trá captured, I found myself right back at Casa Paço D'Ilhas - feeling all the energy, the joy, the magic that this phenomenal group of humans created.

So it seems like the right time to share one of my biggest takeaways from our time together.

As part of our impact day, we explored the collective ‘How Might We’s’. As we went around the room, rapidly brainstorming & sharing ideas, one of the challenges stood out to me - because it seemed like if we could solve this one challenge we’d be able to solve all the others with much more ease. It was this - “How might we transition from short-term project based conservation to a conservation industry with long-term vision, funding & job security?"

Holy smokes - there is so much to unpack in this.

It sparked so many important conversations - Why climate & ocean activists are burning out, why we feel like we have to ‘prove’ we’re worth paying, why we have to work so hard to get funding (and how to make that more sustainable), how we’ll inspire the next generation to step into this line of work and how we can collectively re-imagine a brighter, more regenerative future and tell better stories that make this future feel irresistible....

And more and more and more.

And I think it’s why this community feels so vital. The space to have these kinds of conversations is so important but often gets left behind. We end up going to countless ocean conferences & workshop but rarely ask ourselves if the system we’re all working in is actually working well - if it’s efficient, if it’s taking care of the people inside it, if it’s designed in a way that will enable us all to create the most meaningful impact.

Beyond grateful to be able to explore, ideate & co-design with such an epic crew. Massive thanks to Carolina Pereira for being the raddest co-facilitator, I love doing this stuff with you. And huge huge love to all this years Wavemakers.