Rev-ing Up a Revolution in Entrepreneurial Solutions to Ocean Challenges

On Ocean’s Day in Davos at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum I caught up with two passionate eco- ambassadors for the Oceans. In my conversation, Nina opens our hearts and minds to the incredible ocean tragedy – a loss of 40% of life in the oceans over the past 40 years, mostly due to human impact. As a city girl turned marine biologist; Nina fell in love with the oceans as a young girl. Now as a powerful voice and force of change for the oceans, Nina is leading the ReV Ocean’s research efforts to build the world’s largest, most advanced, James Bond-like research vessel to travel the world’s oceans. Her mission is to engage teams of scientists and business experts in entrepreneurial ventures that create scaleable solutions to some of our world’s most intractable global ocean challenges- overfishing, plastic pollution, ocean acidification. Her charge to engaged global citizens is simple: vote into office political leaders who care about the oceans, reduce meat consumption, cut out all single use plastics in your life.

Peter Thomson grew up in Fiji; so the ocean was an every day part of his life. As the president of Fiji is buying land in other countries to ensure Fijians have a place to live when sea level rise claims the island; it’s clear that the health of the ocean is tied to the health of the Fijian community. Thus, Peter works tirelessly in his role as Special Envoy to the Oceans to keep business and government on track with their commitments to ocean sustainability; while encouraging them to dive deeper- reduce-recycle waste faster. The secret: put value in the trash- create employment.