Your favourite left-hander in Indo officially shielded from any kind of man-made threat; treated like hallowed ground in the same way Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon is. Every effort made to give the natural environment primacy, whilst cultivating a cohesive relationship with social and economic forces.
Scott Atkinson, the senior director of Surf Conservation at Conservation International (one of the world’s largest conservation organisations) has spent the past five years trying to achieve the vision outlined above.
“So, our mission really is to protect worldclass waves and vital marine ecosystem surrounding them.” Scott is talking to me via Zoom from his home in Hawaii, but much ofsurfers to preserve and protect their waves. Around 2018, he started collaborating with Save The Waves Coalition and this led him to create a Surf Conservation program at Conservation International, an initiative with a clear agenda. “Basically you create legally enforceable regulations around surf breaks, to protect the surrounding ecosystems as well as the breaks, for the benefit of people and nature,” explains Scott.
