The Blue Project uses sport, adventure and digital media to connect more people to our blue environment.  Jacques Cousteau once said that “People protect what they love” so our mission is to develop innovative ways to encourage greater care of our blue environment.

Our journey started with a small group of people who derive a large part of their inspiration from competing and working in the natural environment. We decided to share their stories, images and content with a wider audience and set up the Blue Project as a communications outreach programme.

In 2009, we launched the Blue Mile as a mass-participation event designed to connect more people and raise funds to support WWF’s marine and freshwater programme – www.theblueproject.org.

The Interview

Bryony Shaw. Credit Skandia Team GBR.

How does your sport connect you to the natural environment and how does that environment continually motivate and inspire you to achieve goals – sporting and other life goals?

I spend my sporting life travelling to beaches and harbours around the world, following the sun and winds to compete at Olympic Class Windsurfing Events. Locals often describe how trade winds get disturbed “It’s never usually like this!” they say. I revisit the same venues each year on the World Tour and you get sensitive to the ever-changing winds and temperatures. This connection to my natural environment helps me really appreciate truly beautiful places, not just socially or from a tourist perspective, but with regards to what the coastline can offer and the natural features that make it unique. I feel lucky that I can enjoy this fulfilled life with so many experiences: like humid training runs along a Brazillian beach at sunset with pink storm clouds over the mountains. Even when inland I connect with coastal wind conditions by watching trees and clouds, I get motivated to get down to the beach and go windsurfing, taking advantage of what nature offers daily rather than letting it just pass by unnoticed.

What has your sport, and experiences through it, taught you about your natural environment?

Windsurfing has given me a heightened sense of trade winds and water temperatures; how clean the water is at different venues around the world, according to its colour, clarity and diversity of sealife. Travelling gives me an insight into how natural it is that climates change, like when we get snow in the UK that we didn’t get for 18 years, or tropical continents get a year of dramatically increased stormy rainfall. But as long as that as individuals we maintain awareness and respect for it, nature has it’s own methods of repair.

Bryony Shaw. Image credit Richard Langdon/Skandia Team GBR

Sport is intimately connected to nature and a healthy environment is necessary for a healthy planet. By participating in your sport, have you encountered anything that’s truly shocked you about the impact human activity is having on the natural environment?

My sport has gifted me with a connection to my environment, which gives me passion to increase awareness to stop using the ocean as a waste ground, as all water users are directly affected, wildlife and humans. Polluted local areas such as the Olympic waters in Qingdao, China made headlines because the over-grown algae blooms affected our competition area. And a sailor who swallowed harbour water got a body-damaging parasite. But I hope that the Chinese waste management in this area has not just gone back to its old ways, and consideration for the local people and waterlife is maintained not just when under the world media spotlight…

Bryony Shaw, Pre-Olympic Test Event 2007.

If you were to motivate people (on a local, national, or international level) on one particular environmental issue, what would it be?

The environmental issues that I feel most strongly about are waste management, and the consideration of whether your purchases and activities truly have a small carbon footprint. For example the current craze is to have an electric car. But where does that electricity come from?? Waste from most forms of energy production is a global economic issue that will take time and money to educate and ultimately change. Your car is more “green” from cradle to grave if its body parts are locally sourced and can be easily disposed of, not what fuel it runs off. Like a truck made mostly of metal, where is parts and production are all from one country, uses less natural resources than an electric car that has so many foreign plastic body parts. It is important to consider what is truly recyclable, therefore is not contributing to landfill or pollution into rivers, and not just follow fashionable consumer trends!!

Bryony racing in front of the crowds on the Nothe course at the 2012 Olympics.

What have you actively changed in your day to day living behaviour and choices, including how you go-about your sport that makes a positive difference to the health of our planet?

My sporting activities, although a healthy and active lifestyle, do have quite a sizeable carbon footprint. In recent years I have taken advantage of the improved accessibility of European travel by budget airlines with their many route destinations, I can fly very close to most of my competition venues so travel is less stressful and training time is greatly improved. In addition to this my coach will also tow his coach boat around the European venues.

What motivated you to become involved with The BLUE Climate and Oceans Project?

Being involved with BLUE gives me the opportunity to increase the awareness of windsurfing within the environmental community. The worldwide environments we encounter and how as windsurfers we are directly faced with water pollution and damaged coastlines. Windsurfing is one of the most popular watersports in the UK due to its fun, colourful, radical image and it is the most financially accessible worldwide racing sailing class. If our waters are clean and our beaches not over-developed then we are free to run professional competitions and enjoy a much-loved hobby experiencing nature’s wonders.

Bryony Shaw battling the strong winds in Weymouth. Richard Langdon/ Skandia Team GBR

What one piece of advice would you offer to encourage people into thinking proactively about a BLUE future?

For me BLUE is about active lifestyle as well as awareness. Take in your surroundings and what nature can offer. City life is sociable, but opening your eyes to coastal life can provide escape and freedom. My initial interest in watersports was my escape into nature and the thrill of wind-powered speed skimming across the ocean. This sporting connection can then bring greater lifestyle appreciation, and that get-up-n-go outlook to grab life’s opportunities and not let them float by.

A call to action – What can people do to become BLUE?

I feel it is important to introduce a BLUE attitude and provide lifestyle opportunities into schools. I tried hard aged 14 for my school in Oxford, which is far from the sea, to organize after school trips to our local reservoir for sailing and windsurfing activities. But without teacher enthusiasm the idea fell apart, so I was going there on my own motivation and my parent’s support, without my school friends. Watersports activities are very safe, accessible, educational and fun, wherever you live in the UK, so there is no reason for it not to be an option. I see the lifestyles that people in countries like New Zealand are enjoying with such a close relationship to the ocean, and it is not our UK climate that prevents this, only our attitude.

The Blue Project uses sport, adventure and digital media to connect more people to our blue environment.  Jacques Cousteau once said that “People protect what they love” so our mission is to develop innovative ways to encourage greater care of our blue environment.

Our journey started with a small group of people who derive a large part of their inspiration from competing and working in the natural environment. We decided to share their stories, images and content with a wider audience and set up the Blue Project as a communications outreach programme.

In 2009, we launched the Blue Mile as a mass-participation event designed to connect more people and raise funds to support WWF’s marine and freshwater programme – www.theblueproject.org.

Robby Naish

The Interview

Name: Robby Naish

Occupation: Windsurfer, Kitesurfer and Standup Paddle Boarder

How and when did you first decide to make water sports your passion?

There was actually never a “decision.”  It just kind of happened over time when I was pretty young.
Growing up in Kailua and being at the beach all the time made it fairly inevitable.  My father Rick was a surfer and hobie sailor… Hobie 14 and 16 Hawaii State Champion many times over and 1972 National Hobie 16 champion.  My brother Randy and I got into Hobie sailing when we were really young, and when windsurfing came along for me in 1974 I never looked back.  This is a fantastic place to grow up in general, but even better when you make the ocean a big part of your life.

How does your sport connect both you and your business to the natural environment and how does the environment motivate you to achieve goals – sporting, business and other life goals?

For me again there was never any conscious decision to get into watersports (or boardsports).  I simply loved doing it.  I love to ride, and I thrived on individual sports over organised team sports.  They just suit my personality.  I do not like to be told what to do, to have too much structure or rules or limits.  I also love the ocean, the wind, and the waves.  They are always changing and evolving and challenging you.  There is always the unknown and variables that you simply cannot control.  It is a very healthy environment to surround yourself with.  As business began to grow and my consciousness of how lucky I am to have the lifestyle that I have, I began to put more and more profound value on the natural ocean playground and how good it is for the mind, body and spirit.  I am super stoked to be promoting a lifestyle and lifestyle products that I know are really going to improve peoples quality of life.  It’s pretty cool.

Robby Naish, still ripping!

What has your sport and your experience through it taught you about the natural environment?

I have been living in it my whole life.  I grew up on a little island 2000 miles+ from the nearest continent.  Nature is fragile, but it is also pretty good at adapting and healing itself.  Things change and evolve in nature.  A lot of people are worried about the environment, which is a good thing.  There is much more awareness now of the environment and mans impact on it now than ever before.  What man really needs to worry about though is man, and what kind of planet we are leaving for the next generations.  The planet will do fine, cleanse itself and be here long after mankind is a distant memory.

During your sporting and business career, have your observations of the natural environment changed and if so, in what way?

You realise pretty quickly how much plastic we throw out into the ocean or that eventually finds its way into the ocean.  If you go to Japan, for example, or China, it is mind boggling how much plastic washes up on the beaches.  The same goes for the med… plastic bags so thick that racing slalom was difficult because so often you would pick up trash on your fin.    The good thing is that over the past thirty years or so that I have been traveling and riding, things seem to be heading in the right direction and getting better, not worse.  We have a long way to go though in educating people.  There are billions of people in the world, many of whom are very poor.  When you are poor and struggling to survive and your world is working and eating and feeding your family etc… recycling and worrying about where to put your trash etc is not necessarily a priority.  It will take time.  On the other side the western world produces so much trash that it is absolutely crazy.  Packaging on packaging, bottled water etc.  We are getting better at dealing with our plastic and waste, but there is still too much “stuff” period.

If you were to motivate people (on a local, national and international level) on one particular environment issue, what would it be?

In terms of getting people aware of their environment nothing beats getting out there on the water and feeling it, tasting it, smelling it.  Boardriding engages you with nature.  That awareness in itself is a good thing.  It makes people look at the world, their backyard, the beach, their lake, etc in a different way once they begin to play in it.  I am no activist for sure, but I am stoked to be promoting sport that is so very positive for people in general.

What inspired Naish-UK to become the official SUP partner to the Ecover Blue Mile?

I have not discussed this with them, but it sounds like a great initiative that goes hand in hand with SUP.  Getting people out on the water is an amazing way to educate them on the environment and our impact on it, and nothing is better to see it than on an sup.  It is slow and methodical.  You can get around in water and in places that you would never go on any other craft… canals, lakes, tiny streams.  You really see EVERYTHING and notice when the water is clean or dirty, the sunken trash on the bottom, the cans and bottles in the vegetation along the shoreline etc.  It is a great educational tool to connect people to the aquatic environment from the coast to full on urban waterways.

The parade at the Blue Mile, an event run by the Blue Project.

And some competition on the Blue Mile course!

What advice would you give to people who want to change their day to day behaviour to help protect our natural environment?

Start small and work your way up.  Everything helps. Simply having that awareness of the environment and how what you buy and what you eat effects it goes a long way in itself…

What advice would you give to people aspiring to get into stand up paddling and or watersports, either competitively or as a hobby?

Stand up paddling has added a lot to my life and to the lives of many many people around the world.  It is really an awesome form of boardriding, and is the most accessible of all forms of boardriding.  Anyone can do it…. Anywhere.  That accessibility guarantees that the sport will be huge in the future.  There are also so many different aspects to the sport.  There is the waveriding side, where just about any little wave can be made enjoyable to ride.  There is the performance waveriding side, where guys are charging some of the biggest and best waves in the world.  Then there is the racing and touring aspect, which will be the biggest.  Just paddling around a lake in flat water with some friends is really a lot of fun…. Even for me!  Not to mention a fantastic workout.  I really believe that this sport is changing peoples lives for the better.  I am seeing it everywhere I go.  It is healthy, fun, social, can be done anywhere but anyone of any age.  That is pretty cool for a boardsport!  It brings “surfing” to the masses like never before, and with it comes the lifestyle and feeling of being connected to the water.