MISSION
Blue Frontier builds the solution-oriented citizen engagement needed to protect our ocean, coasts and the communities, both human and wild that depend on them.
WHO WE ARE
We are a small organization with a big impact! Blue Frontier, “The Voice for Ocean Action” organizes people who care about our blue planet to impact policy and promote solutions to the many challenges facing our living seas.
For over 20 years Blue Frontier has been able to generate ocean media at the local, national and global level. This work includes six books with a seventh in the works, also several hundred articles, opinions and videos (including an upcoming documentary ‘Sequoias of the Sea’) appearing in major media including the New York Times, NPR and National Geographic. Blue Frontier has conducted media training workshops for scientists and others, created the ‘Writers for the Sea’ project with over 120 authors and supports an online Blue Movement Directory describing over 1,200 ocean conservation groups. Its popular Rising Tide Ocean podcast also airs on a number of radio stations.
It’s policy and network building has included six DC-based Blue Vision Summits that have connected thousands of grassroots activists with policy leaders. These multi-day summits have included Capitol Hill Ocean Days where constituents from across the nation met with their elected representatives and advocated for legislation around illegal fishing, plastic pollution and other issues. Blue Frontier has also sponsored several regional summits. Congressional leaders including Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Jeff Markley have spoken of the vital role Blue Frontier plays in creating ocean law and policy.
Beginning in 2019 in partnership with the Center for the Blue Economy, Blue Frontier launched the Ocean Climate Action Plan (OCAP) published in 2020. Our OCAP coalition, built an effective nationwide network ranging from John Kerry and Jane Fonda to environmental justice and business leaders. By 2022 the Biden Administration launched its own White House Ocean Climate Action Plan that mirrored our earlier plan. It also included $10 billion dollars of ocean funding in the Infrastructure and IRA laws that our coalition had lobbied for.
In partnership with Wendy Benchley Blue Frontier launched the decade long Peter Benchley Ocean Awards that became known as the ‘Academy Awards of the Ocean’ with eight categories of award-winners ranging from heads of state (Costa Rica, Senegal, Monaco, etc.) to grassroots youth activists. Inspired by the awards that terminated in 2017, a network of aquariums, led by the National Aquarium, is now planning to relaunch the Peter Benchley Ocean Awards in 2025.
In 2018 & 2019 Blue Frontier organized ‘Marches for the Ocean’ of thousands of people in DC, across the U.S. and in 26 nations including youth led marches in Ireland, Belize, Cape Verde and the Philippines. The marches terminated during the COVID pandemic of 2020.
As part of its latest ocean climate campaign, Blue Frontier is now working to protect the world’s kelp forests through a documentary, book and a public impact campaign. It also recently acquired a classic 1934 Motorsailer, the 47-foot ‘Queen of the Coast,’ that it’s preparing as an educational platform to travel up and down the west coast’s ‘kelp highway.’
Locally, since relocating from D.C. to Richmond California in 2017 Blue Frontier has fought to save the 420-acre SF Bay headland named Point Molate as a waterfront nature park for this low-income under-parked community. After defeating plans for a casino and a luxury development Blue Frontier’s ‘Point Molate Alliance’ project helped secure $36 million from the state to establish the park which is now being negotiated. Blue Frontier also helped the Port of Richmond secure a $3 million grant to electrify (“decarbonize”) its main terminal under the new Infrastrucutre law.
Like the Coast Guard that it’s written about and celebrated (organizing a ‘San Francisco Coast Guard Appreciation Day’ that drew thousands) Blue Frontier continues to do more with less.
Among other accomplishments, to date Blue Frontier has:
- Created a detailed Blue Movement Directory of 1400 U.S. organizations and institutions involved in ocean conservation listed by state. This online resource is based on our 2005 book, The Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide.
- Organized 5 biennial Blue Vision Summits between 2004 and 2015 that regularly draw hundreds of ocean leaders to Washington D.C. to develop strategies for protecting our public seas and to meet with other ocean stakeholders and their elected representatives.
- Have held a series of ‘Healthy Ocean Hill Days’ that include dozens of state delegations meeting with their elected representatives on Capitol Hill including the largest citizen lobbies for ocean conservation in U.S. history.
- Helped organize a number of regional meetings and events in response to local concerns ranging from oil spill assessments to creation of a San Francisco Coast Guard Appreciation Day to panels on ocean art and literature.
- Helped mobilize public turnout and a ‘Wear Blue for the Oceans Day’ in support of a strong U.S. National Ocean Policy and in opposition to offshore oil drilling working with both citizen activists and government leaders.
- Ocean media – producing stories across a range of media at a rate unparalleled by any group of its size. Blue Frontier has produced on-scene stories and videos on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill. Our stories take unique perspectives, such as writing on Green Ports for National Geographic magazine, the feasibility of offshore clean energy, desalination plants, oil spills and more for the LA Times, and the role of the U.S. Coast Guard in conservation for Living on Earth, The Diane Rehm Show, C-Span, and others. Blue Frontier’s writing, production and interviews have been incorporated into college textbooks and run in the Associated Press, New York Times, Financial Times, USA Today, New Yorker, Coastal Living (which also gave Blue Frontier its 2005 Leadership Award), Alert Diver, and many other outlets. It’s book, 50 Ways to Save the Ocean has sold 20,000 copies, inspired an award-winning video and won a 2007 Herman Melville Award from the New York State Marine Education Association. Executive Director David Helvarg has written five other ocean and conservation books; The War Against the Greens, Blue Frontier, Rescue Warriors, The Golden Shore and Saved by the Sea.
- Established the Blue Frontier/Peter Benchley Ocean Awards that are recognized as the world’s major honors for solution oriented leadership across a broad range of society. It’s 56 past winners include several heads of state, U.S. Senators, scientists, explorers and youth activists. The awards became an independent project in 2015.
- Blue Frontier’s Ocean Explorers project has supported Rower Roz Savage on her solo rows across the Pacific and Indian Oceans to raise the profile of ocean and climate issues between 2007 and 2010. Blue Frontier’s field organizer Margo Pellegrino has also paddled her one-woman outrigger canoe from Miami to Maine, Seattle to San Diego and elsewhere, recently embarking on a New York to New Orleans paddle through the Hudson, Erie Canal, Great Lakes and down the Mississippi River to continue her outreach to local ocean activists and now inland water activists highlight the connection between clean water and healthy seas.
- Point Molate Alliance is another Blue Frontier project based in the low-income San Francisco Bay city of Richmond. This citizen group effectively blocked a planned Mega-Casino on a beautiful 422-acre headlands owned by the city in 2010. Since then PMA has helped open a public beach and restore the headlands natural species while leading High School field trips to connect Richmond’s underserved youth to their waterfront.
- Writers For the Sea is a group founded by Blue Frontier and some 50 ocean authors on June 8, 2015 World Ocean Day. It aims to promote marine and maritime literature while also educating the public to the environmental challenges faced by 71 percent of our inspiring blue planet.
- Done extensive public speaking appearances and media outreach to spread the story of our oceans at risk and what individuals can do to make a difference. David Helvarg and other Blue Frontier staff and board members have spoken to hundreds of groups in the U.S. and overseas and write for and been quoted in a wide range of national and international print and broadcast media.
- Won Coastal Living magazines 2005 Leadership Award and the 2007 Herman Melville Award.
