We partner with Keep Fin Alive, a marine conservation and education campaign in Mossel Bay, South Africa, which is home to our head office. Their mission is to spread awareness of the catastrophic decline in marine populations due to plastic pollution, overfishing and other threats.

Outreach

The outreach programme includes a puppet show, school talks, and public talks, each with a goal of gaining ocean advocates from all generations. The focus of the educational activities is to create more awareness of the issues facing our oceans and explain how people can actively get involved.

The puppet show embraces an even younger audience, introducing them to Fin, a sad shark, and his friends, who help him understand how important he is. Addressing plastic pollution is a feature of the puppet show, as well as the many positive and easy actions that these youngsters can undertake to help reduce plastic pollution.

Clean Ocean Divers

“Empowering our diving community to preserve and conserve our coastline, by providing the knowledge, skills and resources to keep our ocean healthy and marine life safe.” Keep Fin Alive

In partnership with Go Dive Mossel Bay, open water+ divers have the opportunity to gain an NAUI qualification through Keep Fin Alive called Clean Ocean Divers. The workshop includes a lecture on plastic pollution and deep clean-ups, a practical element to learn how to safely remove fishing line from reefs, a speciality dive briefing, and a deep clean dive.

We target a transect known as a problem spot for ghost fishing gear. There is regular fishing activity at the Mossel Bay site, which hosts anglers from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds. Due to the strong currents and abundant reefs, there is a high rate of fishing gear loss. Our project transect aims to recover plastic and fishing gear, through scuba and free diving, from a 100mᒾ transect. The team then compiles data on items found, to feed into the overall project.