Join the Sea Change - Take Action to Protect Our Ocean, Our Health The Sea Change project invites you to take simple steps towards protecting our ocean by joining its new “Our Ocean, Our Health” campaign to raise awareness of the interconnectedness of ocean and human health. Sea Change is an EU Horizon 2020-funded project which aims to raise European citizens’ awareness of the intrinsic links between ocean and human health, and to empower us, as “Ocean Literate” citizens, to take direct and sustainable action towards a healthy ocean, healthy communities and ultimately a healthy planet. “Our Ocean, Our Health” emphasises the vital role of the ocean in making life on Earth possible. Our ocean provides us with oxygen, it regulates our climate and produces over 140 million tons of food each year. But human activity and our way of life is affecting the ocean’s health. If we don’t take care of the ocean, we endanger our own survival. You can help to spread the word about the ocean’s life-giving vitality by sharing Sea Change’s new video, which highlights the ocean’s contribution to the oxygen we breathe. Watch “Our Ocean Our Oxygen” on the Sea Change website, www.seachangeproject.eu or the Sea Change Vimeo channel at www.vimeo.com/seachangeproject. Sea Change encourages you to take action by pledging to make a “sea change” in your daily behaviour at www.seachangeproject.eu/takeaction and sharing your commitment online using #OurOceanOurHealth. Even by making small changes in our activities, together we can achieve big results to tackle the marine issues of plastic debris, acidification, pollution and depletion of fish stocks. Jon Parr, Sea Change Coordinator, said: “We are very excited to launch the ‘Our Ocean, Our Health’ campaign, which is all about making a ‘sea change’ in our lives, celebrating the ocean and recognising how it is at the heart of everything we do. We encourage everyone to get out there and take on the challenge. We’ll be following #OurOceanOurHealth closely and look forward to seeing what changes people have pledged.” Find out how you can help protect the ocean, and make your pledge at: www.seachangeproject.eu/takeaction. Don’t forget to share your commitment with #OurOceanOurHealth. Get the latest news on the Sea Change campaign by following us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SeaChange_EU and liking us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SeaChangeProjectEU. Notes for Editors The Sea Change project is funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement n° 652644. The project began in March 2015 and will run until February 2018. The Marine Biological Association, UK (MBA) is coordinating the project. AquaTT is the project dissemination partner. Jon Parr, Sea Change coordinator, is Deputy Director at the MBA. He has a wide remit covering operations, the development of the research infrastructure and the development of the knowledge exchange programme. He has worked with the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) and sits on the several groups including the NBN National Schemes and Societies group and UK-EOF Citizen science group. Jon is the Data Archive expert and on the Executive of the UK’s Marine Environmental Data Information Network (MEDIN). Jon is responsible for the Educational Programme of the MBA including the public Sea Life Survey, the Shore Thing Project and the Recorders conference. Jon organised and chaired a workshop for European Commission on Transatlantic Ocean Literacy. The “Our Ocean Our Oxygen” video was developed by AquaTT in collaboration with the Sea Change Partnership and was produced by JustMultimedia. For press queries, please contact the project Communications Officer: Tanja Calis, AquaTT (email: tanja@aquatt.ie Tel: +353 1 644 9008) Keywords health, ocean, education, sustainable, resource, contamination, ocean plastics, acidification, overfishing Countries Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Croatia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, United Kingdom
