Pioneers of Progress

Watch the video below, which spotlights the work of The Ocean Foundation and Keep Loreto Magical in Loreto.

Credit Suisse’s Pioneers of Progress features outstanding sustainability shapers who are helping to solve the world’s big challenges. Keep Loreto Magical’s sponsor, The Ocean Foundation, is featured in their recent episode, where TOF’s president Mark J. Spalding discusses how TOF helps communities, like Loreto, protect the ocean environments they depend on.

The below report is reproduced from the Credit Suisse Pioneer’s of Progress website.

The ocean is the basis for life on Earth

Protecting the planet’s most important ecosystem

By con­nect­ing con­ser­va­tion or­gan­iz­a­tions and non-​profits with the fin­an­cial sup­port they need, The Ocean Found­a­tion is help­ing com­munit­ies across the globe pro­tect the ocean en­vir­on­ments they de­pend on.

It’s al­most 40 years since Mark Spald­ing first set foot in the beach­front town of Loreto on Mex­ico’s Baja Cali­for­nia pen­in­sula. It was a trip that changed the dir­ec­tion of his life, and the pro­spects for the re­gion’s mar­ine en­vir­on­ment. 

Mark fell in love with Loreto and re­turned year after year, cap­tiv­ated by the seas that were once de­scribed by the great nat­ur­al­ist Jacques Cous­teau as “the world’s aquar­ium.” How­ever, Mark gradu­ally be­came aware that the re­gion’s rich mar­ine biod­iversity was being de­pleted by over­fish­ing. 

As a res­ult, he de­cided to take a lead on restor­ing the ocean eco­sys­tem. He has be­come in­creas­ingly in­volved in sus­tain­ab­il­ity ad­vocacy since the mid-​1990s through his work with the En­vir­on­mental Law and Civil So­ci­ety Pro­gram and as Ed­itor of the Journal of En­vir­on­ment and De­vel­op­ment.

In 2003, he was ap­poin­ted Pres­id­ent of The Ocean Found­a­tion. One of his first acts was to launch a pro­ject to re­verse the dam­age to mar­ine life that he had wit­nessed first-​hand in the wa­ters off Loreto.

“A great ex­ample was the chocol­ate clam. Over-​harvested from the shores around Loreto, it be­came al­most ex­tinct, and that was just a hor­rible out­come. Many part­ners par­ti­cip­ated with The Ocean Found­a­tion to get a na­tional park es­tab­lished in front of Loreto. We mo­bil­ized a team to re­search and work with the na­tional park to re­store the chocol­ate clam fish­ery.”

This small bi­valve may seem in­sig­ni­fic­ant along­side iconic ocean creatures like whales, sharks and dol­phins, but as Mark ex­plains, many other forms of mar­ine life are de­pend­ent on it. “When you take out an en­tire spe­cies group like the chocol­ate clam that fil­ters the water, it af­fects the water qual­ity up and down the coast.” 

Building communities to protect the ocean

Saving one species of clam is a small win in the context of the scale of the global threat to the world’s oceans but The Ocean Foundation is committed to the belief that the damage already caused can be repaired.

That commitment is defined by Mark, who sees the foundation’s unique approach to restoration and conservation as the way to achieve this.

“The Ocean Foundation has a mission to support those actors who are reversing the trend of destruction of ocean environments around the world,” he says, adding that it is the world’s only community foundation focused on marine conservation.

Connecting funds and expertise for maximum impact

Central to The Ocean Foundation’s role is its fundraising capability. Each year, it secures millions of dollars from governments, philanthropic donors, private foundations, and corporates. It then evaluates the capacity of marine conservation projects to make a real difference. For Mark, the key to success is connecting funds with the people who can create the biggest positive impact.

“We have more than 40 projects on six different continents. We pull together the best expertise on science, on policy, on community understanding, in order to make a difference in all of the places that we work, together with local and world-​renowned experts.”

Contributing to the global effort to save the ocean

The positive impact of the work that Mark is driving forward at The Ocean Foundation is contributing to global efforts to protect the ocean and restore marine diversity.

Under the banner of the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), multiple organizations are striving to reverse the decline of marine ecosystems and create a sustainable ocean economy. SDG 14 – Life Below Water includes a range of targets that The Ocean Foundation and its partners are committed to achieving.