Ambassadors

Community leaders inspiring environmental change

OUR AMBASSADORS

Tangaroa Blue Foundation has an international network of volunteers and partners who collaborate through the Australian Marine Debris Initiative (AMDI).

 

The AMDI Network has introduced us to some of the most passionate, inspirational and dedicated people on the planet who have honoured us by agreeing to accept the title of Tangaroa Blue Ambassador.

 

Our Ambassadors are based around Australia and are true role models and leaders in their communities and networks, making a positive impact on the health of our environment and inspiring others to do the same.

Bernadette Davis

Ambassador

Bernadette’s passion for protecting the ocean comes from a lifetime of living close to the sea, exploring our coastline and searching out her favourite surf breaks.
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Owen Harris

Ambassador

Owen is a very passionate little Wildlife Warrior. He might only be eight years old but he sure packs huge passion and dedication into that little human. He loves everything to do with wildlife and he wants to do all he can to help protect them.
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Poppy Ives

Ambassador

Poppy has had a passion for the ocean from a young age and, inspired by the work of Tangaroa Blue and the Australia Zoo Wildlife Warrior program, she started her own monthly beach clean-up in November 2017.
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Tangaroa Blue Ambassador - Elijah Richardson

Elijah Richardson

Ambassador

Elijah first went snorkelling when he was around five years old. It was then that he first saw the beauty of the underwater world. He also realised how litter and marine debris could impact the Great Barrier Reef and marine life.
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Bernadette Davis (aka Flea)

Bernadette’s passion for protecting the ocean comes from a lifetime of living close to the sea, exploring our coastline and searching out her favourite surf breaks.
CONTINUE READING

Owen Harris

Owen is a very passionate little Wildlife Warrior. He might only be five years old but he sure packs huge passion and dedication into that little human.
CONTINUE READING

Poppy Ives

Poppy has had a passion for the ocean from a young age and, inspired by the work of Tangaroa Blue and the Australia Zoo Wildlife Warrior program, she started her own monthly beach clean-up in November 2017.
CONTINUE READING

Elijah Richardson

Elijah enjoys learning from the world around him. His love for the ocean, reef, rock pools, and sea life has enabled him to do this and follow his favourite activity of snorkeling. This has made him aware of the damage that litter/marine debris poses to marine life and their environments.
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Bernadette Davis (aka Flea)

Bernadette’s passion for protecting the ocean comes from a lifetime of living close to the sea, exploring our coastline and searching out her favourite surf breaks. With over 20 years of experience in environmental education with Local Government, she lives on the south coast of NSW where she works as an environmental officer with AMDI Partner, Eurobodalla Shire Council.

Alongside that, Bernadette co-founded ‘Ekipa Tasi Mos Atauro‘ in Timor Leste where she travels to the island regularly to continue her work there. She also designs the most exquisite baskets and lampshades that are handwoven from rope recovered from all her clean-ups (view Castaway Textiles Instagram page). Bernadette says, “I’ve been a long-time textile tinkerer, so it was a natural progression to use marine debris to assist in raising the issue of threats to our oceans.”

Owen Harris

Owen is a very passionate young Wildlife Warrior. He might only be eight years old but he sure packs huge passion and dedication into that little human. He loves everything to do with wildlife and he wants to do all he can to help protect them. He says “Wildlife can’t protect themselves so we need to protect them”.

For Owen, everything is an adventure, so he decided he wanted to start ‘Owen’s Wildlife Adventures‘ to try and share his passion and hopefully inspire others to follow suit and help him make a difference. While Owen was happy to spread the message he soon realised he wanted to have even more impact and decided to start his very own kid’s environmental group. This was the start of the Cap Coast Eco Warriors, a kids environmental group aiming to give kids a voice and give them the opportunity to learn all about the various different aspects of conservation and what they can do to make a difference.

Owen believes everyone can make a difference no matter how small and he is showing us all that there are no limits and that even the littlest ones amongst us can help.

Owen collects a lot of rubbish and also records the information in the AMDI Database so that he can contribute to stopping this whole issue at the source. Owen is very proud to be part of the Tangaroa Blue and ReefClean crew. He wants his kids to be able to snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef and see fish, sharks and turtles and not just plastic floating around. So on all trips away, every walk on the beach, Owen picks up rubbish. Seeing all the marine debris on a recent Cape York trip made him realise even more just how urgently we need to stop polluting this planet.

In his spare time, he loves nothing more than saving sea turtles.

Poppy Ives

Poppy has had a passion for the ocean from a young age. Inspired by the work of Tangaroa Blue and the Australia Zoo Wildlife Warrior program, she started her own monthly beach clean-up in November 2017. Calling the group Visionary Ocean Warriors, inspired by the Australia Zoo Visionary Wildlife Warrior program, Poppy’s focus was and still is to encourage her local community to remove marine debris and, in turn, protect endangered marine life.

 

For many years, Poppy monitored Golden Beach on the Sunshine Coast, engaging volunteers and collating the debris into the Australian Marine Debris Initiative. To date, she has entered 14,501 pieces of debris, totalling 244 kilos, and engaged nearly 400 volunteers, which was made possible with the help and commitment of friends and participants at the beach clean-ups.

 

For the last four years, Poppy has been working with Sunshine Coast Council and local organisations to host two bigger events each year. The goal is to educate her local community on the dangers of plastic pollution and offer solutions to reduce it. 

 

Poppy has recently become a Dive Instructor, continuing her love and commitment to the ocean and its marine life. Poppy aspires to share her passion with the world while travelling and working with local communities to learn how to do better for our oceans and planet. 

Elijah Richardson

Elijah’s passion for ocean conservation began when he first went snorkelling when he was five. In that moment, he discovered the stunning beauty of the underwater world, as well as the devastating impact of litter and marine debris on the Great Barrier Reef and marine life.

 

Since then, Elijah has been actively involved in clean-up efforts, both participating in and organising his own events. Inviting the wider community has helped to increase awareness of the amount and variety of litter in and around their local beaches. With the backing of Tangaroa Blue, his initiatives have led to significant changes, including the installation of mesh nets over waste pipes at a local business to prevent plastic biofilters from entering local waterways and the introduction of eco-friendly matting at a local playground to reduce rubber crumb waste.

 

Determined to spread his message of ocean preservation, Elijah regularly speaks at youth groups, schools, rallies, and community events, encouraging others to take action in protecting the environment. He is a proud ambassador for Tangaroa Blue, using his platform to educate and inspire others about the harmful effects of plastics and marine debris.

 

Elijah shares his journey on social media, including Instagram and Facebook, where he creates short educational videos, encouraging others to take steps to protect the ocean. Elijah has also used opportunities with ABC’s “War on Waste” and Primitive Planet’s “Trust Your Wild Side“  to spread the word.

 

“Everyone can do something to make a difference in preserving our oceans and marine life”, Elijah.