 Yeah, so well, thank you so much for coming tonight. It's such a beautiful evening and I really appreciate that you've chosen to participate in our program. Really lovely to see you all. So we're very pleased to have with us Allison Wood from Ocean Ambassadors and they are a local group that has been working to build awareness of the health of our oceans. And this is one program of many that the library is doing as part of Climate Future. So Climate Future is an initiative of the library that is addressing the climate emergency and we have lots of neat things happening. We have programs like this, information programs. We have bat boxes that have just gone in, a food garden. We've got a toolkit which gives people advice on how to reduce their own carbon footprint. And I also want to mention that we are, more people coming in, that's great. We're doing this program on the traditional ancestral and unceded territory of the Squamish, Swelotooth and Muscle Nations. And we're very grateful to be able to learn and play on this land and the oceans that have been there since time immemorial. So at this point, I am going to turn it over to Celine. She's with us with four of our kids who has partnered with us on this program and she'll tell you a little bit about that organization. Thank you. Thank you so much, Celine. And hi everyone, good to meet you virtually. I'm here together with Julia. She's there from four hour kids, not sure as well. And we're super pleased to be partnering here with Vancouver Library to bring Alison here to you. And a little bit about four hour kids. So this is a national organization of, it's a network of parents and grandparents. And we have chapters that are self-organized, very much run by volunteers. And each chapter runs what they feel is most helpful to really tackle climate change. In the area. So what we've done on the North Shore at large, a few pieces starting with meeting with our MLAs, asking for appointments and having correspondence with them on a few topics from protection of the screeching owl to the logging of old growth. We publish op-eds also. We've been published on the North Shore news a few times. We've been painting banners. Julia's family has been very awesome with that. Lots of social media to really raise awareness. That's the starting point. And then really try and invite people to take action as well. So we are a group of six volunteers on the North Shore. And we've been operating for about a year and we've done quite a few things since then. And I recognize a few names here. And we have a little bit of a following. If you'd like to know more about what we're doing, please take a look at the four hour kids website. I'll pop up the link in a bit and you can also join in. You'll have a button to say join in in there so that we can send newsletter and you can say to speed with what's going on and future events. June 28th, go take a look on the website. It's an event where we invite dads to come and talk with a series about what can dads do to tackle climate change. So quite a few things. We keep busy. There's always things happening. BLC 12 with really pushing for these two paths is a very big one at the moment for us. And of course in BC, old growth, halting of the logging of old growth is another big one. So that's going on. But with that, we're here for Alicia and Wood and I'll pass it back to Lynn to do that introduction. Thank you. Thanks so much, Celine. And yes, four kids, you're such a passionate group and it's neat to see there's some people from other chapters around the lower mainland here. That's great. So I'd like to introduce Allison Wood. Allison is one of the founders of Ocean Ambassadors and she founded it with her friend Ben Weissanko. And I mean, really it's about trying to connect people to the ocean. Allison is a competitive standup paddler and a lifelong educator. And so bringing those two things together, education and love of the ocean, I think is what led her to be doing this kind of work. So I just wanna read this lovely quote from Allison. So she says, the inspiration for Ocean Ambassadors came well on my standup board in Deep Cove. The incredible beauty of the ocean was regularly contrasted with garbage floating on the water. We need to inspire people to protect our oceans and to do that, we need to get people to the beach and onto the water to experience its magic. Great, thank you, Allison. Oh, thanks so much for having me and Seth, thanks so much to Celine and Julia for inviting me. And I really think that the connection between for our kids and Ocean Ambassadors is a perfect one because we're both about action. And I think at Ocean Ambassadors, we deal with a lot of young people who were trying to inspire to take action and you are providing all of these venues for people to actually take that action. So one of the things that I've already made a note of, while the introductions were happening was that we need to be sending people that come to Ocean Ambassadors to for our kids to get involved in all of these campaigns. So I'm just gonna share my screen. Can everybody still hear me okay? I just had your internet is unstable, that scary message. Nope, we can hear you fine. Okay, good. That's always the worst, you know? Okay, good, we are good, yay. Okay, well, so thank you. So I thought what we do tonight is I'm gonna tell you a little bit about what the idea of Ocean Ambassadors is, what we do, the different things that we do. Talk a little bit about the state of single use plastics in Canada and then in BC and then municipally. And I know a lot of you were at the talk by Karen's story. So I cannot hold the candle to her knowledge about single use plastics. And I think you've got it all from her. So we'll just talk about a couple of issues around that. And then I wanted to touch on marine protected areas as well as issue of overfishing. And then talk really about how we can all work together to get involved and to make a difference with these things. So we will have time at the end of my presentation for questions. So as we're going, if you wanna think of questions during the presentation, that would be great for at the end. And then I will do my best to answer them. And if I don't know the answer, I'm happy to find answers and then share them with you afterwards. So when we look at plastics, and really when Ocean Ambassadors started, it was the first issue we thought about was marine plastics or marine waste. So right now the latest stats are that in Canada every year we throw away 3 million tons of plastic and only 9% is recycled. So what really hits home for me is that, wow, just 9%. And we hear about all of these recycling programs and it's so great you can recycle soft plastic bags at London Drugs and all of these things, but wow, 9%. So there's something about recycling that isn't working. And one of the messages of Ocean Ambassadors is we really need to kind of rethink this whole recycling as being an answer to things. So we'll get into that a little bit more. So our Canada's federal goal is to have zero plastic waste by 2030. So that's a very ambitious goal. And in October, 2020, Canada announced six single use items that they would phase out. And the timing is a little bit ambiguous. So they're really kind of straightforward things. So plastic grocery bags, straws, stir sticks, the six pack rings, cutlery and food wear made from hard to recycle plastics. That just means styrofoam is what they're saying there. So those are all pretty like low, low bar kind of things that the federal government is aiming for. And unfortunately there was quite a lot of celebration when that came out last fall. And unfortunately what happened was when the federal government met with the provinces and the municipalities, it turned out that the federal government's mandate was actually to defer to provinces and municipalities and not to override any of them. So in all of the meetings between the municipalities and the provinces, it really turned out that this big announcement in 2020 hasn't been the panacea that we thought it would. And in fact, it's still coming down to the provinces and the municipalities. So in BC right now, our environment minister, George Heyman is actually taking action by approving municipal ban. So municipalities need to have the approval of the province for this. So they're actually doing that now, which is quite impressive. So the sort of most common one that people have heard of is Victoria's plastic bag ban. They introduced a plastic bag ban, I think in 2018. And then it was challenged by the plastic bag industry. And it ended up that going to court and to the Supreme Court. And it really is like, you know, big tobacco, almost big oil, the plastic industry fighting for that. So just in April 20, on April 21st of this year, Victoria re-implemented their plastic bag ban. And it seems to be going well so far, which is exciting. So that four other municipalities are, Yenonimo, Esquimalt. Do I have another one there? Oops, sorry. And what was, sorry, I can't see what the other one was in my, you guys are showing. But yeah, so the municipalities are, thank you. Yeah, so the municipalities are actually Smithers, yeah, are actually coming on board, which is really exciting. So I just wanted to give you a little bit of a background of the story of what's happening with all of these. And it seems like it should be so simple. So for example, in 2018, some people that are on this call may have been involved in the letter writing campaign for the district of North Vancouver. I believe I don't recall that whose kids wrote letters for them all. So that was a really big success. And the district of North Vancouver announced that they were gonna try to go forward with this legislation. And it was stalled by all of this confusion between the different jurisdictions. So that's just kind of like a background for Ocean Ambassadors. So Ocean Ambassadors started in 2017 and we're a charity, a federal charity. And our mission is to connect people with the ocean, educate them around the ocean and then really to inspire them to take action. So as Lynn mentioned, I started it with a friend of mine, it's really a passion project. I've wanted to do it for a really long time. And the idea is that without a connection to nature, we don't believe that we can have that affective change or really changing people's feelings about something. And the whole idea of the Jacques Cousteau, we protect what we love. So that's our basis is to get people to the ocean and to the beach. And we stand up paddling to get them on the ocean. And then we do workshops on the beach where we do really hands-on experiments around a lot around plastics in the ocean as well as different other pollutants in the ocean. So this group here, they're doing an experiment about the water column looking at the densities of plastic and how plastics may float at one point. But then once organisms start to live on them, their density increases and they may be found anywhere within the water column. And then they look at different plastics that sink and float and the effect on the ocean. This is another little experiment we do around bio magnification. So how plastic, bits of plastic and other pollutants are attracted to each other. And so when we're dealing with different sea creatures eating plastic, it's not just the plastic but it could be oil, it could be bits of fertilizer, pesticides that are attached to that plastic. And what is that doing to the food chains all through the ocean and then also to humans? And the research on that is still very new and we're not sure about the effect on humans but it'll be interesting to see in the next few years. What comes of that? So it's just another shot of our groups on the beach. And we do, one of my favorite activities that we do is we try to look at not only what kids in our programs can do right now. So these kids here are actually in grade 10 and we do programs for grade two all the way up to grade 12 with most of them being in the grade six to eight range. And one of the things that we wanna do is really engage them and inspire to take action not just now, but to consider careers in protecting the ocean. So the activity that these kids are working on is we imagine that it's 2051 and it's the World Ocean Summit in 2051. So they'll be 30 years older. So we get them to imagine, okay. So 30 years from now, you go to this World Ocean Summit and then we say, well, who's at the summit? Well, there's politicians and there's scientists and there's business people. And then we get them in small groups to decide who they wanna be at the summit. And then we say in 10 minutes you're going to announce what you've done that's solved the problem of plastics in our ocean. And so they just have to think really out of the box crazy. And then they come up with something and then they present it to the group. And the whole idea is to encourage creativity. And then we talk about how most of the world's big problems really were solved by somebody's out of the box crazy idea. So we talk about hanging onto your creativity. And then we talk about different careers in the ocean. So marine biology, we're looking for a materials engineer who can create some kind of a product that is as good as plastic in all of those ways but maybe it's good for fish, something like that. So we talk about all different ideas. And so these are some of the things that this is a grade six class. So they come up with what they could do individually, what they could do at their school and then what they could do in their community themselves at their age right now to take action. So the whole idea of being ocean ambassadors. And that was actually taken on Bowen Island. We do some programs in Bowen Island. So here's some more kids presenting and it's all done in a really fun way. And everything we do is at the beach. This is another one I just wanted to show you for fun. So this is somebody, they're gonna have a blimp which is the thing up high and they're gonna have hot air going down one side and cold air going down the other side. And so the hot and cold air are gonna mix in the ocean and then they're gonna have a contraction that's gonna capture all the plastic in the ocean. So just really sort of wild ideas that they're coming up with. And just another shot of them presenting. And then the idea, the water part of the sections, this is at Ambleside Beach is we teach them how to stand up paddle. So we give them a proper paddle lesson and then we get them out on the ocean. And we find a lot of kids haven't been on the ocean, stand up paddling. Many kids haven't been swimming in the ocean. And some kids in almost every class will be one or two kids who may be new to Canada or some kids that kids just don't live near the ocean where they've never been to the beach. So that's really rewarding. When we started Ocean Ambassadors we really started with the idea of providing opportunities mostly for kids that couldn't afford or for whatever reason they didn't have the opportunity to experience the beach. And we hope as we develop Ocean Ambassadors that we'll be able to offer more programs through help, through sponsorships and things. And we do some through return it. They sponsor us to do five schools every year where the kids don't have to pay. And those are just so rewarding too to provide opportunities for kids to get to the beach. And we really talk about ownership of their beach. They're out on the water. So we teach them proper paddling. And then we quickly move from that to jumping in the water. You can see this kid here has been jumping in the water and we do cannonballs and we do yoga until everybody falls off. It's usually tree pose that makes them fall off. There we go, some yoga. Just a group at the end of the day. So with Ocean Ambassadors we do our school program. So we also do summer camps. And the education portion has really evolved. So as I mentioned, when we started we started just talking about plastics in the ocean and at a very simple level, and that was four years ago and it's so impressive how the conversation and the level of knowledge in the community has grown in that time. It's incredible. So we evolve our programs every year and we have actually a marine biologist who works with us and helps us develop the programs. And it is incredible the knowledge that the kids come in with. And we always make sure that we're at the front edge of that knowledge. So really I think impressive what we're doing as far as education around pollution in the ocean. So we do some kids programs and then we also do a lot of community initiatives. So some of you may be aware of Horseshoe Bay went plastic bag free in 2019. And we as Ocean Ambassadors worked with Horseshoe Bay and we also worked with Deep Cove in 2018 went plastics draw free. And then finally Edgemont Village just before COVID started in February 2020. We got almost every business in Edgemont Village to stop using single use plastic carryout bags. And the idea of that work was to work with small business communities and then to engage the community, the shoppers by having volunteer pop up tents in the neighborhood. So kind of working with the businesses and with the consumers to come up with something. And so we just before COVID we actually had a big event or he had 240 people come to the church at in Edgemont Village, the United Church and celebrate and Jonathan Wilkinson came which is amazing. It's in his neighborhood to celebrate that. And so those actions we started working on with the idea that the governments take a really long time to take action. And so it's really important for to be the letter writing campaigns to be meeting with the politicians. And then we feel to support that we need to be acting, taking action like immediately to support that going forward. And the other things that we're up to is we offer some programs we've started offering some programs for small business coaching. So what we're doing with the help of Van City is we're actually going to small businesses and providing zero waste coaching in a very easy and formal way for them to do it. So we go to a lot of cafes and restaurants. We're working on the North Shore right now and we just do a very simple, quick audit of all of their single use items that they're using and provide a report with suggestions of what they might use that's more sustainable. So the classic one being they're using compostables and you talked about with Karen's story that that's actually less sustainable right now. So going in and just and helping them with suggestions of how they can become more sustainable. So that's been quite successful. So we've done and made differences in 73 businesses on the North Shore to date. So we're about and we're hoping to have 110 businesses is our goal. So those are kind of the main things that that we're up to with ocean ambassadors. And so I just wanted to talk a little bit about, so we talked about plastic and you've spoken with Karen's story, which is amazing. So I just wanted to kind of a quick overview of what are the, one of the big threats to the ocean and then to zero in on overfishing and then talk about marine protected areas. So overfishing, irresponsible fish farming, ghost fishing, marine waste or garbage acidification, dead zones, mercury pollution and then the warming of the ocean. So when we talk about people getting engaged and I think for Celine and Julie, I think one kind of neat opportunity might for us to work together and find maybe a couple of these where there could be action taken with working with governments and letter writing campaigns or whatever they might be and working together on those might be really fun. And according to what people are interested in. Okay, just I wanna talk a little bit about overfishing or fishing. So fishing, fish being the number one source of protein for over a billion people in the world, so amazing. And one of the things that came out in the movie, Seaspiracy, which I'm sure some of you have watched was kind of the message that, we should just not eat seafood. And that's very easy and privileged for us to say that when a lot of people in the world actually depend on seafood for their protein. So we know right now that overfishing really affects the animals at the top of the food chain. So when we start to wipe out the whales and the sharks and the tuna and the big fish, then it affects everything down the food chain, even greater. And so that's one of the big issues is the overfishing of these big fish. And as a lot of you are I'm sure aware, the problem of overfishing is very much related to the high seas or international waters. So countries only have control or are able to control what happens within their boundaries. And so when you get to 200 kilometers off any coast, it's international waters or what's called the high seas. And that really is there, nobody owns it, there is no way for anybody to stop anything from happening. And that's the cause of a lot of overfishing right now. And there is a lot of fishing that's taking place that where people are fishing without their electronic devices on. And it is really kind of the wild west. So there are organizations that are tracking through satellites because everybody has a GPS and if they have it on or even on the boat, it'll be able to track where they are. So there's people that are actually taking them off and then they're just out without it, but people are now using just the lights that they have on their fishing boats to track them and to try and catch them when they go back to their home port. So very difficult problem to solve. And the United Nations has looked at actually or is trying to grapple with how do we solve this problem? Like how do we make it so that the world could police the high seas? So a really, really big problem. Which brings us to marine protected areas. And I just wanna skip forward here and I wanna show you this is a map of Canada. So right now Canada has our 6% of our coastal waters are marine protected areas, which means that for whatever reason there's their areas of significance. So for example, right near us, we have these amazing glass sponges, they're actually coral off of our coast. So in the marine protected areas, there's limited, so there's no shellfish fishing and there's no anchoring. And often there's actually no fishing in different and it depends on the area. So very powerful when they work. And in Canada, we're actually not too bad, at least in the southern marine protected areas, we're quite good at policing those. But around the world, it's not the same situation at all. So there are many, many areas of the world where there are lots of marine protected areas, but in reality, there's not much being protected, there's still being abused those areas. So our goal is to have 30% Canada, 30% of our coastal waters protected by 2030. So we say 30 by 30. So that's actually land and water. We're at 6% right now. And the plan is in place, the federal government to move up to that. So it's gonna be 25 by 25, I think. And the federal government is just about to make a big announcement around marine protected areas. They were trying to have it ready for World Oceans Day on June 8th, but I guess something happened, it wasn't quite ready back up here. So when we talk about marine protected areas, it is a really great way for us to start protecting habitats and to start restoring fish stocks that have been depleted. And in Canada, we actually do have a really great sort of system and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans creating, mapping out the areas that need to be protected. So I'm actually really hopeful about marine protected areas in Canada. And internationally, it's harder, but it is on everybody's radar. So yeah, so 64% of the ocean is not in anybody's jurisdiction. So that's at high seas that we talked about. And I think another really interesting stat that nobody thinks about is that 50% of the earth's oxygen, and we often hear, yep, 50%, every second breath comes from the ocean, you've probably heard that. But I think it's so cool that it's from the ocean's phytoplankton, which are just these tiny, tiny animals that live in the ocean. So, so cool that it's from these little, little creatures that we get every second breath. And the impact of when we do have these marine protected areas is, they just chose a thousand percent, I think. It's just astronomical. So it can go, populations can thrive to the point that we have to then get them back to some kind of a balance. So super, super effective marine protected areas. And there are organizations in BC that focus on marine protected areas that David Suzuki Foundation is one of them. So what can we do as members of, for our kids or interested parties or ocean ambassadors? So we can work to affect policy. So I think for our kids, sounds like you're doing a really great job of that. Ocean ambassadors currently has a letter writing campaign to minister Wilkinson, our federal environment minister, to encourage him to make the climate change a priority, a higher priority for Canada and to take more of old action. We can educate ourselves and our kids. And I think our friends is a really big one as well. So having those conversations with our friends and family, we can act individually. And I don't know if Karen's story said in her talk, but I really think her line of, what I do doesn't make a difference, said two million people, right? So if we all do make those individual changes, so if we don't get that coffee in the single use cup, and all of us start doing that, that actually can have a huge impact. And then inspire groups and communities to take action. So Sylvia Earl is kind of my hero. So you may have heard of her. She's one of the world's best known marine biologists. And I actually got to go to the World Ocean Summit in 2019 in Mexico and I met her and she's just incredible. She's like four and a half feet tall and very small. And this powerful, like the most powerful person in the room, just this incredible woman. And this quote really, I think sums it up for what we need to be doing now and then taking action. So our actions over the next 10 years will determine the state of the ocean for the next 10,000 years. So putting that time limit on it really is like, okay, we really need to take action.