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The Live Lightly Podcast, hosted by Jessica Franklin, a busy mom, wellness enthusiast, and Mother Nature lover, focuses on living a sustainable and healthy lifestyle and empowering busy moms to do the same. Jessica shares her journey of eliminating chemicals and plastic from her household and discusses the challenges of finding truly sustainable products amongst greenwashing. The podcast features interviews with founders of sustainable companies, who share their stories and the obstacles they faced to make their products healthy for you and the planet. Experts on environmental issues and chemicals also provide insights on the connection between household products and food and people's health and the environment. The Live Lightly Podcast empowers and inspires busy moms to make sustainable choices for their families and Mother Earth!
Jessica (00:00)
Hello and welcome back to the Live Lightly podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Franklin. And today I'm so excited to bring you such a special guest. Her name is Jo Rexton. She's the founder of Ocean Generation, a UK charity that brings the ocean to everyone everywhere by translating complex science into engaging content, programs, and practical actions. She is an engaging speaker and passionate campaigner for the ocean. One of my favorite.
Things on the Planet. She has addressed audiences from schools to corporations, parliaments and governments throughout the world after producing her award-winning Netflix documentary, A Plastic Ocean. Jo's expertise in ocean health is anchored by a three-decade long career in marine conservation and her travels to 22 locations around the world where she's met with scientists who have dedicated their lives to studying the environment and human impacts
Jo Ruxton (00:29)
My turn.
Jessica (00:56)
of ocean threats like plastic pollution. Welcome to Live Lightly podcast, Joe. Thank you for being here.
Jo Ruxton (01:02)
Thank you, Jessica. It's a pleasure to be here.
Jessica (01:06)
my gosh. So I just have to start by saying that when I very first reached out to you, I had no idea actually who you were you've done so much in your career. It's amazing that I didn't know who you were.
especially because your documentary was, I want to say, the very first one that I watched immediately when I learned about plastic pollution. You know, of course I started digging and that's the first thing I found. It was back in 2017. My son was in kindergarten and we were, it was Earth Day and the service at my spiritual center was having kind of an Earth Day celebration and
Jo Ruxton (01:28)
Hmm.
Yes.
Jessica (01:47)
you know, education during service. And that's when I learned about plastic pollution. I was quite aware of a lot of the other things going on in the environment, but that was not one of them. And so I just, you know, dug right in and, and, and learned everything I could about it because I thought, my gosh, I was being, you know, a good recycler and, and, and it's ending up in the ocean. Really?
Jo Ruxton (01:49)
Hmm.
Jessica (02:16)
So yes, thank you for that documentary and I just want to welcome you to talk about your career and what led you to that and then we'll talk about your current organization and what amazing work you're doing with that.
Jo Ruxton (02:30)
Gosh, it's been quite a windy road, my career. Probably best to start at the most relevant bit was I was based in Hong Kong, raising my family there. And I ended up working for WWF and Wildlife Not Wrestlers, my hasten to add. And I've been invited to start their marine program because nothing was being done to protect the marine environment.
and the government only had legislation to protect above the high water mark. So nothing in the ocean, nothing in the shoreline. And Hong Kong's a very interesting place. People think of it as high rise and finance and very crowded. But in fact, that's not the case. 40 % is country park and only about 20 % has actually been built on.
Jessica (03:17)
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (03:26)
lots of islands that are uninhabited, there's beaches, there's so much more to Hong Kong and it also has more species of coral than the whole of the Caribbean, plus a resonant population of pink dolphins and another of finless porpoises and nobody seemed to know about it. And to make matters worse, when I joined, they were about to start building Hong Kong's new airport, which was a six kilometer platform
Jessica (03:38)
Wow.
Jo Ruxton (03:55)
right in the area where the dolphins were using as their nursery ground. And then they were taking the sand to create that platform from the area where the corals were, washing the sand on site and smothering the corals in silt. But it's hard to argue with people, many of whom had come from overseas, to think about how to protect these places when even the local scientists had no idea.
that they were there. And when I say local scientists, I mean the biology teachers who had grown up in Hong Kong, because nothing, there was just no thought about the ocean. And if people don't know about something, they can't care. I think what impressed me the most was how much people cared once they knew and how quickly it was to turn things around. Getting legislation in for the first marine protected areas to
Jessica (04:40)
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (04:52)
four years to bring in the first four, there's now seven. If you compare that to New Zealand, it was a 12 year journey to get their first marine protected areas in. But the other thing was noticing the change in people once they cared. The pink dolphin that nobody knew about, by the time the handover from Britain to Hong Kong came, the dolphin was featuring on many of the souvenirs that were going out at the time. And it's certainly
know, the tourists know about it. It's really something that's really captivated the hearts of the people there. And that to me was very positive because it's something you mentioned Sylvia Earle when we were talking earlier. She has a statement that's so true and it's if you don't care, if you don't know, you can't care and you might not care even if you do know but
Jessica (05:38)
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (05:50)
You definitely won't if you don't know what's happening. So that hasn't been a direct quote. That was a very model up version, but sorry, Sylvia. But it's true. We can only care about things we know about. And certainly I saw that change happen in Hong Kong. I then was leaving Hong Kong to do a complete career change and went from the top of my field on a nosedive to the bottom, which was starting at the BBC. I had so much to learn.
Jessica (05:51)
You
We get it.
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (06:20)
It was something that had interested me so much. And when I found out that they were doing a brand new series all about the ocean, I was very excited and very lucky to have been chosen to be part of the original Blue Planet team. That was the start of 12 years of making mostly underwater documentaries. I was on the diving team for the whole of the BBC and looking at safety.
and so I tended to be put on the underwater shows, not entirely but mostly, and had some incredible experiences and incredible access to some of the most beautiful places on the planet. But what was happening in the programmes we produced, we were only showing one side of the story, we were portraying the oceans as if they were full of fish and clean, and also that there's no people around. And of course that wasn't what we were seeing.
Jessica (07:14)
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (07:17)
Having been diving for four decades now, I have seen huge changes in what's going on. And certainly the things we witnessed on location were not exactly what you were seeing on the screen. It was heavily edited. And I just thought if we keep showing the ocean this way, then people are going to continue to treat it as a reciprocal for our trash and our pollution, and that it will never be.
protected as it needs to be. I kept putting environmental messages into the films that I worked on, but they were always taken out. And I was constantly told that people aren't interested in conservation. And I didn't think that was the case, but I also thought, well, how can they be if they don't know where the problems are? So I wanted to make a change.
Jessica (07:49)
Mm-hmm.
you
Jo Ruxton (08:14)
and was feeling quite frustrated. And then there was an opportunity for voluntary redundancies. So I looked into that and this was 16 years ago that they were offered. And I was looking at, you know, what my chances are staying on in the BBC and was told by two separate people in personnel that although everyone was very happy with my work, I'd never get any higher than producer because I was an older woman.
So many things, 16 years since, it was enough to kind of make me hit the go button and do my own film. That was a lot harder than I thought it was gonna be because I was looking for a subject that people could understand and make a difference in their own personal habitats. I was quite interested in ocean acidification.
Jessica (08:55)
Hmm.
Jo Ruxton (09:09)
But it's a hard hitting subject. It's linked to climate change. There wasn't a lot of information on that taught in schools at the time. It was almost an emerging subject. I chose plastic because also that wasn't being taught anywhere. Even the green groups weren't looking at it. But to me, was something, a concept that's very easy to change. The fact that we're calling items disposable.
Jessica (09:18)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (09:36)
when they're made out of a material that's designed not to break down is completely crazy. And once you think about that in your head, it's very easy to come up with alternatives and not to use it in the first place. know, I'm old enough to remember times when buying water in a plastic bottle was an absolute joke. And why we do it, particularly if you're
lucky enough as both of us are to live in a country where you can turn on the tap and get clean water, what on earth are we doing, particularly now that we know about the transfer of chemicals that can go from plastic into the items that they're wrapping up. So that to me was something that I could easily explain and easily change, but I had no idea of how interested people would be in the subject of plastic pollution. I'd originally
Jessica (10:06)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (10:30)
thought that it was just a matter of it being an eyesore, that animals were getting entangled in it, some were ingesting it and dying from that. I had no idea about the link to human health from the chemicals in plastics. So suddenly my idea, I felt needed a legacy rather than just a film that people might watch and then talk about for a bit and then, you know, onto the next. This was something that we needed to know because plastic was being produced more and more.
Jessica (10:55)
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (10:58)
and people were relying on it more and more without even thinking about the consequences. So the film took a very long time. Fundraising was very difficult and the whole process for me personally was eight years. And I never dreamed that that was gonna be the case, but it did end up on Netflix for the first five years, which was great. And I understand was the most watched documentary originally and remains the second most watched.
That absolutely spells out the fact that people want to know. We need to be responsible, but people already are. So many people told me during the process, no one's gonna watch a film on plastic pollution. Five minutes on YouTube is enough. Why on earth are you making a feature film? But I'd invested too much of my life, even though I thought, yeah, you're right. But I had invested too much of my life in this. So to get the opportunity to complete it and to see how interested people are.
Jessica (11:32)
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (11:57)
So much has happened since, you know, with interest and with legislation around the world. I'm glad I did it, but it was the hardest time of my life. I've got to have a cup of tea after all that.
Jessica (12:11)
Yeah. my gosh. Thank you. So, so much that you said there. I don't even know where to begin, so did you learn about the impact on human health as you were filming the documentary or, yeah.
Jo Ruxton (12:27)
Yes, and it's a very difficult one to measure because you can't legally experiment on humans. The link that I was told when I originally went out to the centre of the North Pacific with a team of six scientists was that plastic has a two-way reaction with chemicals. chemicals are used
the manufacturer of plastic and these can leach out and they can leach into the ocean or into into the bodies of the animals that end up feeding on them, but they also will attract chemicals like a magnet from the day that plastic goes into the water, so the longer it is in the ocean the more of these it will attract.
Jessica (12:58)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And these chemicals you're speaking about are chemicals that run off into the ocean from the earth like pesticides and things like that Okay
Jo Ruxton (13:21)
Yes, from agriculture and industry and yes, you know, just the general pollutants that go out. So the chemicals we're talking about have been linked to all kinds of critical disease from autoimmune deficiencies, cancer, infertility, cognitive and behavioral disorders. A lot of these things you're hearing more and more about. Now, what happens when plastic goes into the ocean is it doesn't break down, but it breaks up.
Jessica (13:28)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (13:50)
When it's subjected to sunlight, to wave action, salt water, it gets brittle, know old plastic gets brittle, and it breaks up into smaller and smaller pieces. So then there are more surfaces available for these chemicals. And you might think, well, I don't eat the guts of a fish, know, if the fish eats it, that's a shame. But the thing these chemicals like more than plastic is fat. So when it's consumed by the fish, it gets released and stored in their fatty tissue. And those are the bits that are consumed by humans.
Jessica (13:56)
Mm-hmm.
Right? Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (14:19)
Whilst we have a choice of whether to eat fish or not, many people rely on fish as their main source of protein. So the fact that we know that this is bad for the planet, bad for human health, very bad for the ocean and everything in it, why on earth are we continuing to let it go in there? I don't care what solutions people come up with, it has to be one that stops plastic getting into the environment.
Jessica (14:24)
Mm-hmm.
Yes, and ultimately you would hope eventually someday stops plastic from getting into consumers hands at all in the first place.
Jo Ruxton (14:57)
There is that, but don't forget, plastic is an incredible material. And it's saved nature many times. I think of all the schools I go into where the pupils are sitting on plastic seats, lots of audiences that are on plastic seats. If we were cutting down trees to provide all of that furniture, we'd have made much more of a dent in our forest than we already are. People that wear glasses, these were made from turtle shell.
Jessica (15:02)
Yes.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (15:26)
And containers were made from turtle shell too. Beautiful hawksbill turtles were slaughtered for their shells. There's lots and lots of ways that you can think of plastic saving nature. And in medicine, you can't beat it. I mean, for preventing infection, two of my granddaughters were born prematurely, one very prematurely. And so they had single use plastic to allow them to breathe, to feed them, to bring the medicine that they need.
Jessica (15:26)
Mm-mm. Mm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Agreed.
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Jo Ruxton (15:55)
And I honestly believe that without single-use plastic, those little girls wouldn't be in my life. So it's very important that we use it for the right thing. But making things like cigarette lighters you can't refill, butter dishes when you can wrap your butter in paper and use your own dish, know, soap that's in a plastic bottle when it runs out, you buy another plastic bottle, when you can use solid soap. There's so many examples of ways you can get single-use plastic.
Jessica (16:00)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (16:25)
out of your life and that's what I think people need to do but the one I want governments to do right away is to stop selling it in plastic bottles in countries where the water is clean enough to drink.
Jessica (16:31)
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely. Yeah, a time and a place, right? You know, because if you went to a country where the water wasn't potable, you'd be drinking out of a plastic water bottle. Right? Of course, like that's time and place. But like, and your examples, of course, of in the hospital, time and place, life saving, not everyday use for billions of people around the planet, especially in places with no infrastructure for
Jo Ruxton (16:39)
Yes.
And I have done, and I'm sure I will again.
Yes.
Hmm, yes, yes.
No.
Jessica (17:06)
And we don't even have the right correct infrastructure to recycle it here.
Jo Ruxton (17:09)
No, no we don't. We've been sending ours overseas for a very long time and to countries that we knew had no way of dealing with it. It's wrong on so many levels.
Jessica (17:21)
Well, that's really how it's entering the ocean, correct? It's not entering the ocean because we're dumping it into our oceans.
Jo Ruxton (17:24)
Yes.
Well, some of us do. I mean, some people will drop, I mean, if you drop plastic on the street, all of our streets are designed to drain rainwater away. It's going to find a way.
Jessica (17:31)
Sure, but we're not, it will, that's so true, but that's, I would say we're not dumping it directly into the ocean, we're shipping it to other countries and paying them to take it and they're dumping it into the ocean and that's how it's getting there, is that correct? Yeah. Same.
Jo Ruxton (17:46)
Well, they will.
Yes, yes, yeah, or they dump it into rivers or even in forests and things, you know, it gets washed in, it'll find a way.
Jessica (17:58)
Yes, yeah, well, and all waterways lead to the ocean. And here I am like, you know, and so I know exactly what you're talking about. I'm, as the crow flies a mile away from the Pacific Ocean on the West Coast of the US. And so yes, all of our drains, if the plastic bottle in the gutter makes it down the drain, it's going to the ocean.
So that's how it makes it into the ocean here. And luckily we have so many wonderful organizations and people who do cleanups around our beaches that we don't really have to have the inconvenience of seeing it in our ocean or on the beaches too much. I mean, it's there. Like every time I go, can definitely pick up a little small bag full of plastics, especially the tiny little ones as they break down the micro plastic pieces.
Jo Ruxton (18:42)
Yeah, you find it.
Yes and then the nanoplastics we're only just beginning to find out about and they're getting into the air.
Jessica (18:51)
Mm-hmm.
Right. Yeah. And that's, mean, so we're really just, it's like a very big vicious cycle that we're creating and it's very hard to clean up almost impossible because it won't ever fully go away. it just gets smaller and smaller and then the chemicals in it leach into everything that it's touching. Yes. And so just getting back to like what you said, using things that are not
Jo Ruxton (19:08)
Mm.
Exactly. Yes.
Jessica (19:22)
packaged in plastic in our day to day lives can be a huge way that people, have power to contribute to making a positive change and shifting in a new direction, just turning the tides, I guess we could say. And so I guess this leads us into the work that you've done since making the documentary. You're now...
Jo Ruxton (19:24)
Hmm.
Exactly.
Jessica (19:47)
heading up an organization that I would love to hear all about because I think it's just wonderful what you're doing to provide education to children.
Jo Ruxton (19:56)
Not just children, actually. I would call it everybody because for me, every day is a school day and I don't see why any of us should stop learning. But certainly a lot of our programs have been geared towards the under 25s, whether it's through gaming, through more formal schooling or some of the programs that we're running with young people. So we started off the first 12 years working only in the plastics arena and having seen
Jessica (19:59)
It's true.
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (20:25)
the changes that have happened and how many other organisations are now looking at those problems and producing education materials. I wanted to move on. I wanted to move on for myself as well. But also I'd seen what was happening with companies realising that people were interested in some of the more difficult environmental subjects. It kind of initiated an absolute slew of
negative, sensationalist doom and gloom documentaries. And to me that's even worse because if people think there's no hope, not only does eco-anxiety grow, but people think there's no point trying. And that's why we changed our name to Ocean Generation. I honestly feel that
Jessica (20:58)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (21:18)
This particular time on the planet is like no other because we have never had all of the information that we have now to find out where we've made our mistakes. We have all the science behind them and we have all the solutions that can put things right. Our biggest challenge is getting the right people on board. So corporations, governments, politicians, whoever is not
Jessica (21:43)
Yeah.
Jo Ruxton (21:46)
doing the right thing and there's so much information out there, there's just no excuse for carrying on. I saw something today on Facebook, was actually Sylvia Earle's daughter had posted it, showing factory ships fishing for krill. Now this is to go to expensive restaurants around the world, very few people that could afford to eat it, but huge amounts of krill.
Krill is the heartbeat of the whole Antarctica system. From seals to seabirds to whales to penguins, they all rely on krill to exist. If we start taking all of that away, it's hard enough for it because part of its life cycle, it needs ice. And obviously that's decreasing too. Why is it allowed? Why are these people even considering doing it when we know it's wrong? So that's where the
Jessica (22:13)
Hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (22:42)
challenges, getting these people to understand and to change their ways. But the other side that we're doing is putting hope back because of the fact that we have all this knowledge, because of the fact that yes, these things are happening, but we know what we can do about it. And it's not just that. We are taught very little about the ocean when we're growing up. Even when I go to schools now and I ask the students and the teachers, where do we get our oxygen from?
Jessica (22:59)
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (23:12)
Most of them will say the trees. And they're not wrong. We do get some from trees. We get 20%. Why aren't we taught from the earliest age that half of our oxygen comes from the ocean, that it absorbs much of our CO2, that it's also our biggest ally in climate change because it's absorbing the heat that we produce. The global temperature now of the ocean around the world, the average, I'm sorry, the average temperature is
Jessica (23:14)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (23:41)
15 degrees. I can't think what that is in Fahrenheit, but I know 16 is 61. If the ocean wasn't absorbing that heat, the average temperature would be 50 degrees centigrade. And I'm sorry, you're going to have to look that one up, because everybody's on centigrade apart from the US. But that's a challenge for you. But can you imagine that? And that's the average. We're not talking about the equatorial areas. So the ocean's doing that for us.
Jessica (23:46)
Okay.
Right, Okay.
Jo Ruxton (24:08)
It is our biggest ally. It keeps us alive. Why don't we grow up knowing that we might treat it better? So that's the other thing is to get people to love the ocean, understand how important it is for our very existence, but also to enchant them with some of the amazing wildlife that's in there. You can't help loving it when you read about some of these creatures. I mean, as a diver, I see them, I hear them. There's so much that fascinates me, but people just feel this disconnect.
Jessica (24:14)
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (24:37)
from the ocean. And to give you an example of that, I was asked to speak at a conference that was being held in Kazakhstan. And one of the questions I had was, why should I care about the ocean? Kazakhstan doesn't even have a coast. And I said, because every second breath you take comes from the ocean. So you need to respect it and care about it. He said, I had no idea that's going to be my take home from this whole conference. And that's the effect that we want Ocean Generation to have.
Jessica (24:37)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
you
Jo Ruxton (25:05)
let people realize it's so fundamental and to make sure that it becomes part of all schooling because it absolutely has to be.
Jessica (25:15)
tell me a little bit about your how people can bring it into their schooling if they wanted to because I feel like you can access it either at home or if you're a teacher you could access your programs. Yeah
Jo Ruxton (25:27)
Yes, absolutely. On our website it's all there. The Ocean Academy has programs that they can download. Just keep an eye on the website. There's so much happening. And also, anyone who's on Instagram, firstly, anybody who follows us on Instagram, we will plant one mangrove tree for every follow, which is something good, because did you know one mangrove tree will sequester four times the carbon that a terrestrial tree will?
Jessica (25:49)
I love that.
Hmm.
Jo Ruxton (25:57)
So don't think of them as swamps and dirty areas where Shrek lives. These are beautiful trees and they're a critical habitat. So that's one thing you can do, but also on Instagram, every day there's something that's gonna fascinate you. And I've been studying and working in the marine field for so long and I absolutely love our Instagram posts and I take absolutely no credit for it. It's our brilliant social media team.
Jessica (25:59)
Hehehehe... Hehehehe...
Yes.
It's so fascinating.
No?
Really, it's amazing. So that's how I originally stumbled upon your organization. It was just coming into my feed and because this is the kind of stuff I'm into, of course. And so it was there and I just, you know, one day I had time and I clicked on it and I looked at a lot of your different posts that you offer and instead of gloom and doom, it was definitely an educational experience and beautiful pictures and videos and at the same time,
Jo Ruxton (26:24)
You did. You did.
Yes. Yeah.
Cheers!
Jessica (26:50)
is educating people about what the problems are in a lighter way so that it's not so heavy and doom and gloomy. I think it's a nice approach for attracting people who are maybe not so into it as I am.
Jo Ruxton (26:59)
Yes.
No, absolutely. And the other thing which I think is really important is the way that we are trying to reach 50 million people and turn them into what we're calling imperfect environmentalists. One of the problems that people get worried about is that they think that to save the planet they have to be vegan, they have to never drive a car, they can never fly, they can't go on a boat with an engine, they have to be zero waste.
Jessica (27:22)
You
Jo Ruxton (27:34)
all of these things and there are people that live like that and I have nothing but admiration for them. But if everybody changed one thing, even if it was not buying water in a plastic bottle, each person, if 50 million people did that, the difference that would make is far greater than the handful of people that are doing everything. I'm a perfect example of an imperfect environmentalist. I'm not even vegetarian. I drive a car, yes, it's a hybrid.
Jessica (27:38)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (28:03)
I do fly because I go to other places to give talks or to do filming. And I'm certainly spending a lot of time on boats. I'm pretty good with my waste, the waste side of things. I do what I can and I try and tell people as much as I can to get the message out there. it's, you know, being imperfect environmentalist rather than carrying on contributing to the problem because you think it won't make any difference. It will. And if you tell 10 people, that's the other thing. If you tell 10 people.
Jessica (28:09)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Jo Ruxton (28:32)
about something like the plastic and then each of those 10 tell 10 people the next day and 10 of those the next day and so it goes on after 10 days you could reach the population of the planet that's the power of 10.
Jessica (28:34)
Yes.
I didn't know that.
Jo Ruxton (28:47)
Yeah, work it out. It's quite interesting. I had to put it on paper.
Jessica (28:52)
That is incredible. You would think it'd be like after a thousand days, you could reach the entire planet. But wow, that is truly amazing. So if you just think about it that way, why wouldn't you talk about it? Yeah, yeah, we do have power. And I love that message. And I'm like you, I'm, doing everything that I can. But nothing is perfect. And, you know, still driving car and,
Jo Ruxton (28:56)
Yeah, no.
Yeah, you can be very powerful as an individual.
Jessica (29:16)
eating meat, but just choosing different ways and doing it less often. Yes, and the meat that I eat is from a regenerative farm here locally, right in Southern California and not shipping it across from Uruguay or something. Yes.
Jo Ruxton (29:19)
Yeah, doing more vegetable days.
Exactly. And also, if people are stuck, just again, going to our website, OceanGeneration.org, there's so much information on there that they can use and just follow because we do want to bring the ocean to everyone everywhere, not in a scary tsunami type way, just in a way that makes them fall in love with it because that's what's going to get people to want to protect it.
Jessica (29:40)
Yeah. Yes.
Right.
I agree. I would like to talk just a little bit in depth.
you have a program for it's 16 to 25 could you talk a little bit about that specifically
Jo Ruxton (30:07)
Yeah, but that's kind of, that's the bracket, but people younger and people older, people up in their 60s have been following those, the Wavemaker course. You can sign up for one for free. You will learn so much about yourself as well as learning about the ocean. And the whole point of it was to make people understand how they can bring an element of sustainability into whatever job they end up doing and how they can influence others.
Jessica (30:18)
Yes. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (30:37)
And the first part of it is called finding your superpower. And finding your superpower looks at the things that you love doing, the things that you have done, the things that you're good at, what you value in life, and getting the combination of those and matching them to things that you could do that you might never have considered that would be right up your street.
Jessica (30:37)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yep. That's what I love about it. That is exactly what I love about it. because it teaches them to bring in this new element of what they just learned into whatever else they have done in the past that they loved. And, and I just, it is so magic. So, thank you for creating that because it's, it's a resource that I think, like you said, could be for anyone, you know.
Jo Ruxton (31:05)
Bye.
Exactly.
Yes, yes.
It's very much a team effort. Now this is, don't thank me, honestly, I have an incredible team of people that I work with.
Jessica (31:27)
And yeah, so I think that when you said up to 60, I mean it's endless really though, like you could be retired and do this.
Jo Ruxton (31:36)
gosh, yes, absolutely. I'm actually developing one for older people called Wavemakers Beyond because I feel, you know, I'm at the wrong end of 60 now and I feel that there's so much that people like me can give back. We've all experienced so much in life. We've all coped with a lot and women aren't suddenly gonna...
Jessica (31:42)
I love it.
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (31:59)
take a year off to maternity leave. You know, we're here and if there's still things you want to give back and influence the younger people, then there's so many reasons why they would actually gain from this. So I'm looking forward to it.
Jessica (32:06)
Mm-hmm.
I just love that because, you know, I think a lot of people end up getting a little bit bored and they don't feel like they fit in and there's, you know, but this is an amazing way to, to redirect.
Jo Ruxton (32:22)
Yes.
Yes, and people get invisible as they're older. You join conversations and people just don't think you want to be part of it. Eyes go past you. I don't like that. I just feel that we've all lived lives. We can turn our experience into something if we want to. And not only that, what you put in, you get out as well. So having another purpose at this side of your life, I think, is only to be encouraged.
Jessica (32:35)
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
I agree, definitely. And look at her. She's 82, I believe. that 90? She's 89? my gosh. Wow. That is...
Jo Ruxton (32:57)
Look at Sylvia!
No, no, she's 90 next year.
Yep. And David Attenborough is going to be 99 next year.
Jessica (33:14)
Wow. No. Yeah, it's like their second, their second wind. Yes. Well, I mean, Sylvia has just never ended, right? Like her career has just continued on and on. She is.
Jo Ruxton (33:15)
And he hasn't stopped.
Yeah.
Yeah, she's amazing and very positive when you think what she's witnessed in the way the oceans have changed. And yet she's still excited about it and still feels there's so much that we can do.
Jessica (33:39)
Yes, and can you, I just want to go back to that just a little bit before we wrap up the changes that you've seen over the years of being in the ocean from day one to today. I would love to hear what you've seen besides plastic, populations.
Jo Ruxton (33:45)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Yes, mean, it's yeah, there's there's there are still a lot of places to celebrate. And actually one of the programs that Sylvia has is Hope Spots, where she finds places that are very prolific and so much biodiversity and then looks to protect those. I've definitely seen changes in coral reefs. I've seen a lot of bleaching and corals being covered by algae as they've died.
Jessica (34:03)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (34:24)
But at the same time, I've also witnessed a recovery and replanting of corals and how quickly they can recover. So again, it's a case of protecting areas and putting funding into these kind of programs because they work. Also, how quickly areas can recover when you give them a break. Certainly marine protected areas and the ones that I've witnessed, areas where there were very few fish.
Jessica (34:43)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (34:54)
because they were in the favorite fishing grounds of the local fishermen. And once those have been protected and the fishermen involved in the discussions because they need to know that, you they're as much an endangered species as the fish. And to continue that livelihood, these areas need protected because need protecting because the fish that come out from them will give a much higher
Jessica (34:59)
you
Jo Ruxton (35:22)
yield of fish once they're working properly and if the guidelines are adhered to, guidelines and rules, and they do recover quickly and they will then appreciate that this needs to be done. So protecting these areas works, coral restoration works, and those kind of things I have witnessed and those always give me hope.
Jessica (35:29)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (35:52)
I also, since I started, nobody was talking about the ocean in politics, but now there are global ocean conferences where world leaders come together and discuss them. Whether they actually get involved themselves, I'm sure there's a lot of advice going on and other people taking on the mantle, but that was never happening before. The very idea that we would have world ocean summits, our ocean conferences, and so on.
Jessica (36:05)
Mm.
Jo Ruxton (36:21)
again gives me hope because I see this as a snowball effect. Once more and more people realize how important a healthy ocean is, then more people will realize and then more people realize and then, you know, more is going to be done. And I've certainly seen those changes taking place. And I never would have dreamed that I really wouldn't, you even when I worked for WWF, it was such a new topic, ocean conservation. Whereas now it's,
Jessica (36:48)
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (36:50)
Of course we've got to protect the ocean. it's not such an uphill battle as getting people to understand. So that's good.
Jessica (37:00)
Yes, and I just love all the positive things that you've seen take place and how can people be a part of that change on their own? We've talked a little bit about just making personal changes in how much plastic we consume, the things that we can avoid, but also how else can we help the ocean in our day-to-day lives or just in general?
Jo Ruxton (37:06)
Yes.
Learn about it, talk to people about it, set examples. If you start with plastic, that's probably the easiest one. But writing to government and asking them, telling them about the problems that we've got. We've got one at the moment here where I live in Cornwall, where licenses to farm seaweed have been given out in an area that's very important for cetaceans and other wildlife on the coast. And these have been given out.
Jessica (37:27)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jo Ruxton (37:55)
in huge amounts that it's still under discussion. when seaweed farms can be amazing, seaweed is such an incredible substance, but it needs to be put in the right place and not somewhere where it's going to grow and block out the light and affect all of the other animals that are there. So when there are petitions and people are making a noise locally, get involved. You will learn more by doing that anyway. And then when you do get the results, it just makes you realize that
Jessica (38:04)
Yeah.
Right?
Jo Ruxton (38:24)
solutions are tangible. So find out as much as you can. Question things as well. Why is it a problem when we have a seaweed farm here? Well, seaweed farms in essence aren't, but find out what you can so that you can speak with a bit of authority, discuss it. We have something also on our website called an ocean conversation pack. And it's a lot of information.
Jessica (38:38)
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Jo Ruxton (38:51)
that people can use to get these conversations started, whether it's at schools, whether it's at a group where people meet, youth clubs, things like that. It gives them a lot of information and ideas to get the ocean as one of the subjects that people have on their minds much, much more, because they'll understand more and they'll also realize the things that they can do. There's all sorts of ideas in there. It's a fantastic resource.
Jessica (38:58)
Mm-hmm.
That's wonderful. Your whole website is a fantastic resource. So we'll just direct them. Yeah.
Jo Ruxton (39:19)
Thank you on behalf of my colleagues. Everyone works together and supports each other in Ocean Generation.
Jessica (39:26)
Yes, it's a beautiful website and the resources are amazing. So please check them out. They're like you said, there's something for everyone ages one to one to 100. And yeah, just find a way to get involved with learning about the ocean. And then also, I wanted to point out that you are available to do speaking as well for educating groups or
Jo Ruxton (39:34)
Yeah, there is.
Jessica (39:53)
at schools, I'm assuming you can speak and how would people get in touch with you and can you speak remotely to groups? How does that work? Okay.
Jo Ruxton (40:01)
I've done both, actually. I've done both. There is information about speaking events on the website too, so they can find out if they're interested in having me as a speaker and other members of our team too.
Jessica (40:13)
Okay, yeah, because you speak so well about all, I mean, you've lived it. So someone who's lived it and has seen it and experienced it, right? All of the experience that you have is just inspiring for sure. So thank you for inspiring us and empowering us with your work and.
Jo Ruxton (40:20)
Yeah, the experience helps.
Thank you.
It's absolute pleasure.
Jessica (40:38)
Yeah, and also I wanted to mention that there is apparel that you sell on your website and hopefully some of that supports your organization. Because it's beautiful. It's beautiful gift. If you want to give a physical gift to someone, there's like grocery bags and mugs and organic cotton t-shirts. Yes.
Jo Ruxton (40:43)
yes! I'm excited about that! Christmas is coming!
lovely new t-shirts, yeah, and sweatshirts, really nice stuff.
Jessica (41:03)
And I love that it's organic cotton because sometimes you'll find that organizations are selling swag stuff to help them raise money and it's not organic cotton or anything that I would want to wear. like, wait. Yes. Yeah. So thanks for keeping that in alignment as well. It's beautiful. And it's been the artwork is created by, yes.
Jo Ruxton (41:05)
Yes.
No, it had to be.
Gorgeous. Yeah, by some of our, the students that have been working with us and telling stories. It's amazing actually.
Jessica (41:31)
Yes, it is. So that's another wonderful resource for the holidays and for yourself maybe as a little gift to check out on their website on your website and it's Oceangeneration.org. And as well on your Instagram, it's Oceangeneration. Okay.
Jo Ruxton (41:44)
Thank
Yes. Yes.
Jessica (41:51)
All right, well, that's wonderful. That's how you can connect with ocean generation. And Joe, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day. I know you're ready to go take a plunge in the ocean, because...
Jo Ruxton (42:00)
I am actually, yes, it's still sunny and thank you for featuring us. That's wonderful, Jessica.
Jessica (42:07)
Yeah, well, again, thank you for your work and taking time out of your day to tell us all about your work and enjoy that plunge in the ocean because I know for me I'm just starting my day, but for you it's a beautiful end to your day in the UK.
Jo Ruxton (42:22)
It has, yeah. End of the day, go and have a swim.
Jessica (42:25)
All right, thank you, Jo
Jo Ruxton (42:27)
Thanks, Jessica.