Steph Gilmore, The Soul of the Earth
Photo from https://stephgilmore.com/
"...having a relationship with the ocean is the greatest gift a human can have!"
I agree. Wholeheartedly.
The best place in the world to regain perspective, wash away worries & renew your appreciation for the beauty of nature, is the ocean. Australian's are so lucky to be surrounded by endless blue waters & magnificent coastlines. The water is a place where total calmness finds me & holds my focus for hours on end. It has this powerful effect on so many people ... it's a unique part of our existence. Hence why we must keep it clean, safe & thriving.
A woman who has literally built her career, her lifestyle & her heart in the waves, is Steph Gilmore. A champion athlete & a solid advocate for reshaping the health of our oceans, local communities & marine life. Steph has seen it all. She's duck-dived through sanitary & medical waste in Indonesia, she's witnessed hidden away breaks in Africa suffer from being littered with lighters & plastic trash and she's had to watch her home-away-from-home (the beach), become the trash can for far too people who don't have the heart to find a bin. But despite all of this, Steph is actively promoting change & advocating for improved standards. Because we are all better than this!
Steph is admired by so many for her insane surfing talent. She is a weapon!!! The heart & soul she puts behind the sustainability of our planet though, is what grabs my attention every single time. Her passion is dynamite.
I had the pleasure of chatting to the legend herself & I am so proud to share her thoughts, her notes & her stories below. If you're feeling like you need a hint of inspiration - this is the perfect read for you.
Thank you Steph (@stephaniegilmore), for your time & your joyful, chilled spirit! You are simply a pleasure. Keep doing what you're doing!!
Elyse x
1. Seven Time World Champion ... wow girl! Despite these wonderful titles, what makes you truly feel a sense of happiness & calm?
It's true that there's a difference between success and fulfilment and I'm lucky to have recognised this from an early stage in my career. I have always felt a sense of happiness and ease in my life and I think that's from having such supportive, chill parents. They encouraged great, respectful morals in my sisters and I and my dad introduced us all to surfing, which as you would know, surfing and having a relationship with the ocean is the greatest gift a human can have! Achievements and kicking goals are great and have given me much happiness but finding gratitude in the simple things like a great song or healthy meal, good book or whatever, is a powerful tool for feeling some kind of peace.
2. Spending so much time in the ocean must be such a treat. It's my own personal dream! I've been pretty shocked & saddened over the last few years however, watching the level of plastics in the water drastically increase, both in Australia & around the world. Since your career began, in your eyes what has the progression of plastic pollution looked like?
It can be hard to really grasp just how much plastic pollution there is out there in the ocean, but in the last few years on trips to places like Indonesia and Africa, I've been completely shocked at how much trash is floating in and around you when you're on the shoreline or out surfing in the lineup. My last trip to Mozambique, I was surfing a remote wave that seemed like we were the only people for hundreds of kilometres, definitely far from any major city, and this empty beach was completely littered with lighters and broken single use plastic trash that went as far as the eye could see. It really shows just how far this stuff travels from inner cities and villages inland, down the rivers, through the currents in the ocean ending up in parts of the ocean we never imagined.
3. Can you remember a time or a moment where the level of pollution stopped you in your tracks & made you want to do something about it?
A few years ago I remember surfing at Keramas on the east coast of Bali, and we were duck diving through sanitary and medical waste. Horrific. There's a small creek outlet at the end of the wave that creates a run off from villages upstream. With minimal education on the issue for locals and therefore dumping of trash in waterways, along with lack of government support for general waste systems, it's a huge problem. I also think a lot of it comes into the bay from the Lombok Strait. The beaches will be combed in the mornings and maybe the ocean will seem kind of clean but if the wind changes to an onshore direction, it blows an incredible amount of trash into the coastline from out the back...this made me realise even if the beach "looks clean" there is SO much trash floating by out the back that's just out of eyesight. At the time, a friend of mine from Australia, an engineer, had helped to design a catchment system in the river mouth that could be cleaned out everyday and taken to a correct landfill, so there are some awesome ideas being brought up everyday but essentially these things are just wiping up the drip and we need to turn off the tap. Reduce consuming, re-use as much as we can and help to educate others in places that haven't got that shift toward awareness for the earth.
4. Walk us through a day in your life when it comes to eco-friendly living? How do you keep your footprint green?
Nobody is perfect, i'm guilty of a huge carbon footprint, but where I can I always try to have a reusable water flask with me, If I am to buy a drink in the shops, I'll aim for something in a glass bottle, reusable shopping bags, I have some reusable food hugger lids and beeswax wraps to use less things like plastic cling wrap. Just being conscious of how much plastic packaging I'm buying especially when it comes to food and also to cosmetic stuff, I have found a cool shampoo bar, which is like a soap bar but its shampoo and it comes wrapped in paper, so to eliminate throwing out a plastic bottle on empty, try solar energy for the home if you can. I've had a taste of the new Audi E-Tron and going fully electric will be a huge step for us all. Mostly though, I think an important one that everyone can easily do is eat less meat!! More veggies and fruit and salad and smaller portions of meat will make a big impact for the planet.
5. Your recent collaboration with Corona, Parley & The World Surf League, is all about using Ocean Plastic to create reusable bags that can be circulated around Indonesian communities. This is exactly the type of initiative the world needs more of! How does this initiative work towards removing ocean waste?
Corona, Parley and the WSL are so passionate about using their platforms to truly learn and educate people on the state of the Ocean and so as an athlete, showing up to surf a great wave and take so much from a small village, we have to give back! The philosophy behind the recycled bags is really about creating circular systems for the things we consume, so to remove plastic bottles from the ocean, there are a few great companies like EcoNyl that turn that plastic waste pulled from the sea, turn it back into a yarn which can then be used to make bags. If disposed of properly, that bag can be recycled again, so there's not an end (landfill) to its life. And it's important to be making items that are needed and used everyday by locals - like a grocery style bag. To share these with the local community is a great way to help educate them and to show them a tangible result of trash to treasure, and the principle of re-use.
6. When you collect rubbish off a beach (from the water or the sand), and there is no bin in sight, how do you dispose of the waste? I feel like these tips are so helpful and valuable for all of us to take on board!
If I find some trash in the ocean I'll tuck it into my wetsuit or swimwear and then I'll usually forget about it until I get changed at the car or at home and it falls out then I can put it straight into the bin. There's usually a bin somewhere nearby but if not, just try and either pop it into a bag or your boot of the car and find the next bin.
7. I'm all about education. We can't expect people to jump on board the sustainability train if they simply don't know how. What 5 ways would you suggest to people who are desperate to do more & put a real effort into lowering their carbon footprint?
Photo from https://stephgilmore.com/
Reusable water bottle, try not to accept another plastic water bottle in your life, it's possible. Do your own research and choose to buy products from companies who are using sustainable practises and materialsEat less meat. I'm not saying be completely vegan, I still eat meat, but even reducing by half per person would create a huge impact.Use compostable garbage bags (be weary to chose 'compostable',not 'biodegradable' products as they can actually be worse than regular plastic because they break down into smaller, more easily consumable pieces for the creatures - eek.)Try and make your next holiday a domestic road trip and support a local Australian community rather than fly internationally.