Perhaps no other social movement has developed as fast as the environmental cause. Blazing the trail is Parley for the Oceans, a network organisation raising awareness of critically endangered ocean life, including sharks, whales and dolphins. 

One of the main causes being addressed by the initiative is plastic pollution in the oceans–one they consider to be “a design failure”. “There is more of plastic in our oceans than plankton and more plastic particles than fish eggs in our lakes and rivers,” says Cyrill Gutsch, who started Parley of the Oceans after meeting Captain Paul Watson, founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and co-founder of Greenpeace, who narrates today’s film of a humpback whale and her calf swimming in the open sea. Like “big shredders”, the ocean currents work to break down fossil oil-produced plastic into small pieces, which animals mistake and ingest as food. “This has already caused the death of millions of birds and sea life, and also introduces plastic poison into our own food chain,” he continues. 

Captain Watson insists that worms are more important than human beings for the existence of our planet, so are bees or fish, since they carry out essential functions in their ecosystems–something humans don’t. Gutsch, meanwhile, is bringing together cultural influencers like Pharrell Williams, David LaChapelle and Julian Schnabel to highlight the power of the creative industries in reshaping the environmental realities we face today (scientists predict the majority of sea life to be extinct within 6-16 years). The meeting of minds encourages creatives to repurpose ocean waste in their many preoccupations. A start, if there ever was one, on a long journey.

Igor Ramírez García Peralta is Art Editor-at-Large at NOWNESS