The Edmiston Foundation: working together for the good of the marine world

At Edmiston, forging strong relationships has always been central to our approach, and now through the Edmiston Foundation we are more excited than ever about where this collaborative approach can take us.

The Edmiston Foundation includes a partnership between Edmiston and the UK Sailing Academy (UKSA), a youth maritime charity, with a shared goal of widening access and increasing diversity in the maritime industry.

To date, the Edmiston Foundation has enabled 173 children and young people from a diverse range of backgrounds to attend UKSA courses and supported 238 students into employment.

In 2021 the Edmiston Foundation supported UKSA to run a successful Sea.Change Foundation programme, which provides transformational outdoor education and maritime pathways for more children and young people. This will continue to run throughout school holidays this year, with the aim to welcome at least 300 children to the programme.

The partnership also funded residential trips for three schools and supported individuals who would not otherwise be able to access specific training courses to support them into the industry. These will be recreated this year.

Speaking of the partnership, Jamie Edmiston, CEO of Edmiston says: “As individuals that know the industry well, our clients will have seen first-hand the lack of representation from minority ethnic and disadvantaged backgrounds.”

In the 21st century, this is quite frankly unacceptable. It is all of our responsibility to support those who have had a challenging start in life to be able to achieve great things.

Sometimes, all a young person needs is a helping hand to get there. With this in mind, I very much hope that you will join us by supporting our vital partnership with UKSA.

In addition to improving diversity in the marine world, this year the Edmiston Foundation continues to work with the Conservation Collective to improve sustainability and safeguard our marine environments for future generations.

Below are some of the key projects we are supporting this year.

The aim of this project is to end illegal fisheries in the Balearics by developing interventions and promoting sustainable fishing. Illegal fishing currently accounts for as much as 40% of the fish bought and sold in the region.

So far, three other benefactors have been found to match Edmiston’s €20k pledge of funding and this ambitious project aims to increase awareness, create change, and secure high media coverage.

Since launching, the direction of this project, which launched in February 2022 and will run for six months, has been revised slightly but the desired outcome is the same: to protect vulnerable habitats of sea turtles. To this end, the project is training up a team of beach monitors and rangers who can engage with the wider community on the benefits of preserving nature.

A spokesperson for the Conservation Collective says: “In 2022 thanks to key Edmiston funding, it will focus on improving the protection of nesting turtle populations through increased community awareness and involvement in monitoring and protection on the Leeward side of St Vincent.”

Launched in January 2022, this project uses digital technology in the form of a Pelagic Data System, which is affordable and solar-powered, to track a select number of fishing vessels in Barbados.

It is hoped that the data can be used to lobby for legislation to make tracking mandatory across the fleet, thus creating a more sustainable industry.

Data will also be used to inform future policies on marine protected areas, tackle illegal fishing, and to improve efficiency for fishermen, who will ultimately use less fuel when they know where the best catch areas are.

This project aims to eliminate edible invasive alien species (IAS) in the Ionian Islands and other parts of Greece by encouraging consumption of the fish – (lionfish, rabbitfish, cornetfish, Atlantic blue crab) among local communities.)

A key part of the scheme is getting local chefs and restaurants on board, by demonstrating how tasty these fish are and encouraging them to replace more popular fish species with these on menus.

Ultimately, the goal of this initiative is to see the restoration of native fish stocks.

The aim of this scheme is to raise awareness among local communities about the critical importance of Posidonia, a seagrass with carbon storing properties that has led some conservationists to refer to them as the ‘lungs of the Mediterranean’.

Working with the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) the project hopes to identify Posidonia hotspots and eventually push for further protection of these marine areas.

The Conservation Collective says so far local communities have responded well to the initiative.

A spokesperson for the Conservation Collective says: “Thanks to key Edmiston funding, the project is expanding to the Small Cyclades, and it is widening in its engagement capabilities especially in the awareness raising stage of the project.”

The more awareness we can create around these projects the better, which is why we are delighted by the news that Coldplay has chosen the Conservation Collective as one of several good causes it’s supporting though its 2022 Music of the Spheres World Tour.

It’s another example of how much further working together can take us than when we go it alone and how much more noise, we can make together about the issues that matter.

This is just the beginning: the Edmiston Foundation is still looking for €250k-€500k of funding to help support future activities.

If you would like to see a more diverse marine world and play your part in protecting the seas for our children’s children and beyond, then get in touch.

On our own we can only do so much, but together the potential for change is limitless.