OUR MISSION
Aloha friends and neighbors,
Have you ever grimaced at the sight of uninformed snorkelers, swimmers, or divers standing on coral reefs and wondered in exasperation why more beach parks and hotels do not prominently display signs about human caused damage to coral reefs? Have you ever felt dismayed at the sight of ocean-borne and non-ocean-borne trash littering the beach and wondered
why there wasn't more of an effort by our beachgoers to remove at least a few pieces of garbage every time they leave the beach? Have you ever wondered if there are more ways in which you could be involved in efforts to protect our ocean and our beaches? Rather than spend time in the near-term navigating through the legal hurdles of setting up a non-profit, foundation, or other organization, Hawaii Ocean Ambassadors intends to be a self-funded, loose network of friends and neighbors centered around a mutual passion for protecting the beauty, health, and life of our oceans and to better avail ourselves of the various channels already available to us but so often overlooked - our voices, our hands, our energies, our minds, our ideas, our votes, and our behaviors. We are citizens, people who love the ocean and our beaches, and are interested in preserving our fragile ocean ecosystems in every way reasonably available to us. Hawaii Ocean Ambassadors will focus our energies around encouraging individual and collective efforts to:
1. Host informal beach clean-ups and invite as many friends and neighbors as possible and share the joys of volunteering, meeting new friends, and helping to protect and even improve this special place.
2. Create and post sample letters that can be copied by our Ambassadors and sent to hotels, tour companies, airlines, and our representatives in government requesting more targeted and effective steps be taken to better educate both visitors and locals alike about protecting and even improving our local environment.
3. To attempt to harness and utilize social media to provide efficient avenues to communicate ideas, post and share volunteer opportunities, and in hopes of better educating our readers on ocean related topics.
4. To leverage social media 'likes' and 'shares' to pressure hotels, tour companies, airlines and government officials to take action on specifically targeted issues and requests. We hope above all that we are able to encourage others to want to participate in their community, to better understand our ocean and beach environment, and to also perhaps find new ways of communicating their ideas and wishes regarding public - and private - policy as it relates to our oceans and beaches. Al Smith
Hawaii Ocean Ambassadors
Founder & Ambassador, Kailua & Lanikai
