Noosa World Surfing Reserve president Kirra Molnar joined with representatives of all 12 of the World Surfing Reserves in Santa Cruz, California last week to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the governing body of the reserves, the Save The Waves Coalition.
It was an historic first for the organisation, gathering the world surfing reserves together in person for the first time, as well as conducting a three-day Coalition summit to plan the next decade of saving surf breaks at risk around the world.
Save The Waves is an international non-profit that works with diverse organisations dedicated to protecting surf ecosystems. According to the STW mission statement, “The idea is to use the value of surf ecosystems to provide a proactive vehicle for long term coastal conservation. Working with locals on the ground to form stewardship committees that actively act to protect, steward and defend their treasured home breaks.”
Ten years since the campaign began to have Noosa recognised as a World Surfing Reserve, it was vital to have Kirra on the ground at the summit since our local initiatives have provided a template for several other WSRs, and Noosa is likely to play a pivotal role in the ambitious global projects ahead. As Kirra noted: “It was a time for celebration, but also for sharing, for exploring big ideas and developing teamwork.”
Key to this is charting the course to protect 1000 waves by 2030, a new tier to STW’s activities, made possible through the creation of surf protected area networks (SPANs). As Save The Waves CEO Nik Strong-Cvetich said in an anniversary address: “As I look forward to where we’re going, we still have this important mission of protecting surf ecosystems. We still have this big goal of protecting 1000 of them. And it’s more timely than ever.
“We have climate change to contend with, and we want to continue to be a great partner for our Coalition members and look at the ways that we can improve to supercharge that goal and meet it together. What does that look like? It means supporting our World Surfing Reserve Coalition partners with a new grant fund; scaling up our surfing protected areas at the policy level in California, the Azores, the Maldives and more; it means ramping up our stewardship efforts to support our app users and partners with training, technical resources and finance; and continuing to support our partners fighting the good fight through our campaign support.”
Over the three days, STW staff hosted workshops and sessions on World Surfing Reserves, Surf Protected Area Networks, the Save The Waves App, campaigns, and stewardship, hearing from inspirational conservationists from Chile, Brazil, Portugal, Mexico, Azores, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Maldives, Fiji, Peru, and across the United States.
Kirra told Noosa Today: “The days involved workshops on global conservation, coastal adaptations to climate change and surf break preservation, followed by innovative conversations with a number of experts, not to mention a couple good surfs each day! It was an inspirational event and I look forward to sharing its outcomes with our local stewardship committee to help Noosa, dedicated as the 10th World Surfing Reserve in 2020, remain a valuable surf ecosystem for future generations to enjoy.”
