Protecting our ocean and connecting people

Zurich Municipal understands the importance of looking after our planet, and the increasing urgency to do so - from our people and communities, to our natural ecosystems and habitats. Given that over 70% of the Earth's surface is covered by water, with our ocean holding all but 4% of the Earth's water, we must value our ocean and waterways and the importance of protecting them.

The Marine Conservation Society secures space where species and habitats can recover. It is campaigning for a minimum of 30% of UK waters being effectively managed by 2030 to protect wildlife and ecosystems. To achieve this, it is working with communities, businesses and governments, ‘through people-powered action, with science on our side’. 

Since 2022, Zurich Municipal has partnered with charity Marine Conservation Society and are proud to be donating more than £30,000 over three years.

This funding will contribute to supporting seagrass recovery around the UK coastline, as well as engaging and educating communities on the benefits of effective protection for biodiversity and climate.

The valuable work of the Marine Conservation Society goes beyond protection, it also enables connection – connecting individuals and communities with the ocean and waterways that surround them. It’s a way to enhance human lives, as well as to enhance ecosystems, illustrating the positive circle of sustainability for places, people and planet.

Agents of Change

Agents of Change is a community-focused initiative run by the Marine Conservation Society, which seeks to understand the importance of our seas to those that live beside them. Agents of Change works alongside coastal communities to raise the profile and the understanding of Marine Protected Areas in their communities, and to support people to benefit personally from the project.

Alice Tebb, Project Coordinator for Agents of Change, states: “We are trying to help deepen the connection for coastal communities to their local sea by asking ‘what can you do for your ocean?’ and ‘what can your ocean do for you?’.”

Agents of Change currently works with communities living alongside the Cromer Shoal Chalk Beds Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ) off the Norfolk coast, which is thought to be the longest chalk reef in Europe, possibly even the world. The initiative also works with Kingmere MCZ off West Sussex and Beachy Head East MCZ off East Sussex. The Agents of Change approach is also applied to a project called Wild Coast Sussex.

The designation of these areas of protection are often a point of contention for local communities, but the Marine Conservation Society works to break down barriers and build support through Agents of Change.

Marine Protected Areas benefit local communities in many ways, and many aspects of the community get involved.  “For example, I support a stakeholder group in Norfolk, a group that connects community with local policymakers.” Alice states, “Local fishers, divers and other sea users share their knowledge and experience. This is recognised beyond managers of the sea, including local Councils.”

Community engagement

Alice explains there are opportunities for everyone to get involved. “It’s a levelling platform for people to connect with each other and learn, or just listen if they wish. People learn about the management processes, how the sea is cared for, and the ways local citizens can participate in the national conversation and influence policy. Policy makers learn about what is important to local society and how work can be adopted to be locally appropriate and relevant.”

Inclusion is important for all projects at the Marine Conservation Society. “As an organisation we are doing lots of work on inclusion. It's a continuous process around equity and equality and diversity and inclusion”, explains Alice. “We always try to reach as broad a group of people as possible and we don’t wait for them to come to us.” 

Inspiring change

Alice explains they use a multiple pronged approach to connect with individuals, groups, organisations and government. “We have different work areas that all try to inspire behaviour change. But that journey is different for people depending on how we meet them.”

The Agents of Change approach within the Wild Coast Sussex project reaches out to those in communities who, as Alice says, wouldn’t see themselves as conservation champions. Many love the sea but don’t do much to help it and others have never had a relationship with the sea, whether they were brought up on the coast or not. Alice remarked: “there are studies about people who live within walking distance of the sea and never go.”

For example, the Wild Coast Sussex team has organised fun visits to the coast, with time spent by the sea to create initial exposure. “Going to the beach might not sound much, but that's already behaviour change.” Says Alice: “participating on your first beach clean signals massive behaviour change. That may seem small for seasoned environmentalists, but that first step is so important. Someone has chosen to trust us.”

The Marine Conservation Society has been working with communities for over a decade to develop a shared appreciation and deeper understanding of the all the ways in which the ocean benefits them.

Alice admits they don't fully understand the motivations of all people living on the coast, so they have embarked on a rigorous process to find out more to map behaviour change and improve engagement with evidence-based communications. “We have social scientists that work with the community voice method because that's where everything started for Agents of Change within the Marine Conservation Society".

Listening is the key element of finding out more about the communities they work with. As Alice explains: “the listening process feeds into our central work programmes. We are better able to inform our public affairs team on 'constituent' feeling towards certain issues, beyond the feelings of those who are supportive of our aims. They also feed into newer projects on how to understand and connect with communities”.

“In the Agents of Change project, taking a more 'neutral' stance means we can strongly connect with fishing communities (beyond the core MCS fisheries work) as we do not initially discuss MCS fisheries conservation interests but instead look for areas of common ground. We centre our work on increasing mutual understanding and creating better outcomes for society and sea,” explains Alice.

Top tips for community engagement

Alice shares some tips for community engagement:

1. Find out who is your community. Be really clear who you are talking to and talking about externally. Using a simple questionnaire can prevent you making silly mistakes.

2. Take advice from community leaders and employ them on your project. Ask some deeper questions about how you should be working.

3. Be sensitive to local issues. Some people may not want to engage at all. For example, some people have extremely traumatic life experiences around the sea and you have to be incredibly sensitive about how you connect with them.

4. Make sure there's always a process of reviewing all your work. Check in and make sure things are going in the right direction.

5. Sharing your learning is important. It prevents duplication of effort - you may learn something somebody else has already learned. 

6. Create opportunities for experience and experiential learning. Understand that people will come to you at different stages of the ‘engagement process’ and create meaning ocean connection opportunities for all of them.

Find out more about the key risks impacting people and our communities in Zurich Municipal's latest whitepaper, The Sustainability Shift: People.

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