Transcription of Marine Plant-Based University with Sustainable Surf:

Alissa Miky: Everybody thank you for watching the marine plant based university. And today we have a wonderful guest, so please Haley introduce a little bit about yourself.

Haley Haggerstone: Hi, everyone. My name is Haley Jane Hagerstone and I am the partnerships director for Sustainable Surf and predominantly our Sea Trees program.

Alissa Miky: Beautiful. Could you please explain more details about what Sea Trees do?

Haley Haggerstone: Sustainable Surf is the nonprofit and our mission is to really, to regenerate the health of our ocean planet. And our Sea Trees program is about planting, protecting, and restoring our blue carbon coastal ecosystem. So these are mangrove forests, kelp forests, seagrass meadows, coral reefs, and coastal watersheds.

Alissa Miky: How long does the organization exist in so far?

Haley Haggerstone: So we’ve been around since 2011 and we launched Sea Trees on World Oceans Day in 2019.

Alissa Miky: Congratulations. So what’s the reason why you, you know, you, you started this organization or you joined this organization?

Haley Haggerstone: Yeah, it’s not my organization. I’m just very passionate about it.

Haley Haggerstone: I’ve known the founders, Kevin and Michael, since the very beginning. You know, loved what they’re doing. And then when they told me about the sea trees, I was like, I am so in I have a long history of working with environmental nonprofits and ocean conservation. I’m a fundraiser. So I love, you know, bringing different you know, aligning different missions and bringing people together.

Haley Haggerstone: So bringing businesses and nonprofits. together to make impactful partnerships has really been my focus. And like I said, when they told me about sea trees and this focus on the ocean as a solution to climate change it was just, it checked a lot of boxes for me. We have some incredible brand partners as well, so I’m excited to get to work with them.

Alissa Miky: Beautiful, beautiful. So. You said that you have a lot of background with already the marine plant base. I’m, you know, the Marines. So what’s your background then? Like before working here, did you already work for the like the, the the marine sorry, like environment organization or kind of that.

Haley Haggerstone: Yeah, so my undergrad is a natural resource conservation, so like conservation science, and then I have a master’s in nonprofit management and leadership. So I’ve sort of dedicated my career to environment and nonprofits, and I’ve worked with three different nonprofits all focused on ocean conservation.

Haley Haggerstone: One more broadly that had a couple different programs and then one specifically focused on plastic pollution and then now climate change.

Alissa Miky: Beautiful, beautiful. So, like, why am you, why did you become interested in those kind of ocean environment?

Haley Haggerstone: Yeah, so I’m a surfer, first of all, and you know, you protect what you love, so that’s a connection.

Haley Haggerstone: I’ve also, I was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, so I’ve always lived on the West Coast. I now live in Long Beach you know, the ocean has always been, you know, just a stone’s throw away. And I saw. What was happening to our oceans firsthand, whether it be the plastic pollution or water quality issues or warming temperatures, the loss of kelp in California, there’s heaps of different things that are happening.

Haley Haggerstone: And I wanted to be part of the solution because if it’s. My playground, then it’s mine to protect.

Alissa Miky: Yeah, for sure. I actually started surfing two years ago, but you need to teach me soon the future that it takes time.

Haley Haggerstone: It definitely does. I had the benefit because of growing up in Canada, I’m a surfer or a snowboarder first, so I, you know, I’m used to being on a board and that type of turning and all that stuff, so I picked it up.

Relatively quickly, but I’m definitely a stronger snowboarder than I am a surfer.

Alissa Miky: Well, I used to start when I was kids, I started bodyboarding. So I already have a long you know, history was that, but you know, surfing is a totally different place. You know, like it’s always hard, my back and chest.

And so sometimes it’s funny. Like I’m a really beginner. That’s why I’m just already exhausted. Just going to the, you know, back of the beach before standing on the board.

Haley Haggerstone: Paddling Out.

Alissa Miky: Oh yeah. Paddling out. It’s already the headache for me, but you know, I love beach. So yeah, that’s so beautiful.

Alissa Miky: And then how long have you worked for the, the this organization so far?

Haley Haggerstone: I’ve been with Sustainable Surf for a year and a half now.

Alissa Miky: So what’s, so to, well, you know, after joining this organization, what What was your surprise? Did you have any like, you know, wonderful experiment? Do you, could you please explain the more the details for us?

Haley Haggerstone: Yeah. So I didn’t realize how much carbon the ocean has the ability to sequester. I never really thought about the ocean as the solution. Like most people, I thought about planting trees and driving an electric vehicle and maybe eating less meat and things along those lines. As I started to, you know, learn about the work that we were doing, I was shocked to hear, you know, Blue carbon, so like kelp and coral or kelp and seagrass and and mangroves are about five to ten times more effective at sequestering carbon than terrestrial trees.

Haley Haggerstone: They have been left out of the equation because we live on land. It’s a heck of a lot easier to plant a tree in my backyard than it is in the ocean. I was also surprised to learn about how much kelp we’ve lost in California. So we’ve lost about 90 percent of our kelp and it varies from north to south.

Haley Haggerstone: But yeah, that was shocking for me. But I’ve also seen it being out in the water myself, that there were areas that used to have kelp that no longer have kelp and as a surfer, the kelp is great because it’s just offshore and it actually protects. It’s the waves when the wind picks up. So it keeps our waves glassy longer.

Haley Haggerstone: So we hear it a lot from the surfing community that they’re like, where did the kelp go? How do we bring it back? How do we get involved? So that was, you know, part of kind of an aha moment, I guess for me, where I was like, this is crazy that this is happening and how do I support it and how do I get involved?

Alissa Miky: Oh my God. So. Why do you, do you know why the 90 percent of the kelp is already gone because of the grubber worming or the human eat too much or do you know any like, you know, all of the above.

Haley Haggerstone: Yeah, it’s, it’s a combination of things so definitely climate change warming temperatures are of impact. Part of that, or part of it as well, is that we’ve lost a lot of the predators of the purple urchins.

Haley Haggerstone: So these are our sea otters, lobster, and the sunflower sea stars. So those are some of the main predators that eat these purple urchins. And these purple urchins, Love kelp and they’re really, really ravenous without predators. Their population is out of control. They’re eating all the kelp and then they can actually live on a rocky reef in what’s what we like to refer to as like a zombie like state.

Haley Haggerstone: So there’ll be no kelp. They haven’t eaten anything in a while, but they can just kind of hibernate in a way and they just sit there and then the kelp can’t come back. And then even if we did have their predators, they don’t want to eat them because there’s no uni, there’s nothing good inside them.

Haley Haggerstone: There’s a spiny outer shell. So that’s part of it. There are some areas where we’ve intentionally removed kelp because it was causing issues for the boating community. So think about, you know, the rudder, things like that getting caught in it. So sometimes we’ve taken it out. Other times it’s been warming temperatures.

Haley Haggerstone: Other times it’s the urchins. It’s a variety of things, but we know that we want to bring it back because kelp is really important for the habitat of marine life. It’s important because it protects coastal communities and, you know, from storm surges and things. It creates these glassy waves that we love and then it also sequesters a ton of carbon.

Haley Haggerstone: So if we really want to turn the tide on climate change, it is part of the solution. It’s a nature based solution. Yeah, I totally understand.

Alissa Miky: Like so our company, for example, we actually support the sea order organization to protect. Yes. So like, for example, our beverage brand, our main character is actually the sea order and we’re going to donate back or several part of the revenue to them because I was so surprised that the sea order.

Alissa Miky: The sea order is the, they’re gonna eat a lot of sea, and I found that the national graphic, that if we save the sea odor more, that means 15% of the kelp can exist more longer than the, the than the past. So that’s why we decided to, you know, use the sea order. As our, you know, main character and then donate back to community.

Alissa Miky: But anyway, so I’m so shocked that 90 percent of this account was gone. It’s gone. And we definitely need to support that, you know, movement. So what exactly, what kind of activity you exactly your organization do?

Haley Haggerstone: Yeah, so I’ll focus on kelp because that, since we’re talking about that, yeah, we work across those five I mentioned at the beginning, but with the kelp here, primarily because it’s the urchins, we’re removing those urchins.

Haley Haggerstone: So we’re calling the urchins in order to allow the kelp to grow back. The good thing about kelp, particularly giant kelp, is it grows incredibly fast. So it can grow up to two feet. Two feet per day up to no ideal conditions. Yeah in ideal conditions. So that’s not all the time Isn’t that, like, wrap your head around that.

Haley Haggerstone: It’s crazy. So, it’s effective removing urchins where that is the issue. It is not the issue everywhere. So in San Diego, for example, it’s not urchins. We’re trying to figure out what’s happening. We’re working with scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to understand what is happening there.

Haley Haggerstone: And then once we figure that out… We can try different methods to bring it back. So in that case, it might actually be planting you know, kelp in certain areas where we’ve lost it. They’re also looking at more heat tolerant varieties of kelp. So if we are going to bring it back, we want to make sure that it’s going to last as our temperatures are warming and our water is going up as well.

Alissa Miky: But through that activity that, you know, what is the most effective way because of course you said that everything should be the connected, but that’s already understand but I think a lot of our audience really don’t understand the reality and then I totally imagined that people wanted to support you.

Alissa Miky: What kind of activity do you think that, of course, we need to do everything but it’s. Sometimes it’s, you know, it’s complicated, especially if you’re going to pick one, what kind of like activity is really going to support the, you know, recovered environment.

Haley Haggerstone: Yeah. So I’ve got a couple. So first find us online, you know, go to see trees org, find us on social media, follow us there. If you sign up for our newsletter by way of our website, we’ll actually plant a mangrove tree for you. So there you go. You get one tree. Right. You can also donate so you can restore kelp or plant mangroves or plant coral depending on which ecosystem or project really resonates with you.

Haley Haggerstone: So I encourage everybody to do that as well. We make it really easy. Our website’s designed on Shopify and that’s intentional. All of us know how to shop on Shopify, add to cart, check out and you’re done. So it’s really that simple to plant sea trees. And then third, if kelp is your passion and you are a diver, you can actually get involved in our Monterey project in Northern California.

Haley Haggerstone: I’d love to. There you go. So you can just, you can go through a training through our project partner up there, they’ll teach you the methods that we use for calling the urchins and how to do it in a transect and all that stuff. But yeah, highly encourage you to get involved if you are trained.

Alissa Miky: So for especially I’m super into I’m the huge diver.

Alissa Miky: I already dived like 200 times in the past. And is there any regulation or what kind of like license should I get? Or do you have any specific thing?

Haley Haggerstone: Well, if you’re a certified diver, you just have to go through the training to learn how to call the urchin. So they do them. I think it’s monthly. I can send you the link.

Haley Haggerstone: It’s on our website and you can sign up to get involved. Oh my God. And hopefully, you know, my, a goal would be to employ volunteer divers, citizen scientists to do this throughout California. So like we have it at this one project that we’re testing it to see if it’s effective, but ideally we get to roll this out and get divers up and down the coast in the future.

Haley Haggerstone: That’s beautiful.

Alissa Miky: Yeah, definitely. I’d love to join that volunteer activity, but you know, can I challenge one thing in Japan? We we found that it was really unfortunately, but there’s one like volunteer group They just like try to take off the all the sea urchin But it doesn’t affect to regrow the seaweed and then but they the reason why they found us Was like the the fish actually eat too much seaweed in Japan So that’s interesting.

Alissa Miky: Yes, that was so interesting. So he was, he became a famous YouTuber because, you know, putting those videos on YouTube, he get a lot of like, you know, the video views and get a lot of like donations. But a sea orchard is a part of one of the reason why the seaweed can’t, the seaweed cannot grow. However, the most, you know, effective reason was the fishing eating, fish eating.

Alissa Miky: So that’s why I like in Japan is now people are now confusing these days, like what to make the real solution or what shall we do? And especially, you know, the seaweed is, you know, the growing speed is as you know, it’s a really fast. However, the fish is like, you know, it’s uncontrollable. So now these days, they’re making some gauge to protect the seaweed.

Haley Haggerstone: Yes. So like, you know, you have to send me this link. That sounds crazy. Yeah,

Alissa Miky: it’s so funny. I like I’m happy to like try like, you know, happy to translate for you But as you know, you know put in a gauge little by little doesn’t make sense. So now we’re having How can we really so my goodness?

Alissa Miky: Wait, but yeah, let’s You know

Haley Haggerstone: I was just going to say, you know, we have to keep in mind that the ocean is a dynamic system. And so there is no one solution that’s going to save all of us. And, you know, although there might be urchins there, it’s different and it’s probably a different species of seaweed and the temperature is different.

Haley Haggerstone: And, you know, there’s so many factors. And so like I said, with San Diego, it’s different than what we’re seeing in Los Angeles and up in Northern California. It’s also different. Help in the north is going to be the bull kelp, whereas the giant kelp down south. So there’s so many things that we can learn.

Haley Haggerstone: And I think it’s really important as well, is that when people do get involved in these projects, is that we share. With each other, you know, and communicate like what’s happening over there. What’s working over here. For example, we have a project in Portugal that we’re supporting that’s using a different method and it’s planting seaweed.

Haley Haggerstone: But it’s using something called green gravel where they actually grow spores of seaweed onto rocks and then throw them off a boat to plant it. Because then it sinks to the bottom and they’re planting it. So we’re wondering, can we do that here? Is that something we could do? And that will be part of the study that we’re doing with Scripps to understand that.

Alissa Miky: Okay. So let me try to reach out to like a nonprofit organization more in the future. So, so far, like most of the time of the marine plant based marine plant based organization, we focus on like, you know, the finished product or the. The more like a business side, but yeah, definitely. I’m happy to like correct those kind of a connection too, because as a, you know, founder of like of the marine plant based technology company, I’m always thinking about the balance because honestly, I lost my family by the diabetes and he was struggled to, you know, get the resource of the seaweed in Japan.

Alissa Miky: We have a medical result that is good for diabetes, losing cholesterol. And plus, of course, it’s good for digestion. That means good for like mental skin. There’s so many health benefits. And, you know, in the States, we have a lot of, you know, problem with medical costs. Not many people can, you know, access easily.

Alissa Miky: And I’m so lucky because I’m financial stable. I can go doctor every day. Not every day, but like, you know, I don’t have, but, but especially the people has a diabetes is their income is is a little bit low than the average that we know. So that’s why I decided to start this business to, you know, I thought, okay, I don’t want it to have any more, you know, tears and I don’t want it to see more people struggle with it.

Alissa Miky: But on that, on that point, Japan has 1600. Years history was playing the seaweed. We have a multiple knowledge and technology. Why? Why? Why don’t I try and then expand and support more people? So I believe that seaweed is a solution for the future. It’s sustainable. It’s it’s healthy and it’s tasty. Not many, you know, food product can have three elements.

Alissa Miky: Mostly if you choose the healthiness, it’s this. It’s untasty. That’s the reality. Yeah. Look at the green smoothie like you know how it’s too much I cannot drink that. And if we choose a sustainability point of view mostly it’s unhealthy too much oil or whatever. So it’s. Quite difficult to find the three elements.

Alissa Miky: So I thought, see, we can overcome, we can, and then also see, we can play with so many markets, not just food, beverage, skincare, haircare, or the medical capsules of the plastic alternatives. So again, As a CEO, I believe this can be a solution for everybody, but on the same time, I’m always worrying about the balance because I, again, I’m diver.

Alissa Miky: I love like body boarding. I like, I live in Marina Della because I love the ocean vibe. So. So I, I’m curious about the balance. I’m happy to support the community and I’m happy to support the nonprofit. So that’s why I decided to like, you know, ask an interview like today. Sorry, I talk too much, but I would love to like make this community, not just talking about the business, but also I wanted to like, you know, correct the people who’s going to be curious about the environment.

Alissa Miky: So, yes. Let’s do something in the future. I will like try to tap in more community and try to get back to you. All right. So last question, I’m sorry. I, you know, we already have like five more minutes, so this is going to be the last question for the last so could you please like share about your okay.

Alissa Miky: Nevermind. Let’s switch into this way. So for the last question, could you share anything about your comment, your dream, or anything for the listener? Do you have anything you wanted to say to the listener?

Haley Haggerstone: Well, I think I already said was to go to our website, sign up for our newsletter, we’ll plant a sea tree for you.

Haley Haggerstone: Since you were saying, you know, a lot of your audience is brands get in touch with us. We have lots of incredible projects. We obviously do the kelp restoration, but we’re also planting mangroves and coral. And seagrass and you know, all, all these great projects that you can support. And we have, we actually support 21 projects currently.

Haley Haggerstone: Our goal is to have a hundred by 2030. So if we don’t have a project in your backyard, it’s only a matter of time. But a lot of our support comes from brand partners and would love to talk to any brands that are interested in getting involved in the blue carbon movement.

Alissa Miky: Beautiful. All right. Thank you so much for the time.