(June 8, 2021) In celebration of World Oceans Day, Save The Waves Coalition has released the newest version of its award-winning app that empowers surfers and beach-goers worldwide to protect their beaches and coastlines.
Save The Waves App allows users to tag and report coastal threats, such as plastic pollution, oil spills, erosion, and illegal development. Their easy-to-use interface makes it simple to engage with three steps: take a photo, select a threat, and tag your location.
With a mission to protect surf ecosystems across the globe, Save The Waves wants to equip you to protect the places you love and hope to reach 30,000 new app users by the end of 2021.
“In honor of World Oceans Day, we want to recognize the importance of giving back to these green spaces and coastlines that have given our communities so much, especially in the last year,” said Nik Strong-Cvetich, CEO of Save The Waves.
“This is the tool to have in your pocket so you can be the voice for your local surf break or favorite beach,” he said.
Beyond inspiring others to become coastal stewards, the international nonprofit has another goal: crowdsourcing data for conservation efforts. This data uploaded on the app is shared by Save The Waves with local partners and other coastal agencies in their network to find solutions and help address reported issues.
“To make the data actionable and lead to real impact, we connect user inputs with organizations who are working on specific threats in their region,” said Diego Sancho, Surf Conservation Data Coordinator of Save The Waves. “We encourage communities to take ownership of this tool to steward their coastal resources and drive policy and management decisions.”
With the latest update, the app has six threat categories to choose from, including a wide-range of subcategories to help further identify problems. Upon choosing “Plastic Pollution and Marine Debris” users will be asked to specify between plastic packaging, microplastics, fishing gear, and others. This information will get in the hands of the right organizations who can do something about it.
Other upgrades include language accessibility in French, Spanish and Portuguese, as well as educational information around the nonprofit’s flagship program, World Surfing Reserves.
With the release of the original version in 2018, Save The Waves was awarded the ‘Best Conservation App’ in HeroX’s Big Ocean Button Challenge.
Owners of iOS and Android devices can download the Save The Waves App today.
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Media Contact:
Trent Hodges, Programs Manager
trent@savethewaves.org
About:
Save The Waves is a global nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting surf ecosystems across the globe. For more information please visit www.savethewaves.org