Overview
The Ocean Conservation Trust is a global Ocean conservation charity that focuses on inspiring Ocean advocacy through connections with nature, combined with ground-breaking work to protect & restore vital Ocean habitats.
Their work is focussed on three programmes: Ocean Experiences, such as snorkelling, rock pooling or visiting the National Aquarium which they operate as a centre of Ocean excellence. Ocean Advocacy, through national campaigns, education programmes or Ocean grants funding projects around the world. And Ocean Habitats, focusing on protecting and restoring vital animal nurseries and biodiversity hotspots.
Navigate will be working with the Ocean Conservation Trust to develop and deliver a campaign that raises the profile of the OCT to become one of the leading online Ocean charities in the UK within 5 years. Through this work they will deliver a higher level of donations and public awareness leading to a potential membership scheme.
This will include carrying out an audit of existing activity and audience profiling to highlight the key standouts that will deliver a successful paid media campaign.
Alongside this, Navigate will be developing the creative routes to support the paid media, once chosen, these assets will be adapted for all promotional activities.
Head of Marketing and Comms, Olly Reed says:
We have been working with Navigate for a number of years through HQ at the National Marine Aquarium and they have always understood the nature of our work and helped us to communicate in the right way to a target audience. They were a natural choice to help us develop a campaign to raise the profile and generate an increased level of funds for the OCT.
Blue Meadows Programme
Blue Meadows is a holistic approach to seagrass protection, regeneration and restoration at scale. The goal is to protect what we have, and over the longer-term restore what we have lost.
A vital first step in our approach is our protection and regeneration programme. We identify meadows where human activity is a major factor in their poor condition or decline, as well as meadows which are in good condition and have high carbon stores. In partnership with Harbour Authorities, identified seagrass meadows will be marked with buoys to clearly define the area to water users.
One of the key differentiators of the Blue Meadows approach is to measure the impact of our work. Each Blue Meadows site will be monitored over a minimum of 3 years, by our very own dive team made up of professional biologists. They will be reviewing the protection and regeneration progress through the following:
- Condition of the seagrass meadow – measuring meadow health and meadow growth.
- Biodiversity – establishing the key species present in the meadows, and the development of that biodiversity over time.
- Stored carbon – cores will be taken at each site to provide estimates of stored Carbon and this will support research into sequestration rates.
Whilst protecting and allowing existing meadows to regenerate, we are also working on refining a holistic process to enable large-scale seagrass restoration. To do this we have constructed a 400 square metre purpose-built facility for plant aquaculture. It’s the largest seagrass nursery site in England, where we are researching different restoration techniques.
Scaled restoration of seagrass meadows is hampered by multiple factors, including lack of seeds, poor germination rates, plants only flowering once a year and the high cost of seed collection. Our research and development programme aims to tackle these problems and enable large-scale restoration of this important habitat.
Navigate CEO, Anthony Rawlins says:
We are delighted to continue our work with the OCT and really looking forward to taking them to the next level in raising funds for the crucial work they deliver.