Save The Big Wave Surfrider Foundation hits Hawaii
Like a big wave or two? Might as well try and protect them, then. And that’s exactly what the Surfrider Foundation did during this year’s big-wave season in Hawaii. Visitors from around the world stopped by Surfrider’s booth at the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing, and many signed the petition to preserve beach access on the South Shore of Oahu.
But there’s more. Film producers Taylor Steele and Dustin Humphrey invited Surfrider’s Oahu Chapter to be a beneficiary of their Hawaii premiere of the film Sipping Jetstreams. Over $8,000 were raised, and the Oahu Chapter donated their portion to the Defend Oahu Coalition, who are fighting to preserve the North Shore’s Kawela Bay from being turned into 3,500 hotel rooms.
Then there were the John Kelly Awards. This year, Pancho Sullivan won the Professional Surfer prize for his efforts to stop overdevelopment of the North Shore; Schnitzer Steel Hawaii Corp was honored as the Most Environmentally Friendly Oahu-based Company for their recycling campaign; and big-wave pioneer Peter Cole received the Lifetime Achievement Award for his work as an environmental activist for over forty years.
John Kelly, after whom the Awards are named, was the original recipient of the Lifetime Achievement category. For decades, Kelly led many environmental crusades on Oahu. The John Kelly Perpetual Trophy is a small koa surfboard, beautifully shaped as a board from the early days of Waikiki, when there were no groins or jetties, plenty of beach access and clean water and sand.
Finally, half of the ASP World Championship Tour surfers signed up to receive environmental alert emails from Surfrider discussing the state of the coastal environment at each stop on the World Tour during 2007.
Another season of big waves has ended. The work to save them goes on.
www.surfrider.org
www.triplecrownofsurfing.com
This story originally appeared in Huck #004.
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