Creating change

For people who live in inland areas, the ocean may seem a faraway place physically and, therefore, mentally — not realizing the impact their daily life choices could have on the ocean. This is also what Liu Xuelian used to believe. But what she saw on a diving trip in Semporna, Malaysia — a strip of floating marine debris stretching miles long — helped make ocean protection an area close to her heart.

"I had seen ocean garbage patches on the news before. But seeing one with my own eyes was different. I couldn't help but notice that the garbage all looked so familiar: It came from the land, from us," she said.

Liu, 31, now an executive at Better Blue, has been part of the organization since the very beginning in 2017.

Specializing in coral protection, Liu's team works with international NGOs like CoralWatch and Reef Check to train divers to become coral bleaching monitors, enabling early warnings to be issued and measures to be taken by scientists to save the corals. They work with Glowing Glowing Gone, a program proposed by the United Nations Environment Programme and The Ocean Agency, to organize public events like photo exhibitions of dying corals to raise public awareness about the plight of our oceans. The team also created ways for individuals to adopt corals or to sponsor an entire tank full of corals.

"Coral adopters would sometimes visit the area and dive down to see the specific coral with their own name tag on it," said Liu. "But for me, it's not one single coral that excites me. It's when I see the entire area flourishing with corals — that things are changing for the better."

As of December 2022, Better Blue has trained more than 140 divers to become professional coral rescuers and monitors, and has grown more than 470 corals in nine research sites on the coastal seabed in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

This is why when asked how she would interpret the theme of this year's World Oceans Day — Planet Ocean: Tides Are Changing — Liu said: "It's time to pay attention to the ocean. More and more people are already participating in ocean protection. I believe this is where the tide is going in the future."