We have been working with our Welsh Ocean Literacy Coalition (WOLC) partners to collate the wide range of ocean literacy projects that are happening across Wales. From collecting this baseline knowledge of ongoing or completed projects since the launch of the Y Môr a Ni strategy in 2025, we were able to create a map for the upcoming CaSP Cymru website. The aim is to inform the public of Ocean Literacy projects that they could get involved with, as well as to be used by current and future WOLC partners. This will prevent duplication in projects and to encourage organisations to learn from each other's experiences. 

Another task we have been working on over the last three months has been to produce a communications plan to be used throughout the delivery of Y Môr a Ni. The plan will help the 60+ WOLC partners to coordinate their communications across social media, websites and press releases, and to ensure clear and consistent messaging around ocean literacy for Wales. The skills we have built upon throughout our internship have been especially invaluable in understanding the nature of the marine sector in Wales for this role, especially in knowing how each individual partner organisation works within the marine environment and how to communicate that work to the public. 

The past three months have been full of a wide range of engaging events within the local community, representing Y Môr a Ni, discussing our relationship with the ocean.  We have assisted litterpicks, collecting a literal tonne of litter at PlastOff! in Porth Tyn Tywyn and 176 shark and skate eggcases at the Pensarn litter pick. The great eggcase hunt is a great way for local people to learn more about their local coastline whilst getting involved in citizen science, which will directly contribute to building strong scientific data. This was highlighted in the Project SIARC celebration event in Aberdyfi where we met so many enthusiastic community members and engaged fishers who were involved in the fantastic work that Project SIARC does.

These past three months highlighted how each experience by our seas builds our knowledge and skills on how to best act to protect it. An event that demonstrated this was our Saltmarsh field trip day with the North Wales Wildlife Trust Living Seas team. Through this experience, we learnt of the challenges that saltmarsh habitats face and what is being done to monitor, protect and restore them. Over at Pen Llyn a’r Sarnau SAC, we teamed up with the Ocean Rescue Champion on a fragment walk guided by a member of the Special Area of Conservation team. We learnt how to identify and collect seagrass fragments that get washed up onto shore, prepared and replanted them so that they continued to build on the beautiful existing seagrass meadows in our waters. It was great to work alongside the Champs to hear about what mattered to them, the ways they engaged with the ocean and the careers they hope to have in the marine sector.  

Working with young people was an important part of our role. We introduced Ocean Literacy from a young age to learn about what the sea means to them.

We partnered with the Mali a’r Môr puppet show at Storiel, an enchanting puppet show aimed at 3-7 year olds that uses story telling and song to learn how to get joy from the ocean in a safe and sustainable way. We followed this show with activities that demonstrated the different sensory experiences you encounter in our marine environment. It was great to hear what the parents and children thought of ocean literacy and how they best enjoy connecting with the our seas and coasts.

We attended two youth groups at St Mary’s parish in Holyhead, where we discussed the issues around marine plastic pollution. Through a quiz we learnt more about the threats the ocean faces from plastic and what we can do to reduce our own plastic consumption from home. It was inspiring to hear how passionate these young people were at doing their bit for to help protect our natural world!

At the end of February, we embarked on a tour of mid and south Wales, showcasing the Y Môr a Ni strategy at various partner events, as well as learning about some of their inspiring work with local coastal communities who are fighting against coastal threats, like climate change and littering. 

Our first leg on the journey was to join Tir Canol in Aberystwyth for the launch of their new coastal adaptation ‘Changing Tides’ handbook, which documents all of the great co-designed community work they have been doing in the Dyfi catchment area. The handbook explores the impacts of climate change, species and habitats of the region, as well as coastal adaptation, Welsh marine & coastal policy and blue carbon. 

Our next stop was Milford Haven for the Festival of the Sea, hosted this year by Pembrokeshire Coastal Forum. It was a fantastic day filled with ocean literacy, public engagement and sea shanties from pirates on stilts. We spent our day gathering messages for the ocean and putting faces to names through meeting Y Môr a Ni partners from all over Wales in person. To add to the experience, it was also St David’s Day and the Welsh cakes were flowing. To round off the day, we attended some fascinating and motivating talks from passionate conservationists, writers and photographers, further celebrating our scientific, artistic and cultural connections to the ocean. 

The final stop on the tour was to Cardiff, joining Keep Wales Tidy for their local environmental quality forum. We learnt all about the national littering statistics, celebrated volunteer litter-picking efforts up and down Wales, and learned about upcoming policy change around the deposit return scheme. 

The travel didn’t end here and after a couple of weeks back up in north Wales, we headed back down south to Pembrokeshire for a quick trip to the Sea Trust’s amazing Ocean Lab in Goodwick to reunite with many familiar faces from the Festival of the Sea for Sea Trust Wales’ Community Ocean Day. 

It has been a fantastic opportunity to get involved with marine conservation and to think about the many ways that communities, organisations and individuals interact with our coasts and seas, both on a local and national level.

Over the past three months, we have built upon our knowledge of the marine sector from the Marine Futures Internship, and applied it to an active conservation project. We feel that our work and achievements in such a short time will go on to have a long-term and meaningful change to how people understand their impact on the ocean, and the ocean’s impact on them. We both look forward to closely following the work of the Y Môr a Ni project as it delivers more positive change across Wales and beyond into the future.