CHRISTIAN
I bought my first dinghy for 150 DKK when I was 7. It was not very seaworthy, but it allowed me to sail and since then I have sailed bigger boats, including blue water racing. Also, though I am not a rower, I am the first Dane to row across an ocean. I did that in 2001 with a Chinese friend. It took us 56 days to cross 5,000km of open ocean.
An explorer of the sea from a very young age and a community volunteer, our first summer 2022 Ocean Hero took many challenging adventures in the open sea, and is ready to take another one! Christian Mourier Havrehed is embarking on ‘Row Round Denmark for Clean Seas’, a call to action for beach cleanups during a rowing round of Denmark!
A project with a meaningful purpose
Christian’s adventures always have some meaning attached to them, for instance when he fundraised a lifeboat to be deployed in Mozambique. Row Round Denmark focuses on clean seas, organising twelve cleanups in twelve different locations around Denmark throughout the duration of the trip. The aim is to bring people together, not only through the twelve events but also as a live and online community working towards the same purpose: taking care of our coastal environment. Christian calls people to do their own beach cleanups along the way, and submit their trash collection data, which would count towards a common database of trash removed from the coast.
When we visit Læsø we will focus on what trash the local fishermen catch in their nets. And when we get to Helsingør we will, together with Os Om Havet, clean up the harbour basis with the help of recreational scuba-divers.
A sustainability warrior with the ocean in his heart
Christian is a member of “Dråben i Havet”, a community initiative in Frederiksberg, dedicated to keeping our cities clean. He tells us that “it’s disheartening to see how people throw trash everywhere, in particular cigarette butts. I don’t even think most people consider throwing a cigarette butt as polluting nature.”. He feels that the same goes for ocean pollution - we do not see e.g. microplastics threatening marine species, entering the food chain, and adversely impacting life below water and life on land. As Christian puts it, “we use the ocean as a giant trash can and that is not sustainable for anyone”. To him, focusing on the importance of a clean sea and on communicating this to the public is crucial.
I love the ocean. It’s magical, full of energy, at times scary, but never boring. It is a place for me to empty my mind, relax, and plug into cosmic energy.
Christian feels that greed is the biggest challenge we need to solve to save our oceans. In his interview, he brought up the issue of shipping trash to other countries for processing, which sometimes leads to disposing it into the ocean.
In my opinion, no country should be allowed to export its trash to another country. By law, it should be processed locally. In this way, we would be forced to face the environmental consequences of our consumerism. Now we pay other countries a pittance to deal with our trash problem well knowing that they can’t and massively pollute the ocean as a result.
Thankful to the ocean
Our Ocean Hero would like to thank the ocean for enabling life on the planet and for providing passageways for explorers back in the day so that each corner of the world got explored. French explorer Jacques Cousteau is one of his own heroes, for being a visionary and for leading the focus on ocean life and ocean pollution.
One of his most fond memories of the ocean was the day he started rowing across the Atlantic.
#TAVAHA
Christian tells us that #Tavaha is a call to action.
We need to get this message out there more, so that it becomes ingrained in people's behaviour. But we also need more Tavako (Tag Vare på Kontinenterne / take care of the continents) because trash starts on land and ends up in the oceans.
Here are his #tavahatips, or #tavakotips:
Don’t throw trash - anywhere!
Pick up trash when you see it and dispose of it properly
By doing so you become an inspiration to others and help shift mindsets!