Samantha Whitcraft

Founded in San Francisco in 1969, Oceanic Society is America's oldest non-profit organization dedicated to ocean conservation. We work to improve ocean health by deepening the connections between people and nature to address the root cause of its decline: human behavior. We seek to bridge the gap between awareness and measurable behavior change in three ways: 1. Connecting people to oceans through travel, and motivating personal actions to improve ocean health—Our expeditions engage thousands of people in international ocean conservation every year. We deliver unique, top-quality, life-changing travel experiences to a growing number of people through research and volunteer programs, nature expeditions, and whale watching cruises. 2. Defining and implementing strategies, tools, and methods to activate, sustain, and measure human behavior change—We work with leading behavioral scientists to define and implement techniques to motivate and measure consumer behavior changes relating to climate change, plastic pollution, and sustainable seafood, and we use storytelling and flagship species conservation to engage people and stimulate action. 3. Leveraging and amplifying our impacts to new audiences—We are developing, testing and packaging best practices and tools for motivating pro-ocean behaviors in order to leverage their use among the nature tourism industry that impacts tens of millions of people per year, as well as among consumer audiences more broadly through strategic partnerships. Together, these strategies aim to "move the needle"​ in ways that measurably improve ocean health and reduce the hazards that humans pose to oceans over time. Learn more about our work and find out how you can get involved at www.oceanicsociety.org.