Marten Sims

Contributor

MartenMarten is a formally trained graphic designer. While traveling in Venezuela, Columbia and Ecuador in 2008 he was able to reconnect to a long-dormant part of his psyche, a bond that was lost after childhood and suppressed further in what he thought at the time was ‘adulthood’. The connection he rediscovered while stood under the fiery sun; or the howling wind; through the pouring rain; submerged in the deep blue sea… was the one that we all – in some way shape or form – feel with the world around us when we are outdoors and away from what we have come to consider ‘familiar’. We feel alive again. Truly alive. Truly connected.

It was the sea in fact that solidified Marten’s intimate bond with the natural world. He grew up living by the sea and would swim, sail, lifeguard, surf and snorkel whenever he could. Many of these activities he continues to do to this day, along with his newfound love for recreational SCUBA-diving, a challenge which he undertook in order to expand on his own understanding of the other 71% of our planet.

It wasn’t hard to fall back in love with the ocean when he was living on the Galapagos Islands where, at the end of every day his skin tingled with the crisp glaze of salt, his body gently swayed with the rhythm of the waves and his dreams were filled with the dances of sea lions, the majestic forms of hammerhead sharks and and gliding turtles.

This close-up experience with the underwater world evolved and transformed his perspectives on nature, and catalyzed his views on the worlds depleted concern for marine conservation. He realised that what is most important to him (his ‘purpose’) is to use his life’s energy and optimistic spirit as catalyst for either his own positive actions towards the planet, or to advise others to take action for what they believe in too.

One of the ways that he currently channels this ‘energy for action’, is to challenge others to participate in protecting and defending the natural world that surrounds the ever-expanding human race. He achieves this on a professional level as a graphic designer, as well as in a voluntary capacity as Campaign Director at Wake, a marine conservation initiative he and two like-minded activists began in Vancouver, BC. Wake specialises in shark and tuna conservation and education, and takes appropriate actions to form positive engaging dialogues with various members of Vancouver’s community.

Their ultimate goal is to try to allow humans to connect with out-of-site ocean issues in the same way that we currently care about the concern of human, or other land-dwelling creatures and life-forms.

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