Protecting Peruvian Waves

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Surf Protection, World Surfing Reserves, Malibu and other Case Studies

Big Day, Small Board: Erik "Frog" Nelsen dropping in at Cloudbreak, one of the world's iconic waves.

On October 9th, Malibu's famous Surfrider beach surfing areas was dedicated as the world's first World Surfing Reserve - an ambitious effort by a small NGO called Save the Waves.

The idea of protecting surfing areas and providing our iconic surfing spots around the globe protected status is something that is shared my many surfers as well as other NGO's that protect surf spots including the Surfrider Foundation USA, Europe, Japan, Argentina, Canada, WildCoast, Surfers Against Sewage, and others.

Here's a recent presentation I have on the topic of surf protection, the role of world surfing reserves in protecting surfing areas and some examples of surf protection efforts.

Surf Protection & World Surfing Reserves from Surfrider Foundation on Vimeo.

You can view and/or download the presentation here (Keynote).

In addition here are a couple of recent articles discussing surfing reserves:

A critique of Malibu's world surfing reserve designation here.

An essay by Neil Lazarow entitled, "What is a Surfing Reserve and why should surfers care about them?"

Waves are Resources: WAR report from Surfer's Against Sewage

Surfer's Against Sewage released a new report called "Waves are Resources (WAR)".

The comprehensive report covers the basic physics of wave formation and breaking, efforts to value waves, activities that can impact waves (structures, dredging, pollution, oil spills, sewage, etc.), emerging efforts to generate power from waves and some of the efforts to protect waves, including World Surfing Reserves.

You can download and read the report here.

Protecting surf spots

World Wave Sites team: Ryan Seelbach, Will Henry, Greg Benoit, Chris LaFranchi, Ben Finney, Jim Moriarty, Fernando Aguerre, Rodney A. Woodstock, Sky, Miles Walsh, Lindsey Davis, Dean LaTourrette, Kara Allen, Christoph Tito Huber, Joao De Macedo, Drew Kampion, Steve Hawk, Brad Farmer, Josh Berry, Wallace J. Nichols, Chad Nelsen, Mark Massara, Len Materman

Last Friday, Save the Waves brought together an interesting mix of surfing eco-activists, industry leaders and deep thinkers to discuss proactively protecting surfing areas by establishing surfing "reserves".

Topics discussed included the importance of surfing heritage and cultural values, protecting the ocean environment, economics and the waves themselves.

Brad Farmer, of the Australian National Surfing Reserves, described the process of establishing surfing reserves in Australia like the one at Lennox, and lessons that might be applied elsewhere.

While establishing protected surfing areas is an ambitious and aspirational goal and there are many important decisions and details to be worked out, I think it is safe to say the group universally agreed that the world's special surfing areas deserve the same types of protection that our land-based recreational havens like Yosemite have.

Stay tuned for more on protecting surfing areas...