A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

Surfing and environmental activism were joined at the national level for the first time in early 1969, after a Union Oil platform off Santa Barbara, California, ruptured and spilled more than 230,000 gallons of oil, much of it washing up on a 30-mile stretch of nearby coastline. Surf magazine editorials urged surfers everywhere to join GOO! (Get Oil Out), a grassroots Santa Barbara group founded in opposition to offshore drilling. "So many good days of surfing were ruined for me by the oil," four-time world champion Margo Godfrey said after the spill. "The sea, my playground and my temple, was destroyed by a few people trying to make some money." The surfing-environmental cause was furthered in 1970, as Hawaii's John Kelly organized more than 3,000 demonstrators—mostly surfers and their friends—for a rally at the state capitol building in Honolulu, to protest a development plan for Waikiki. 

 magazine that same year began publishing "Our Mother Ocean" (OMO), an environmental column that focused attention and promoted activism on surf-specific environmental issues including development- threatened surf breaks, beach access, and water quality. (OMO scored a coup in the late '70s by hiring beloved oceanographer/environmentalist Jacques Cousteau to write a short series of articles.) The vast majority of surfers have since proven to be dormant environmentalists at best, supporting the movement in abstract, but for the most part roused to action only for a pressing local concern that might despoil their beach.

The Surfrider Foundation, surfing's biggest and most successful environmental group, was formed in 1984 by California surfers Glenn Hening, Tom Pratte, and Lance Carson, in response to the badly polluted water at world-famous Malibu Beach. Surfrider had some important early victories—shutting down a breakwater project in San Diego, for example—and lots of glowing press, but individual memberships initially remained fairly low (fewer than 15,000 by 1990), and corporate interest, with a few exceptions, was even lower (a late-'90s survey showed that surf companies donated a far lower percentage of profits to environmental groups than did oil companies). Surfing environmentalism made national headlines in 1991 when Surfrider won a $5.8 million lawsuit against two Humboldt County paper mills whose toxic runoff was fouling nearby surf spots. The victory remains the second-largest Clean Water Act suit in U.S. history, and it spawned a decade of growth for Surfrider, as well as the formation of other surf environmental groups. Meanwhile, dozens more surf-related environmental problems were making headlines around the world, including sewage and industrial hospital waste (including hypodermic needles) washing up on the Jersey Shore; a heavily publicized 1990 oil spill in Huntington Beach; the loss of Akatei, one of Japan's best pointbreaks, to a harbor in 1993; a condo/golf course proposal for the North Shore of Oahu; ongoing sewage outfall problems across Great Britain; a proposed nuclear reactor near Jeffreys Bay in South Africa; and a proposed harbor for Kirra in Australia. Groups formed in response to these or other issues included Surfers Against Sewage (created in 1990), the Save Sunset Beach Coalition (1991), Surfer's Environmental Alliance (1993), the Groundswell Society (1994), and Save the Waves (2001). Surfrider Foundation chapters were also formed in Europe, Australia, Japan, and Brazil in the early and mid-'90s.

Surfrider scored another victory in 2000 with the passage of the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act of 2000, a landmark federal law coauthored by the group, requiring stringent water-quality testing statewide. Coupled with other programs such as Respect the Beach, which teaches high school students about coastal stewardship, and the annual State of the Beach Report, which gives water-quality letter grades to beaches across the nation, Surfrider—and surfing environmentalism in general—continued to grow and mature. Surf industry contributions to environmental causes was also up; as of 2002, the Surf Industry Manufacturers Association's Environmental Fund had donated more than $1.75 million to various surf-related causes. That said, only 35,000 American surfers, out of an estimated 2.5 million total nationwide, are members of Surfrider. Furthermore, the surfing environment was dealt a serious blow in late 2002, when the oil tanker Prestige broke apart off Spain, dumping 70,000 tons of heavy fuel into the Atlantic and causing the entire Bay of Biscay coastline to be closed to surfing.

environmentalism and surfing

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Features

The Sunday Joint

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Features

The Sunday Joint