First, let me start of by saying a massive THANK YOU to everyone who has followed, supported, brought stickers and t-shirts, tagged, commented, shared all of our previous Shark Education Australia posts. This all started out with me wanting to find the best way to use my studies, experience, passion and all around love for the ocean to help protect it. From here I decided I didn’t want to use my science degrees to do my own marine research (not because I don’t like scientific research, I have HUGE respect for all those marine and wildlife scientists out there in the field conducting research and writing endless papers on what is happening to the natural world), I wanted to use the marine studies and findings already conducted to inform those who might not understand what is currently happening in the oceans and get them to understand why we need to start protecting it.

I initially set this organisation up as Shark Education Australia because over the past few years as a conservationist I have had a big focus on shark conservation, but this wasn’t always the case. Growing up in Australia I was always surrounded or not that far from the coast, and this, combined with my love for animals and nature, made me fall head over bare feet for marine animals, in particular marine mammals. I was your typical dolphin/whale lovin’ child who all I wanted to do was work with them when I grew up. This lead me to complete a marine biology degree and then further this with a masters in environmental science at university. However, while my love for cetaceans never diminished, when I found out shark populations had plummeted in total by 90% during my undergraduate degree, my shark conservation focus increased exponentially! I still wanted to study marine mammals, but it felt like there was hardly anyone focusing on sharks, so I decided to, and this is why my organisation’s focus was on sharks.

However…I feel now there are heaps of amazing shark activists, conservationists, scientists and organisations that are doing AMAZING things for sharks, and while this new organisation will have a huge focus on shark conservation, I also want to include other marine issues such as climate change, plastic pollution, captivity and heaps more. That is why I have decided on the name Gen Blue, because we don’t need another Gen Y or X or Z, we need a generation focused on saving this big blue planet and the natural wonders it holds!

Our mission is still the same, conservation through education - we want to inspire the next generation to become ocean warriors and help protect the Earth from human activities. We will do this by going to schools and delivering marine based scientific presentations and ocean based activities that all fit within the Australian scientific curriculum. We loved doing this as Shark Education Australia, but we can’t wait to talk about all things ocean with kids as Gen Blue!

Thank you again for all your support! Please feel free to DM us on Insta or email contact@genblueau.com if you would like to chat to us more about what we do!

Kristy Hillas
(Founder of Gen Blue)