2026 Award Theme: Outstanding contribution to ocean and coastal management
This year’s award is focussed on inclusive leadership and community engagement: recognising an individual(s) whose leadership has demonstrably fostered greater inclusion and community engagement.
The Award celebrates those who are building bridges between diverse groups, breaking down barriers, and creating opportunities for underrepresented communities to participate in and benefit from ocean stewardship.
Nominations close on 7 November, 2025 – submit your nomination today.
By Ffion Mitchell-Langford, Winner of the Bob Earll Award for Early Career Impact
Action. It’s what drives us, unites us, and what we strive for every day. For everyone working in ocean and coastal management, that drive comes from somewhere — a lived experience that’s shaped us when we were younger, or perhaps a breakthrough moment that showed what positive change can look like.
For me, it all began on the South Wales coast, in the sediment-churned waters of the Bristol Channel. Growing up there, I saw both change and absence — a dramatically changing coastline and the absence of certain voices and faces in my blue space. I didn’t realise it then, but that curiosity would grow into a lifelong mission to make our coasts and seas more resilient, and equitable.
Since joining the ocean sector five years ago, that early curiosity has evolved into a sense of civic duty. Environmental and social justice in blue spaces are, for me, non-negotiable — they affect us all, and we have a responsibility to act. Failing to do so erodes the prospects of future generations. That urgency keeps me going.
At the beginning of this year, I reached a turning point: receiving the Bob Earll Award for Early Career Impact in Ocean & Coastal Management at Coastal Futures 2025. I never truly understood the power of recognition until that moment — standing on a stage, sharing my experience as a young person striving not just to make it in the ocean sector (which is hard enough as it is), but to make a difference. The recognition encouraged me to push forwards and continue to turn ambition into action.
Nine months on, the Hiraeth Yn Y Môr Project, delivered with the Marine Conservation Society, has finished — leaving a legacy for coastal communities in North-East Wales and earning a place on the ScottishPower Foundation Awards 2025 shortlist for community engagement. Our work on Ocean Literacy with communities is now informing the development and implementation of National Ocean Literacy Strategies across Wales, Scotland and England. Through our new Atlantic Coast Programme, we’re now helping to mobilise a network of community-owned marine restoration projects to unlock large-scale seascape recovery across the Atlantic Coast.
Meanwhile, the National Marine Parks movement, led by Campaign for National Parks, launched the National Marine Parks Alliance in June — a growing network of more than 300 representatives from fisheries, ports, community groups, eNGOs and public bodies. Together, we’re exploring how a seaward extension of our coastal National Parks could close the rift between land and sea management. This summer, we successfully campaigned to reinstate the coastline in North-East Wales’ proposed National Park — another win for our coasts and ocean, for the first National Park proposed in Wales for over 70 years.
Beyond projects, I’ve continued advocating for youth inclusion in decision-making — championing young voices at Natural Resources Wales, the Port of Milford Haven, and within Coastal Futures itself, helping make the conference more welcoming and empowering for early-career professionals.
As we approach Coastal Futures 2026, Ambition to Action couldn’t be a more fitting theme. Let’s channel that energy, get out there, and make 2026 our year for real change — because, ultimately, the source of that drive is you. I look forward to seeing you at Coastal Futures 2026.