Thirty years ago, a lone bearded man on a surfboard paddled himself into the path of a 500-foot long, nuclear-armed warship in Sydney harbour and grabbed hold of the giant bow as it steamed past. The media pack, sent there to document a display of American military might, wound up instead with an iconic image of lone protest. The surfer was Ian Cohen: he later became a Greens politician, and perhaps more than anyone else he cemented the notion that surfers would mobilise to protect the environment.



There’s a presumption about surfing, commonly held by those who do it and those who don’t, that in dozens of ephemeral ways it connects humans with the natural world.

The brutal reality is that surfers, historically led by Australians, have degraded the island of Bali beyond recognition

This is true, to a degree. To go surfing, you need to leave the security of the terrestrial world and place yourself at the mercy of the ocean. There are birds, fish, intertidal creatures, and heaven forbid, there are sharks. There’s the experience of camping, of walking distances through the scrub, of paddling open ocean to reach a reef. To be a surfer necessarily involves constant thought about the weather and about the complex dynamics of coastal environments. The most beautiful places on earth are the necessary playing surfaces for this “sport”.

But equally, surfers are creatures of convenience, lured by comfort and the prestige of brands into some environmentally dubious choices. Surfers burn vast amounts of petroleum in search of waves; cars, planes and even jetskis criss-crossing the globe in pursuit of an experience which, ironically, requires no propulsive fuel. Surfboards and wetsuits are among the most toxic of sporting goods, made predominantly out of that same petroleum. Surf wax is filthy stuff. A committed surfer might throw out a board, two wetsuits, a kilo of wax and four leashes a year, and their only destination is landfill (though the leashes are great for staking tomatoes).



Over generations, we’ve trashed the places we love. The brutal reality is that surfers, historically led by Australians, have degraded the island of Bali beyond recognition. Quiksilver and Coca-Cola have combined to start undoing the damage to Balinese beaches, but it’s a long road back.



Is it possible, given these contrasts, to strike a verdict on surfers and their environmental impact? Probably not: this is consumerism, and it sways between consciousness and blind avarice all the time. But it’s worth looking at what is being done – in Australia alone, the authoritative Sweeney Report estimates that three million people consider themselves surfers, so the aggregation of their behaviours is going to affect our environment.

Coastal development is perhaps the most visible mark that surfing leaves. Massive housing developments around Torquay are evidence of the desire to have a surfing lifestyle while commuting to the city where the coffee’s better. Does it work? Maybe for some, but it chokes the freeways and concretes the verdant hills that once surrounded Bells. Famous local board shaper Maurice Cole has waged a running battle with planning authorities over the ceaseless parade of tourist buses and horrendous public toilets that are consequences of our love affair with that coast.

On the other hand, and starting with the same place as an example, surfers have lobbied to turn some of the iconic stretches of our coastlines into reserves. These now include Bells Beach, Woolamai Beach on Phillip Island, Margaret River in the west, Maroubra in inner-urban Sydney and Angourie, further up the New South Wales coast. There are 18 around the nation and many more proposed, and they’re widely supported.

And coastal development has frequently driven coastal management: 4WD tracks that meander over burrowing animals have been consolidated and fenced. Revegetation has stabilised dunes (though some surfers will argue this affects the quality of sandbanks by “trapping” sand). Shorebirds such as hooded plovers have been given protection from our dogs and careless wanderings. And it was surfers, more than any other group, who clamoured for the modernisation of the notorious Boags Rocks sewage outfall at Gunnamatta, near Melbourne.

A recent Life-Cycle Analysis (LCA) study found that your everyday surfboard leaves a considerable CO2 footprint. A typical 6’0” shortboard weighs about 2.5 kilograms, but across manufacturing, use and disposal, it contributes more than 270 kilograms of CO2 to the atmosphere. That figure is comparable with consumer electronics like mobile phones.

‘Wetsuits, which feel great but are little more than a blanket of crude oil, are undergoing their own quiet revolution.’ Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

New materials and methods are making the prospect of a “green” surfboard more plausible. Surfboard “blanks” (the foam core of the board) can now be made from up to 60% recycled materials. Polyurethane (PU) blanks can be recycled so that at least they’re not going back into the environment after a single use. Petrochemical resins can now be replaced with bio-resins, and timber products such as bamboo and paulownia are reducing the need for fibreglass. Look for brands such as Firewire, Grain and Ocean Green.

Wetsuits, which feel great but are little more than a blanket of crude oil, are undergoing their own quiet revolution. Neoprene has been replaced by limestone-derived compounds (although the carbon inputs to reach the necessary high temperatures for manufacturing seem to negate the benefits), natural hevea tree rubber and more recently, rubber from a humble-looking desert shrub called guayule. Patagonia, which pioneered the latter technologies, have offered their trade secrets to other brands without restriction, in the hope that the greener tech will take over. There’s also work going into pulping discarded wetsuits to make new compounds for footwear and impact-absorbing surfaces.

The conservation of marine creatures is an area in which surfers have done well. Organisations such as the Surfrider Foundation, Save the Waves Coalition and Surfers for Cetaceans have applied modern advocacy techniques to embed themselves deep in the political mechanisms that affect ocean health. This is way beyond standing around with a bullhorn and a sandwich board. As prominent surfer-activist Dave Rastovich puts it: “Anything that’s disrupting the balance of life along the coast and in the water is an issue surfers are involved in, whether we are aware of it or not.”

Rasta’s words carry added meaning now that surfers are asked daily whether they support or oppose a cull of sharks. It’s a question that goes to the heart of our relationship with the sea: is it rational to concede that humans are part of a food chain? That we’re subject to predation like every other animal around us?

It’s reasonable to hope that surfers, so often jammed in the middle of environmental conflicts, might be collectively discovering the maturity to deal with the pressures. Why? Because they’re no longer the outliers they once were. They’re tradies, professionals, retirees, mothers, hipsters … anyone at all. With the increasing normalisation of surfing comes a diversity of views and a louder voice. As the former head of Surfrider Foundation Chris Tola once put it: “The ratbags of previous decades are now chairing the board.”