Interview: Matt Littlejohn of Oceana on Why Protecting the Oceans Will Feed the World

The ocean is my place of peace. 

Since childhood, I have gone there to relax, play and reconnect with my sense of wonder. My earliest ambition was to be a marine biologist. I chose a university where I could leave class and be in the water on the same day. I have passed this love of the oceans on to my children, and I hope they will have the chance to pass it on in turn. I've even asked them to make sure that the ocean is where I'll wind up after I'm gone. It might sound morbid, but I'm comforted by it. The oceans sustain all life, so it makes sense for me to return there. 

That's why I am so worried about the peril that our oceans are in. Greenhouse gases are making our oceans hotter and more acidic, and that means many marine species which millions depend on for food and livelihood could be gone soon. And plastics and pollution are literally chocking the plants, animals and mammals that call our oceans home. Catches could be decreased by as much as forty-seven percent, as algae blooms make them inedible and extreme temperature fluctuation decimates populations. And economically speaking, over the next century, damage to coral reefs could cost the global economy $140 billion in lost revenue. 

I'm finally at a point in my career where I can give back to the things I love, and helping protect and restore the oceans is first on my list. Since my knowledge and skills are in branding and marketing, I've chosen to help Oceana, a non-profit doing incredible work on behalf of the world's oceans. I'm helping them find responsible, like-minded corporate sponsors and help amplify their message out to the world—in highly creative and strategic formats. In Matt Littlejohn, Oceana's head of marketing, I've found not only a partner but a friend. I sat down with him to learn more about Oceana's work and why their message matters. 

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Paul: We've heard a lot about plastics in the oceans recently. What are Oceana's views on that topic?

Matt: We've got a situation where our best intentions and our first impressions aren't getting to the root of the problem. It starts with ocean-aware people on the beaches. They see litter and they think, we've got to clean this up! Or with people who see pictures of litter in the ocean and think, if I can recycle more, then the problem will be solved. Those are the right impulses. But the fact is, only 9% of all the plastic we use is recycled. And even when it does get recycled, it still pollutes. It's gonna be turned into a speed bump, or a park bench, or it's gonna be turned into your fleece, or your shoes. But all of those things shed plastic when it rains. And you can't compost plastic, it takes several hundred years for it to actually decompose.

So all those microscopic bits end up in the ocean and the environment. The animals are eating them and absorbing the toxins that so easily cling to plastic. Recycling alone is not gonna solve the problem--we have to find a way to reduce and eliminate our dependence on plastic entirely. 

Paul: You've recently changed your tagline from "Protecting the World's Oceans" to "Save the Oceans, Feed the World." Why the change?

Matt: Our mission and tagline for Oceana is that we want to save the oceans and feed the world. Even though we haven't phrased it as such, we realized that this was already our mission five or six years ago. 

For a long time, we've been focused on preserving ocean bio-diversity and habitats like coral reefs. This included, for example, stopping bottom trawling. When fishing boats drag high tension nets across the ocean floor, what you get is like the undersea version of clear cutting. You catch the fish, sure, but you rip up everything else, all the places where animals that we don't eat live. You destroy structures – which can include corals. that have been protecting life for countless years. And what you end up with is desolation. It's ugly and it's demoralizing to look at and, most importantly, terrible for the animals that depend on these special places.

Our big realization was that by protecting these special places, the animals and their habitats from long-term destruction, we were also assuring that the oceans could become more abundant. And furthermore we realized that this is so important for the nearly one billion people in the world who depend on the oceans for their livelihood. Making our oceans more biodiverse is a great outcome. But, in terms of really saving the world’s oceans, talking about abundance and ultimately food is a real game changer for most of the world (especially when you get outside the worlds of New York, London, and LA.)]

We work, for example, in the Philippines and Peru, and the oceans there are directly relevant to the lives of of small-scale fishers, who are in many cases women, who depend on the sea for their living. Making the seas more abundant is what is going to help them and, in terms of oceans, those countries the most. It is also – realistically – the most effective way to win change in countries where you really have to talk about jobs and food to make change happen. So we made that our main mission. 

And for us this change was revelatory. It made us even more committed and more excited from day to day. It also gave us a unique voice in the world of ocean conservation. We tell people, it's okay to eat fish. In fact, we want you to eat fish, but we just want you to do it in a way that helps keep the most possible people fed. And, in a way that will keep our oceans bio-diverse. It is possible. 

Paul: Okay, so say I'm looking at a menu. What do I order?

Matt: So the general approach to it is that we advocate is to use an acronym called WLLS which stands for "wild, little, local, and shellfish." 

First, wild. It's always best to try to eat wild seafood over farmed seafood. Most of the farmed seafood particularly that you're going to run into in New York, in L.A. and elsewhere is probably going to be farmed salmon, and that is a problem because farmed salmon is fed on chopped up, ground up wild pieces of smaller seafood. This is a very inefficient use of fish. It takes on the order of 3-4 pounds of anchovies or other smaller fish to create one pound of farmed salmon, for example. So it's a real loss when you eat farmed fish generally speaking because you can be eating the small fish directly. And those smaller fish are often very delicious. In general, it's better to eat lower on the food chain, because seafood from those fisheries is better managed and even tends to be richer in the good stuff like omega-3 fatty acids. So, you should also focus on eating the small or little fish (that’s the first “l”). 

Then there's local, which means it hasn't been flown around the world. It's often going to be a fishery that is going to be more sustainable. The supply chain has a smaller carbon footprint. Plus, you can find out about where it came from. 

And then a nice catch-all is to eat shellfish, like mussels, oysters, clams, shrimp. You can eat farmed shell fish and you can eat wild shell fish. They are fantastic because they're all filter feeders so even the farmed shell fish are helping to clean up the oceans. They don't have a big impact on the seas. If you do have a beautiful tuna steak every once in a while or a swordfish steak, you should enjoy it, but WLLS is what to do most of the time. 

Paul: What's happened recently for you guys and what's next?

Matt: We've had an amazing run recently. We've worked with Bloomberg, National Geographic, and with Leonardo DiCaprio, to name some of our biggest collaborators. And we've also had some amazing on-the-ground victories. We make a point of working with local authorities, as local as we can find, and it's been very effective. We've helped Chile, for example, go from protecting a small percentage of their ocean to 25%. To do that, we campaigned and won victories on the federal and local level. A real key to our success was partnering with the local fishers (and people) who would benefit from more abundant areas. This approach has led us to winning hundreds of victories world wide. What's next is to continue to build our momentum and the support needed to build campaigns in more of the 30 countries that control 90% of all the seafood caught in the world. We are already in a third of them – it really is possible to save the oceans and feed the world.

One key, as you know is continue to build popular support because some of our most important collaborators are the over 4 million people who follow us on social media and get our emails, amplifying our message and turning their love for the oceans into the kind of awareness that helps protect them. 

If you're reading this article and care about what we've said share it!

Paul: Well said, thanks Matt!

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Perhaps I view the world through azure colored glasses, but the need to help our oceans is both apparent and urgent to me every day. So I assumed big corporate sponsors would line up to boost Oceana's message and make a difference. But it hasn’t been easy. We live in a noisy communications environment and we all have fast-paced, competing agendas. 

If you want to cut through the noise, and align to a powerful and authentic mission, let’s connect and talk about how you and your company can help!

Matt Littlejohn, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications, Oceana, Matt leads Oceana’s organizational marketing and communications efforts and is a key member of the executive team that has grown Oceana into the largest and most effective international ocean conversation group in the world. Oceana, which now has over 4 million supporters worldwide, has won hundreds of policy victories around the world that have protected several million square miles of Ocean and many of the largest and most productive fisheries in the world.  Before Oceana, Matt was a senior marketing executive and consultant for digital and marketing agencies and companies including SS+K, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Honest Tea and Zoom Media Group. He’s also worked as a legislative assistant for US Senator, a presidential (campaign) advance man and as a reporter for Forbes Magazine. Matt has a BA from Brown University and an MBA from Yale University.  

Paul Suchman has built his career understanding, building, and rebuilding iconic global brands, making them resilient and relevant in the face of cultural and technological change. He has held senior positions with CBRE, BBDO and Ogilvy, and serves on the advisory board of USC's Marshall School of Business. He also currently serves as CMO-in-residence with WPP and as an executive advisor for Oceana.

Oceana is the largest international advocacy organization dedicated solely to ocean conservation. Oceana is rebuilding abundant and biodiverse oceans by winning science-based policies in countries that control one third of the world’s wild fish catch. With more than 200 victories that stop overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution and killing of threatened species like turtles and sharks, Oceana’s campaigns are delivering results. A restored ocean means that one billion people can enjoy a healthy seafood meal, every day, forever. Together, we can save the oceans and help feed the world. Visit www.oceana.org to learn more.