Successfully lobbying for a marine protection area to be established around the Philippine island of Malapascua, a stronghold of the endangered pelagic thresher shark (Alopias pelagicus), was one of the first big impacts of Save Philippines Seas, a non-profit co-founded by Anna Oposa in 2011.
Now, the organisation is focused on organising national climate-education campaigns – a much-needed initiative in the Philippines, which was named the most disaster-prone of the almost 200 countries in a 2023 report by the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict, in Germany. Particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, 90% of the Philippines’ schools had experienced a cyclone or flood between 2009 and 2018.
By law, in the Philippines, key climate change concepts are part of the curriculum from kindergarten through to grade 12. But when Oposa and the Save Philippines Seas team first started working with teachers, they realised that there wasn’t much teaching material that fit the curriculum – what the teachers had was very “Western”, she says.
“How can we teach climate change effectively if the examples we are giving are polar bears and icebergs?” says Oposa. “How can you get an eight-year-old Filipino child to see the relevance of that?”
Save Philippines Seas, now with a core team of five, has worked with teachers to create teaching modules that better suit the national curriculum, which includes Philippines-specific examples and scenarios to help students grasp the local effects of climate change.
“In 2023, we trained 295 teachers in the Philippines on how to teach climate change and they ended up engaging 9,000 other people,” she says, adding that teachers have a “great multiplying effect.”
How did they manage such rapid and widespread engagement? “We offered [teachers] micro-grants of about US$300 to implement climate change mitigation and adaptation projects in their schools,” says Oposa, “We also encouraged teachers to train other teachers using our materials and integrate our lessons in their school and classroom activities.”
From ‘theatre kid’ to chief mermaid
“When I was growing up, I never — ever — imagined that I would one day work in conservation: my big dream was to be a Broadway star,” Oposa recalls. As a teenager, Oposa was more focused on acting, music and dance, but environmental justice was a common breakfast-time topic with her dad, Antonio Oposa Jr, who was a pioneering environmental lawyer who won a case before the Philippine Supreme Court in the 1990s that gave his clients, a group of minors, the right to sue on behalf of future generations.
At 15 years old, Oposa learned to scuba-dive, and she did her first coastal clean-up at the age of 19 in Mabini, a city in the Philippines. At 23, she saw a newspaper article and the surrounding media storm about the reefs in the Philippines that were being ransacked by poachers for coral, turtles and shells. She was “outraged” that the poaching was happening at such a large scale and frustrated that they could get away with it. “As a diver and Filipino, I was devastated at what we were losing,” she says.
After working through the feelings of doubt and helplessness that many people experience when confronted with environmental disaster, Oposa regrouped, and figured out how she could take action. “I was young, I was inexperienced and I didn’t have a STEM background, so there were all these things that were going against me,” says Oposa. “But I was good at writing.”
Credit: Save Philippine Seas
Oposa and the other founding members of Save Philippine Seas started using the hashtags #reefwatchPH and #savephseas to campaign against the unmitigated poaching activities and she testified before a local Senate inquiry on the issue “It was a short social media campaign, but it turned into the NGO I’ve been leading for 13 years.”
As the nascent movement grew, a friend advised Oposa to get business cards to lend more legitimacy to her organisation. “When our volunteer graphic artist asked me what title I wanted for myself, I thought of the term ‘chief mermaid’, because other organisations have chief executive officers, chief finance officers and I thought it would be funny — so, it started out as a joke!” she says.
At a speaking engagement on marine conservation, Oposa soon found herself handing her card to a government official from the national Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and within a few days, she received a letter on official letterhead addressed to “Anna Oposa, chief mermaid.”
“It’s stuck,” she says of the title. “Government officials will always say, ‘Oh, the chief mermaid is here,’ So, it looks like I’m never going to outgrow it, but I like it!” she says. “Growing up, I thought that conservation was intimidating and serious, which was always a barrier to getting involved.” Her title helps to soften that, she adds.
“One of our values as an NGO is to take the problems of the seas seriously – but don’t take yourself too seriously,” says Oposa.
Chief mermaid isn’t the only creative title in the team – there’s also the “Social Media Mola-Mola,” or social media manager, named after the iconic ocean sunfish (Mola mola).
Make a difference where you are
Oposa advocates for the many ways that people can raise awareness around climate change issues. “You don’t have to be part of an NGO to make a difference in your own sphere of influence,” she says.
She points to the Climate Action Venn Diagram, by American marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, as a tool that people can use to identify where their skills and interests overlap with things that need to be done in climate education and action.
“When I look at the statistics about how oceanic sharks and rays have declined by 70% worldwide since 1970, I think about what I can do,” says Oposa. “Whether you are hopeful or hopeless, there is some action that you can take.”
Oposa once felt like her lack of STEM education was a hindrance to her career in conservation and science communication, but has since realised that being an English major set her on the right course. In fact, she thinks not having a STEM background actually really helped her.
“If I don’t understand what the scientist is talking about, chances are other people also don’t understand,” says Oposa, who went on to complete a master’s degree in conservation science at Imperial College London in 2015.
Her team now runs “Commservation workshops”, where they train communicators and scientists in the Philippines to better talk about topics such as climate, biodiversity and waste management.
Oposa explains that on top of the challenges of running an NGO, she’s worried about extreme weather events destroying her country’s economy, environment, and taking lives away. “Honestly, sometimes I wonder if what we do even makes a difference, given all the issues that our environment — and country — are facing,”
But she recalls the advice that her father gave her about how to stay motivated in the face of the bleak climate outlook. “You have to think of conservation as a game: you need to think of the next move, you need to think about strategy, but remember to have fun,” she says. “I have really adopted this mindset, so that I don’t burn out.”
Story by Andrew J Wight
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