Danielle Ryan
Conservation Campaigner, NPA NSW
Ocean conservationists and scientists gathered at the Maritime Museum Friday 8th August 2025 to celebrate Ocean Legend Valerie Taylor and the next generation of ocean conservationists. NPA’s conservation campaigner Danielle Ryan won the big prize of the night, a beautifully handcrafted bronze seahorse statue for their work on the NSW Marine Parks Forum. The seahorse artwork was made by the organiser of the prize Merran Hughes, Blue World Foundation. Other prize winners included ocean conservationists, who are also NPA members, including Nicole McMahon, Emily Rowland, and Sam Nerrie.
Danielle first launched the Marine Parks Forum, co-hosted with the University of Technology Sydney and the Australian Marine Conservation Society, in 2022. Thanks to Blue World’s cash prize, the 2025 Forum will be held in November 2025, an important gathering for NSW’s community of ocean conservationists, marine scientists, government officials, and political offices, who share the goal to protect 30% of NSW’s waters by 2030. NPA members will be invited to attend once a date is announced.
Blue World also sponsored a workshop for the NSW Marine Sanctuary Alliance at the Maritime Museum on the 8 August, run by NPA’s campaigner Danielle Ryan. It was chaired by University of Technology Sydney’s Professor of Marine Ecology David Booth. NPA’s former president Dr John Turnbull, Marine Ecologist, University of Sydney, gave a presentation on science communication.
Participants were divided into groups to brainstorm marine protected area campaigns and were asked to pitch their campaign to the workshop at the end of the day. A range of clever ideas came out of the workshop including branding ideas for marine protected area proposals, such as branding Sydney Marine Park proposal ‘Sydney’s Blue Heart’. The Jervis Bay Marine Park team came up with ‘Let’s Mussel out the Mussels’, referring to a hybrid mussel which experts are concerned is outcompeting local marine life. Meanwhile, ‘Fish Rock, the musical,’ was proposed for the Manning Shelf Bioregion, starting at the location of Sylvia Earle’s Hope Spot of Fish Rock at Southwest Rocks, touring (like ‘stepping stones’) down the coast utilising the theme of ‘schools’ and ‘nurseries’ as a fun way to engage with communities, especially young people, to raise awareness that the northern region of the Manning Shelf bioregion needs more protection.
NPA has been successfully mobilising communities on marine protection since 2022, nurturing and up-skilling new local marine sanctuary champions, and taking a grassroots approach to championing marine protected areas in NSW. It is our hope that over the next year, with the Biodiversity Conservation Act review and the Marine Parks and Aquatic Reserves Review that this ever-evolving alliance of community groups secures greater protections for our local NSW marine environment.
NPA also acknowledges the support of Helen Moody, author of South Coast Islands New South Wales, for NPA’s marine conservation campaign.