This years’ Make A Wave challenge? Surf every day of September.
The impact? Clean water, sanitation, food security and basic healthcare to families in the places we love to surf.
Focused in Indonesia and the Solomon Islands, SurfAid works with local leaders, traditional cultural custodians, government, and religious leaders, to both enable local people to develop and apply their own development ideas, and to ensure that these changes are supported, and embedded, into local structures.
“SurfAid's mission is to improve the health, well-being and resilience of families living in isolated regions connected to us through surfing.”
Is surfing everyday among our friends and community really that much of a challenge? If the winds up maybe you’ll find some of us down at the beach with a bunch of boogie boards or flippers for our boardriders.
Become a Sweet Surf Boardrider to join surf captains Jana, Shelbi and Sarah who came runners up in last year’s womens long boarding competion for Santos Organics.
This month Jojo is bringing awareness to three birds that may call the Byron Bay region home. Keep an eye out, inform yourself, and share what you know to others in your flock.
It is Jojo’s hope that you will learn each and every one of the 22 species. Get to know these friends, who are ranging from vulnerable to critically endangered, from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), here.
You can also better equip yourself by learning other native species in need of our support in the Threatened Species Action Plan.
Hooded Plover
Vulnerable
Hooded Plovers prefer wide beaches backed by dunes with large amounts of seaweed, creek mouths and inlet entrances, although are sometimes found around other coastal lakes and lagoons.
They like to breed in the same place each year, and lay eggs in simple scrapes above the high-water mark.
Key threats include beach use by people, dogs, vehicles and horses, urban developments along the coastline which changes the size and shape of the beach, increasing storm events and the rising sea-level.
Red Goshawk
Endangered
Red Goshawks are solitary and thinly dispersed across roughly 15 percent of coastal and nearby country from the western Kimberley to north-eastern New South Wales.
They favour areas near permanent water. Most of their diet is other birds. Females can prey on species as large as Red-tailed Black-cockatoos, while the smaller males typically feed on birds the size of a Rainbow Lorikeet.
The species is of cultural significance to many First Nations peoples, including the Tiwi people on the Tiwi Islands and the Lama Lama people on Cape York Peninsula.
Key threats include habitat loss and fragmentation due to land clearing, and habitat degradation due to grazing practices.
Eastern Curlew
Critically endangered
Eastern Curlews are large wading birds found along coastlines all around Australia. Every year this migratory shorebird travels from our shores to breed in Russia and north-eastern China.
While on migration Eastern Curlews face multiple threats including habitat loss, human disturbance, and illegal hunting.
In Australia, their feeding grounds and roosting sites are increasingly close to where people are building houses and other infrastructure.
In the last 30 years their population has plummetted by 80 percent.
For now, the entirety of your membership will be donated to SurfAid.