In our guest blog Helen Webb, Co-Founder of our charity partner Sea-Changers, highlights the vital role of communities in marine conservation, as enabled by the charity’s partnership with Sea Change Wine.
"Since awarding our very first grant in 2012, Sea-Changers has been focused on supporting communities across the UK as they conserve, protect, and restore their own coastal and marine environments. We’ve now awarded around 500 grants to projects right across the United Kingdom and one thing has remained constant...our deep belief in the power of local communities to create change in their local areas. People who live by and love the sea understand its challenges and needs better than anyone else.
Image: Seasearch Divers aboard Atlantic Diver. Photo by skipper Chris Lowe
That is why it has been so important to us at Sea-Changers to create grant programmes that enable and support the UK’s coastal communities, giving them the resources and confidence to lead conservation efforts for their own parts of our incredible coastline. This bottom-up approach puts the decision-making in the hands of grassroots groups, allowing their unique priorities to shape meaningful, lasting change.
Our grants vary from seagrass restoration and marine species monitoring, to reducing plastic pollution and creating new habitats. We are really proud that many of the projects we support don’t just improve the marine environment, they also strengthen local connections, enable citizen science and inspire people and communities to “get stuck in.”
Our grants programmes are unique in what they achieve and how they are funded. Through close relationships with environmentally committed businesses such as Sea Change Wine we can enable a huge variety of conservation projects that simply would not happen without our grant. In 2025 we are celebrating a wonderful milestone in our relationship with Sea Change Wine: their donations have smashed the £200,000 mark, definitely worth raising a glass to! At Sea-Changers we want to extend a heartfelt thanks to all our friends at Sea Change Wine for their wonderful ongoing support. This partnership amplifies the power of community marine conservation action and, together, we’re proving that when local people lead, the sea’s future can be brighter.
To find out more about our grant programmes and the projects we enable visit www.sea-changers.org.uk."