A soft shark on a mission...
Who are we?
Keep Fin Alive is a marine conservation and education campaign in Mossel Bay, South Africa, and beyond. Our campaign mascot, Fin, is a soft shark on a mission to spread awareness of the catastrophic decline in marine populations due to plastic pollution, overfishing, and other threats.
Our mission
The ultimate goal of the campaign is to take a light-hearted approach to help change the common misconception of sharks and drive more attention to the problems of plastic pollution, overfishing, finning, shark fishing tournaments, bycatch and longlining. We’re using the power of social media to capture even those who usually turn a blind eye to the negative stories by gaining support from renowned personalities who inspire more campaign followers.
Why save sharks?
The most recent and accurate report states that up to 273 million sharks are killed each year. Sharks just cannot reproduce quickly enough to keep up with the demand and the only way to stop shark extinction is to stop the unnecessary trade of shark.
Sharks play a vital role in keeping the oceans healthy and are essential to an ecosystem that produces more oxygen than all the rainforests combined, provides a third of the world with food, removes half of the atmosphere’s greenhouse gases, and controls our planet’s temperature and weather. Sharks and the oceans desperately need our help.
Outreach
We have an outreach programme involving a puppet show, school talks, public talks and regular airtime on local radio to help gain ocean advocates from all generations.
We have been invited to Scifest Africa several times, where we have one of the most popular stalls. We are honoured to have won First Place for the Best Exhibition.
Our focus is spreading awareness of the issues facing our oceans and how people can actively get involved.
Our projects
Clean Ocean Divers
We’ve partnered with Go Dive Mossel Bay to create a NAUI qualification called Clean Ocean Divers.
During a test dive, we collected over 600 items of fishing gear!
Shockingly, there’s so much more entangled or buried across the dive sites, and we need to do a lot more dives to clean up, and continue maintaining the reefs.
Get in touch if you’re interested in taking part in the Clean Ocean Diver workshop and clean up dive.
Reef & Ocean Clean Ups
These clean-ups are a team effort; every helping hand makes a difference.
Want to get involved? Reach out and join us in protecting our marine ecosystems.
Clean Ocean Companies
We know that our beautiful and mysterious oceans, which are the planet’s life support system, are in crisis because of human activities, and that a change in behavior is needed to ensure abundant and healthy oceans for the future of all life.
We are giving a voice to our visitors to insist on plastic free oceans. Refusing single use plastics is a small step in changing our lifestyle completely.
Find out how you can become a Clean Ocean Company
Become an Ocean Hero
