Corwin will host the 2024 Ocean Awards Gala, on June 4 and appear at the conference on June 5
Emmy Award-winning TV host and renowned wildlife biologist Jeff Corwin will join the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation to honour ocean leaders at the Ocean Awards Gala on June 4th at Union Station in Washington, D.C., as part of Capitol Hill Ocean Week (CHOW), the nation’s premier ocean conference.
Corwin will also join National Marine Sanctuary Foundation President and CEO Joel R. Johnson on June 5th onstage for a discussion at Capitol Hill Ocean Week. The conference is free and open to the public to attend both in person and virtually.
For nearly three decades, Jeff Corwin has been telling stories of wildlife and nature to a global audience through his many celebrated television series, including Ocean Treks with Jeff Corwin on ABC, garnering multiple Emmy and top-broadcast industry awards. He is also a working commercial fisherman in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Massachusetts.
Joel R. Johnson, President and CEO of the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, said, “For decades, Jeff Corwin has inspired people everywhere to love nature and protect it. Capitol Hill Ocean Week celebrates leadership, and few have demonstrated a commitment to enlightening the world about our ocean and its inhabitants more than Jeff Corwin. I can’t wait for audiences at Capitol Hill Ocean Week to hear Jeff shine a light on our outstanding Ocean Award Gala honorees and the wonders to be had by protecting our precious waters.”
Jeff Corwin said, “I’m honored to be taking part in my first Capitol Hill Ocean Week. The ocean community is rallying together at a time of tremendous importance, and the decisions made now to protect our waters will ripple across the decades to come. I can’t wait to help shine a light on these critical issues and the people and organizations doing all they can to solve them.”
The theme of Capitol Hill Ocean Week 2024 is Leadership, at all levels and from all walks of life, coming together to drive attention and innovation to protect our ocean and center people at the core of ocean solutions. The CHOW conference will take place June 5th and 6th at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C. and the agenda, plenary topics and speaker lists are available at capitolhilloceanweek.org.
This year, the Ocean Awards Gala honors Leadership by recognizing people and organizations on the cutting edge of advocacy, policymaking, and exploration in the protection of our ocean, coasts, and Great Lakes. Awards will honor Chair Violet Sage Walker of the Northern Chumash Tribal Council, with special recognition for the late Chief Fred Collins; White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory; and National Geographic Pristine Seas.
The Ocean Awards Gala will take place at a new venue for 2024, Washington, D.C.’s Union Station, on the evening of June 4, 2024. The gala annually recognizes champions of marine and Great Lakes stewardship. Previous honorees include Presidents, Members of Congress, and world-renowned scientists and conservationists.
About Capitol Hill Ocean Week 2024
Capitol Hill Ocean Week (CHOW), which is comprised of the CHOW conference, the Ocean Awards Gala, and CHOW Hill Day, is hosted by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation during World Ocean Month. The CHOW conference agenda is now available on the registration website. The theme for CHOW 2024 is “Leadership.”
The vision, ambition, innovation, cultures, and collaborations of leaders powers the movement to protect our ocean and our blue planet by tearing down systemic inequities, reversing biodiversity loss, and tackling climate change. To tackle these herculean challenges, we must lift up and connect leaders everywhere to drive change, break down barriers, embrace responsibility and service, and build and support diverse alliances and communities.
At the heart of this work is people. Global and national ocean protection strategies rely upon coastal communities, traditional and new, but don’t always center them. Leaders in local communities with historical relationships to the ocean, are the frontline responders and most impacted by a changing climate, pollution, and the loss of species. And they will be the ones to turn policy into action and make the solutions we need work.
CHOW 2024 calls upon leaders from all walks of life to come together to drive attention and innovation to protect our ocean and center people at the core of ocean solutions. Together, we will explore international, national, and local communities and the traditional and new ways they are adapting to a changing climate, saving and protecting species, and sustaining their relationships with the ocean for a brighter, sustainable, and equitable future.
Convened by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation every June, CHOW brings together scientists, policymakers, scholars, businesses, and conservation leaders to address pressing conservation, science, and management issues facing our oceans and Great Lakes. The conference is held in conjunction with the Foundation’s Ocean Awards Gala, which recognizes champions of marine and Great Lakes stewardship through Leadership, Lifetime Achievement, Conservation Innovation, and Sanctuary Wavemaker Awards.
Registration for the CHOW conference is free and open to the public for both in-person and virtual attendance. Checkcapitolhilloceanweek.org for updates and more information.