Marine environment consultant and honourary life member of Surfers Against Sewage, Atlanta Cook talks sewage, plastics and fatbergs - and what we can do to help. Hayley and Kirsten reflect on what we can do day-to-day to live more ethically and support the environment - in a way that adds more meaning and joy to life.

Atlanta Cook started her marine conservation adventure in 1991 helping organise Surfers Against Sewage's first Brighton photo shoot and fund-raiser. She was an SAS Brighton Media Rep and set up SAS North Devon which successfully campaigned for the building of Baggy Point Sewage Treatment Works at Croyde Bay. She became a Director of SAS in 2000 and remained in post until the birth of her daughter. SAS named her an Honorary Life Member in 2005 and she continues the original ‘Campaign for Clean Seas’ to this day. She became Co-ordinator of Seas at Risk Federation, an international federation of marine environment NGOs in 2001 and has been an independent marine environment consultant since 2004. In 2017 she started to recruit Brighton & Hove schools to the national SAS Plastic Free Schools programme in a bid to help the city win the Plastic Free Communities award.

Alongside Atlanta Cook’s work on marine pollution she has been raising awareness of ecological and ethical issues within the Brighton community for many years, with events such as the Bosnia Festival in 1994, Greenwaves Radio in 1995 and the Dance Parade on Brighton seafront in 1997.  She moved into the renewable energy sector as a conference organiser for the World Sustainable Energy Trade Fair from 1997-2001 and then moved to The Netherlands to work on the marine environment full-time.  More recently Atlanta has become a co-founding Trustee of Beacon Hub Brighton CIO, an eco-education and visitor centre for the Beacon Hill Local Nature Reserve next to Rottingdean Windmill www.beaconhubbrighton.org.  With the need to teach land regeneration practices to enhance biological diversity becoming ever more urgent she now works as part of the Landtribe collective at Stanmer Organics to skill share and encourage regenerative agriculture projects here and abroad.

“Be part of the solution to global pollution.  Be mindful of the ecological consequences of your daily actions.  This not only brings sustainability closer for us all, but also brings meaning to your life and peace to your heart.  Be the change you want to see.” Atlanta Cook

"Albatross - a film by Chris Jordan"
MCS Good Fish Guide
Landtribe
Ocean’s 8 Brighton

Kirsten also mentioned Kernow Library of Things