Waterpeople Podcast

Two Time Big Wave World Champion Paige Alms was born in Canada. At age 7, a life-altering trip completely changed the course for her family and set Paige on the path toward shaping modern big wave surfing. Paige is a co-founder of the Committee for Equity in Women’s Surfing (CEWS) , established in 2016, with her peers in professional big wave surfing: Keala Kennelly, Andrea Moller, and Bianca Vale...

Zenith Virago is founder of the Natural Death Care Centre , where she guides folks through the process of dying, death and bereavement.  As Waterpeople, most of us dance the line with risk regularly, and we know how alive we feel in spaces that we can’t control – like the ocean. Choosing to be a part of a wild space can offer us a healthy respect for death – and an active appreciation for life.  A...

Freesurfer Dane Gudauskas is known equally for his sunny demeanour and powerful approach to the world's heaviest lefhanders. Dane is co-founder of Positive Vibe Warriors , a foundation that assists communities with youth water safety programs and ocean education. In our meandering mid-lockdown conversation, Dane muses on the depression that opened him up to deep compassion, the value of liste...

Kristel Van Houte is a surfer and marine ecologist based in the coastal town of Raglan, on the north island of New Zealand. She started the KariOi Project just over 10 years ago with a vision to restore biodiversity from local mountain to sea.   The KariOi Project does some of the dirtier work of protecting biodiversity: trapping and removing invasive predators that threaten endemic migrating sea...

Surfer/Shaper Ashley Lloyd is ambidextrous when it comes to both planer and technical hang tens. Featured in films like Tiffany Campbell's Dear & Yonder , her surfing is both precise and powerful. Ashley talks us through the technical aspects of experimenting with innovative, plant-based materials in her ECOboard verified shapes, embodying the changes of pregnancy and motherhood, switch-s...

Josh and Kyle Slabb are Bundjalung men who live, fish, surf and raise their families near the fabled sand bottom point break of Fingal Head on the east coast of Australia –  where their ancestors have thrived for tens of thousands of years. The Slabbs are a renowned and respected family among coastal communities all over Australia, for their water prowess , cultural integrity and willingness to sh...

Native Hawaiian biochemist Dr. Cliff Kapono talks us through the embodied fusion of modern scientific inquiry and reverent indigeneity. Cliff is amongst the most versatile surfers on the planet. He shares some of his most vulnerable moments, brimming with frustration and self-doubt, and humbly reflects on the ways a surfing life has kept him here. In our meandering conversation, Cliff also covers...

Geoff Lawton is a permaculture systems designer who has spent more than thirty years implementing and teaching the holistic mindset and ethical design science of permaculture. He has educated more than 15,000 students and consulted on projects in 52 countries around the world. If you’re curious to learn more about permaculture design or philosophy, Geoff has generously provided Waterpeople listene...

In 2010, Easkey Britton was drawn to Iran and the possibility of surf in the Arabian Sea. She became the first woman in known history to surf Iran’s Baluchistan Coast and found not only surf, but a hospitable culture eager to grow a surfing community of its own. At home in Ireland, Easkey was the first woman to charge the premier big wave peaks of  Aileens and Mullaghmore. She was crowned Irish Na...

Heath Joske is a waterman committed to regenerating his homelands. In one of the driest parts of one of the driest continents on Earth, Heath has committed to rehabilitating his large coastal acreage that was stripped bare by industrial agriculture. Between riding some of Australia’s most revered and underground waves and raising a young family, Heath is employing the principles of permaculture to...

Delve into one of surfing's new, ancient histories with surf explorer and author Nik Zanella's first-hand account of unravelling the ancient story of wave riding in dynastic China. Nik is the author of Children of the Tide and a former coach to the Chinese National Surf Team. ..... Listen with Lauren L. Hill & Dave Rastovich More about Nik Sound Engineer: Shannon Sol Carroll Music by...

Emi Koch is a surfer and the 2018 National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. More recently, she was awarded a prestigious Fulbright Fellowship for her work that explores social-ecological wellbeing in artisanal, Tropical-Majority fishing villages amidst a changing climate. Emi’s non-profit, Beyond the Surface International , hosts a suite of projects that use surfing as tool for social justice, y...

Live from the Waterpeople stage at The 2020 Byron Byron Surf Festival, 1993 World Champion Pauline Menczer, switch-foot wizard Raf Browne, Vanlife Diaries founder and musician Jonny Dustow, and writer Rosalie Bryant share personal tales of new beginnings. They explore how the ocean buoyed them through health crises, bizarre ego smashing, fleeting moments of superhuman strength, and unexpected loss...

Dr. Wallace 'J' Nichols is a marine biologist and author of Blue Mind , an interdisciplinary reimagining of the story of water and the vast cognitive, social, physical and spiritual benefits of being in, around, and under healthy water systems. His integrative approach to research and activism, informed by decades scientific inquiry, begs the question: how can we create a healthier world...

Legend of style, ease and ingenuity, Gerry Lopez , shares stories about growing up in Hawaii, the balance he found in the mountains, tube-riding mysticism, and one of the unsung sheros of surfing. Gerry pioneered deep tube riding at the Pipeline, acted in Hollywood films, and helped to build the early surf industry with his entrepreneurial curiosity. He is an icon of the art of surfing, a masterfu...

Freshly back from an expedition to Antarctica, Alice shares her experience of the frozen ocean and talks us through the complex conversation, but simple solutions, found in her new publication, Micro Plastics, Massive Problem . Alice’s field work has taken her to remote islands throughout the Pacific & Indian Oceans to study marine debris on beaches, and that consumed by birds, fish and humans...

What are the links between social justice and environmentalism? Leah Thomas is at the leading edge of Intersectional Environmentalism, a term she coined as a way to advocate for the protection of people and the planet simultaneously. Leah, a writer and activist, is blooming the efforts of Environmental Justice advocates. After posting a simple, but powerful graphic and pledge on Instagram, Leah’s...

Deconstruct strategies from the successful Fight for the Bight campaign with one of the movement's central voices, Sean Doherty, one of surfing's most celebrated storytellers. The campaign was a win not only for Australian marine life, livelihoods and coastlines, but also for the power of community to peacefully resist corporate insanity. Sean is a journalist and author who has spent mor...

Welcome to our new series, Watershed Chats, conversational deep dives with experts and those having a go at building and dreaming new ways into fruition for a healthy and habitable future on Planet Ocean. We’ll pick up with our usual Waterpeople storytelling on July 7th,  and until then, we’ll be releasing bi-monthly episodes of Watershed Chats, presented by The Waterpeople Podcast in collaboratio...

Explore the cultivation of critical thinking, harnessing hope by localising climate change actionables, and the transformative power of the experiential with filmmaker Damon Gameau. Damon is an actor and filmmaker. He directed That Sugar Film , an exposé on the personal and political impacts of consuming refined sugars, which became the highest grossing Australian documentary of all time.  More re...

Helena Norberg-Hodge has experienced radical economic and cultural change before. In 1975, as a student of linguistics amongst the glacial melt of the Himalayas, Helena witnessed the rapid erosion of traditional culture that followed the introduction of Western ideas and ideals to the isolated territory of Ladakh, or "Little Tibet." As an economist, linguist and filmmaker, she has been p...

Sometimes loss never really leaves us. We can't stop those waves of emotion, longing or pain, but we can learn to ride them compassionately. Albe Falzon is one of surfing's great storytellers. His study of eastern spiritual traditions, and the wholistic commitment to a surfing life, have guided him through the inevitable tumult of human existence; through seasons of unthinkable loss, lov...

Liz Clark has sailed and surfed 25,000 nautical miles across and around the Pacific. Mostly solo. She is a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. But before all of that, Liz started with a simple dream to explore by sea. That seemingly simple dream turned into more than a decade of rich and complex ocean life, and became a transformative rite of passage of her own making. Liz shares a story f...

"I work to take back what I believe is mine, and that is a future in an ocean that has sharks.” At 14, Madison Stewart had a transformative experience with sharks on the Great Barrier Reef that set her on a path to marine science and conservation work. She is a dive master, filmmaker, 2017’s Australian Geographic Society Young Conservationist of the Year and author of The Australian Guide to...

"One is too many and a thousand isn’t enough," says Jake Mackenzie, of his adventurous, but addictive tendencies. Jake is an all-around waterman, and an entrepreneur.  Jake shares a story of the spiritual awakening that led him back to the sea, after descending into "a vampire lifestyle" of addiction, hallucination and off-the-rails experimentation. A single moment sent him pac...