Earlier this week Surfrider Foundation released it's 2021 State of the Beach Report.  While we have yet to read through the entire report, that will take a few weeks at 85+ pages, thought it was worth bringing this to light sooner rather than later as we are closing out the first year of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and the results show we have our work cut out for us.

There are 7 regions, West (Alaska, Washington, Oregon (where BeachNecessities.com is located) & California), Gulf (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi & Alabama), Southeast (Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina), Mid Atlantic (Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey & New York), Northeast (Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire & Maine), Great Lakes (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota) and Islands (Hawaii & Puerto Rico).

While the Northeast and West led the pack, each with cumulative scores of B, the average score was C and the Gulf and Great Lakes both scored a cumulative D with some individual states scoring a F.

The criteria being ranked for each state are as follows:

• Sediment management
• Coastal armoring
• Development
• Sea level rise

Why this matters.  The ocean is THE LIFE SOURCE on this planet responsible for at least 50%, and possibly up to 80%, of the oxygen we breathe.  And fish is a daily part of a significant portion of the world's diet, roughly 3 billion of the 8 billion people on the planet so ~37.5% of the world's population.  Therefore, how we manage our beaches and the ocean is critically important to the well being of humanity.  And how we manage this in the US impacts the rest of the world as whether we like it or not, we are role models and there clearly are major issues elsewhere in the world (and the US has responsibility here as we have been shipping our plastic waste to China for decades).  

We can DO BETTER and we have to.  And while BeachNecessities.com is a corporate member of 1% for the Planet which commits us to investing 1%+ of our annual revenue back into environmental organizations which in our case are focused on beach, ocean, lake and river conservation, to make sure we are maximizing our investments we want to highlight our baja hoodies / baja jackets / drug rugs which are the primary contributor so as we are coming up on the holiday season we'd like to ask that folks purchase at least one, if not more, as we have the best quality and value online and 1%+ of all revenue goes towards beach, ocean, lake and river conservation.

Thanks and any feedback is welcome at beaches@BeachNecssities.com.