Adélaïde Landrier Shares Campaign Highlights as a 2026 Ocean Protection Ambassador

This blog post was authored by Adélaïde Landrier, a 2025 EarthEcho Ocean Protection Ambassador.

Adélaïde’s campaign began from scratch. While she had prior academic and advocacy experience in ocean conservation, she had not previously engaged directly with bottom-trawling stakeholders. The campaign allowed her to progressively build a comprehensive understanding of the environmental, social, and political dimensions of bottom-trawling through hands-on advocacy, public engagement, and community-based research.

The campaign was structured around three main pillars:

• Digital advocacy through social media
•  Public events and political advocacy
• Local fisheries engagement and storytelling

Together, these pillars aimed to raise awareness, mobilize youth and the public, and advocate for a ban on bottom-trawling within marine protected areas (MPAs).

Digital Advocacy

Adélaïde created an Instagram account, Inseaption, with the objective of “planting seeds” of ocean conservation in people’s minds. The account was launched during the UN Ocean Conference (UNOC 3) in Nice and used to document advocacy actions, share educational content on bottom-trawling, and amplify youth voices. Content included stories, reels, and posts covering public actions, policy moments, and accessible facts on bottom-trawling and ocean protection. The platform enabled direct engagement through comments and direct messages, fostering dialogue and peer-to-peer learning. Adélaïde intends to continue developing this platform beyond the campaign period to broaden its reach and impact.

Public Events and Political Advocacy

During UNOC 3, Adélaïde participated in and spoke at several high-visibility advocacy events. She spoke on behalf of youth ambassadors during the Blue March and the Blue Parks Awards, calling on French President Emmanuel Macron to ban bottom-trawling within marine protected areas. The Blue March brought together hundreds of participants on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice and received national and international media coverage. Following the march, President Macron announced limitations on bottom-trawling in MPAs, though this later translated into a commitment of only 4% of fully protected areas.

At the Blue Parks Awards, organized by the Marine Conservation Institute in the Blue Zone of UNOC 3, Adélaïde brought a youth perspective on the shortcomings of MPA management in France, particularly the continued presence of bottom-trawling. Her intervention reaffirmed youth ambassadors’ commitment to working with decision-makers toward more effective marine protection. The Costa Rican Minister of Foreign Affairs personally expressed support for her advocacy.

Building on the momentum of UNOC 3, Adélaïde expanded her outreach to her home region of Normandy. In August, she hosted an awareness stand at the La Déferlante festival in Ault, organized by the La Vague association. Through interactive tools (flyers, quizzes, games, children’s activities, and a prize draw), she raised awareness of the environmental, social, and economic impacts of bottom-trawling and directly engaged community members in signing a letter addressed to the Mayor of Ault, a Member of Parliament and President of the Picardy Marine Park, and the French President. The Mayor later commended Adélaïde’s initiative and discussed regional fisheries issues with her directly.

University Outreach and Youth Engagement

Recognizing the strong interest shown by young people, Adélaïde organized a documentary screening (David Attenborough’s Ocean), followed by a roundtable discussion at ESPOL University in Lille. The event was co-organized with two student organizations (Simone S’Éveille and Le Caribou) and required two months of preparation. The roundtable featured speakers from leading NGOs and youth networks, including Bloom, Seas At Risk, SHE Changes Ocean, and EarthEcho International. Discussions addressed governance gaps enabling bottom-trawling within MPAs, inequalities within fisheries systems, and the gendered impacts of fisheries exploitation. Particular attention was given to the role of women in fisheries and conservation as agents of change.

Student participation was high, with strong engagement during the discussion and follow-up questions focused on pathways for involvement in ocean advocacy at local and university levels.

EU-Level Advocacy in Brussels

Mid-campaign, Adélaïde relocated to Brussels to begin a position as a Junior Ocean Policy Analyst at Europe Jacques Delors. She used this strategic location to engage in EU-level advocacy and amplify actions targeting bottom-trawling policy.

During EU Ocean Week, she participated in a public action outside the European Parliament alongside Ocean Rebellion and Seas At Risk, helping deploy a symbolic fishing net. She coordinated outreach to youth and student organizations to support participation and shared the action through social media. She also produced a reel combining bottom-trawling footage and advocacy messaging to promote Bloom’s petition calling for a ban on bottom-trawling in MPAs.

In November, Adélaïde collaborated with Only One to promote an op-ed on bottom-trawling, assisting with video production and postcard distribution near the European Parliament.

Additionally, she co-authored a letter with fellow EarthEcho Youth Ambassador, Ona Santisteban, addressed to European Fisheries Commissioner Costas Kadis, calling for stronger regulation of bottom-trawling in MPAs, enforcement of Natura 2000 protections, and better support for small-scale fishers. The Commissioner responded by email, acknowledging the value of youth engagement and addressing the technical points raised, while maintaining a case-by-case regulatory approach.

Local Fisheries Engagement and Storytelling

To ground her advocacy in local realities, Adélaïde conducted qualitative interviews with fisheries stakeholders in Normandy, focusing on the impacts of industrial fishing and bottom-trawling on livelihoods. She interviewed 10 fishers and 4 restaurant owners.

Initially envisioned as a video project, this work evolved into an ArcGIS StoryMap, developed during an externship with the National Geographic Society and The Nature Conservancy. The StoryMap serves as a long-term advocacy and storytelling tool and will be used in future collaborations with NGOs promoting sustainable fisheries and the protection of MPAs.

Mobilisation and Petition Strategy

Throughout the campaign, Adélaïde consistently encouraged engagement with Bloom’s petition calling for a ban on bottom-trawling in marine protected areas. Rather than creating a separate petition, she chose to amplify an existing, high-impact campaign to maximize collective momentum. Toward the end of the campaign, she tracked engagement by linking the petition through her Linktree. She also actively encouraged young people to join EarthEcho’s GenSea community through email outreach and QR codes, reinforcing pathways for continued youth involvement beyond the campaign period.

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“I feel so lucky that I got to be part of the Ocean Protection Ambassador as it opened me to the work of ocean advocacy and taught me that you can do anything as an individual if you gather the determination, the courage and the right people. EarthEcho provided me with the legitimacy of acting on ocean conservation issues, sensitizing the public about it and collaborating with community leaders and policy makers. Most importantly, the program brought me closer to my fellow ambassadors who do amazing things for marine conservation and I know that we will be here for each other in our future blue careers.”  - Adélaïde Landrier