Adventure. Challenge. The simple joy of riding the wind. The best kiteboard riders each have their own reasons for pursuing their sport to its uttermost limits, but they’re united in revealing its breathtaking beauty to the world.
Over the last 40 years, commercial overfishing and bottom trawling have turned Scotland’s once-thriving west coast waters into sparse, lifeless deserts. Patagonia Films’ The Custodians follows the work of four locals from the West Coast of Scotland who are reclaiming their natural coastlines. They’re restoring wildlife, creating sustainable industries and showing us how we can work with, not against, our ocean.
The local people have worked the waters of the Sado Estuary Natural Reserve in Portugal for hundreds of years, coexisting with the dolphins, fish and shellfish, supported by the region’s rich seagrass meadows. The practice of bottom trawling, which bulldozes the ocean floor, has wiped out nearly one-third of the world's seagrass meadows. Raquel Gaspar, marine biologist, mother and cofounder of the Portuguese NGO Ocean Alive, is on a journey to protect and re-meadow Sado’s seagrass habitat. In Patagonia Films’ Madre Mar, Raquel partners with a group of local fisherwomen to restore this crucial piece of the ocean’s ecosystem–one that provides habitats for sea life and 10 percent of the carbon captured in the ocean. Learn more at patagonia.com/oceans.
