Coolangatta networks with other surf cities

Surf Planning

Global Surf Cities Conference to run during Quiksilver & Roxy Pros

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 24 January, 2013 : - - The Gold Coast will play host to the first Global Surf Cities Conference in the days prior to the Quiksilver and Roxy Pro Surf Events on 27 February to 1 March 2013.

The conference will bring together leading surf city representatives from around the world and Australia. The conference will feature high profile speakers such as Chris Hines from the UK, Andy Abel from Papua New Guinea Surf Tourism and Dr Jess Ponting from the US and more.

Surftech Internationals Jamie Mitchell and David Byrne will also be presenting the latest global technology and innovation in SUP (stand up paddling) and Ocean Paddle Racing craft design and construction. Other topics discussed will cover surf business, innovation in surf, surf tourism, coastal management, surf city governance and more.

Two major aims of the Conference are to establish a platform for networking among surf cities so as to develop globally sustainable surf industries and to develop frameworks for international collaboration in surf industry education, employment and global career mobility. A feature to the conference will be a surfboard shaping demonstration led by Master Shaper Richard Harvey.

The conference will finish on Friday on the corporate deck at the Quiksilver and Roxy Pro trials a great opportunity to see the Gold Coast Surf industry in action and see some seriously good surfing!

When: Wednesday, 27 February, 2013 - Friday, 1 March, 2013
 
Where: Kirra Hill Community & Cultural Centre 1 Garrick St Coolangatta Gold Coast, Queensland 4522 Australia

Chris Hines MBE, Hon.D.Sc
Co-founder and then Director of Surfers Against Sewage from 1990 till 2000. Regarded as “some of the Government’s most sophisticated environmental critics” by the BBC and “Britain’s coolest pressure group” by the Independent, SAS helped deliver massive environmental improvements. Chris was then Sustainability Director at the Eden Project for 5 years. He’s given evidence to UK parliament, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, the European Commission, briefed the President of the European Parliament, been a special advisor to the Minister for the Environment and appeared on a wide range of media from BBC World Service to CNN. In 2008 he was awarded an MBE for “services to the environment” in the Queen’s Birthday Honours and an Honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of Plymouth. Now runs A Grain of Sand which aims to deliver positive change.

Dr Jess Ponting
Jess Ponting was born in Wales, grew up in Australia, and lived in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and Fiji before joining the Hospitality and Tourism Management School at San Diego State University in 2008. He holds the first Masters degree and PhD to look specifically at sustainable surf tourism and in 2011 established the world's first Center for Surf Research csr.sdsu.ed to look specifically at surf tourism, and the SurfCredits surfcredits.org program which works with World Championship Tour competitions to raise funds for local communities. Jess has worked as a sustainable surf tourism consultant in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Mexico, Costa Rica, and the Maldives.

He believes that effectively planned and managed surf tourism can positively change the world for thousands of coastal communities around the world, and that well informed passionate and motivated surfers can be game changing leaders for a sustainable future. Through the Center for Surf Research he aims to inspire a new generation of surfers and travelers to be humanitarian and conservation activists in the places they visit, and to be responsible global citizens committed to a sustainable future.

Maite Ayestaran
Maite has been working in Fomento San Sebastian since 2000. Fomento San Sebastian is a public enterprise that works with the Town Council and is responsible for the Economic Development of the City of San Sebastian.

During the last ten years Maite has been a member of the director committee with responsibility for different areas including the Surf Cluster initiative.  At the beginning of the economic crisis, they identified several sectors believed to be   markets where there would be an opportunity to create jobs, supporting recovery. The strategy of working with them is the Cluster Policy with a public-private collaboration approach, adapting policies to the specific needs of each market. 
 
Steven Martin
Steven Martin holds MA and MBA degrees and is currently a PhD Candidate in Environmental Management and lecturer in Interdisciplinary Studies at Prince of Songkla University, Phuket, Thailand. Research areas include the development of the ‘SRSI’ (Surf Resource Sustainability Index), a global model for surf site conservation and methodology which combines qualitative and quantitative dimensions. He looks at the criteria and implications of social, economic, environmental and institutional indicators foundational to surf site sustainability, particularly in the contexts of policy and management. The SRSI concept was awarded the 2012 ‘Best paper’ by the Asia-Pacific Tourism Association (APTA).

Relevant aquatic experience include service as a Hawaii County Water Safety Officer, California State Park Lifeguard at San Clemente, American Red Cross Hawaii Chapter volunteer, owner and operator of a Hawaii-based international surfing school, and a surfing contest competitor and official in Hawaii, North America, South America, Africa, Europe and Asia.

Brad Farmer
Born of early settlers who arrived in the Gold Coast region in 1840, Brad has spearheaded a number of peak coastal groups which have shifted government policy and community attitudes around surfing and beaches.  His introduction to coastal protection campaigns was on the Gold Coast in the early seventies, growing up as a grommet in Surfers Paradise. Surfrider Foundation Australia, National and World Surfing Reserves and National Ocean Care Day are among his key contributions to the surfing community internationally. 

The longest continuous senior writer for tRACKS magazine, his extensive research travels around Australian beaches produced the first ‘Surfing Guide to Australia’ in 1986 with Nat Young and more recently he co-authored the best-selling ‘101 Best Australian Beaches’ with Prof Andy Short, a project supported by Tourism Australia.

Imprisoned by the KGB in the frozen Soviet Arctic as a Greenpeace oceans and anti-nuclear campaigner in the late eighties, Brad has engaged with numerous beach communities around the world gaining a global reputation as a respected advocate for oceans, waves and beaches.   He was honoured with the Surfrider International ‘Power of One’ Award in California in the mid-nineties.

He has been a coastal and environment adviser in the Australian Senate and was instrumental in forming Coastcare, sitting on the Federal Marine & Coastal Community Network’s first National Reference Group.

Gold Coast based, he is currently developing a plan with NSR Ambassador Kelly Slater, to present the case to the UNESCO World Heritage Commission in Paris for the formal recognition and protection of iconic waves and beaches globally.  He has chaired NSR since 2005 which has created 19 Declarations in Australia and has sat on the Executive Council of WSR since its inception in 2008, which has enshrined five sites in four surfing countries. 
 
Tim Baker
Tim Baker is the best-selling author of numerous books on surfing, including “Bustin’ Down The Door,” (Harper Collins, 1996), “High Surf” (Harper Collins, 2007) and “Occy” (Random House, 2008). He is a former editor of Tracks and Surfing Life magazines, and former editorial director of Morrison Media Services. He has won the Surfing Australia Hall of Fame Culture Award three times and been nominated for the CUB Australian Sports Writing Awards.

His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review, the Bulletin, Inside Sport, Playboy, GQ, the Surfers Journal, Qantas - the Australian Way, as well as surfing magazines around the world. He is currently a senior contributor to Surfing World, Surfing Life, Surfer’s Path (UK), the Surfers Journal and US Surfing and Surfer magazines.

He has appeared at the Sydney and Byron Bay Writers Festivals, and has conducted writing workshops at the Hunter, Sydney and the Northern Rivers Writers Centre. At 47, he has worked in the media and surfing magazines for 25 years and has surfed and travelled throughout Australia, Indonesia, Hawaii, Central and South America, North America, Europe, South Africa, Fiji, Tahiti, and Sri Lanka. He lives in Currumbin, Queensland, with his wife and two children.

www.surfingreserves.org

Source: Global Surf City Inc

Author: The Editors

Tags: Surf Tourism, Surf Industry, Gold Coast

Industry: Surfersvillage