The Sea Ranger Service is the brainchild of Dutch environmental conservationist and social entrepreneur Wietse van der Werf. After having worked in environmental conservation for 25 years and being awarded a conservation prize for his innovative conservation efforts, he founded the Sea Ranger Service in 2016.
Inspiration for the Sea Ranger model came from the Civilian Conservation Corps; a public works programme launched by US president Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression in the 1930s. The programme resulted in 3 million unemployed young men being offered work, establishing 800 national parks and planting over 3,2 billion trees in the proces. Van der Werf set out to develop a similar model to strengthen ocean conservation.
Learning from the Civilian Conservation Corps model can make such a profound impact to the challenges the world faces today. We have implemented it as a modern-day maritime equivalent and it has proven very impactful.
