Rob Machado Catches a Wave
Photos via Rob Machado
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Rob Machado has earned a god-like status among surfers for his skill in the water. But Machado's expertise and passion goes beyond the board. The passion he feels for riding waves extends to the waves themselves, and he is an advocate for ocean issues and environmentalism in general. From working to provide clean water for everyone on the planet to encouraging kids to become stewards of the earth, Machado is an inspiration. He took a few minutes to talk with us about his projects, including digging wells and greening up his hometown elementary school.
PG: During Blue August, we're zoning in on issues like trash vortexes, ocean acidificiation and sustainable seafood. Do you come face-to-face with any of these issues when out surfing? Which do you see the impacts of most?
RM: I want to say pollution, but i think we've just become more aware of pollution in the recent years. When I first started surfing, it might have been more polluted but it was just an accepted thing -- or it wasn't "accepted," but organizations like Surfrider have been able to clean up bodies of water. I think we're just more aware of it now…as you're walking down the beach you pick up trash and put it in the trash can. We just pay more attention to it nowadays.
PG: What do you think is the most pressing issue facing oceans today? Is it acidification, overfishing, just simple ignorance about how marine systems work?
RM: Anything and everything that impacts the ocean. I don't know the truth behind it but I've heard that if we continue at this rate by 2050 we won't have any fish left. When you go to a place like the Toyko fish market and see how much food comes into that place on a daily basis, you can't even believe there's still fish out there. It's just absurd.
I can almost understand where people are coming from -- people throw trash in the ocean and it's gone, it disappears, because it goes somewhere else. There's no way we'll deplete all the fish. But in reality, it's the complete opposite. It's amazing how big of an impact we has humans have on the oceans. We need to take care of them better.
PG: Our connection with fresh water is also something we're discussing during Blue August. You're involved with a well-digging project with the Sumba Foundation in Indonesia. Tell us more about the work you and the organization are doing for clean water.
RM: I did a trip to Indonesia in 2008 and one of my first trips out of Bali was to Samba. I stayed in this little camp and met the owner who is also the director of the Sumba Foundation. Claude brought to my attention that [the camp] is more of an eco-resort -slash-surf camp, trying to be environmentally aware and give back to his community.
Part of that project is the well digging project. Samba is very dry and limited in water so it's a common thing to drive down the street and see people walking with buckets of water on their head. Sometimes the closest well is one or two miles. Making that trek with a 1-gallon or 3-gallon bucket is a big part of your day. I started visiting villages and seeing the difference between villages that had water and those that didn't and the hygiene [difference] among children was just incredible.
[My organization and I] talked about sponsoring a well, and we sponsored one. I came back two months later and reconnected with Claude, who said the well was still under construction and asked if I wanted to see it. I went and got right into [building the well] and we toured around and worked on several different wells, and just the looks on peoples' faces as they had fresh water is pretty incredible.
WATCH VIDEO: TreeHugger TV: Rob Machado, The Drifter
PG: Your activism goes from wells in Sumba right back to your hometown at your elementary school. I understand you're working on several initiatives to green it up. Can you tell us more about the projects that are transitioning the school?
RM: First, we wanted to bring awareness that you don't need bottled water. [We wanted to] try to eliminate plastic from the schools and promote drinking fountains. It's really cool to go to the school in the mornings and see all the kids coming to school with their stainless steel water bottles clipped to their backpacks.
We did a basic recycling program for their lunch. When we looked at their lunch program, they were producing eight 50-gallon cans of trash in a single day. We've reduced that down to two. The rest is all recyclables. The kids are all super hip to it. They have this little stand and it has the different places you can put the different things. They clean off their plates and sort, and everything gets recycled.
[We also started] an organic gardening program. There was already an existing garden at the school but it was overrun, so we brought it back to life and got a couple of the teachers who were really passionate about planting to run it. We put planters all around the school so the garden was brought all over the school -- the original garden was off in the playground. There's a friend in town who has a restaurant and he buys from the kids all the vegetables they grow. They load them up in the wagon and wheel it down and he pays them about twice what they're worth, but it pays for some of their school programs.
READ MORE: Start an Edible School Garden Today
The next step was attacking the whole school lunch program and getting the food to be healthy. Those things are hard to break the code on -- they're all government subsidized. When you're dealing with kids who are getting free lunches, how do you come up with the money to feed them every day and feed them healthy food? We're working on it. Now, all the food they grow, they're putting into their own lunches and having more salads.
PG: What are your thoughts on motivating kids to care and learn about nature. What are some of the best ways to get kids interested in the ocean and become life-long advocates?
RM: I love watching how [kids] embrace the things we bring into school. You think kids will not be into it but it's been so fulfilling watching them embrace the programs we've brought in. I've been [at the school] and a kid will walk in with his parent and turn to his dad and say, "Hey dad, there's no plastic at this school. You can't bring that water bottle here."
If you start them at a young age like that, the possibilities are endless.
But it's not about changing. As adults we have to make a conscious effort to change but when kids are so young, if you just teach them right then it becomes how they are. It's not a way, it's the only way.
PG: One last question that can't go unasked. Even though there's not a lot of surfing in the Gulf of Mexico, it's easy to see that the Gulf oil disaster affects everyone in the region, and many of us outside of it too. What's your reaction to the spill and its aftermath.
RM: I've been out of the country for the last two months -- but, i don't know, it's gonna be lurking for a long time. I just cringe at the idea that it took people that long to react. It seems like the reaction time to such a tragedy was so slow, and to know that [the whole time] however many gallons of oil was spewing into the ocean every single day. I can't even imagine what that's doing to the gulf -- from work, tourism, everything.
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