Emmy-award nominee and environmental activist Shailene Woodley announced on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that she will join the Greenpeace ship Esperanza on an expedition to the Sargasso Sea, a unique region in the North Atlantic Ocean, later this month to highlight the importance of protecting our world’s oceans as a new Greenpeace Oceans Ambassador.
Kimmel asked the ‘Big Little Lies’ star her plans for the summer, to which she replied: “I’m going to the ocean! I’m doing something with Greenpeace in a couple of weeks, which I feel very grateful for. We’re going to the Sargasso Sea and we’re going to study and research microplastics and micropollution.”
The voyage to the Sargasso is part of Greenpeace’s ambitious Pole to Pole expedition aimed at highlighting the threats facing unique ecosystems in international waters – from the Arctic to the Antarctic – and the need urgent for their protection under a new Global Ocean Treaty. The treaty could be agreed at the UN as early as April 2020 and could pave the way for a network of ocean sanctuaries covering a third of the world’s oceans by 2030.
Woodley will be sailing alongside a team of Greenpeace scientists and researchers from the University of Florida to study the impact of plastics and microplastics on the marine life of the Sargasso, including loggerhead and green sea turtles. These findings will further prove the need for a new treaty to establish ocean sanctuaries to protect unique ecosystems like the Sargasso Sea.
The full clip of the interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live! can be found here.
