We turn 10 today! 🪅 🎊 🎉

14 April 2021

On April 14, 2011 Azul was officially “born” as a modest Facebook page with a handful of followers –and plenty of great ideas. Today, we’re proud to celebrate our first decade with tons of new friends, partners, funders, followers, supporters –and crucial legislation passed to help protect our oceans and coasts.

For those of you who don’t know us all that well, there’s one thing you should really know: Azul is not your typical “Save the Whales” or “Save the Sharks” organization advocating for clean oceans and beaches. Oh, but don’t get us wrong: We love clean oceans and beaches, but we were born out of an urgent need to reclaim climate justice for the most vulnerable communities. Our founder’s main premise was simple, yet powerful: If a healthy ocean is a crucial element for many Latinx communities… Why aren’t we more involved in protecting something that is so important for us?

And that is what lies at the heart of our movement and what drives our day-to-day work. “The most important part of our work is to help facilitate opportunities for Latinxs to have a meaningful participation in the environmental movement,” says Azul’s Founder and Executive Director Marce Gutiérrez-Graudiņš, a native of Tijuana, Mexico, who has worked in ocean conservation for over 13 years.

Our first 10 years have been marked by many milestones, starting with important legislative victories in California to producing a groundbreaking plastics report alongside the UNEP and making a national push in support of protecting 30 percent of our lands and oceans by the year 2030.

Join us in celebrating a 10-year journey that has helped put Latinos at the forefront of a movement to ensure everyone has access to nature and its benefits. Happy birthday to us!