Kristal Ambrose, the woman who managed to ban plastic in the Bahamas
In Bahamas You don't learn to swim, you are thrown directly into the water. It is the first philosophy that Kristal and her sister learned during those Sunday walks with her father between ice creams and jumping into the sea. However, over time it would Crystal who would accompany her father during her morning bath, thus connecting with plastic pollution.
Twenty years later, Kristal Ambrose (also known as Kristal Ocean) has won the 2020 Goldman Prize, the “ Nobel for the Environment ”, after getting the government of the Bahamas to approve a law against the consumption of plastic in the 700 islands of the Caribbean nation.
The reward after years of effort in which Kristal has turned her organization, Bahamas Plastic Movement , in the new voice of a paradise oppressed by the waste of the planet.
TURTLES CRY TOO
The animal that was the origin of her project was a turtle. “One of my first jobs was in an aquarium in 2008”, Kristal Ambrose tells Traveler.es . “One day we saw a turtle was separated from the rest of its group and we discovered that it had plastic in its intestine . Every day, I extracted a plastic particle from inside it, but the curious thing is that turtles release a kind of tear due to the excess of salt water they ingest during their migrations . At the time I thought she was crying because of the pain, so I started crying too. It was then that I discovered that my path was different and that I would never throw a piece of plastic on the ground again.”
In 2012, Kristal embarked on an adventure of 20 days by boat from the Marshall Islands to Japan , stopping at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, known as the “seventh continent”: “There were no planes crossing the sky, no people, no ships, just trapped animals and garbage floating ”, relates Kristal.
“The first thing I thought when I saw so much garbage was how unpleasant human beings are! But when we started classifying the plastic particles, I realized that they were things that I also used in my daily life, such as toothbrushes or plastic forks. That inspired me to be part of the solution in my country.”
The Bahamas is one of the Caribbean countries most affected by plastic pollution due to four main factors: the plastic dumped by the local population , followed by tourism impact , the natural ocean currents (the appearance of containers from West Africa in the Caribbean is the norm) and natural disasters like Hurricane Dorian, in 2019.
The Bahamas is estimated to accumulate 687 million metric tons of plastic by 2025: “Climate change is intensifying and storms are increasing, so we are going to have to collect a lot of plastic in the future if we don't change our habits”.
WE ARE THE CHANGE! WE ARE THE SOLUTION! WE CAN FIX THE PLASTIC POLLUTION!
Upon returning from her trip, Kristal started a research project and some young people were already following her to the beach. Her particular anthem, “We are the change! We are the solution! We can fix the plastic pollution!” , soon became the soundtrack to all of South Eleuthera. The next step was to form a non-profit organization in 2014: “I started by joking with my students saying, this is the Bahamas Plastic Movement! Three months later, I saw clearly that this should be the name of the project”.
During the last seven years, more than 500 students from 8 Bahamian islands have passed through this school to promote the treatment of plastic . Kristal assures that although her students know that she is “her guardian of her”, there are no barriers between both parties and she leaves them their space to develop new knowledge: “That makes our relationship so good and that the work is sparkly. Many of the programs are focused on turning the student into a teacher and leading research sessions on their own on different beaches".
In April 2018, a group of students from Kristal traveled to Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas , accompanied by a lawyer to meet with Romauld Ferreira, Minister of the Environment . They presented him with a report in which they asked to eliminate all plastic bags from the country, as well as plastic cutlery, straws, containers and polystyrene cups to replace them with reusable plant-based materials.
Finally, the proposal was approved and in January 2020 the new law entered into force.
Eleven months later, Kristal received the Goldman Award in the Islands and Insular Nations category for her contribution to the fight against plastic.
“The day they called me to tell me the news was November 11, just like the 11:11 Demonstration, that day when apparently your dreams can come true. Now I happen to see the number 11 on the clock all the time,” says Kristal, who burst into tears as the award was announced: “ I never looked for praise or anything like that, but it was worth knowing that our work was being recognized”.
The Goldmans have awarded six winners in their 2020 edition, of which four are women: Chibeze Ezekiel (Ghana) , for stopping the construction of a coal-fired power plant; Leydy Pech (Mexico) , Mayan indigenous beekeeper who paralyzed the massive plantation of transgenic soybeans in the Yucatan Peninsula; Lucie Pinson (France) and her pressure on the three largest banks in her country to eliminate financing for coal projects; Y Nemonte Nenquimo (Ecuador) , indigenous leader who led a campaign to protect 500,000 acres of Amazon rainforest. . Total, 87 of the 200 winners of the Goldman Awards have been women during the 31-year history of the contest , with a notable female increase in the list of winners in recent years.
“Environmental change belongs to women, especially young women, but also to everyone in general . The field of health, plastic pollution or climate change they directly impact millions of women whose voices are not always included in the debate. And I don't want to generalize, but it is true that we participated in a very punctual way".
These days, Kristal is studying her doctorate in Malmö (Sweden), although she hopes to return to the Bahamas soon to promote more schools and training programs. To see her students. But specially, to knock on her father's door and accompany him to his morning bath.