YOUTH SPEAKER.
Dakota Peebler, now 15 years old, formed nonprofit Heirs To Our Oceans (H2OO) with her sister Charley in 2016. H2OO is committed to empowering, educating and connecting all youth in protection of oceans and waterways and in climate action. Dakota is dedicated to researching and protecting endangered sea otters as a keystone species. Having seen the threat to sea otters due to chemical fertilizers running off into Marine Protected Areas, Dakota feels strongly that MPAs must take into account land-sea pollution. Dakota and her fellow RACCE-initiative Heirs meet with lawmakers, students, and educators to raise awareness on all platforms of the harm that chemical fertilizer does to our planet’s waters and life. Dakota has spoken on high-level panels including at the Marine Conservation Institute’s GLORES event in April 2017, on an MPA panel in Washington DC in May 2017, at the Soil Not Oil Conference in September 2019, and at the Int’l Sea Otter Conference in both 2017 and 2019. To raise awareness through performance art Dakota performed red tide to audiences at Coal & Ice, a climate-change focused affiliate event of the Global Climate Action Summit in 2018. Dakota has participated in many media events – television, radio, podcasts and films – including TED.