Marine Mammal Advisory Group Shortlisted for Sport Positive Awards 2025 in Biodiversity Category
27 August 2025, London, UK – The Marine Mammal Advisory Group (MMAG) has been named among 100 global changemakers shortlisted for the Sport Positive Awards 2025, recognized for its leadership in biodiversity protection and marine mammal strike mitigation in the sport of sailing.
Shortlisted in the Biodiversity category, the Group is being honored for its pioneering work to unite the sailing sector behind a shared strategy to reduce marine mammal collisions, improve data capture, and implement risk mitigation solutions worldwide.
Founded to address a sensitive but urgent challenge, the Marine Mammal Advisory Group provides a global platform for event organizers, teams, scientists, and governing bodies to collaborate on marine mammal strike risk mitigation. Through its six strategic pillars – information sharing, risk assessment, live reporting, technical solutions, education, and resource matchmaking – the cohort has established a sport-wide approach supported by World Sailing and the world’s leading ocean racing classes and events.
Since 2022, the Group’s marine hazard reporting system has become a choice solution in ocean racing, enabling real-time alerts that allow the fleet to communicate hazards and navigate away from reported marine mammals. In 2025, the cohort integrated its system with the WhaleAlert App, creating a unified reporting tool and dataset across the marine sector. This data, along with personal accounts from the Marine Strike Survey, feeds the Marine Strike Log – a global biodiversity dataset used to produce high-risk collision heat maps and inform safer racecourse planning.
“Being shortlisted for the Sport Positive Awards highlights the collective effort of the global sailing community to face this issue head-on,” said Damian Foxall, one of the founders of the Marine Mammal Advisory Group. “Protecting marine mammals isn’t just about conservation; it’s about ensuring the future of our sport and demonstrating that competitive sailing can coexist with environmental responsibility.”
From guiding round-the-world races away from known whale habitats to delivering marine mammal risk mitigation workshops and skipper briefings, the Group is changing how the sport approaches biodiversity protection. This collective of stakeholders and unified strategy aims to remove stigma, foster collaboration, and ensure solutions are both scientifically grounded and operationally practical.
“Congratulations to the Marine Mammal Advisory Group for being shortlisted. It has never been more vital to platform and celebrate those in sport leading on sustainability and climate action,” shared Founder of Sport Positive, Claire Poole at the Sport Positive Awards 2025 shortlist announcement. “As we witness the climate crisis increasingly disrupt the sports we cherish, we must take bold steps to protect not only the future of sport, but also the communities and ecosystems that support and sustain it. The Marine Mammal Advisory Group is doing just that.”
An independent faculty of global judges will decide who will lift the trophy for each category, and winners will be revealed during the Sport Positive Awards ceremony on 7 October 2025 in London. The Awards celebration is held in tandem with Sport Positive Summit 2025, taking place in 7-8 October 2025 in London.
Read more about the Marine Mammal Advisory Group’s nomination here: https://awards.sportpositivesummit.com/shortlist-2025/#biodiversity
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About Sport Positive Awards 2025
Sport Positive Awards are part of the Sport Positive offering that includes Awards, Summits, podcasts, intelligence bulletins, leagues, reports, community and more, supporting the global sports community towards a more sustainable and resilient future: www.sportpositive.org
The Awards take place during Sport Positive Summit in collaboration with UNFCCC and International Olympic Committee, a globally-leading, award-winning Summit that convenes 600+ sport leaders in person and even more online every year, to advance sustainable and resilient sport business and catalyse collective action on climate, sustainability, biodiversity and environmental justice. Taking place on 7-8 October 2025 in London and online: www.sportpositivesummit.com
About the Marine Mammal Advisory Group (MMAG)
The Marine Mammal Advisory Group (MMAG) is a collaborative network of stakeholders dedicated to the protection of biodiversity, focusing on reducing collisions between marine mammals and sailing or boating vessels. Established in 2022, the Group works across the marine sector to develop technical solutions, enhance risk assessment, promote live reporting and citizen science, and drive education and outreach efforts.
The organizations key areas of focus are as follows:
– Source & share information
– Risk assessment
– Technical solutions
– Live reporting & citizen science
– Education & outreach
– Matching solutions with resources
Visit https://mmag.world/ for more information or contact info@mmag.world
Interested in joining the Marine Mammal Advisory Group? Contact info@mmag.world