Josh Berry, an American surfer and activist fighting to defend the Chilean coast, talks to us about how the Internet allows him to be mobile throughout Chile and why Facebook is helping Chileans rally to defend their ocean.

Jed Sundwall: Tell me about the groups you're working with in Chile.

Josh Berry: I actually work with two small non-profit organizations in Chile. I'm co-founder and Vice President of a tiny Chilean NGO, called Proplaya, which is a big conservation non-profit educational organization. We're pretty much based on the Surfrider Foundation model, but in a very small scale, local Chilean organization. We just do beach clean-ups and environmental education having to do with the coastline and water quality of the coast. In Chile, I work exclusively on issues that affect just a small area in South Central Chile. Our main focus is on the coal industry and the pollution for the forestry industry on the coastline here in Chile.

I also work for Save The Waves Coalition, which is a small NGO based in California. We work exclusively on coastal development issues and coastal water pollution issues that affect the surfs.

I'm a one-man operation in Chile. Save The Waves Coalition has two or three full-time employees in California. I'm the one guy in Chile. I work with a couple of university professors, who do water testing and different scientific programs, and also small contractors as our projects need them.

How do you communicate and manage all these people you work with over the Internet?

Lots of e-mailing, of course, to individual specific people. I do a lot of work through e-mailing, go online and research, especially with fund-raising and grants because we get most of our financing from foundations and medium-sized grants. A lot of research and online preparation and investigation to write and create programs and grants, apply for them, and get the funding online. I'm super mobile. I travel a lot in Chile and do that from wherever I have an Internet connection.

In terms of blogging online, database online management stuff, Save The Waves Coalition in California did a lot of newsletter-style communications, like monthly newsletters. We're very much based on environmental activist situations, where if there's a threat or some kind of environmental problem that we're dealing with, it comes up pretty quickly, so we have to react pretty quickly. I think one of our organization's great benefits is that we're small, so we're very flexible, in terms of that. We can mobilize resource very quickly without a lot of overhead and without a lot of bureaucracy.

So, one way we do that is online newsletters and online action campaigns where we send out e-mails and get people to support us either financially or through scientific help, intellectual know-how for the campaign. For example, we have a huge development of a coal plant in Chile, and we needed financing to organize opposition to stop the plant. We needed scientists to research the proposed project and set proposed alternatives that are sustainable in not polluting. So, we put out the call through our network online. We sent people information, and they did the research for us and told us what the problem is and what solutions there are. And then, we created a grassroots constituency and grassroots campaign to create another alternative to a problem like that. That's actually a project I'm working on right now, is this coal plant in Southern Chile that's threatening the whole coastline.

And through blogging . . . have you seen my blog?

I did. I subscribed to one of your blogs, Green Surfing.

Green Surfing Movement, yeah. I started that blog when I first came to Chile, working for Save The Waves Coalition, which was in 2006, just over two years ago. Save The Waves Coalition has a whole campaign that I'm running here in Chile. We have a whole online presence and a whole program that we're doing here in Chile. But then, I also wanted to add a personal touch to the program and just add my personal experience and accounts in that whole campaign. So, the blog is kind of my own personal experience, a narrative about all the groundwork that we're doing here.

The blog, over the past couple of years, has been everything from just narrative experience of the trip. I did the South for activism research, water testing, to just random essays about life in Chile. I always usually try to include an environmental slant to it because that's my life, and then often, a surfing orientation to it, as well, because that's the gist of our organization and it's what's kind of inspired my work here in Chile, in terms of coastal issues.

Have you made contacts or friends through the blog, people found the blog and they turned on to what you're doing?

Yeah, just totally random contacts. I've hosted a lot of people who've seen the blog and they get in touch, saying, "Hey, I'm coming to Chile, can I help in any way? Or at least, let's get together and meet and talk." So, a lot of correspondence that way.

In terms of other online stuff, we're now launching the use of a CRM.

Using what, Sugar?

Sugar, yes. Waterkeeper Alliance right now is totally in its infancy here in Chile. We're the first program in Chile, so we're starting from the ground level, launching the CRM Online Management Program, where we're going to have a newsletter, full online database, and then, we'll just manage our whole program using that.

Whose idea was it to set that up and why did you use sugar?

I have a very close friend here in Chile who's from Holland. He worked for many years for IBM Chile. He just went independent, working as a consultant with SugarCRM. He's a surfer and a lover of the coast here, so he proposed to me to manage our whole project and organization with Sugar. And that's why we're doing it. He convinced me it's a good way to oversee the whole project, so we'll see how it works. We're just now getting our contacts into a database. We're just now starting the whole thing, so it's very much in its infancy.

How are you using new media to promote your message?

Last year, we produced a short film about our work in Chile called Pulp, Poo & Perfection. It's an awesome film, if I do say so, myself. I'd call it a "surf environmental documentary." It's 15 minutes, and it's doing really well at film festivals. Actually since just a few days ago, it's in its 14th international film festival now since last year. It's been showing all over California, Colorado, Chile, Australia, New Zealand and Europe.

Is it online?

It's on our director's website. It's available online as a streaming media, but I believe it's the version without subtitles. It's in spoken Spanish and spoken English, but there's no subtitles. You can download the actual subtitled version from the website perrorata.cl. We're still developing the site and we just put it up. It's a problem because there isn't a direct link, so you have to go to the website and click through the website to find it, but I'm going to be changing that soon. For now, go to podcast, and click on PPP_english.mp4 to download it. Otherwise you can see the trailer at greensurfingstory.blogspot.com. Personally, I don't think we're taking advantage of the online distribution possibilities. However, I'm kind of holding off on that, too, because it's still doing the festival circuits. And also, we're in conversations with a brand new website that want to have exclusive access to it, so we might actually cut a deal with them.

Another thing with online media we're playing with, is a new version of savethewaves.org sometime in the next few months. We're going to have a whole section there that's based on You Tube style, user submitted video. So, there'll be conversations about environmental issues, short flicks about people traveling and counter issues that are relevant to Save The Waves Coalition and our mission. We already have one guy who did a short video he put up on You Tube publicizing the issue we're dealing with in Panama that has to do with the construction of a pier that closed access to a beach, essentially privatized the beach and destroyed a surfing spot. So, this guy did a short You Tube video promoting the whole project. That's just an example of some of the stuff we hope to launch with the new website in the next few months.

Have you had any success like rallying Chilean kids or people online?

Yeah, on Facebook, too, actually. Facebook is huge in Chile. MySpace hardly exists, but Facebook in Chile is huge. There's apparently over a million users, and Chile's a country of 15 million people, so it's a pretty good percentage, I think. Just recently, we did a program with this organization called Surfers For Cetaceans. Their celebrity spokesperson founder is Dave Rastovich. Dave Rastovich is what they call a professional sponsored free surfer. He doesn't compete, he's not a competition surfer, he doesn't surf contests. He gets paid to travel the world, surfing waves wherever they are. Now, he's taken it upon himself to be this kind of environmental spokesperson for different causes, and started this group called Surfers For Cetaceans here, which protects whales and dolphins.

So, they just a huge tour in Chile, and we worked closely because he came to Chile for this International Whaling Conference that just happened last week. They did this whole tour of the coast promoting whale conservation and dolphin protection. Also because he's a celebrity in the surf community, he has this whole pull with celebrities everywhere, he wanted to promote and help spotlight Chilean coastal issues. Proplaya and Save The Waves Coalition teamed up with them. I traveled with them and presented our work to the audience we encountered along the way. We did a lot of work with different town governments, mayors, fishing syndicates, a lot of visits to high schools and grade schools.

They had an artist with them, this guy, Howie, who's one of the co-founders of Surfers For Cetaceans, and every single day, he painted a huge, beautiful whale mural wherever he was. So there's about 30 gorgeous whale murals all up and down the coast of Chile now. They just did education, and assisted us in getting the word out, community outreach with our anti-pollution issues.

So, what I'm getting to with Facebook is that we promoted and publicized that whole trip through Facebook and all of our contacts on Facebook, and got people to come out to the different events we had. We got people to come out to parties that we put on in Santiago, got people to come out to protests we put on in Santiago outside the Whaling Commission meeting hotel, the Sheraton. Finally, we've been using Facebook for this coal plant problem in Southern Chile that we're fighting. We've garnered a lot of support, a whole e-mail campaign, online petition, and just getting the word out that we have an alternative for the coal plant and we don't want a coal plant to be built. So, that's a big thing on Facebook, too.

So you're starting a Facebook group and kids are joining the group, is that right?

Yeah, it's a group. And then, I think we also have a cause. We have a group and then, we have a cause. Save The Waves Coalition right now, our Facebook presence was kind of administered by some unknown person who was just a fan and created a Facebook page. Now just recently, we've taken that over and we're making it a little deeper, in terms of content on Facebook.

And then, I also produce a yearly event, a one-night fashion show fund-raiser in Santiago. It happens in November. This year, 2008, is going to be the third year of that. It's a big party with a couple of DJ's and live music. We have a fashion show of surf bikinis and beach clothes all dressed up on Chilean models. I promote that on Facebook, too. We get sponsors for the event. We have a bar, and we charge a modest entrance fee. All the funds go to our Chile program, education, awareness and activism in Chile. It's our excuse to get out and party, get the word out through a fun way.

I'm sure it's easy to promote on Facebook as well.

Yeah, everybody wants to be my friend!