“Mission Blue” on Netflix follows Dunedin resident oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle as she works to conserve our oceans.

Will Dunedin host its first zero-waste event? That’s the question as Blue-Green Connections prepares for its third annual Hope Spot Festival in Edgewater Park on Saturday, Feb. 11 .

If you still don’t know what a Hope Spot is, check out “Mission Blue” on Netflix. The documentary film follows Dunedin resident oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle as she works to conserve our oceans, creating and monitoring Hope Spots around the world. She calls it her Mission Blue.
The idea is to protect the ocean in the same way that we protect the land. As a National Park is a spot of land protected from development, a Hope Spot is a spot in the ocean protected from fishing and drilling. When Earle gave her TED talk in 2009, less than 1% of our oceans were protected—that’s compared to 12% of land, globally. Now, there are 147 Hope Spots around the world.

Dunedin nonprofit Blue-Green Connections applied for, and was granted, a Hope Spot on Florida’s Gulf Coast in 2019 and they’ve been celebrating ever since. A beach cleanup, live music, eco-friendly costume contest plus the Taste of Dunedin are all part of the festivities.