Emily is a British marine biologist, award-winning ocean conservationist and author.
She was awarded an MBE for services to marine conservation and coastal communities in the King’s New Year Honours List 2025.

My brand new book, Our Ocean to Save is available NOW for pre-order

Pre-order Our Ocean to Save here

Hi, I’m Emily – a 36-year old marine biologist and ocean conservationist living in Cornwall, England.

The first thing you should know about me is that I’m hopeful about the future of our ocean.

From diving in a submersible in Antarctica to studying sea turtles on one of the world’s most remote islands, my work has taken me all around our blue planet.

This has given me a front-row seat to the devastation that we are wreaking on our ocean. But I’ve also seen the solutions. All around the world, people from all walks of life are doing work that is helping bring our ocean back to life.

This is part of what makes me hopeful. But my biggest dose of hope comes from somewhere unexpected.

Pretty much everyday, someone asks me: “How can I help the ocean?”. People I sit next to on the bus, people on social media, people I make small talk with in waiting rooms. It’s been the greatest joy of my career to see just how many people care about our ocean.

But, there was a problem. The answer to the question, “How can I help the ocean?”, is unique to each and every one of us. How we individually can help the ocean depends on our skills, our interests, our availability and more. I didn’t want to give people a list of what they can’t do, so I decided to get my head down and think about what we each can do.

This became an idea for a book. A book about how we can play our part in helping the ocean. A book focussed on what our ocean could look like, if only we took action.

I started writing it 3 years ago, in January 2023, when I was working in Antarctica. Three and a half years of research, conversations, listening, learning, late nights, drafting, edits, imposter syndrome, tears and triumph later (all whilst working full-time)…

That book is now available for pre-order.

It will be published internationally on 29th October 2026, timed with the much-anticipated release of Blue Planet III, but it is now open for pre-orders. Pre-orders make a world of difference for a first-time, unknown author like me, helping to show demand and getting my book into more shops.

If you are able, every pre-order helps. If not, just helping to spread the word helps too.

Pre-order Our Ocean to Save here

About me

I’ve loved the ocean since I was a little girl growing up in landlocked Staffordshire. No one in my family had ever been to university, so wanting to become a marine biologist seemed as likely as me going to the moon.

But, I managed it. I became the first person in my family to go to uni when I studied marine biology at Bangor University. From there, my marine biology adventures have taken me to Sri Lanka, Ascension Island, Indonesia, Antarctica, South and North America, and all around the wonderful coast of the UK. I have worked for various conservation organisations, most recently leading a global conservation initiative at WWF, and served on the Board of the UK’s Marine Conservation Society.

My passion is in finding ways to recover the health of our ocean together with the communities that depend on it. I volunteer as a mentor, ambassador and sector role model for various youth and social mobility organisations and have secured over £5 million in funding for conservation projects that work with underserved communities. I’m a co-founder of the #Motion4theOcean – the world’s first Local Government Ocean Recovery Declaration – mobilising 40 local governments (together serving over 5 million people) to take action for our ocean.

My research focuses on whales and dolphins – humpback whales, white-beaked dolphins, common dolphins and river dolphins. I’m an an Honorary Associate Research Fellow at the University of Exeter and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

I’m chuffed to have been recognised with various awards, including being named a Global 30 under 30 environmental leader in 2020 and being awarded an MBE for services to marine conservation and coastal communities in the King’s New Year Honours List 2025.

I am an experienced and sought-after public speaker, including talks, panels or media appearances. I have been on national TV & radio, regularly appear on podcasts, and have written for various publications. I share my adventures on Instagram as Marine Biology Life.

My mission is to make ocean conservation more accessible, more inclusive and more effective. Please get in touch if you want to open doors together.

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Achievements

• Awarded an MBE for services to marine conservation and coastal communities in the King’s New Year Honours List 2025
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• International SeaKeepers Society’s NextGen Awardee 2025
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• Named on the ENDS Power List 2024 as one of the top 100 most impactful environmental professionals in the UK
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• Winner, UK Women of the Future Awards 2023
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• Co-founded the Motion for the Ocean initiative, co-authoring the model #Motion4theOcean and supporting coastal and inland local authorities in the development of local Ocean Recovery Declarations (2021 – present)
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• Highly Commended – “Inspirational Person” category at the UK’s national Flood and Coast Excellence Awards, June 2022 
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• 2021 Winner – Rising Star Awards – Charity and Not-for-Profit Category 

• Recognised as one of “30 under 30” global environmental leaders in 2020 by the North American Association for Environment Education.
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• Led the LGA Coastal Special Interest Group, a group of 57 local authorities serving 60% of England’s coastline and 16 million people (2019-2022). Emily positioned the group as an influential and respected voice on coastal issues, co-founded the national OneCoast coalition and was joint Secretariat to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Coastal Communities.
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• Developed a £5m programme to engage underserved coastal communities with marine conservation, the first of its kind in the UK (2016-2019). This pioneering scheme ran from 2020-2024, see it’s impact here.
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• Developed a major new project to engage local communities in the conservation of the Dee Estuary (2018-2021) Details here.
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• Published new research on UK humpback whales with all data collected by the local community. This research reported on the first ever photo-ID match of a UK humpback whale to their Arctic feeding grounds and suggests that British seas act as a migratory stopover/alternative destination for migrating humpback whales. Read the paper, published in Marine Biodiversity Records, here.
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• Led an award-winning dive survey programme that contributed to the designation of Marine Conservation Zones in England (2015-16). Read here or watch here.
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• First person in my family to go to university, awarded a Bangor University Merit Scholarship

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Say hello

Contact emily@emilycunningham.co.uk