How it all began

After a successful military career, David decided to retire early to pursue business and environmental interests.  Diving is second nature to David and after many years as a professional diver and underwater photographer he has gained a huge amount of experience and knowledge.  As a photojournalist he is in popular demand and his articles have been widely published. He has worked for a number of production companies including the BBC and alongside many TV personalities such as David Attenborough, Bear Grylls and Ben Fogle.  After working on the BBC Life series he joined The Plastic Oceans Foundation where he worked as an education, science, and sustainability adviser.  He was also heavily involved in the production of the film, A Plastic Ocean.  In 2014 he decided to start his own venture, Just One Ocean in order to be able to promote awareness of other ocean issues such as over fishing and habitat destruction in addition to plastic pollution.

David Jones photographing submarines

Speaker

David is a master communicator and natural on the stage who can speak about a number of subjects from business sustainability and the macro economic solutions to ocean pollution, to cave diving in the offshore islands of Belize.  He finds it incredibly easy to engage with his audience, so whether it is speaking to the young pupils at a school, the critical audience at the World Ocean Summit, or the politicians at the National Assembly for Wales, David is equally at home.  The secret is his knowledge of the subject and his ability to understand and judge his audience.  One recent comment about him was:

“David is one of those rare people that can make difficult and dry subjects like the environment and sustainability, come alive. He is a natural speaker, outspoken and intelligent, with a tremendous amount of knowledge about the subject.”

A selection of recent events have included:

“David has been an inspiration, I’m only sorry I didn’t hear him years ago when he first started airing his concerns about one-use plastic.”

Research

Since he began working on the plastic pollution issue he has been researching the scientific as well as the socio-economic aspects of the problem. He was instrumental in producing a systematic literature review for the Plastic Oceans Foundation on plastic pollution and in  2011 he wrote about the role of business and industry in resolving the ocean plastic pollution crisis.

David has two undergraduate degrees in industry and business and an MSc in Coastal and Marine Resource Management.  He is currently currently undertaking research at the University of Portsmouth on the socio-economic impact of microplastics on coastal environments and how we might be able to harness citizen science to increase our understanding of the microplastic issue. Articles from this research have been published in The Conversation, the Journal of Coastal Conservation and Ocean and Coastal Management. He is also a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers and  a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

volunteers at the beach survey

“David is a charismatic speaker; fluent, entertaining, expert, with a wicked sense of humour that he adapts to the audience.”

“David is a natural story teller, instantly engaging with the intellect and credibility to challenge, lead, and inspire his audience to own these fundamentally import issues”