The National Marine Park is in search for passionate people who have or want to connect with the Sound to be part of their Coastal Ranger volunteer team.

The waters of Plymouth Sound have been instrumental in the nation’s heritage, culture, wealth, and security. The National Marine Park (NMP) aims to encourage greater prosperity and improve engagement with our marine environment. We are looking for individuals who champion the core values of the NMP to support the coastal ranger team in delivering these aims – through assisting the delivery of events, beach cleans, heritage restoration, citizen science, community engagement, and much more. The varied role of NMP Volunteers is crucial to breaking down the barriers people have to the ocean and help everyone connect with Plymouth Sound.

There are infinite ways people can connect with their environment. Whether this is in, under, on or next to our big blue, anyone is welcome to join us in looking after our park.

The Coastal Ranger Volunteers will be a pool of earnest people with a multitude of skills, experiences, and interests to help us deliver our aim. There are no minimum or maximum time commitments and you are free to pick and choose which events you want to go to. We would like our volunteer programme to be fluid, so if anyone has ideas on events and engagement we would love to talk about it. Our current events are (but not limited to):

• Attending and helping deliver small-scale events like beach cleans (with a Wasteshark – look it up!), rock pool safaris, tree planting and heritage walks
• Supporting the Plymouth Coastal and terrestrial Ranger teams in restoring National Marine Park heritage sites to their former glory.
• Supporting the Coastal Ranger team, such as going on ‘patrols’ or engaging with communities on the ground
• Supporting the running of larger NMP events (such as Big Blue Splash) through sign-in support, having a go and engaging with attendees
• Helping running swim safe sessions – this project teaches children between 7 and 14 open water safety and swimming for free
• Embodying the marine park, and the belief that everyone should be able to access the water for free.

UPDATE – We have been overwhelmed by the support for the UK’s First National Marine Park and have developed a small but diverse community of volunteers. We will not be taking on any more volunteers right now so we can focus on co-developing a truly valuable, fun and inclusive program. Keep posted for the full volunteer program to launch in full in 2024!