Rising Tide: The Ocean Podcast

Podcast & Audio Production

Overseeing the Rising Tide: The Ocean Podcast's production, promotion, and strategic growth. Fluid Studios manages podcast development, from concept to publication, ensuring high-quality content that resonates with audiences. We develop social media and content marketing strategies to maximize engagement and reach. By collaborating with the Blue Frontier team, we maintain the podcast's vision, enhance its impact, and leverage analytics to optimize performance, drive continuous improvement, and contribute to the organization's dynamic leadership and innovative solutions.

A refreshing, irreverent dive into the lives, work, and explorations of today’s leading and diverse ocean voices.

Each half-hour episode co-hosted by David Helvarg of Blue Frontier and Vicki Nichols Goldstein of the Inland Ocean Coalition sails through lively discussions with our guests about marine life, culture, and critical issues affecting our rapidly changing seas. Informative, enlightening, and often humorous it is an invaluable resource for anyone passionate about understanding, enjoying, and protecting our salty blue world.

7/13/26 7/13/26

The Ever-Present Ocean: A Deep Dive into Kelp Forests with Dr. Aaron Eger

The latest episode of Rising Tide, the Ocean Podcast, host David Helvarg and oceanographer and Blue Frontier board member Joy Leilei Shih sit down with Australian-based scientist Dr. Aaron Eger, one of the world's top kelp researchers. Based at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Eger is the founder and program director of the global Kelp Forest Alliance, and lead author of three major scientific kelp reports published over the past four years — including one that pegs the value of the world's kelp forests at roughly half a trillion dollars a year.

The conversation ranges across kelp's outsized role in food and biodiversity, coastal protection, nutrient cycling and carbon reduction. Eger also recounts growing up along the coast of British Columbia and his early fascination with macroalgae — the ocean's answer to the world's great forests, though far less known for thriving unseen beneath the waves. He closes with a sobering look at the threats facing kelp forests today, and what can still be done to protect them.

Peter Benchley Awards: The Oscars of the Ocean

The unsung heroes and innovators on the front lines of protecting the marine world and its future.

The latest episode of Rising Tide the Ocean Podcast turns its attention to the 2026 Peter Benchley Ocean Awards, held this spring at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The awards bear the name of the Jaws author who, haunted perhaps by the monster he'd created, devoted much of the rest of his life to defending sharks and the seas they swim in. Founded nearly two decades ago by Blue Frontier and Wendy Benchley, and now carried forward under the Aquarium Conservation Partnership, the awards have earned a reputation as the Oscars of the Ocean — with more than 80 honorees to their name.

The 2026 class is a wide-ranging one, drawn from the halls of government, the depths of science, the world of commerce, and the next generation stepping up to inherit an ocean under pressure. This year's winners include Julie Packard of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, President José Manuel Bolieiro of the Azores, California Congressman Jared Huffman, deep-sea scientist Dr. Diva Amon, ocean-minded business Bureo, activist Marcé Gutiérrez-Graudins, the sweeping documentary Ocean with Sir David Attenborough, and youth honoree Coji Senanayake — proof that the movement to protect the blue heart of the planet is neither slowing down nor running out of voices.

Balancing Wonder and Warning: Dr. Ben Halpern on the Future of Our Oceans

In the latest episode of ‘Rising Tide, the Ocean Podcast,’ David and Natasha speak with Dr. Ben Halpern. Along with being a past Peter Benchley Ocean Award winner, Ben serves as Director of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, a research center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he is also a professor of marine biology and conservation science. Among his numerous honors and research papers, he’s contributed to a new report published in Science magazine warning that the world’s ecosystems could be permanently altered – meaning degraded - by mid-century if the present trend in greenhouse gas pollution, industrial overfishing, and coastal development continues unabated. Ben also offers some ideas on how each of us can act in ways that can help reverse that trend. So, give a listen, learn a bit, and visit the ocean when you can.