Surf & Conservation Film Festival raises over £4,000 to improve local water quality
Surfers, conservationists and the local community packed into Freshwell Camping, Croyde on 21–22 August 2026 for the second Surf & Conservation Film Festival and raised over £4,000 to help improve water quality across the North Devon World Surfing Reserve.
Over 350 people came through the gates across the weekend, with 100 joining Saturday's free family programme: beach cleans, live water quality testing, rock pool rambles, a river-themed bouncy castle, and workshops on marine pollution and repurposing ocean plastics, alongside stalls from Devon Wildlife Trust, The Wave Project and others.
Evenings brought award-winning surf and conservation films, sourced from the Save The Waves and Edinburgh Conservation Film Festivals, plus live music from Laura Kate & Jack Dayman and two panel discussions. Friday's line-up, including Para surfing champion Suzanne Edwards and Dryrobe's Nick Rees, tackled accessibility in surf conservation. Saturday's panel turned to rivers and runoff, with speakers from Devon Wildlife Trust, Westcountry Rivers Trust and North Devon Biosphere.
All profits go towards nature-based work to slow runoff, cut pollution and boost biodiversity across the Reserve (think leaky dams, baffles and scrapes) plus water quality testing through North Devon Biosphere's Healthy Rivers project.
CEO Claire Moodie said the weekend's two panels told the same story: "the more people that get to experience the power of that water, the more people who'll fight to keep it healthy."
The festival was organised by North Devon World Surfing Reserve, Earth Action North Devon, North Devon Coast National Landscape and North Devon UNESCO Biosphere and Freshwell Camping, and was supported by John Fowler Holiday Parks and The Manor House Inn. The outdoor cinema was supplied by Blackbeam Cinematic.
The North Devon World Surfing Reserve is the UK's only World Surfing Reserve and just the second in Europe.