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Karl Goodsell’s passion for positive change is palpable. To hear him speak about the social and environmental challenges of our time is to feel physically buoyed, inspired by his dedication and energy.

It’s this same tireless drive and enthusiasm that led this Southern Cross University alumnus to turn a volunteer-run Facebook group into a globally recognised non-profit organisation — Positive Change for Marine Life — and dedicate the past 15 years of his life to creating a positive impact for coastal communities and sea life in seven countries.

Karl now leads a team of passionate professionals who work with local partners around the world to develop circular projects that address human health and economic challenges through a conservation-focused lens.

His organisation’s origin story began in the Japanese town of Taiji, when Karl was juggling his studies at Southern Cross with volunteer work for the Byron Bay chapter of a global conservation organisation. It was in Taiji, the location of the documentary The Cove, which focuses on dolphin hunting practices, that Karl discovered a new lens through which to view solutions to environmental challenges.

“I was sent to Taiji as an activist, however I realised within a few days that this approach on the ground wasn’t going to work. It didn’t make sense,” Karl says. “They (the activists) had great intentions, but I wondered how this approach would have an impact when, in this community, dolphin hunting is core to local culture, is government sanctioned, and is taught to children as young as two years of age. I imagined that a different approach, one that focused on understanding and respecting the cultural and socio-economic factors influencing the hunt, could have had much more positive outcomes.”

Within a few days Karl left the organisation and started a Facebook group called Positive Change in Taiji, raising awareness on an alternative approach, while having conversations on the ground in Taiji with a wide variety of stakeholders to understand more about the cultural and economic factors influencing the industry.

During this time Karl was studying a Bachelor of Marine Science at Southern Cross, which complemented his hands-on work, also offering the opportunity to volunteer with Dolphin Research Australia and Whales Alive as a researcher and educator back in Australia.

“I was deeply involved with Southern Cross through my volunteer work and had some incredibly inspiring lecturers during that time, some of whom I still have ongoing professional and personal relationships with,” Karl says. “I really loved my time at SCU!.”

Soon after leaving Taiji, Karl founded Positive Change for Marine Life and began running social and environmental programs in Australia and Japan — at the time all volunteer-led, with some of those volunteers being existing and former Southern Cross students. The vision was simple: to empower local communities into ocean action on their terms, developing long-term initiatives that benefited the sea and the communities who relied on it for survival.

While his organisation slowly grew over the following years, Karl completed his studies at Southern Cross, and undertook several other related opportunities, such as working for the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) as a consultant, examining the dolphin hunting and shark finning industries after the Fukushima earthquake and nuclear accident in northern Japan.

“This was a very valuable, while also incredibly heartbreaking experience,” Karl says.

In 2012 Karl was selected to attend the World Youth Congress, as a part of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro (Rio +20), where he took the opportunity to develop a program working on sewage and waste awareness in Brazil’s favelas. Further, in 2014 he was chosen as Peace Boat’s International Reporter, joining the 83^rd Global Voyage which circumnavigated the globe.

Back in Australia, Karl worked as a community organiser and campaigner for a number of large NGO’s, including GetUp! and the Australian Conservation Foundation. He began integrating his learnings within these organisations into Positive Change for Marine Life as it continued to gain traction.

In 2019, after years of running his non-profit ‘off the smell of an oily rag’, two major events changed everything.

“We received a $150,000 private, untied donation, and I was selected as a Kinship Conservation Fellow (a prestigious internationally recognised program that trains and supports environmental leaders to apply market-based principles to their work),” Karl says. “The donation allowed us to begin hiring staff, and the Fellowship gave me the tools to help make our conservation programs become financially self-sustainable. These two things were a catalyst to grow the organisation to where it is today.”

“I started out doing the bread-and-butter legal work – learning my trade through conveyancing, commercial law, wills and estates,” she says. “Then came the opportunity that really was the culmination of all my childhood imaginings. It was a leap of faith, and I took it.”

Just four years after graduating from Southern Cross University, Laura was appointed to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) as a Federal Prosecutor.

Though based in Brisbane, the challenging role intensified Laura’s local focus as the impact of major crime on victims and their communities became abundantly clear in the cases she took on, and the criminals she so vigorously pursued.

“This was heavy subject matter,” she says. “I was investigating and prosecuting bikie gangs, people trafficking, crimes against children. It was dangerous, but also exhilarating as we worked to seize assets, end criminal operations and bring perpetrators to justice.”

Currently, Positive Change for Marine Life has 14 permanent internal staff, and more than 120 casual employees with a focus in three countries. The organisation recently received a major grant for their Solomon Islands work from USAID. They run integrated programs to rewild floodplains; collect and convert waste into valuable products while shifting supply chains; and help communities develop sustainable fisheries models that balance conservation and economic returns, with the goal of creating multi-stakeholder protected areas.

“We know that if we don’t engage communities deeply, on their terms, we are fighting an uphill battle.” Karl says. “We create social licence by enabling economic opportunities and incentives from a conservation, instead of an exploitation approach. Without economic incentives for change, the prospect of it is unrealistic. We’ve continued to grow year upon year, and we have big ambitions. I’m really excited about the future and the impact that we can continue to drive.”