Cousteau is an entire generation's synonym of love for the sea and discovery of the marvels to be found in its depths. In the 1970s, an amiable old man with glasses and a red beanie, an officer in the French navy but also an explorer, researcher and marine biologist, opened our eyes - and in doing so aroused our awareness - to the infinite blue of the sea. Aboard the Calypso, Jacques Cousteau pioneered protection of the oceans, a legacy that has been continued by the surname Cousteau. 

His granddaughter Alexandra Cousteau, the daughter of Philippe Cousteau, inherited a passion for the world of nature from her family, a passion that has made her a stalwart defender of the oceans. She has headed up many expeditions to gain a better understanding of the problems faced by oceans, and to explore our connection to freshwater resources, which are so important to human prosperity. She was behind OCEANS 2050, a global ocean afforestation initiative which emerged in 2018 and is working to recover lost coastlines by sowing and managing marine forests, so that they in turn can provide a habitat for marine life, reverse acidification and hypoxia, thereby boosting climate resilience on coastlines and sequestering CO2. 

Alexandra Cousteau is also a senior board member of Oceana, the largest international ocean protection NGO; she has been a National Geographic explorer since 2009 and, alongside her mother Janice and brother Philippe, she also heads up EarthEcho International, which was set up in the year 2000 to inspire young people all over the world to take action for a sustainable future.

Well acquainted with the sea - not for nothing did she board a ship for the first time at the age of four months, and by the age of seven she had become a well-trained disciple of her grandfather - she is an expert scuba diver, and a marine filmmaker and photographer. She pioneered live footage of her expeditions on social networks even before they became so popular.  She sees communication as an essential part of her activism, not only among the public at large, but also among the powers-that-be, who are bound to keep ocean conservation on the political agenda.

For all her work and a life given over to the sea and sea conservation, she will be given the Sartún Award at the fifth Meeting of the Seas congress, where in fact this year's leitmotiv is conservation.