Actor Jason Momoa campaigns for ocean conservation both on and off-screen.

Jason Momoa, a well-known Hollywood actor who portrays the role of the defender of the deep in the superhero blockbuster Aquaman, is also taking the battle off-screen because the world’s oceans are actually under danger.

Momoa, speaking at an event on a Portuguese beach ahead of the United Nations Ocean Conference in Lisbon, which begins on Monday, stated, ‘Without a healthy ocean life, our earth as we know it would not exist.’

The meeting, which was originally scheduled for 2020 but was moved to this year due to the coronavirus outbreak, is expected to draw over 7,000 attendees, including heads of state and environmental campaigners.

Dozens of youth activists from various countries clapped and cheered as Momoa, who will soon become the U.N. Environment Programme advocate for Life Below Water, spoke about the problems facing the world`s oceans.

The 42-year-old Momoa stated, ‘We must work to make amends for the wrongs we have done to our children and grandchildren, reverse the trend of our careless stewardship, and create momentum for a future in which humans can once more coexist with nature.’

In the DC Comics film Aquaman, which transports audiences to the seven seas’ underwater realm, Momoa is best recognised for playing Arthur Curry, a half-human, half-Atlantean figure. In March 2023, Aquaman 2 is slated for release.

Momoa was joined at the ceremony by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who apologised on behalf of his generation for not doing more at the time to combat climate change, conserve the ocean, and preserve biodiversity.

‘Even today we are moving too slowly…we are still moving in the wrong direction,’ Guterres said, also pointing a finger at the fossil fuel industry. ‘It`s time for these behaviours to be seriously condemned.’

Over half of the world’s oxygen is produced by the ocean, which also absorbs 25% of all carbon dioxide emissions. However, climate change is raising the ocean’s temperature and raising sea levels.

If manufacture and usage of throwaway items are not curbed, 11 million metric tonnes of plastic would wind up in the ocean every year by 2040, according to numerous scientific studies.