This week, we caught up with the Volcom surfer from Australia with an Italian heart, who doesn’t only have a thing for beautiful waves in exotic locations, but also a massive passion for green living and nature preservation

Interview by Anna Langer, photos courtesy of Claire & Volcomunity

Hey Claire, we follow your Facebook page quite enviously, seems like you’ve been on a lot of great trips?
Yes I love adventure but after 15 years of traveling for comps, I now just go to the places I want to.

What’s your favourite place to surf in the world and why?
I have a few for different reasons. Home is number one though, West Oz has the best waves in the world I think all year round and it’s clean and safe, so I feel complete there. I also love Hawaii, but nothing beats home.

You’re half Italian, have you ever surfed in Italy?
I would live in Italy if there was more swell for sure. A part of me feels more Italian than anything. The waves in Rome where my father was born and lives are so fun and the vibe is perfect, I try to visit every year and get a swell. We eat like royalty, hang at the beach and dance at night. Italy has my heart.

We are the environment.

You care a lot about the environment, why is that especially important to you?
Well, we are the environment. We are all connected to the trees the sky the land, how can you not care? It makes me feel good and healthy to take care of myself, so in doing that I take care of what’s around me.

What do you do to minimize your own impact?
The main thing I think I do would be how I eat. I rarely eat processed food, I mostly eat local fresh produce and from my garden. If I eat meat or dairy it’s from a sustainable farm or fish I have caught my self.

It seems like some people struggle with environmental living because they find it too hard, bearing or complicated. Do you have any nice and easy tips for our readers to integrate into their everyday life?
Bad habits attract more unhealthy situations to your life, so I look at it like the more good I do for the planet and myself, the more consistent vibrant beauty I will be surrounded by.

You’re also into the raw food movement, can you explain that for us?
Raw foods have always contained the most productive highest potent ways of obtaining concentrated nutrients. It’s not a trend or something new. We just live in a material world where most people are lazy and don’t care about what’s going on inside them. Everything is fixed with a pill… it must be fast and covered in plastic. We have forgotten the basic principal that food is thy medicine.

Travelling the world surfing is already the dream life for many of us, what goals do you still want to reach?
I want to be a world class leader in high performance surf coaching for all levels gender and styles of surfing. Combining my love for nutrition, natural healing, fitness and motivation I hope to continue to change lives and encourage others to reach their full potential.

We had a very critical article in our print issue last summer, about the Gidget stereotype in surfing and the sexualisation of female surfers in the media and also brands’ ad campaigns. How do you see this whole issue?
Sex has always sold a women’s athletic image no matter what the sport. Girls can be attractive sexy cool smart business women and still be the strongest athletes. I encourage girls to claim that power and work the system to create amazing opportunities and careers for themselves. Who cares if they show some skin??? They look good and it inspires others to work hard for what they want in life. You don’t get contracts and advertisement deals sitting on your butt expecting opportunity to fall in your lap, you have to fight for it.

Girls can be attractive sexy cool smart business women and still be the strongest athletes. I encourage girls to claim that power and work the system to create amazing opportunities and careers for themselves.

Anything else you’d like to get off your chest?
Keep doing your thing girls, stay true to yourself and follow your heart. It’s a male industry but we all know the girls run the show, we just let the boys think they do to stroke that ego of theirs. I am going to continue to surf my brains out, teach all I know to those who are eager to learn from me and preserve this body of mine, tricking it into thinking it’s still a teenager. Haha.

Claire is sponsored by Volcom, Samudra, Nixon, Kicker, freak, and Sector 9. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook!