AceShowbiz - Actress and activist Shailene Woodley is on a mission to help save the planet's seas. The "Big Little Lies" star credits her upbringing with opening her eyes to ways in which she can help protect the wildlife in the Earth's oceans, which have become more and more polluted with plastic waste over the years.

In an interview with Shape magazine ahead of World Oceans Day on Tuesday, June 8, she said, "I was raised by two psychologists, so empathy was a big deal in our household. Everything was about trying to understand everyone else's experience. Not necessarily agreeing with it, but having empathy for whatever they were going through. From there, I looked at nature and the natural world the same way."

Shailene continued, "I don't want to save the ocean because my mind says it's the right thing to do. I want to save the ocean because I can feel that she's suffering. I can feel that turtle drowning from the plastic in its belly. I can feel the temperatures rising on the algae that is killing other species."

"For me, everything is based in feeling and emotion. I'm a progressive, and I want to change the world - I feel a responsibility to try to do everything I possibly can to make things feel a little better."

Shailene's activism has also prompted her to join forces with officials at Karun, who make sunglasses using recycled fishing nets and metals, in the hopes of seeing actual change in they way humans treat the seas.

She explained, "Those microplastics - there's no way we will ever clean them up. No matter how many eyeglasses we make. No matter how many other material goods we create using them. What we can change is consuming that plastic in the first place. I'm always much more focused on the human side of the environmentalist mission, because until we address that, nothing will happen."