Mission 1: Turtle Protection in Indonesia

The island of Bali has been a hub for turtle trades for over two decades. The demand for meat, tortoiseshell and eggs are not only from the country itself, but across the Asian market. For clarification, these meat and eggs are not for feeding the poor population, but instead are a privilege of the affluent society. Jewelry and ornaments are produced from tortoise shells, which means thousands of animals have to die for these unnecessary items.

This is mostly done secretly, and the numbers behind it are hardly known. In 1985, famous underwater photographer Kurt Amsler found around 25,000 turtles died in the country in private slaughter houses in that year alone.

Target: Final cessation and prohibition of the turtle killing in Indonesia.

Action: Support of the environmental organization PRO-FAUNA and SOS-SEATURTLES locally, as they control the scene with police appearances, agents and informants and their campaigns for informing the public. Especially notable is their educating the local schoolchildren, and support of turtle breeding stations.

© Kurt Amsler

Mission 2: Stop Finning

Finning means cutting off the fins of a living shark, and is one of the worst excesses of the fishing industry. For the “luxury” shark-fin soup, millions of sharks have to die in the cruelest way. For our effort, we will start in Costa Rica, a major hub in Central America for the international sharkfin trade. So far, every environmental initiative against fin trading has failed. However, there finally is hope as a court in 2011 has forbidden the landing of fins at the notorious private docks in Costa Rica.

For clarification, Costa Rica has a plainly written law that allows sharkfins only with the complete shark body to be delivered into the country, for good reason. Around 2,000 complete shark bodies can fit into the stowage of a longliner, but if storing the fins alone, up to 40,000 sharks can fit in the same space. This law has been effectively avoided, however, by unloading the fins secretly at private docks, without any knowledge of the public

Thankfully this is now forbidden, and therefore the fishing quota is falling rapidly. This would be a glimmer of hope for the sharks, if not for the creativity of the finning syndicate. They now unload their boats in Nicaragua and transport the fins by truck into Costa Rica.

Unfortunately this is allowed, even if it is clearly against the destination route of the law. It doesn’t make sense to ban the fins unloaded from ships, but allow them to be unloaded from trucks.

Several environmental organizations want to stop this, and we want to help them.

Target: To stop/restrict fin trading in Costa Rica

Action: Support of active protests and campaigns of the Stop-Finning-Alliance in Costa Rica. Our campaign partner on-site is Randall Arauz from the marine protection organization PRETOMA and the Stop-Finning-Alliance.

© Gerhard Wegner

Mission 3: Create Marine Reserves

The Pacific Ocean comprises one third of the entire oceans’ surface. Therein lays the region Oceania, that contains the islands of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia. This area with the islands in their center is a huge area comprised of over 8 million square kilometers (roughly 5 million square miles) amidst the Pacific Ocean.

The governments of these island states decide who is allowed to fish or drill for oil in this region. These states that live with, and from, the ocean recognize the problem, and are willing to help protect these waters. For this purpose they need our professional assistance and advice.

This is where Mission Deep Blue starts. We want to position consultants for these governments and possibly build together the largest marine reserve worldwide. Our chances for success are great.

Target: Widespread marine protection in the Pacific Ocean.

Action: To train environmental advisors and marine protection ambassadors. Our campaign’s on-site partner is OCEANIA INITIATIVE under the leadership of Stefanie Brendl, as well as Somoan Schannel von Dijken.

© Oceania Initiative / Stefanie Brendl

Mission 4: Teaching Material/Program For Children

Our sick oceans are of particular concern for our children. They have to live with the consequences of our actions, which is why they should be instrumental in preventing the death of our oceans. Therefore have must inform our children and teach them what they can do to help.

Mission Deep Blue will design and produce training material about the oceanic ecosystem that is to be distributed free of charge at all schools. A special focus is on third-world countries with seashores, like Mozambique or Costa Rica. This is where Mission Deep Blue will work together with national organizations to offer practical teaching materials for school children.

Target: To offer age-appropriate teaching material free of charge to schools.

Action: We will begin by producing teaching materials in English and German, as well as third-world country-specific materials for special schools in Costa Rica, South Africa and Mozambique. Our partners in this campaign are the organizations PRETOMA (Costa Rica) and EYES ON THE HORIZON (Mozambique).

© Gerhard Wegner