The heart of a volunteer is not measured in size,
but by the depth of the commitment to make a difference in the lives of others.
In 2013, during the time of my dive master training in Utila/Honduras, I became more interested in ocean conservation than ever before. I started organising beach clean ups, because that is something everybody can do, without the need of special skills. To do beach clean ups gave me the feeling of doing something good. Beaches covered in trash, animals crawling on plastic or feeding their offspring with trash, turtles and fish stucket in ghost nets, to see that all broke my heart. From those days on I couldn’t stop anymore to serve the ocean and it’s inhabitants.
CAMPAIGNS
Operation GrindStop – Faroe Islands 2014
Cove Guardians – Taiji 2015
Operation Mare Nostrum I & II – Mediterranean 2015&2016
Operation Mare Nostrum is about removing ghost nets and all sorts of other thrash and plastic from the Mediterranean Sea. I did help as a diver and underwater videographer during these campaigns, where the Sea Shepherd volunteers removed a big quantity of silent killers from the ocean. Ghost nets are abandoned nets, that nobody takes care of anymore. These nets go on killing marine wildlife for decades – for nothing.
Operation Treasured Islands – Central America 2017
Sharks are apex predators, they are called the „doctors of the sea“. An ocean without sharks is a dead ocean and a dead ocean is deadly to us. Within the last years, shark populations declined up to 90%, numbers rising. Sharks get caught for their fins, their meat and as by catch. Shark fin soup is still a big business in many countries of the world, but belongs already since long to the past.
I was as media officer, videographer, drone pilot, diver and editor on Sea Shepherd’s vessel M/V John Paul DeJoria to save sharks in Central America. This was a very hard campaign as we offered our help to the governments of Panama and Costa Rica to patrol the waters, but our help got denied for political reasons. The biggest problem which kept us away from saving sharks, was that many governments are involved in the big business as well. Costa Rica is not even hiding that, even though it is a country which sells itself as green for eco tourism.
Check out all the videos on Operation Treasured Islands here: http://maggy-gschnitzer.com/good-mood-film-production/#videosforthegoodcause
Operation Nyamba – Mayotte 2018
Mayotte is the 101st departement of France, an island right next to Madagaskar, where thousands of turtles come on land every year to lay their eggs. Sadly you can find many turtle carcasses on the beaches, because turtle moms are getting poached right before they can lay their eggs into the sand. It is said, that after laying the meat gets a bitter taste. This way it is not one turtle getting killed, but with her the whole next generation. 6 out of 7 marine turtles are endangered and protected, it is illegal to even touch these precious animals, but their meat is getting sold on the black market for up to 45€/kg.
Sea Shepherd is on the islands of Mayotte to make patrols every single night to protect the turtles from poaching and to shine a light on this barbaric killing.
Get to know the beauty of Mayotte by watching this video: