About us
| Marine Life Protectors were founded in 2018 as a one-man-initiative after a visit to Olive Ridley Project's sea turtle rescue centre in the Maldives in 2017
and the sight of once beautiful coral reefs which had been devastated by a massive coral bleaching in 2016. In ghost fishing nets entangled and severely injured sea turtles and
the destroyed coral reefs were a clear signal that something was wrong with our oceans and that it had a human origin.
Marine-related awareness work is one of our main objectives, transporting relevant information about marine biology, marine-related sciences, marine biodiversity loss, threats to coral reefs, the consequences of global climate change, and the numerous tasks of sea turtle conservation work to the public. Our first website went online on August 18th, 2018, followed by our Facebook page on August 28th, 2018, which developed quite well over the years. In 2020 we got the opportunity to start a collaboration with the Conservation Education Society (and with the Marine Education Centre until November 19th, 2021) in the south of Kenya. With the beginning of 2021 we helped the Olive Ridley Project restart their project in Kenya. Both developments led to an expanded team, we are now three team members towards the end of 2021, two from Kenya and one from Germany. We actively support the Olive Ridley Project in many ways and have established a close collaboration with the Olive Ridley Project Kenya, but we are not a branch of the Olive Ridley Project. We have defined five key areas/key regions for our science-based awareness work. |
 | #1: Western Indian Ocean (our main focus area) #2: East Atlantic & Mediterranean Sea #3: Wider Caribbean & Gulf of Mexico #4: Coral Triangle #5: Great Barrier Reef |
| Main contents of our work are: Sea turtle biology, sea turtle conservation activities, support work for the Olive Ridley Project and the Conservation Education Society, coral reefs and their ecology, seagrass meadows, mangroves, general marine biodiversity, climate change, responsible whale and dolphin watching
Of course, we also look into other areas than the above mentioned key areas when interesting things happen or are reported on social media. |
| Travel program: Usually we go on at least one trip per year, take a lot of uw pictures, and post on Facebook from our destination. We started this tradition with a visit to Wakatobi National Park in Indonesia in 2018, around the time our initiative was started.
In 2019 we spent some time with Vivamar Marine Mammal Research in northern Istria and afterwards some additional days on a beautiful island just off Rovinj, Istria, Croatia.
Our two trips in 2021 led us to Tenerife in the Canary Islands and to the northern Adriatic Sea. And we are definitely looking forward to more trips to interesting destinations!
Marine Life Protectors, November 2021 |