July 2019 – Make The Ocean Great Again

Marine biologist Jan Verbeek about the challenges in marine conservation

By Nuri Max Steinmann. Jan Verbeek is a marine biologist and scientific diver I met during the Erasmus Mundus master’s programme in marine biodiversity and conservation in Portugal. Since leaving Germany about 10 years ago, he spent the large majority of his time studying and working in the UK where he started his journey as…

Fighting plastic pollution and poverty at once: The Plastic Bank

By Hannah Schartmann. Shaun Frankson is Co-Founder of the Plastic Bank – a project to stop ocean plastic pollution. The motivation of this project is obvious: every minute of every day, tons of plastic get into the ocean worldwide. This amounts to around eight million tons of plastic per year. It is estimated that there…

First A Volunteer, Then A Team Member – Working with Whale Sharks on the Maldives

By Chloe Darwinn. Dhigurah, a narrow island in South Ari Atoll. At three kilometres long it is home to a community of just over six hundred people on land, as well as an abundance of life under the waves. From minuscule planktonic life, to the ocean giant and world’s biggest fish – the whale shark….