I
also read on your website that you’re involved in some
environmental projects.
One of the…rewarding things about having achieved the
success that I have freediving is that I can have a little
soap box that I can get up and preach from and if I’m lucky I
don’t bore people to death. They listen. I’m just like anybody
else who loves the ocean and wants to protect everything in
it. Now I have an opportunity to give back to it because
people do listen and better than that is that I’ve been
invited to work with different organizations to help raise the
profile of the great work that they do. That, for me, is a
huge passion that, as far as I’m concerned, I just don’t get
enough time for. But, it’s my way of fulfilling even more
childhood dreams-- protecting the ocean and protecting the
animals that are in it.
The Reefball Foundation is an organization [that] restores,
rebuilds and places new reefs in different areas if they’re
needed either for tourism, local fisheries, when reefs are
damaged or even to protect the beaches from erosion. Instead
of dumping a big old car engine in there, they’ve come up with
this very cool design that kind of gives nature a…start.
They’ve placed a reefball down there…designed with water flow
in mind, with how the coral can stick and grow, how the fish
are going to use it, different things like this. I help to
promote their work and I go on trips with them.
The Whaleman Foundation does work to raise awareness of the
plights of whales and dolphins and marine mammals in our
oceans. They’re a small organization, but they do some good
work with the bigger guys. They affiliate themselves and they
helped stop Mitsubishi [from] nearly wipe out one of the last
remaining mating grounds for the [California] gray whale.
The other organization is The Whale and Dolphin
Conservation Society. They are a big organization…based in
England. They [are similar to] The Whaleman Foundation.
They’re actually very anti-captivity and they work to raise
awareness for the dangers and plights that animals face in
captivity and the absolute senselessness of keeping any animal
in captivity. I think that maybe ten or fifteen years ago the
argument could be deemed less valid because you need to keep a
certain amount of animals in captivity to educate the populous
about the millions of them in the wild. But, with today’s
technology-- the way we can see animals in the wild, the way
we can simulate animals in the wild on the TV or computer
screen, the ease now that you can go on a trip and see them in
the wild and appreciate them-- [it] kind of takes away from
the necessity to go and see dolphins perform and make circus
acts out of them. I do believe captivity is getting to the
point where it simply serves no purpose. They [The Whale and
Dolphin Conservation Society] work really hard, especially to
release the 16 Orcas-- killer whales-- that are in captivity
around the world. We’re human beings. We’re sensitive people.
We should understand what we’re putting these animals through.
It’s like taking you and five complete strangers and locking
you in a broom closet for the rest of your lives then making
you do tricks for dead fish. You wouldn’t do it as a human
being and it’s an insult to the intelligence, beauty and
awesome power of the animals to take a 40-ton creature and
lock it in a swimming pool. A lot of those animals are
suitable for release now and we all know that Keiko is being
released (Free Willy Keiko). They’re working hard at releasing
him up in Iceland. He’s not far from being released, but
there’s another fifteen. These animals don’t live for twenty
years, they live for…sixty years. They only live for twenty
years in captivity because they’re so bloody miserable.
They’re not suited to it. They all rave about how this animal
stayed with [them] twenty-five years before it died. It was
still in it’s infancy at twenty-five years. It’s something I
feel is really important, and…I don’t have enough time to work
with them. I hope that one of the things that will happen…when
I do decide to give up competitive freediving is that I will
be able to give more time to organizations like that. But, of
course I have to keep my profile up so that they still want me
and so people still listen to me.
It’s a little difficult. It’s kind of a juggling act. I’ve
been involved in smaller efforts…with the American Oceans
Campaign [and] the Great American Fish Count. My participation
in things like that is so that a couple extra TV cameras come
down and they have a slightly more interesting headline to
their story and it does serve a purpose. People read and
people learn. Then they support the organization and they
ultimately help the aquatic environment. Next
page > What's
She Doing Now? > Page 1,
2,
3,
4,
5, 6,
7,
8,
9,
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