After an intrepid week with Rodney Fox, I headed back to Sydney for a week before taking it international in Palau.
I have always been interested in National Environmental Law and so when Karen Raubenheimer suggested that I attend the meeting on the National Environmental Law Association (NELA) in celebration of World Oceans Day, I jumped at the chance. The meeting was discussing the importance of developing a National Oceans Policy which would be an overarching piece of legislation dealing with our oceans. I was lucky enough to hear incredible speeches from the Honourable Justice Pepper, a Judge of the NSW Land and Environment Court, Megan Kessler from the NSW Environmental Defenders Office, and Katherine Wells, a well known Environmental Law and Policy Consultant. Currently a complex number of stakeholders and different levels of government manage oceans in Australia. However, a National Oceans Policy would put in place a framework for integrated planning for all Australia’s marine jurisdictions allowing for much more effective management. I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about this area of law and hope that we will see a National Oceans Policy is in place in Australia soon.
Valerie and Ron Taylor have been hero’s to me since I was little kid and so getting to have dinner with them definitely fulfilled one of my life long dreams. I sat next to Valerie during dinner and was completely captivated by her amazing stories. It is certainty not every day that you get to meet someone who has been involved in pioneering underwater film and photography, has been inducted into the American Woman Divers Hall of Fame, has won the American Nature Photographer of the year, has a moray eel friend called Honey, and has dived with Mick Jagger. I mean common that is AMAZING!
Later on in the week I met with Chris Miller, a well-known filmmaker for the television show Getaway. Chris had kindly offered to do a professional TV interview with me with respect to our recent trip in South Australia. First off, I have to say that I was completely blown away when I walked into Chris’s apartment. This was a camera and video camera enthusiast’s heaven. Video cameras, stills cameras and tripods all neatly positioned around the room – it was like a mini museum and I greatly enjoyed learning a bit more about underwater camera and video history.
Okay so I have to admit, being interviewed by Chris was a pretty nerve racking experience. It required me to think on my feet and be spontaneous having no prior knowledge of questions to be asked. Luckily Chris and Jayne made me feel right at home and amazingly, I actually got through the questions with relatively few extra takes. I am so grateful to have learned such a useful skill and I really feel like I will be a lot better prepared for doing this kind of interviewing in future. Check out Chris Miller’s incredible video of South Australia below.
My last couple of days in Sydney involved visiting PADI Asia Pacific and Mako Sunglasses. PADI is the world’s leading scuba diving training organisation with over ¼ million certifications in the Asia Pacific Region alone. Danny Dwyer, director of Director of Marketing & Business Development at PADI Asia Pacific was kind enough to show me around the various departments from memberships, Certifications, and Sales, to Marketing and Project AWARE. I had always had fantastic interaction with PADI prior to receiving the scholarship and after visiting them in Sydney I could certainty see why. Everything is so organised and well managed in the office and people could not be more friendly and welcoming.
I also had the pleasure of talking to Joanna McNamara and David Roe who filled me in on all the incredible work that the team is doing to conserve sharks populations and preventing marine debris. Currently only three species of sharks have restrictions on international trade placed on them by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Project AWARE is calling for more sharks to be protected under CITES Appendix II at the next CITES meeting in 2013 and I strongly urge those who have not yet done so to sign the AWARE petition.
In Australia we are incredibly honored to receive generous sponsorship from Mako Eyewear, an 100% Australian owned company which produces the finest sunglasses for working in harsh environments such as the ocean. Jayne and I met Daniel Burgess, (Mako brand manager) for my Mako fitting and we were pretty overwhelmed by the variety of options. It was like being a kid in a candy store except that the candy came in the form of technologically superior eyewear – yippee. After about half an our we had narrowed the options and I ended up choosing a lovely pair of amber tinted shades which increase clarity and contrast and are excellent for discerning coral reef from the surface. Daniel was incredibly generous and also gave me an excellent pair of the new Feather Flex design sunglasses which are incredibly light-weight and as the name implies, have the most flexible titanium frames I have ever seen. I cannot thank Mako enough for supporting me during my Scholarship year. Thank you also to Todd Tai from mivision for his generous support and introductions to Mako.
