Jean-Marc Claes

Title: Shark Ambassador

Association, Company, Affiliations: ScubaBiz.Help

Location: Around the world aboard a sailyacht

Your favorite quote: McPhersons’ law: Murphy is a bloody optimist.

Your message or mission statement: As we travel by sailyacht and scuba dive the world, we are looking at the relations between sharks and lionfish, old and new. We spread the news about lionfish, the possibility to hunt, clean and eat them and the reasons why the lionfish are such an important enemy to the oceans and even us, humans, depending on the oceans to provide us food. We take guests onboard, teach them and let them participate in all adventures we undertake.

Your latest endeavors and where they take place: ABC islands, where we currently are, is a hotspot in the Caribbean for Lionfish. We see different models of interacting of the institutions on the islands, even restrictions on hunting. We don’t judge, we observe. We look at the Lionfish populations, shallow, deep and deeper, where sizes grow as we dive deeper.

What efforts are you most proud of? We started a free of charge (online) professional dive magazine ScubaBiz.Help to help us and others to reach more people. In just 1 year it has grown to reach +14.000 readers each month. We publish articles about research, ocean stories, unique adventures and even have sponsored competitions for everyone to participate in. ScubaBiz.Help is a powerful tool to get attention and to bring topics to the tables. The pen is still mightier as the sword.

Anything else you’d like us to know? Recently, we were appointed Ambassador of Discover Our Blue Planet, an organization created to raise funding for specific Marine Ecology projects. As Shark Ambassador, I am mostly looking at shark ecology projects, identifying them and supporting them in every way possible.