Brendon Sing & Elizabeth Ward-Sing - Shark Guardian - S01 E02

Shark Guardian is a UK registered charity focused on the protection and conservation of sharks worldwide; along with research and education initiatives on these apex predators. Join me as we talk through current conservation topics and the important work undertaken by this team.

Shark Guardian operates under four pillars, conservation, education, research and expeditions.  During this episode, Brendon and Liz expand on what each pillar means for them and how the charity operates and its future goals.

You can help support the charity in a number of ways and you can also order some really cool merch……Take a look and get purchasing!

Transcript

Matt Waters: 0:10

Brendan. Liz, welcome to the podcast. How you doing?

Brendon & Liz: 0:15

Very well, thank you.

Matt Waters: 0:16

What's been happening at your end of the world?

Brendon & Liz: 0:19

While we're currently currently based in Thailand, and fortunately, it's one of the better recovered countries regarding COVID-19. So we have been able to get about a little bit, which is really nice. So we've been making the best use of our time, trying to drive certain campaigns that we feel are really important, and that we can try actually have an impact. something positive during the time of COVID-19 was to do something really nice. And to achieve something wonderful.

Matt Waters: 0:55

Yeah, for sure. For sure. Just before, because I'm going to ask about the petitions, for sure. But just before that, for those people that will be listening to the podcast that aren't aware what shark Guardian is, can you just give us a bit of a background on how it's all started? And how you've got to where you are now? Sure. Would you like to start?

Brendon & Liz: 1:13

I start Yeah, I mean, to summarise, we're a UK charity, but as you say, based in Thailand right now, and we became a charity in 2013. But shout, guiding has kind of been in the works. For way more longer than that, as a team, you actually started going into schools around I think it was 2010 2011, we went to first went to some schools in Bangkok. But we met in 2009, wasn't it? And that's when we met, Brendan was already talking about sharks and all the kind of expeditions he'd been on sale sharks where I'll say a massive part of his life. And he used that to move me and to, you know, on a night out. So that's, that was kind of how it started for us. But long before that, you were fascinated by sharks I did at that point, I really didn't do anything about my just become a scuba diving instructor. You know, you don't always know lots about the oceans at that point. And I had no idea what was happening to shark specifically, I was learning a lot about the oceans struggling and they're not, you know, the higher level, predator, higher level food chain fish that will disappearing. And then I learned what was happening of sharks. And I was just amazed that that could be going on and people had no idea what was going on with it. Hence why then we collaborated and kind of shot bought in emerged from that, didn't it? But way before that, you were? Yeah, before that I was doing a lot of stuff with sharks anyway. But ultimately, so shark Guardiann in a nutshell, we have four arms of operation. We have conservation, education, research, and dive expeditions. And to summarise each one of those in terms of conservation, we run campaigns to many different things, such as running petitions, campaigning for certain regulation changes, protecting sharks, looking at providing information for marine protected areas, and so on. So that covers the conservation side. In terms of education, we do as well as the same, we actually do a lot of work with schools around the world by going in personally to give presentations about sharks or during this time, we also be looking at exploring a lot more options of doing virtual presentations or attracting wider audiences online. We've also published some really amazing children's books about sharks. So we have some education materials, as well. Some words can be downloaded off our site. So

Matt Waters: 3:42

some of those you send out free to schools as well.

Brendon & Liz: 3:45

That's correct. Yeah, we do. So we we organised a fundraiser to get these books produced. And then we had a certain number of them that we have for free to give out to schools anywhere around the world. So we do say that, you know, if anybody does have any contacts in schools, or they'd like to get a copy of these books, just send us an email, and we'll get those books to the school libraries. As soon as we can. And Facebook, Facebook's often dead, we can donate them as well as people come by them as well. We have extra for that. And then we had the first book translated to Thai. That's a big project to donate books to schools. And actually, that's a project that we're going to be working on over the coming months, which we can maybe talk about separately later. Yeah. And we're in the process also translating the books into as many languages as possible and have them available as ebooks to download through Amazon and various other sources. So that covers the education side of things. Only diver programme there we now dive into mortars a is only those are centres that come in a special programme, that they learn more about AWS take part in research while doing something on diving alongside their courses generally. That's another way that we're spreading the Education Forum. Yeah, we're looking to expand the the the diver programmes to come up with this certain specialised programmes and courses that people can learn more about sharks while diving. So we're looking to expand the diver education category when it comes to sharks, which is exciting, very awesome, actually.

Matt Waters: 5:19

Is that going through a particular agency? Or is it something that you're doing standalone?

Brendon & Liz: 5:24

Now we want to do it standalone. And it's a really good, really good point you bring up their map? Because we do get that question quite often. I think that the main reason why we want to do it as a standalone thing is we don't want it to eliminate or limit our education just to one particular organisation. We want to make sure that it isn't focused to only one organisation and their followers and their that we want to make sure it's available to absolutely anybody. So whether it's a beside dive Centre in the UK, whether it's, you know, any other agency located anywhere in the world, we don't want to limit their, their options, you have more education about sharks in any way. So we want to keep it as a standalone short Guardian programme,

Unknown: 6:07

something you've been wanting to do for a long, long time, isn't it? Yeah. And have all these goals. constantly change that year, when we assess where we go in what's happening in the world. Certainly get there one day, the graduates.

Brendon & Liz: 6:19

Yeah. And it's also nice, as we're talking about the education, we are growing our educational team. So I'm in the process right now of creating more presentations and building a team, I think we have up to about 14 or 15 people right now. And these are individuals who are some of them are novice divers, some of them are professional divers, but they all have a great passion for sharks. And what we're doing is we're going to be developing these programmes in these presentations and modules together as a team. So we're bringing in resources from not just myself, it's from a range of different people, everybody has a way of inputting some, some of the ideas and focus and education into this. So we can be able to as a team build these programmes up to a very high quality and standard. So it's very exciting.

Unknown: 7:05

And it's also because I want to keep from the beginning. So 2013, when we really threw ourselves into charging and hit the road and presented to almost 50,000 people in that first year alone. And it's been Brandon and myself doing absolutely everything. You know,

Matt Waters: 7:20

how many? How many? 30,000? Yeah.

Unknown: 7:26

You kind of hit the road, and we were sleeping on people's bedrooms, floors. Yeah, taking night buses at stupid times to get to places and doing the social media when we got in. And you know, it's just he's now money at that point could be had no, no way. That's when we saw that we had something special. And then we became in demand. And it was always a snowball effect if you've got something good. But then it was like, oh, come over here to Hong Kong. Okay, I come over here to education really wasn't it? And we just, yeah, that was a

Matt Waters: 8:00

lot. But I run around like headless chickens

Unknown: 8:09

to help other people to get deliver the presentations. And also that means we can reach more people at any given time. It's not just limited to our time and ability and money.

Brendon & Liz: 8:22

So really excited. So especially moving forward with with the bigger team where we're looking at targeting anything between 100 to 200,000 people a year. That's next year, we're gonna go from 100,000 then after that, yeah.

Matt Waters: 8:36

Okay. And obviously, in the current climate, that's why you mentioned that you're looking at webinars and that kind of elements here.

Brendon & Liz: 8:43

Absolutely. And I think that also our, our audience reach will also be significant, significantly greater that way too, I think. So what what we find a little bit challenging is being able to access schools and to get onto their networks to target students because right now schools are they themselves are just trying to make make sense out of this whole new normal, and how to reach kids so we're kind of waiting until they put their structures in place and then we'll be looking at how do we get onto their networks and actually give presentations to kids in their classrooms that are virtually taking place and so on. So we're getting there slowly.

Matt Waters: 9:20

Yeah, yeah. And there's a particular age range that you're looking at are you doing the full spectrum of kids are

Brendon & Liz: 9:27

you doing full spectrum lives normally takes care of the little little ones of four to six year old because they they scare me but

Matt Waters: 9:37

they scare you? I was gonna say you probably scare them the size of the older ones you're happy to hang out and be okay. Yeah.

Brendon & Liz: 9:47

So the primary to high school to university level that's that's kind of more my comfort zone area. Otherwise, yes. Now we do a full spectrum. With a little ones Liz. Let's get some with the Baby Shark Song and doing some of the other cool fun stuff.

Unknown: 10:01

Primarily we'll be focusing on primary To start with, it's always easier to get in the primary schools. Obviously secondaries have a lot more going on. Again, we don't know what it's going to be from back then. But a doorbell.

Matt Waters: 10:18

So what's what's going on at the moment? I know we've got a swim for sharks just around the corner sometime this month, isn't it? next week, next week,

Unknown: 10:27

okay, yeah, we're heading to Kotel next Wednesday, and the kids event is on Friday. And full Adult Swim is on the Saturday. So the sharks is a yearly event run by big blue on Koh Tao, or big blue is joining us generally with the lead dive centre organising it and lots of businesses and organisations and groups get involved. It's just a wonderful community events to raise awareness and sharks and through this fantastic drone racing swim, and we're so glad it's going on. Because, you know, it's a highlight of the Year for a lot of people because they want to be their time. And

Brendon & Liz: 11:03

yeah, there's some people we know that actually physically train all year round, just to take part in this one for sharks, let's just say that's a three three point something kilometre swim around this one little island that they do it for, and everybody loves it. And all the businesses get involved, they donate some amazing prizes for rappers in the evening. It gets really exciting. You know, some people shave their heads or sharks or they get like a real tattoo. I'm not doing that.

Matt Waters: 11:33

I didn't have much to lose anyway. I'm not into the swim I was. I was one of the guys that helped organise on the boats and all that kind of stuff. But I did do obviously now living in Australia, it's a bit difficult to get to Thailand. But last year, I did do the distance in the local pool here just as a little tag on it's it's actually 3.4 kilometres. And for those people that have no clue what we're talking about, but Koh Tao has a little island next to it or two islands next to it, code Nanyang. And it's a race around the island swimming. So some people like Brennan says, take it very, very seriously. We know one guy that's in the Cayman Islands, that is one it wants at last after having been bitten by an old man and a young child at some point. But there's also the front events as well. So many people use Mac and snorkel and fins and do it all in the name of supporting shark guardian and raising awareness of the fantastic weather you guys do. And I'm sure you'll probably have a few beers and evening next week as well. They Brennan Absolutely.

Unknown: 12:49

Oh, now because like last year, Olivia, our oldest daughter so she's five now. So for last year she did the kids swim last year didn't show that just happened in the swimming pool. And they just do little games and different things. But it's it's nice that she's emerging into it and taking part and we do a little presentation to the kids and the adults. And that was really, that stepped up a level last year as well. I'm more educational and everyone just you know understands more what's going on. So yeah, who knows? in a few years. Maybe she'll be doing the big swim as well. It's almost ready today the big friend definitely.

Matt Waters: 13:25

Well I did say as well on on social media a few days ago that the tattoo artist pui is going to be at Big Blue and he's giving people the tattoo of the logo for this year's swim for sharks. Yeah, yeah.

Unknown: 13:46

Oh, is it been? Is it actually been a shark each year? There's like a little bit more of this. Yeah, that they I don't know. It's it is a no it's just a different shark design each year I think. Logo

Matt Waters: 14:01

so the logo that they've got going at the moment advertisers from for sharks is what pui is going to be tattoo and on people that want to just to raise money, but you can have a load of people running around with the sharks tattoos with a hangover The following morning, I think. Okay, so that's the, that's the fun bit that's coming up here really gonna enjoy and you know, I'll be quite envious of sitting here in the cold in Sydney. So let's let's have a look at something else that's been going on. And one of the big things that you guys have been pushing for the last couple of months now is the petition that you've you've raised with the UK Government. And Brenda do want to give us a bit of a background on that one.

Brendon & Liz: 14:44

Yeah, sure. So um, in a nutshell, it is completely legal for anybody. Let's let's say hypothetically, somebody is a businessman and he is coming from somewhere in Asia or lands in the UK. London or any other major airport. And basically that person is allowed to legally bring in 20 kilogrammes of shark fin and doesn't have to declare, you can just walk right through customs. There's nothing wrong about it to the UK law that falls under a category that says you're allowed to bring in 20 kilogrammes of any kind of fish products. And at the same time, you're not allowed to bring in any kind of dairy. So I can't even bring in a bottle of milk for my daughter, I can bring in even like, you know, 100 grammes of nice beef or anything like that, or cheese or anything like that. But I can bring in a bag of 20 kilogrammes of struck them.

Matt Waters: 15:40

But you can't even get on the plane at the start of the journey with a half litre open bottle of water. No, no.

Brendon & Liz: 15:49

And you put that into perspective, right? We've been trying to come up with a number, but we believe that it's, you know, 20 kilogrammes of shark fin with depending on the size of the fin, of course, that's somewhere between seven and maybe seven to 15 sharks that are killed to accumulate that 20 kilogrammes of shark fin. Yeah, and that is per person. That's ridiculous. That's not per family. It's per person. So what if what if, in one day 10 people are walking in to the UK with a 20 kilogramme shotgun that's, you know, trying to kill us? And then, you know, just exponential that and they're just, it's insane that it's a lot and that's class under you know, that's personal consumption. Yeah. So this is what what the petition is or we're trying to stop this loophole. Now. The the UK does follow regulations by situs, which is the convention of international trade of endangered species. And we have already got a response from the government because the petition has passed the first goal of getting 10,000 signatures and they have openly expressed their interest for shark conservation protocols that they're following societies and so on. But our argument to that is, if I'm if I walk into the UK with a 20 kilogramme bag full of shark fin, how does the the UK Border force agent there know that I don't have a shark fin from an endangered species like a Hammerhead? Or a whale shark? Because I'm not declaring it. So they're not even opening it back shows? How do they control that? Yeah. And if I am doing that, that that is actually illegal, you know, so there's a massive loophole. So they're trying to say that, Oh, no, we risk we're in support of sustainable shark finning, and we follow safety as well. Actually, you're not because you're not requiring people to declare the shark Vinny not checking it. They're not following that protocol. So it is a massive problem. It is in a we have identified a very big loophole. So instead of them trying to come up with a way of I mean, how are they going to educate 1000s of border control agents to identify the difference between a this is other spin comes from a Hammerhead? Oh, that fin comes from this Oh, this one comes from that species that wouldn't be able to do that. So isn't that just a lot simpler and easier, just to say, no shark fin? No shark product? And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to say, look, it's so easy. All you have to do is say, No, try, like, no, it can be short. That's it.

Matt Waters: 18:18

Let's Let's be brutally honest, that it's only a cultural thing that people eat shall fit anyway. Exactly. You know, it's the only thing that springs to mind for me right now is anyone that's going to be going into the UK that will be carrying sharkfin will be someone from the Chinese and from the Chinese culture that is possibly going to a wedding so that they can produce the soup to look as though they've got lots of money.

Unknown: 18:42

Sure, restaurants, isn't it? Yeah, they all major cities have a big China town where there is a lot of shops and restaurants, we don't know numbers, and it's not as big as either somewhere like Singapore, for example. were huge. or Thailand. Massive. Yeah. But that's possibly where it's going as well. Because, yeah, there's not so many sharks around UK waters, like you've ironing laws to prevent it. So it's right, I'd

Brendon & Liz: 19:09

be an easy way for some people if they're travelling. So like, if I had a restaurant, I could just tell you know, 10 of my friends. Oh, you know, when you come through, please bring me a 20 kilogramme or sharpen with you and there's nothing there's nothing the border force will will do about it. Because then it's legal. And wonderful to understand.

Unknown: 19:26

Who brings it in? And what's the chain? It's very difficult because again, you don't have to declare it. Yeah, it's probably a lot more that comes through.

Brendon & Liz: 19:35

And that's that's a difficult thing to do. Because a lot of people have been asking us Well, where's where's the data? How do we know? It's like, well, there isn't any because first of all, if you don't have to declare it, there's no recording so they don't know. So obviously, I think they're the highlights a lot of need for this petition to take place. And yeah, that's what we've been really pushing the last couple of months. Yeah,

Matt Waters: 19:55

yeah. So what how are you with figures at the moment, you know how many signatures you've got

Brendon & Liz: 20:00

Yeah, I checked this morning and I think, from yesterday today to today has gone up a couple of 100 signatures, I think about almost 500. Now. So we're up to 18,400. And something I think we're very close to that. So we have to reach 100,000 signatures by the 11th of September.

Matt Waters: 20:19

Why is that? What's that's obviously a UK legislation thing, is it?

Brendon & Liz: 20:25

Yeah, good, because the the petition has been hosted directly with the UK, government websites, they only last six months. And the petition wasn't actually started by us, it was actually started by a private citizen. And by the time that we were notified that this petition had taken place, we were really last two months on it. Right. So we we were a little bit late getting onto the petition. Now, this is the other interesting thing. This is not the first time this petition was taking place, either. There was a previous petition. And once and it did reach about 16,000 signatures the first time around. And the UK Government responded that again, although they they highly support, chart conservation and looking at clothes and making the UK more environmentally friendly. When it comes to sharkfin and imports, they couldn't do anything at that time, because they were still bound by European regulations and laws as part of Europe. Right. But then, of course, after Brexit happened, now, there was more flexibility for the UK government to do something more specifically about this issue. So that's why the petition was launched again. Yeah. So that's where we are right now.

Matt Waters: 21:42

Okay. And the downside being that the only people who can sign a petition at a UK present presidents Yeah,

Brendon & Liz: 21:50

that's right. Yeah. So you have to be a UK National resident to sign this particular petition. And that is the only you had any restriction, I guess, if it was open to everybody would be a lot more. But at the same time, we can also understand that if the UK Government wants to take this seriously, and they are looking into this right now, then it has to be UK nationals assignment. And we understand that, but it does make it a little bit harder to get that petition out to just target UK nationals. But fortunately, as working in the diving industry, we do know there's a lot of people from the UK, there are expats that work abroad, especially in the dubbing industry. So we are we're utilising that. And I think the main the main thing is that people from the UK they share it, you know, do direct messages to friends and family, share it on your own profiles, get your family and friends back home in the UK, to sign and share it. And that's that's going to be the key message.

Matt Waters: 22:46

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Brendon & Liz: 22:48

And also, you know, if people are not UK nationals, you know, please just share it anyway. Because more than likely, even if you're not a UK National, I mean, I'm not an UK National. I can't even sign it. But I have been able to share it and get all my my network of UK friends and family to do it. Yeah. So there's so even if you can't sign it yourself, you can still do a lot more.

Matt Waters: 23:10

Yeah. So that deadline is what days in September, the 11th of September, late September. We have to get busy on social media. Nobody.

Brendon & Liz: 23:19

Yeah. Sorry, every day. Yesterday, we actually had permission from petty Asia Pacific to post the the petition on their main Facebook page. So did that yesterday. So that was really great. And of course, they have a great following. So we're gonna be doing today I'm actually going to be trying to have contact with the SEC. So the bridges sub Aqua club in the UK. And I'm going to try and make sure that they get on to it as well because obviously being UK based agency, they would be influential and getting the extra numbers for us. So I'm contacting them today.

Matt Waters: 23:54

Well, good luck with that one. Yeah, good. Well, that's what we got. That's galapagus the Chinese for your fair like I'm picking on the Chinese here. I'm not doing everything wrong right now.

Unknown: 24:09

It's a tricky I mean, listen to that Brendon can actually say tone a lot more clear with an icon. You've been following a lot closer, haven't you? A little bit. Yeah, we actually

Brendon & Liz: 24:17

have. We actually have a campaign leaders. So we have a girl in the UK. Her name is Katie, and she's been our campaign leader for the UK petition. And then we also have Harriet's and she's our social media manager. And she's the one who's really been on on the story of Galactus and writing up the blogs and and the issues related. So basically what it is is that not that long ago, it came to us headlines that there was a massive fleet of 260 something boats surrounding the Galapagos and they're assisting just on the edge of the the no fishing zone around the Galapagos, and obviously it made big headlines. Yeah. And that's been awesome. Because that about a year ago, there was a fishing vessel that was caught, that had hundreds of tonnes of shark, a shark fin and, and mantas and all kinds of flora and fauna. on that boat, there was illegally fishing within that zone. So to have this many boats surrounding that area, and there is a satellite image, and if you look at it, it's you know, it's, it's crazy, you see this perfect circle of the protected zone, you just see this massive fishing fleet just on the edge, like, just like, yeah, pre invasion kind of thing. So then, of course, it became a media attention. There is fear that these fishing vessels are long lining and catching lots of sharks. There has been a lot of pollution washing up on beaches in Ecuador and the Galapagos with plastic bottles and look past all the Chinese watch on them, but coming from these vessels, so not only are they fishing, anything that passes through there, but they're also polluting the area at the same time. Yeah. And I think the thing that I think that a lot of people sometimes don't always understand is that sharks, mantas, they didn't, they didn't know our fictional borders, you know, to them, they just, it's just ocean. So this from wherever, so they don't understand that ANOVA stay in the circle, it's safe when I go out that circle is danger. They don't know that. So, you know, to some sense, these, these marine protected areas don't really mean much when it comes to hypothetical borders or crossings, because unless they protect them in an entire region, or zone or even ocean Second, it doesn't really make much difference if you protect these islands, and they say an X amount of kilometres from these islands is safe and anything out there is open to anybody. It doesn't really mean much does it? Yeah.

Matt Waters: 26:48

There was something similar to this years ago in Indonesia wasn't where the mentors were migrating between two points. And both points were protected. But the bits in between were not correct. Yeah. And then the Indonesians, actually well, whoever it was, raised the issue, and then they combine the whole thing so that it's all blocked out, you can't fish it full stop.

Unknown: 27:10

And this is where research is so important, because it was from the research that a couple of months or organisations did that prove that the mentors were migrating between the different areas in Indonesia? So you have to stop what's happening in the middle places around the world that the same thing needs to happen. Yes, there are. There's the convention for international migratory species. Yes. What is the Convention on International Trade of endangered species, or the migration of endangered species? endangered species is another organisation that monitors that, and they are doing a lot more to try and protect the bits that are in between. But ultimately fishing, you know, fishing boats, fishing methods are so good these days that, you know, it's very, very difficult to protect any of these migration species. So yeah, and again, this is what's the worrying around galacticos you know, you've got so many amazing species, rare species, you know, many endangered species, species, you've got places where, you know, whalesharks are seen pregnant whalesharks huge female whalesharks there's so much research going on there. You know, and, and that's the worry. And, obviously, we're going to think the worst when you see that many fishing poles along that line. Yeah, it just doesn't make sense. So

Matt Waters: 28:26

I was diving there last year, you know, sensational location. And we're back there, again, hopefully, with you know, get this COVID stuff out the way but October next year, we're going expedition there, so I'm looking forward to it. But at the same time at the moment, I'm actually quite scared to see what the difference is going to be. With all those brains out there.

Brendon & Liz: 28:46

I think it was yesterday, there was an update, the Chinese government did respond. Look at our website, there is a blog that says update. And the Chinese government has responded that from September to November, they will be seizing all activity within the area. And if the Ecuador government does see any illegal fishing, they are to inform the the Chinese government and they will take severe action. So there has finally been some response from the Chinese government regarding this.

Matt Waters: 29:14

Do you want to actually believe Um, no. I,

Brendon & Liz: 29:19

I don't know. I tend to not believe very much. I mean, that's the other interesting thing. I was speaking to somebody else last night who suggested that the media may have also exploited the Chinese fleets and, and have been very quick to judge what their intentions are their past history because of past history because they have been bought illegally with a lot of sharks. So there is a suggestion that these fishing boats are nothing more than squid boats. But the thing is, the thing is, and so my question was, well, why would they be fishing just with squid just in that But you know why? I mean, there's such a big ocean in the Pacific, you can go anywhere. Why are they specifically there? And it was suggested that well, maybe it's because of the spawning of squid. I was like, Really? So maybe that's true, maybe it's not. And you know, they they say that these boats are physically incapable of catching anything else but squid. But who knows. And I think that there is another article that that has suggested that these posts are squid. But hopefully within the next 24 to 48 hours, we'll probably hear more. And we'll see what happens regarding protect particular news. So yeah, let's

Matt Waters: 30:39

watch it. To be fair, if they if the Chinese fishing fleet and the Chinese government wanted to prove something as simple as being a fishing vessel for squid, they just let people on to have a look at what they've got. It's not like you're gonna be able to hide, you know, five miles of fishing line with a couple of 1000 hooks on it, is it? No. And you're gonna need a hell of a lot of light bulbs to catch some squid. So if you've not only light bulbs, and you've loaded big hooks, there's, there's a little bit of porcupines going on there.

Brendon & Liz: 31:09

Exactly. So, you know, the, basically I'm saying like, you know, I'd love to see more evidence suggesting these these statements, but, you know, again, he said, all the contact, I have said that he you probably have something more significant to explain within the next 4830 the 24 to 38 hours. He has

Unknown: 31:29

what you have to do, and you know, we have, we have our girl researching it, keeping an eye on all the news, we don't just straight away, blast the news, you know, you have to be very careful these days, and we want to be a reputable, you know, organisation. So yeah, anything changing, you know, we're not going to post anything until we have facts. But yeah, you're relying on fat from sources, aren't you in the

Brendon & Liz: 31:52

way and of course, sources sources can also be wrong. So again, if if something changes, we will post an update. I The other thing I was told is interesting. Yeah. When you get sources, and you go, No, it's not been published yet. But the one that this is just factors and 70% of the world squirt is square that's called by the Chinese fishing 70% 70%. Yeah. In fact, a third of their accounts are there the money of the Chinese fishing feeds is based on swift on squid catches, saying so. So there might be some truth to it. But again, we don't know. We're still waiting to see the evidence.

Matt Waters: 32:35

Yeah, but they could also be very large squid with very large fins. Maybe. Yeah, I mean it but yeah, you can you can but you got to stay the right side of the political fence. I can say what I want.

Brendon & Liz: 32:49

If the Japanese can can send a massive boats, killing 1000s of whales a year where the big sign on the boat says research, I mean, who's to say that that certain bus from a certain country on saying refreshing squared and catching something else? Yeah. Yeah, it's a possibility. It's a possibility that sorted and ironed out soon. Yeah.

Matt Waters: 33:10

I hope they do. I really do. Well, in other news, what's what's what's happening with the kind of membership of shot Guardian, I noticed on the website that we've got, you know, possibilities that people can can join and follow you guys. Yes.

Unknown: 33:28

I mean, that's something people for a long time when they meet to see as we often get the response? How do I join? Yeah, how can I get involved? You know, we wanted to have a membership scheme for quite a long time, we just, we just kept going around in circles of what people actually wanted from being a member. But now, it's kind of become more focus, you know, as the charity board. It's, yeah, just we're growing as an organisation. So it'd be nice to have have options for people and especially for students to continue being involved, or we just linked with those to have a regular email that maybe they are our next speaker in five years time or come on expeditions with us and take part in research. So yeah, what which programmes alive?

Brendon & Liz: 34:16

Sure. Well, first of all, you know, there are so many different organisations that offer membership packs, where they they buy some package, and they get a T shirt and a wristband, and they get little things and we didn't want to just copy that we wanted to have something that was more meaningful that followed our, the staples that the charity is based on. So basically, if anybody wants to become a member, they can do that. But we want to make sure that we give something much more relevant back rather than just a T shirt and a certificate saying well done, you know, but you haven't done anything. So we wanted to make sure that you know, let's say for you, so we're going to have a junior membership pack right? So within that pack, we wanted to make sure that, yes, they do get regular updates, but not just to the kids, whether it has to go through the parents and there's a resources. And they're going to have educational worksheets, workbooks, so where they actually can be learning something about shocks. And then they can take that stuff, and they can take it to school, and they can show friends of them and really have an impact that way. So we wanted to make sure that all the membership packs are based on education. And based on awareness, and whoever becomes the member, they're going to receive the most up to date information regarding our most recent campaigns, how to get involved. Yeah, take these posters and go put them around in your local coffee shop, or put them in your school or put them at your gym, your community. So that's, that's how we're going to involve our members. We're going to make sure our members are active there. They're educated, and they're aware of global issues, rather than just having a fancy thing to show.

Matt Waters: 35:54

That's awesome. That's awesome. Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm just picking up on what Liz said the the amount of times I've been asked, how do we get how do we get membership? And I think there's a big queue knocking at your door waiting to get in.

Brendon & Liz: 36:06

Yeah, that's it. And that has taken us a while to get there. But we want to, yeah, we want it to be right, one of the important to be meaningful, we want to say Remember, you got to be a true member, you know, so it's going to have some real substance to it. So I think that's an A lot of people were trying different ideas or comparing what other organisations are doing. And we're like, no, let's, let's not just copy, let's do something better, more meaningful in a more substantial. And let's make sure that when people are becoming our members, they're proud to be a team that they feel like yes, you know, we're getting the right information, the right stuff from this.

Matt Waters: 36:36

Yeah, that's excellent. And is that live now? Or is it in the not too distant future in the not too distant future. So

Brendon & Liz: 36:44

right now, so basically, we're gonna have a junior membership. For Kids, we have a adult membership. We also have something that's called a international students ambassador. So this is different because this is where students will receive resources materials from us that they can actually learn how to give their own presentation, that they can go and give a presentation in their school or their local community. So it's kind of like a shotgun presentation that's been streamlined that any students between the ages of 10 to 18 can use. And it comes with notes and some videos and some really great stuff. And so we're really excited about that. We're going to have a diver membership programme. So apart from the few cool things that they get there was going to be getting information about how to get involved with research which apps to download the provided information for research. So that's going to be really exciting. That's, that's awesome. And yeah, membership as well. That's right. And then we have then we have two other memberships, so we have a dive centre membership and a resort membership. Okay, and in a nutshell, the resort memberships if they want to become members, they have to show us that they do not all their food comes from sustainable resources. And that they certainly do not serve any type of shark products, as well as providing information in the resort for di centres that they're taking part in all of those things, but also doing a lot more on the research and raising awareness with with their divers and their students.

Matt Waters: 38:11

It's it's all exciting. And is that going to be Come on give me a timeline is that is that going to be all up and running by the end of the year? Or there's

Brendon & Liz: 38:17

definitely yeah yeah, I'm on I'm would like to get everything up and ready by the end of September.

Matt Waters: 38:26

So when it when it comes to the crunch of people wanting to join, then they do it through the website, or they got to contact you directly.

Brendon & Liz: 38:33

They can do through the website, we're gonna have a dedicated page for the memberships to so people can log on and go through the different membership, see the packs, and they can they can subscribe to those packages through there will also be promoting them through the social media so people can see it that way too. So yeah.

Matt Waters: 38:50

Okay, expeditions. I've got time for this one less.

Unknown: 38:53

Yeah, expedition servicii. It's something we've wanted to grow for a long time. But, you know, our focus is education and with what's happened with COVID, and reassessing what the schools are doing, that has been our focus, and we wanted to grow the programme anyway, as I said earlier, so we don't have to do everything. So that is the priority of the next month, getting all the speakers ready. And then getting the online programmes ready. So that there's all that happening right now. But yeah, we need to do more direct. So when the world opened out when we were doing the sardine run we did that for for, you know, since 2016, about 1617 and 18. Yeah, and you want to do that we want to do we want to do more of that. Now. We've got contacts, places and other boards, you know, in Indonesia, Malaysia, we'd love to do galapagus of course. I guess it's parties and with those having a family just to pop off around the world to these different locations, but I guess it's watching space once we want this stuff. Yeah, at the end of the year, we've got a lot of going on, we've got a lot happening in Thailand, which I can talk about in a second as well. Once that's all in place, and we've got more in the team around the world, you know, everything's running nicely, then we'll start seeing where the world has opened up. And we can go and do some cool shark diving.

Brendon & Liz: 40:17

Yeah, I mean, I have some people asking already about doing the sardine run in 2021. Yeah. So that's really exciting. I am in contact right now to get something happening with a little board up in Komodo again. We've done that before. So we really are. So what are we going to do is we're going to start doing a few trips and expeditions here locally, like quite close by. and then and then we're going to expand that as we go along. And yeah, we'll just see how how things do shape again, after COVID-19. And when borders reopen, and travelling starts again. I think that right now everything is on a hiatus until that happens. So we Yeah, we're a bit unsure where the next expeditions will be. And how many people are gonna want to travel after this? Right now? It's very much in the air, for sure.

Matt Waters: 41:02

Well, I'll let you know. I've got a boat booked for next year in South Africa for the sardine run. My company nomadic scuba was not mentioned yet. We'll donate $20 for every person that comes on any expeditions or trips that we do as well. Oh, seminar will also get the most amazing. Yeah. It has to be on everyone's bucket list. Yeah, it's a dream Dream location, isn't it? Yeah, it really is. Yeah. I don't know why you left South Africa, Brendan.

Unknown: 41:34

When we we need to go back. So because we have a new child that family haven't seen in South Africa?

Brendon & Liz: 41:43

Yes. I mean, I still say now that if somebody asked me, where is the best thing in the world, I still say South Africa, hands down. But I think that if unless you're actually already have a very setup business with a good reputation, you have a really good network of people coming to you. It's very hard to break new businesses in South Africa. The economy is is struggling. The political situation is not great. But it is such it is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Nature, the marine life is insane. It's just absolutely amazing. And I think that when you get there, you can almost forget about the negative political and economy side of things and just enjoy being there. It's really, really amazing. And I think that that's that's kind of why I haven't lived it for such a long time. Because certainly I'm going back to visit and dive is amazing. But running a business or or having influence in conservation world. It's easy to be abroad.

Matt Waters: 42:46

Yeah, I love the place. Absolutely. Sensational. above and below the water.

Brendon & Liz: 42:50

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, we can't wait to go back. And hopefully 2021 allows us to do that again. Yeah. Well,

Matt Waters: 42:57

maybe we'll be going diving. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. So come on, let's tell it tell me what's the what's the gossip,

Unknown: 43:05

exciting stuff that's happening. So as we've talked about the education, and for the rest of this year, again, giving travel constraints that we're not going to find the different countries, because you've got all these books still in Thai. And that was from a project with an organisation called gvi. They have a base in, in Pauillac in Panama. So we're going to be going to local schools, focusing on the crappy province until the end of the year. So we've already got our first one lined up in a couple of weeks. And the aim is, every week, if not, after two weeks, we'll go to the schools. And it's just a very short presentation, Introduction to the to the ocean, and why we need sharks and don't be scared of sharks or the oceans, you know, in protecting the environment, you know, trash, plastic, that could be a hole, or the key turning is in itself, you know, they were just trying to get again, the next generation and especially in a country like Thailand, where trash is a huge problem, inspired. And when we wrote these books and their responses in the past, the kids have just absolutely loved them because it's something new, something different. And then next year, our plan is to take that a step further. And now we've always had this big dream of getting a big van, painting it black having the shark fin on it, and travelling around Europe, travelling around UK travelling around Europe, or wherever it takes us. But that's been in the pipeline. We've talked about for a few years. And we were again talking about it to do a little test run this year in the UK, next year, Europe, so things change. And we're like, you know, we need to kind of leave a bit of a legacy here in Thailand. So early next year, we plan to do that in Thailand. So helping the education into places that were never heard of as linking up with schools, both international and local. Hopefully getting some restaurant Hotel b&b projects happening as well. That's something we'd like to know in Correct and link with it and just giving away all these you know few 1000 books that we've got and inspiring the kids to just look after the the environment as well as the ocean so watch this space about that and we're going to get some kind of Van if we can get the shark fin on it as well.

Matt Waters: 45:21

literally gonna have a shark fin on the roof not just

Brendon & Liz: 45:26

like that. Have you ever watched the the the the Joel? Joel Schumacher Batman movie with the Batmobile? With a big fan of the back? Yes,

Matt Waters: 45:34

that's right. Yeah.

Unknown: 45:37

days, that part. Yeah. But we started looking at bands and finances and boots. And you know, it would just be the south of Thailand that will focus on once we looked at the map, we will at work won't do that in a month. So we're gonna give it a go see what happens and see what goes from that. Which will be very excited and actually go in to all these places that maybe you haven't even heard of sharp,

Matt Waters: 46:00

you'll have to, you'll have to you have to blog it daily.

Brendon & Liz: 46:02

Yeah, follow the rules out there. Yeah, we're gonna do like a vlog like, every day, we're gonna have like a video updates, telling people where we are what we're doing. link up with other organisations in the area. You know, and also, yeah, having some community events. So it's also out of school events. The other thing that we had an idea is that we could also have a big screen on the side of the band, we can set up a projector, we can do something outdoors outside someday. It'll be a lot of fun. Yeah.

Matt Waters: 46:29

All dressed in your shark. onesy. Exactly.

Unknown: 46:33

You know, proper hot, you know, this kind of this kind of this kind of material. Yeah, we'll talk soon maybe. We'll say,

Matt Waters: 46:49

oh, sounds like great fun. But yeah, that's been a really exciting thing that you say we've got the books in in Thai. And you do presentations in Thailand at the schools? Do you? Do you have anyone who speaks Thai that does the presentations and translations for you? Yeah,

Unknown: 47:07

that's what we've got somebody who did some translation for them last year in school. So she's going to be working with us. So it's quite consistent. And we hope I mean, we've got a girl in Bangkok, who does some stuff for us, who can do the presentations in Thai? So one day, we hopefully we'll have a couple of people here who continue to do it on a local level for us. That would be amazing.

Matt Waters: 47:30

That'll be great. Yeah, yeah. Well, are we doing for time? I know you guys get in a bit.

Unknown: 47:36

But I think we've talked about all the different projects and different areas not talk so much about research. I mean, we basically collaborate with some projects who run by different scientists, or based around citizen science. So if you look at our website, there's lots of things that everybody can get involved with, for monitoring shark populations, whale sharks, and leopard sharks specifically, so yeah, that's something that's always happening. Oh, and we're also we also started supporting a project at St. Andrews University in Scotland in the UK last year, and that's going to be happening, more is going to be coming from that as well. So that was nice to start supporting a UK project as a UK charity.

Matt Waters: 48:19

what's what's that project then?

Unknown: 48:22

It's based around an endangered species of flappers skate. So it's an elasmobranch. It's not a shark as such right now, but it's within a marine protected area that they've really hardly discovered, because it's an endangered clapper state that has been their focus. So we decided to link with it because of, you know, it's done in Alaska, in the Bronx. So sharks are from the same family. But there are other species within this marine protected area, including sharks. So we thought as a long term project, it would be something to be involved with, you know, a positive side and also, you know, maybe have interns as part of it later on. It's also going to becoming one of those, you know, the Sylvia l hot spots, okay. They were kind of they've gone a bit quiet with those. But that's, that's, again, LinkedIn in the pipeline. So there's lots of stuff happening there as as any research project, especially with it, linked to the university, you know, money funding comes and goes, but it's a nice team, they're

Brendon & Liz: 49:30

really exhausted. And there's also an area in the south of UK that we're looking at possibly getting registered as a shark bringing protected area, we're going to be looking into protected areas in the UK and how we can maybe be influencing those as well. And, you know, another

Unknown: 49:48

thing with a petition is we've become more well known even though UK charity we've not been known that side, you know, everything we've been done it is in Asia because we've been living and working for a long time. So it's not Nice to hear things developing in the UK. So again, watch this space next year with things like that. Yeah.

Matt Waters: 50:09

You're always busy, busy. But it doesn't matter where people come from, it doesn't matter where the dive centres or resorts are in the world, they can actively get involved with shark guardian.

Brendon & Liz: 50:24

Absolutely, yeah, our long term plan is that we're going to have a regional base or shark garden in different parts of the world. So we're gonna have the European based UK and European base we're gonna have, we already have somebody right now who is a representative for the Middle East and Africa. And we're looking to replicate those positions in a long term have somebody base in Asia, in Australia, and the Americas. So we're looking at having a worldwide coordination of running out different projects and activities in all parts of the world. And to really grow our our team of educators and expedition leaders. So that's kind of where we see ourselves in long term and continuing to push petitions, change legislations, and laws into place to protect sharks everywhere in any way possible.

Matt Waters: 51:16

Guys, it's exciting talking to you, it always has been right from the word go from the first time I ever met you. And let's try to embarrass me for turning up late to one of your presentations. The passion you guys have for this is it's just phenomenal. It really is applaudable. Before we wrap things up, you know, the title of the show is scuba goat. So one quick question. And Brendan's already answered has been South Africa. But Liz, where would where would you pick as your greatest of all time dive experience?

Unknown: 51:56

Again, South Africa, absolutely amazing. And then it sticks in my head is when I first went to Komodo, and I've only just done my advanced course. And with scuba junkie actually in in sipper down. And then I went to Indonesia and went to Komodo. So I still I still have less than 20 dives. And I did this dive where there was I mean, they're all excited before they will in you're looking at the the GPS screen, you know the fishing thing and they're just saying, you know, there's so much activity with this stuff. And anyway, so again, there's dolphins, there's sharks, there's just massive feet, you know, there's massive to valets and that but just to have the dolphins over and around and the sharks, just mama and that just sticks. You know, I still say Komodo is is certainly some of the best diving in the world. Yeah. But just South Africa has a different code in South Africa having to go off too early, early, because I just was physically just so I mean, cold is too different. Yeah, that's my cold, cold dive in versus warm, cold. Yeah, but that just has that memory, especially because it was early on in my career.

Matt Waters: 53:15

In my opinion, you know, the greatest of all time for any individual. It's all based on your experience, your personal feelings about that location. And what better way to hear about it, but from the horse's mouth, you know, from the I'm not calling your boss this by the way. I thought you're gonna get the bigger impression. I've seen it. I've seen enough of your shark impressions and those hats and all that kind of stuff. Okay, well, thank you very much for your time. And I look forward, just let us let us know. Tell us how people can find you and how they can get in touch with you and how they can support shot guardian.

Brendon & Liz: 54:01

Well, you can find us fire. www dot shot. guardian.org is the website. We are very active on social media, specifically with Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. So you can search us that way. This is the best way to get the most recent updates, news and information. We are also doing some really interesting blogs at the moment through our website. And that's probably the best way to get in touch and keep keep up to date with our activities. Awesome.

Unknown: 54:30

Well we have a web store where you can buy merchandise. So that's the big one of the biggest ways that we run the charities by selling cool t shirts and whatever got in here accessible from anywhere in the world. We do ship worldwide. So have a look on the website for that for sure.

Matt Waters: 54:49

And that's that's the important thing here. You guys are putting it out you know 24 seven working on this project but it is actually a charity so it relies on donations from people so if people want to show support, they can do it directly. indirectly. If you're going to go on holiday at some point, you can always book through nomadic scuba. And we will put 20 bucks of every book in that we receive to shark guardian. So some of your money will be going to shark garden whilst you're going on holiday. And we'll probably plug him in some more money while you're on holiday. Brandon, Liz, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.