Marine exploration and environmental awareness-raising run deep in Pierre-Yves Cousteau’s family.

As the youngest son of the legendary marine explorer, author and documentary-maker Jacques-Yves Cousteau, he took to the ocean naturally.

Pierre-Yves is leading the fight against marine plastic and other environmental threats to our oceans and has just become Ambassador for sea turtles as part of UN Environment’s Wild for Life campaign.

For World Sea Turtle Day on 16 June, he takes us below the surface to tell us of the threats to this species and what we can do to protect them.
Sea turtles are “ecosystem engineers, actively shaping the environment around them thanks to their feeding habits,” the oceanographer explains.  “Every disposable plastic bag, straw, cup, or cutlery we use goes straight into the sea and is there easily mistaken for food by marine animals,” Pierre-Yves warns.

However, "every one of us can have a huge impact to help protect sea turtles”. We can protect sea turtles "mainly by cutting single-use plastic out of our lives," Pierre-Yves explains.

Wild for Life is UN Environment’s most successful digital campaign ever, reaching over 1 billion people, generating 4.5 million social media reactions, engaging 35 celebrity voices, inspiring 15,000 pledges to take action and winner of numerous awards. As part of the campaign, people can choose a kindred species, morph their face onto an image of the species and share on social media.

A Wild for Life exhibition was on 12 June opened at Prague's Vaclav Havel airport by UN Environment Deputy Executive Director Ibrahim Thiaw, raising awareness of the fight against the illegal wildlife trade.

"We are all species," Mr Thiaw reminded while opening the exhibition with Monika Leova – a former Czech Miss Earth and supporter of the campaign.

The Czech Republic is actively fighting the illegal trade in species after being identified as one of the main countries involved in rhino horn trafficking by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Airports are important partners in tackling the problem and the launch of a Wild for Life exhibition in Beijing spurred a flurry of country and citizen pledges to protect the species.

Several species in the campaign, such as rosewood and pangolins, received greater support at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora Conference of the Parties.

For the full interview with Mr Cousteau in English go to our Dialogue Corner here http://bit.ly/2t9VOBH and for the chance to ask Mr. Cousteau a question write to thierry.lucas@unenvironment.org or mark.grassi@unenvironment.org

Pour lire l’entretien avec M.Cousteau en français, veuillez cliquer ici.
Pour plus d’informations et pour l’opportunité de poser vos questions à M.Cousteau, contactez thierry.lucas@unenvironment.org ou mark.grassi@unenvironment.org