Wietse van der Werf

During a sailing trip on the Mediterranean Sea, where Wietse van der Werf saw more waste floating around in the ocean than wildlife, Wietse realised that protecting the world’s oceans is the biggest issue of our time. Since then, he has been on a mission. His work sets out to mitigate a shortcoming in conservation: conservation efforts are increasingly hampered by the limited capacity of authorities. In 2010, Wietse founded the Black Fish organisation, a grassroots movement that trains volunteers to collect evidence for wildlife crimes. In 2016, he started a new project, the Sea Ranger Service, where he brought together unemployed youth and navy veterans to become a new workforce of ocean protectors.

Background

Wietse van der Werf studied to be a violin maker, but his great passion for nature inspired him to switch to the world of conservation. During a sailing trip on the Mediterranean Sea, where he saw more waste floating around in the ocean then wildlife, Wietse realised that protecting the world’s oceans is the biggest issue of our time. Wietse faces the issues from a positive perspective, not by confronting people with the frightening urgency to make a change, but by inspiring the youth and exploring different out of the box opportunities to protect the ocean.

Vision and Approach

Wietse’s mission is to protect the world’s oceans by realising citizen-led enforcement. His work sets out to mitigate a shortcoming in conservation: especially in the case of fisheries, conservation efforts are increasingly hampered by the limited capacity of authorities. Wietse works to mobilise regular citizens and to crowdsource their skills and resources to release a unique monitoring capacity, from land, air and sea. He set up several organisations to achieve this, including The Black Fish organisation (2010), the Wildlife Air Service (2014) and the Sea Ranger Service (2016).