Last week Sabine Berendse and Ard Vreugdenhil represented Sea Turtle Conservation Curacao during the 39thInternational Sea Turtle Symposium in Charleston. They participated in 6 workshops, presented in 3, showed the music video “Can you see” which was made at the beginning of 2018 and was a collaborative project with a dozen local artists. Sabine Berendse also presented in the “Future of Conservation” session.
The presentation in the “Future of Conservation” session about ‘effective conservation through collaboration with precious plastic initiatives’ was candidate for the Grassroots Conservation Award (GCA). The criteria is that the presentation demonstrates a positive contribution by a grassroots group or individual towards conservation of marine turtles and their habitats.
In her presentation Sabine showed that a collaborative approach with the Precious Plastic community, which counts 40K members worldwide, can make huge global impact on reducing plastic pollution by taking local action in repurposing post- consumer plastic. Reducing waste stream output by stimulating circular economy systems can prevent plastic from ending up in the ocean. She showed several product possibilities and for her presentation she wore a meaningful dress from label dresscode010, which is made out of 17 recycled PET bottles.
The founding of Green Phenix as a social enterprise was explained and partners like LIMPI, Green Force, 2ndlife Curacao, Dresscode010 and BA3d printing were recognized.
During the award ceremony the grassroots conservation award was the last award that was announced, following the lifetime awards in which several conservation heroes were recognized, like Jeffrey Miller, Rod Mast and Wallace J Nichols. Obviously the results of STCC would not have been possible without the amazing support of the fantastic volunteers and partners, so the award was dedicated to them. Receiving this international Grassroots Conservation Award is a huge honor for a small NGO on Curacao!