the Welcome at The old Gerber house in Wädenswil is very welcome: a warm glance, a wrong holding the head, tail wagging. Sigrid Lüber smiles. It is usual that your Dalmatian female Wepesi calls for a few pats from visitors. In the office at the end of the path and Themba would like to be crawled, a young Rhodesian-Ridgeback-hunting bitch. “I hope you’re not afraid of dogs?”, Lüber asks.

For you to belong to animals to live. 30 years ago – after a “magical Moment” – founded Lüber, the non-governmental organisation ocean care. Since then, she is dedicated to mammals, seemingly tirelessly for the protection of the sea. It was in 1989, in the Maldives, as she was with her husband, who worked as a diving instructor, under water. “Since sponge Lüber says a Dolphin school with 50 to 60 animals and divided”,. The Couple was once in the center, surrounded by the sea mammals. As Lüber showed up, was clear: “I wanted to protect the animals and their unique habitat.”

with Respect, but hard in the thing

On the wall in the office, eye-catching images of dolphins lights in Yellow and Blue. The window sill is adorned with the statue of a small Dolphin. The goal is to protect the oceans, has followed the Lüber in the last decades so strongly that your organization is already in demand on the international stage. So ocean care has been, for example, appointed in 2011 to the special adviser to the United Nations in the protection of the sea topics. “We are on the highest political level,” adds Lüber proud and modest at the same time, as you could be, it is still hardly what a great success, and what recognition did you receive at the lake of Zurich with their now ten-member Team and numerous volunteers.

previously, the President of ocean care for the rights of whales at the International whaling Commission had occurred, since 1992, ocean care, which has observer status. This Lübers diploma is noticed instantly. “I’ll talk to anyone,” she says. It is important to respect the opponent. In the case of Lüber, however, remained harsh ocean revealed the care that had been in the whaling Commission vote-buying.

And if the tenacious animal rights activist in a direct way was not progressing, thought you clever other strategies. The whaling Nations Norway and Japan calls them “resistant” to the request to stop the hunting of sea mammals. So ocean care in the year 1997 by a renowned Institute in Tokyo a study on the contamination of whale meat in order. “It was already used previously in other analyses it is known, that the meat of big sea mammals at the end of the food chain is hard drugs charged environment.”

The study showed that in Japan, the whale meat pollutants contained above the threshold values. “The consumption of whale meat then plummeted to 60 percent,” says Sigrid Lüber today.

dolphins from Switzerland

“banished To a very long-term,” says the environmentalist, who looks with your eyes through your glasses. True, they prevented with their first Initiative 30 years ago, together with like-minded people for the construction of a Dolphinarium in Martigny, VS. The further requirement to ban the Import of dolphins in Switzerland, fully, took 17 years – from the Petition, in 1995, with 93000 signatures collected up to the law in 2012. This was at the same time for the Dolphinarium in Conny-Land in Lipperswil TG. “You can’t keep animals humanely in captivity,” says Lüber. Currently, ocean care advocates for a Europe without Dolphinarium. This is one of the 26 projects in which the NGO works mostly with other selected organisations. “We need to speak the same language,” says Lüber. Radical demands are not your style.

Moreover, oceancare cooperates with scientists. Currently, an international Team developed a collision warning system with high-tech buoys, the vessels present whales inform. The project is designed to protect sperm whales in the Eastern Mediterranean. “There is namely, in the case of Greece in the Hellenic deep trench, which is 200 sperm whales,” says Lüber. The animals were at risk, among other things, because by your distribution area, one of the most busy sea routes leading.

ocean care makes for a sperm whale Population in the Mediterranean sea. Photo:

marine pollution and underwater noise are further topics for ocean care. For example, the NGO four years ago, has prevented Drilling for oil off the coast of Ibiza. “The used compressed air guns to generate noise, and harm the sea animals.”

Ans you have to Give up even in tough negotiations or setbacks, never thought of that, says Lüber: “My family has shaped me.” You grow as the second oldest of six siblings in oberuzwil, SG out. “Because I’ve learned to be persistent and to take responsibility.” Even then, she had been very fond of animals, says Lüber with a view to their dogs. Themba raises his head and panting in a friendly way. “I have taken away from our cat, the mice and put them in my room, nursed back to health,” she recalls with a smile. So it is only logical that today the 64-Year-old eats neither fish nor meat. So how Lüber compared to sitting and quietly on the protection of animals told, committed, thought of, full of Knowledge, is clear: Bullheaded, or care-worn, she is not.

activity at the “evil” chemicals

As a clerk at Bayer, BASF, and Dow was Lüber employed once, even in the case of “bad chemistry,” she says. “I’ve been everywhere, where I worked with wonderful people.” An academic training, the trained machine-signatory has not. “I am self-taught.” English she has learned at Dow, French in Lausanne for their first Job according to the teaching of Italian in the case of any other work in Ticino. Equally casually, she has networked in the policy. In doing so, you are a Fox “very good people” to those that look like themselves the protection of the sea as a vocation.

The love of the sea led to Lüber had less and less time to travel. To see dolphins and whales, she sat in conference rooms, in order to protect the animals. “I was for ocean care seven to ten times per year throughout the world on the road to negotiations,” she says. Today, Sigrid Lüber only half as much travelling. She is going to hand over the management of ocean care on your successor, Fabienne McLellan,. You would like to work until 70, but in part-time and more holidays. To the sea they don’t drive yet, but in the mountains. “It must be fit for the whole family,” says Lüber, referring to her husband and the two dogs.

Created: 06.12.2019, 19:46 PM