Hello

My name is Lisa, and I would love to attend the Society of Marine Mammals conference ‘Culture and conservation: Fishing for Change. This conference is being held in Perth in November.

This is the first time the conference is being held in Australia where I live, and the cost of the conference is such that is not affordable for me. The cost for attending the 5-day conference is approximately $1500 AUD inclusive of GST. I have included details of the conference here so you can see what the conference will entail.

SMM2024: 25th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals - Society for

Marine Mammalogy (marinemammalscience.org)

For the past 9 years I have volunteered my time, campaigned, and advocated for marine life and

conservation. I ran a successful campaign to ban the deliberate release of helium balloons in Western Australia.

I did this by educating people on the damage the released balloons can cause to wildlife and domestic animals; I showed them alternatives that can be used. I met with politicians and in 2019 I submitted my petition of 4156 signatures which was tabled within the WA Parliament. My petition was asking for an amendment to the littering act, to include the deliberate release of helium

balloons. I am proud to tell you it is now illegal to release one or more helium balloons in WA.

I am currently one of a small handful of people leading a grassroots campaign called Shark Safety WA. Our aim is to end land-based shark fishing in all areas of WA. For the past eight years we have provided substantial evidence to the appropriate parties both above and below water. This cruel practice of Trophy Hunting involves baiting our beaches, torturing sharks, and photographing their suffering for social media gratification.

We have slowly been making big changes, in 2022 the WA government banned the use of wire trace for recreational fishing within 800 meters of the shore from South Cottesloe to Port Beach in North Fremantle. The wire trace is necessary to land large sharks. This ban was extended in November 2023 to

cover the Perth metro area, from Two Rocks to Tim’s Thicket including the Swan and Canning Estuary.

More recently I presented to Busselton council on this topic which resulted in a ban of the wire trace from the Jetty, 800 metres east and 2000m west.

I will continue to expose the truth about Land base Shark fishing in WA and continue to work towards seeing a ban along the entire coastline. My work has connected me with worldwide to leading shark conservationists. People such as Valerie Taylor, Dr Leonardo Guida, Dr Riley Elliot to name a few.

I am a qualified scuba diver and underwater is my happy place. When I’m not underwater collecting marine debris, you can usually find me walking a beach with my dog collecting rubbish along the shore.

I would love to attend this conference to expand my knowledge, meets many likeminded people from all around the world and work towards more ways that I can help marine animals.