To: Molchanovs, AIDA, PADI, SSI, PFI Freediving, GoPro, Cressi, Blue Nery, Aqualung, and all organisations and brands affiliated with underwater exploration, diving instruction, and marine content creation

We, Whales Mauritius, a collective of local and international voices united for the protection of whales in Mauritius, urge your organisations to take immediate and public responsibility for your role in enabling, endorsing, promoting and indirectly profiting from the illegal and unethical practice of swimming and freediving with whales in Mauritius.

In Mauritius, swimming and freediving with whales is STRICTLY PROHIBITED BY LAW. This is not a matter of interpretation or cultural differences, it is a matter of law. And yet, many of your certified professionals, ambassadors, and affiliated influencers continue to flagrantly violate these laws, glamorise it online, and use these acts to grow their personal brands and yours, often with your logos on their wetsuits and fins. Your silence and ongoing affiliation with them makes you complicit in wildlife crime.

THE FACTS:

MAURITIUS: Swimming and freediving with whales is illegal under national marine protection laws

GLOBAL IMPACT: Similar violations occur in Mexico, Sri Lanka and other whale habitats worldwide

INDUSTRY COMPLICITY: Your certified professionals and sponsored ambassadors are among the primary perpetrators

THE EVIDENCE IS EVERYWHERE ONLINE

Your representatives are repeatedly documented and publicly advertise on social media, freediving with sleeping whales, disturbing mothers with calves, and treating protected marine mammals as props for monetised social media content. They wear your gear, teach your courses, and profit from your endorsements and brand’s reach, all while breaking the law.

YOUR SILENCE AND INACTION ENABLE CRIMINAL ACTIVITY

Despite years of documentation, complaints, and campaigns, your institutional responses have ranged from silence to vague disapproval. This is not neutrality, this is complicity in illegal wildlife exploitation.

You cannot claim to promote ocean conservation while simultaneously empowering individuals who break marine protection laws. You cannot claim educational leadership while failing to prevent your own network from engaging in criminal activity.

WE DEMAND THE FOLLOWING CONCRETE ACTIONS:

• Immediate revisions to your codes of ethics and instructor guidelines, explicitly banning whale and marine mammal interactions that violate local laws or disturb natural behaviours.

• Disciplinary action: Suspend or revoke the professional status, brand partnerships, and ambassadorships of individuals who promote or engage in illegal or unethical whale encounters.

• A visible, extensive, international educational campaign across your platforms that clarifies the legal status of whale encounters in Mauritius and promotes ethical marine interaction worldwide.

• A commitment to transparency, including public reporting on the internal actions you are taking to address these violations within your networks.

THE LAW IS CLEAR. YOUR RESPONSIBILITY IS CLEAR.

The only question left is whether you will choose accountability, or continue to enable the illegal promotion and exploitation of whales for fame and profit.

You can no longer claim you didn’t know.

You do now.

ABOUT US

Whales Mauritius is a grassroots collective of Mauritian citizens and international allies, freedivers, divers, conservationists, professionals, and advocates, who have long fought for the ethical treatment of whales and for the enforcement of existing protections. We have spoken out individually. Now, we speak collectively.

We are not against freediving.

We are against silence.

We are against complicity.

We are against marketing disguised as conservation.