Dr. Vreni Häussermann is driven by a determination to explore and protect the marine life of Chilean Patagonia. Since 1998, when she first travelled to this region, one of the last real wildernesses on earth, she fell in love with these wild and pristine landscapes where the ocean meet the mountains covered in temperate rainforests, where glaciers calf in lakes and into the ocean. Vreni Häussermann is stationed at Huinay Scientific Field Station in Northern Patagonia in Comau Fjord, and regularly carries out SCUBA diving expeditions to the most remote and inaccessible areas of Chilean Patagonia with the aim to reveal its secrets and to gather scientific knowledge which is necessary for a sustainable development of the region and for preservation of this unique and fragile natural heritage. At the moment, she is cooperating with the ministry of environment and different NGOs to develop a proposal for a network of marine protected areas for Chilean Patagonia. Her most recent project will bring her to several key sites where she will study the life of the twilight zone down to 500 m depth using a remotely operated vehicle.
