» Stefan Austermühle - Nature Expeditions Peru

Stefan Austermühle

Born in 1967, Stefan became a Greenpeace-activist at the age of 18 and made nature conservation his mission in life. Being a trained biologist he met wildlife and swam with dolphins in Europe, Africa and South America.

In 1998 he met his Peruvian wife Nina, who is a dedicated dolphin and nature conservationist. Both decided to settle in Peru. In 1999 they founded Mundo Azul which by now has become Peru’s leading marine and aquatic conservation group.

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Their conservation work has led them to explore Peruvian nature in a way, very few have done before. They photographed the endemic frogs of Lake Titicaca while diving at 3812 meters of altitude.

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They where the first ones to ever dive in the Laguna de los Condores situated in the Peruvian cloud forest at an altitude of 2700 meters.

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They were the first ones to ever dive in the Peruvian rainforest, in the crystalline rivers of the Yanachaga Chemillen National Park.

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Stefan dived along most of the inaccessible Peruvian coast while researching marine biodiversity and participated in National Geographic underwater archeology expeditions. In 2006 he discovered a new archeological site 60 cm below the sediment of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia.

Apart of working as General Manager of Nature Expeditions, Stefan continues to be the Executive Director of the conservation group Mundo Azul and he is engaged in conservation projects and exploration expeditions throughout the country.

From 2006 to date Stefan is leading the first ever large scale photo-identification research on bottlenose dolphins in Peru, covering 240 km of coastline. So far he and his team were able to identify more then 1500 individual dolphins proving that Peru has one of the highest densities of bottlenose dolphins worldwide. Stefan is working on his PhD about the ecology of Peruvian bottlenose dolphins.

Stefan calls himself a “hands-on-conservationist” and his motto is: “You just got to do what it takes!”

While studying Biology in Germany he worked two years undercover in the universities monkey laboratory uncovering animal mistreatment, negligence in workers protection and financial irregularities in the handling of governmental funds. Four years after he published his findings the University had to admit he was right: The laboratory was closed and several hundred monkeys were transferred to better living conditions in zoos.

In Peru he and his team from Mundo Azul did undercover investigations on coastal fish markets, filming secretly the illegal trade in dolphin meat for human consumption. They then presented their findings to the Peruvian National Police, supported the police forces by providing training seminars in environmental laws and raid implementation to more than 140 police staff and took part in police raids to catch the previously identified vendors, documenting an promoting the police work in the national media.

Stefan teaches at the Lima University UPC “sustainable tourism” and “ecotourism”. He also works as free consultant on conservation management and ecotourism development for several governmental institutions and private entities.

Stefan is a passionate nature photographer. So far he published 2 books and was co-author of several other books. He is also was author of a great number of newspaper articles. He worked as logistics coordinator and scientific advisor for seven TV documentaries about Peru.

Stefan is a PADI Divemaster and has an international boat pilot license.

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Stefan Austermühle

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