“That’s almost a year of our budget raised in three days“, rejoiced Monday, September 12 on franceinfo Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, at the end of the seventh edition of the ZEvent, which was held this weekend in Montpellier. During this edition, more than 10 million euros were raised during a fifty-hour session of live video games carried out by several streamers, for the benefit of five environmental associations, including Sea Shepherd.”In three days, the ZEvent and its community give us the opportunity to buy a boat“, she welcomes.
franceinfo: Did you expect such a sum collected?
Lamya Essemlali: It’s true that when we saw the figure collected last year, we said to ourselves that if we reached such amounts, it would be colossal. The share that comes back to us is almost a year of Sea Shepherd France’s budget. I let you imagine what this means for us in terms of wind in the sails. We have a budget of just under three million euros. And we are going to have 2.5 million euros, so it’s almost a year’s budget collected in three days, it’s huge.
The amount that comes back to us after sharing the donations raised in 3 days by @ZEventfr equals almost a year of our annual budget and exceeds the budget of the boat. Another project, just as concrete, will therefore become reality, we’ll tell you about it soon ❤️ #ZEVENT22
— Sea Shepherd France (@SeaShepherdFran) September 12, 2022
Seeing this sum collected, do you think that there is a real awareness of the environment?
What’s really interesting is that we touched a community there that we don’t usually touch. This community has really mobilized for the environmental cause. Beyond the money which is collected and which will make it possible to carry out very concrete projects, we hope that there are many seeds which have been sown in people’s minds and that this will help to open up awareness in the gaming community. They will be more interested in these subjects and not stop at this weekend. We had a crazy weekend. It’s a world apart with a very special atmosphere, very good-natured. You really have to live it to understand what it is. There is tremendous solidarity and friendship among all streamers.
What are you going to do with this sum?
Our plan is to buy a boat, because we have 3,000 kilometers of coastline in France. For now, we just have a Zodiac and it’s not enough to carry out the missions we want to carry out. We have been wanting to buy boats for several years and we cannot afford to do so. In three days, the ZEvent and its community give us the opportunity to do so. In addition, as we have raised more money than we expected, we have another project which is a surprise project on which we will communicate soon and which will please all donors.
This Sunday evening, Emmanuel Macron tweeted to congratulate the streamers and donors of the ZEvent. What’s your reaction ?
ZEvent has done a lot for the environment, more than Mr. Macron did in his last five years. We have made specific and reasonable proposals on what France should do on the protection of biodiversity, in particular the installation of cameras on board fishing boats to limit the capture of dolphins, protected species.
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But we were not accepted on the dolphin capture task force. There are obvious things that should be done by the government that are not being done. We would like that after the statements, there are also strong positions taken.