Meet The Cover Conservationist is a recurring SEVENSEAS feature that spotlights inspiring and influential people working at the forefront of ocean conservation.
Beyond the research papers, campaigns, and headlines, this series offers a more personal look at the people behind the work, exploring what drives them, challenges them, and keeps them hopeful for the future of our ocean. If there’s a conservationist you’d love to see featured on a future cover, we invite you to submit a short nomination (around 250 words) to info@sevenseasmedia.org. We receive many outstanding submissions, and while not all can be selected for publication, each is carefully considered.
Below you’ll find the merciless interrogation designed to give readers insight into our conservationist’s professional journey and the human side of life in ocean conservation. We only ask fearlessly candid, no-holds-barred questions, so get ready for a brutally honest, nail-biting interview.
1. To get our readers acquainted, why don’t you tell us just a little about yourself, what motivates you and what you are working on.
Enrico: I was born in Rome, closer to the Colosseum than to the ocean. Yet, I have always been fascinated by animals. When I realized my potential career in Italy would not go anywhere, I took a gamble and offered my help, for free, to researchers studying white sharks in South Africa. Basically, my life changed forever because of an email that was answered but it could be completely different otherwise. South Africa was an incredible country with lots of challenges but with an incredible marine wildlife and a pioneer in shark conservation, as it was the first country to protect the white shark in 1991, not because of certainties scientists could not provide, but because of a precautionary approach: sharks are worth conserving not just for nature but also for a country’s economic benefit. Great! I was in heaven. Yet, not without challenges: as South Africa directed funding mostly toward South Africans (rightfully), I had to come up with a different way to fund my PhD research. I applied a business approach to fund science: I was surrounded by sharks (especially white sharks), whales, dolphins, seals, incredible fish biodiversity, amazing tidal pools, thus in order to research at sea, I started to teach other people how to do field-based marine research, not in a classroom, but at sea. Students from all over the world (over 3,000 students in last 18 years) have been flocking Mossel Bay, a small town in South Africa, to train in marine research with us, and they are still coming. Mossel Bay was unique for many reasons but maybe the most important one for me was that this little bay hosted the closest white shark hunting ground (hunting Cape fur seals obviously) to any human development. The seal colony was only 800m from where thousands of water users gathered every summer: a perfect example that with knowledge and respect, we can co-exist even with white sharks, without killing them all. I did not become rich with the training program, but I managed to pay for the research of my PhD, the research that the organisation I founded back in 2008 still carries on today, as well as paying for salaries of my staff and post-graduate projects mostly for South African students. Recently, as a director of the Oceans Research Institute and research affiliate of both Rhodes University and the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity, I have steered away from pure research toward more applied research. How can science be used to drive real practical changes which can make a difference for nature? Not just words on a publication, not just protection on paper, but a real impact.
One single sentence? “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children” teaches us many things. First, Earth is not ours, we don’t own it. Second, we must pass it at least in the same conditions we got it from the previous generation. Lastly, we have a moral duty, a loan, a commitment, toward the future generations as we are morally responsible for what we do, and sometimes more importantly, for what we do not do.
2. What was the moment or influence that first pulled you toward ocean conservation? Tell us about that.
Enrico: It was not a specific single moment, but a realization over few years. I was a scientist working on sharks. I was focusing on my scientific career and my future life. However, I was pushed toward ocean advocacy and activism (not just general conservation science), when I realized that extinction is not just forever, as many people have already said before, but it can happen quickly. In less than 10 years, South Africa passed from being called the white shark capital of the world to now we celebrate when we see a single white shark. I cannot believe it has been happening in less than 10 years. I have seen it with my own eyes. In fact, a population declining gives many clues, like for instance, genetic erosion toward similar genetic characteristics, which is like kryptonite for superman, reducing the ability of that population to fight any further human-related pressure we keep throwing at it. Another sign is the reduction on the average size of the population: the more we remove older and bigger animals (as there are fewer), the more the average size of the remaining ones gets smaller. A final sign is the reduction of the distribution of the population, shrinking from both edges toward its center, known as “edge effect”. After that, the decline can escalate rapidly. All this has been happening under my watch, and that is why I take it personally. I, as everyone else, we are responsible and we ought to do more.
3. What problem are you most focused on solving right now?
Enrico: At the moment there are two scientific schools of thought in South Africa, both based on data (as nature is most of the times not easy to decipher and science provides not often sureties), which unfortunately are not allowing policy changes to happen. One group says that white sharks have just shifted their distribution mostly because of pressures from another predator (orcas) but the overall population is stable (based on a model approach) and thus does not require major interventions. We agree with the effect of orcas on white sharks. But we also say that there is no evidence of the same number of white sharks anywhere else, and on the contrary, there is evidence of genetic erosion, distribution shrinking, and reduction in average size of sighted white sharks. Furthermore, we know that white sharks have been removed every year, at least by a fishery and by the lethal shark control program of the kwaZulu Sharks Board which are two operations which receive yearly permits by the South African authorities. And those impacts are not minimal: we are talking about an average rate of 40-50 white sharks killed every year for the last 20 years. On a population between 500 and 1000, our estimates equate to at best 4-5% (or 9% at worst) of the entire population removed every single year, which is unsustainable, no matter how one looks at it. Yet, we ask the South African government to use the same precautionary approach which made South Africa a beacon of hope for the whole conservation world in 1991. Of course there are other sources of mortality, such as unregulated fisheries outside South Africa’s territorial waters, and of course, orcas; but the more we believe those other factors impact significantly white sharks, the more the urgency we should put in addressing the sources of mortalities we, as a country, have the power and responsibility to do something about. Tackling climate change is a massive task, orcas are a natural phenomenon and we should not interfere. But we can decide not to provide permits which lead to white shark mortality by taking a precautionary approach to prevent possible (I would say likely) extinctions. Nobody says to stop all fisheries, and we do support other methods to secure the safety of water users. But a change is needed. I don’t know whether we will succeed but I need to know I did everything in my power trying to prevent it, and at the bare minimum, it could serve as an example to other regions in terms of what not-doing-anything could lead to.
We recently published an opinion piece providing more information on this topic here.
4. What’s one misconception people often have about your field?
Enrico: I often hear that being a scientist you must be unbiased and not get involved. You collect data, analyse it and publish it. That’s it? To me, there must be more. “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children” tells us that we cannot just be observers. We have a personal responsibility, a loan we have to honor. We have the duty to do something. I often ask my students, what “doing conservation science” means to them. It is a personal question so there is no wrong answer. Is publishing a paper enough for you? Is protesting on the street or to the media for lack of enforcement too much for you? Is it right to expect others to take the responsibility to drive changes all the way (which maybe is the hardest part of putting conservation into practice) because we are worried we could be seen as taking a side? I can only speak for myself and I don’t think that not having an opinion is the only way. I am a human and I do have opinions. I believe it is not wrong driving my research questions, my “fights”, my career toward specific directions, as long as I interpret my data without biases, maintaining my integrity. In the same way that I publicly state that I am against wars, genocides, ecocide, I will always publicly state when I believe a government is not doing enough to protect the biodiversity of its country.
5. What achievement are you most proud of, even if few people know about it?
Enrico: I believe and hope that future generations will have more power than ours in changing things and having an impact, if we make them more aware and bestow a sense of ownership toward nature. That can only happen if they experience nature first hand. With the ocean it is a bit more difficult, as you cannot take an entire classroom full of young kids out to sea at once. Therefore, our organisation has tried to move away from one-way teaching approaches to schools, more toward full immersion experiences: from learning first to swim and providing jobs related to the ocean for young students, to virtual immersions using VR technology (if Mohammed cannot go to the mountain, then the mountain must go to Mohammed) allowing even rural schools to experience the “WHOA!” effect and thus care for the ocean. Among those kids maybe there is the country’s future Minister of the environment: one never knows. Anyway, sometimes the greatest achievement is what you did not plan for. I still remember the shivers in my spine when I was told that one of those kids we taught to swim and found a job at the local life-saving club, after only few months from plunging his head into the ocean for the first time, saved an old man from drowning. We will likely never see the world changing because of our actions, but even an under-funded program can change the world at once, at least the world of that kid and that old man did change. Trying to have an impact will always bring good things, even if not those you expect.
6. What keeps you going when conservation feels overwhelming?
Enrico: I often think about this and I debate it often with my good friend Chris Fallows, international photographer, naturalist, and mainly nature lover. Little digression: for everyone out there who wants to help but does not have a degree in marine biology, I always try to convince Chris that he is also a scientist, as he collects data while at sea, helps me understand and analyse and contributes to the interpretation. It is a work in progress as he is not convinced yet but I will succeed.
Anyway, going back to feeling overwhelmed. I was fortunate enough to be born in a country that was not at war. I was able to study while not working, travel and live in a different country, get a PhD, never know what hunger, racism, injustice really mean. I owe to the other people who were not that lucky to do something more than just publish papers. I owe nature to do more, to try more. Maybe I am strange, but I cannot go to bed and look in the mirror in the morning, knowing that I advanced my career but I could have done more for nature. I owe my life to my mom and dad, but I owe my career, as well as the ability to provide for my daughter, to nature, to the ocean, and specifically to white sharks. When I feel down, I repeat to myself, we need to do more, we can do more.
In fact, while as South Africans we have made some progresses in terms of marine conservation, unfortunately we have not been able to deal with many big issues like some poorly managed fisheries and lack of effective enforcement, which unfortunately have contributed to the disappearance of white sharks in the majority of the historical aggregations along our coastline. So when our research shows us that in less than 10 years South Africa passed from hotspot to dead spot for white sharks and which could be functionally extinct in the region in less than 30 years, to me, that not only raises a flag but pushes me and my colleagues harder to provide more evidence for the government to act. But it also empowers me to stand up and speak up, right now, urgently, and not just wait for more data. I am not in the “business” to describe extinction and publish about it. Rather, I will push (as my colleagues tell me, often not as a compliment) to try to prevent it and find a different path. I sincerely, and seriously, hope to be proven wrong in the near future: maybe my career might take a dip, but the white sharks will keep swimming in our waters: I can easily live with that. But if we cannot provide a future for the most famous and economically important shark species in the world, what chances are left for all the other less known species in the ocean. In fact, it is not just about white sharks. They are ironically the low hanging fruit (not that low now in South Africa unfortunately). They are the perfect ambassadors for the ocean’s health. They are the spokesperson/species for the ocean, and we ought to keep it that way.
So when I am overwhelmed, I try to give that feeling a reason, a motivation for why it is there. If I am overwhelmed it is because the situation is dire and thus I need to do more. I owe it to myself first, but also to many many people and to nature too. I cannot give up.
7. What’s something the public rarely sees about how conservation really works?
Enrico: Often people think that conservation means spending time with animals in beautiful lands or seascapes. I have realized that often, when you try to help achieve a conservation goal, you spend a lot of time in front of a computer, analysing data and then communicating your data to other scientists (to validate the data you collected and their interpretations). But it cannot stop there. You need to communicate to people: via social media (I suck at it), via public talks (I am a bit better, even though considering my weird Itanglish language), via documentaries. But it is not enough again: when scientists talk, not as scientists, governments tend to listen better. But again that is not enough, as government would carry on business as usual, after you stop talking: thus you need to engage further, demand for accountability and responsibility, and most importantly, try to sit at the tables where the real decisions are made (which when you speak up against those tables it becomes even more difficult). All this is without putting a single foot in nature. There is no swimming with dolphins, diving with sharks, or walking side by side with elephants. It is all dirty work, but that kind that does not impact the cleanliness of your clothes. It is tiring, not rewarding often, slow and it can impact your mind, if you don’t keep reminding yourself why you started doing that, why publishing a paper was not enough anymore, and most importantly, if you don’t remember the beauty you are trying to help protect.
8. If you could change one policy tomorrow, what would it be?
Enrico: As a businessman, like for any big business, the realization of something does not guarantee its success. As important as an invention could be, we must make sure it not only works but it provides the desired results, and monitor how those results (and even the possible negative effects) progress. An accountability policy: “vision without execution is just hallucination” a quote attributed to Thomas Edison and repeated recently by Costa Rica’s President Rodrigo Chaves Robles at the Blue Economy and Finance Forum in Monaco this year. If you can’t monitor whether something works over the years, how do you know whether it is worth continuing with it or even improving it? If you can’t budget a system like that to be in place, you are just doing a tick-box exercise. Any protection impacts people and the economy, at least at the start, so if we can’t monitor whether it is working and how to improve it, then why impacting people in the first place, one could say. We have perfect examples in South Africa: “paper parks” are national parks and marine areas which are protected, on paper, but often are scourged by poachers. “We don’t have budget for proper enforcement and monitoring” we keep on hearing. Ok then, don’t just stop there, ask for help, let’s find that budget together. Private Public Partnerships (African Parks, Peace Parks Foundation are some great examples of PPP in co-management of protected areas) exist in the rest of Africa but South Africa is lagging behind. But it is not just about poachers in South Africa. There are commercial fishing boats which fish in Marine Protected Areas regularly, because there are no consequences (link). The only court case against a fishing vessel fishing inside a Marine Protected Area has happened because the public had enough of informing the government and the management authorities and seeing no action. So members of the public went out by themselves, collected evidences and opened a case at the police and because of that the judge was able not only to sanction as an illegal fishing event but as damage to the environment, which carries a much larger fine (link). The public can be of help, especially if listened to. Same for technology: for example AI-integrated satellite imagery able to identify fishing events remotely (link) is used in all southern African countries (as it is free for governments) besides South Africa. If a government realizes it cannot do everything by itself anymore, courage should come up and it should admit it needs help: acceptance of a problem is the first step to find a solution. All those different approaches can help government to monitor the progresses of its “inventions” and act on them.
9. What role do individuals play compared to governments or industry?
Enrico: A simple example. In my own little world, I procured over 3 Million Rand from a private donor to support enforcement in a Marine Protected Area of South Africa, allowing them to use a high-tech fixed wing drone that can fly over a 100 km radius. If I can do, I am sure more people can do the same (I am not that special trust me). If you see a problem, don’t just blame someone else, but help them in finding a solution.
10. What advice would you give to someone who wants to help but feels powerless?
Enrico: “I am just a drop of water in an ocean of problems”. I always tell my students that diversity is the key from nature to humans. Each of us has at least one strength, an expertise, something more. Try to focus, not on what you cannot do, but on what you are good at. I can guarantee, out there, there will be someone, or an organisation, looking for someone like you. Maybe, they cannot pay you for that, but if you are looking to help, you will always be welcomed. In this era of hyper specialization, not a single person can do everything. Try to contact someone, or an organisation, in the field of interest to you, and ask, “who else could benefit from me?” For instance, in my small world again, I wish I could have studied more statistics at university and that is why I love collaborating with statisticians. I wish I could work more hand-in-hand with people with legal expertise. Graphic designers can allow an organisation in raising its image. People who can easily use social media can allow better communication between scientists and the public. At the end of the day, “what is an ocean but a multitude of drops” (Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell).
11. Where do you realistically hope your work will be in 5–10 years?
Enrico: I sincerely hope to be jobless, or better, “projectless”, because all my projects I am working on now will have created practical actions to improve problems: thus they had an impact. My main projects are from trying to get the South African government to recognise there is a problem with white sharks and it has the power to address it. Another project is on developing a new alternative technology to keep water users safe without killing potentially dangerous shark species (I will test it in the new year). A project I am trying to start aims to reduce the killing of humpback whales by limiting the impact of seafloor cages of the lobster fishery in the West coast of South Africa. As mentioned before, another continuous project tries to support management authorities of marine protected areas in terms of practical and effective enforcement. Another project aims to promote the use of modern technology for enforcing area-related fishing regulations which is lacking. All projects are built on science and technology with a clear immediate impact (5 to 10 years). Realistically though, I believe that in 10 years time, I will still try to search support for those projects and others, as knowledge is never the problem, but the money is.
12. What innovation excites you most in ocean conservation?
Enrico: As conservationists we often don’t have the budgets for R&D that other areas of research have. Thus we need to be more “thieves” than inventors: I am not saying to steal anything, but readapt something invented for something else. For instance, together with an Italian company (TechnoSm@rt) we developed a series of sensors similar to those found in the activity watches to measure this time the activity of white sharks hunting. When I applied the first tag (a series of sensors and a small camera attached to the dorsal fin of a white sharks, non-intrusive as it detaches after 24 hours), I remember I felt off the chair when I watched that white shark predating not on a seal but on a flock of cormorants:
Another time, I was mesmerized when our white shark breached out of the water and landed back with an acceleration of 8.3 Gs, which means 8.3 times the gravity we normally experience, which is close to that 9G threshold that causes tunnel vision or blackouts in fighter jet pilots. How cool is that? Also because that white shark carried on, business as usual, as if it had just run a normal sprint: AMAZING!!!!
13. What do you hope people will say about your work in the future and what legacy do you hope to leave behind?
Enrico: I sincerely do not care about my legacy. I just want to know I had an impact, not for glory but for my peace of mind: I did indeed help. In terms of legacy, I just hope that more and more people take responsibility for what is happening, caring less about personal careers/interests and more about personal impact on nature.
14. At heart, are you more of a researcher, activist, storyteller, or something completely different?
Enrico: Is there really a difference? To me, a researcher must be also a storyteller, otherwise we just preach to the converted or care only about our careers. We need to convince people that conserving the natural world is not just right but it is also a societal commitment to be better, and can even produce more wealth in the long-term: a sustainable fishery means more profits and more employment in the long-term, as it does not close down in the short term. I am not against fishing at all, in fact, I am only against unsustainable fisheries which are too many unfortunately at the moment. A rainforest that is protected produces more oxygen and removes more CO2, less CO2 means more ice cover in the polar regions, which means more krill (if fished more sustainably, again), which means healthier whale populations, which are carbon sinkers, which can reduce extreme weather events: an incredible positive feedback. Obviously it is a simplification, but nature is able to amplify any good action we do. So it is worth also for the general public. But it cannot stop just with communication. Even if, and when, we can change public perception, I believe we, as researchers, ought to use our influence to demand changes and not limiting our “impacts” to publishing scientific data. We need to talk to politicians and managers, and convince them a change is needed, urgently as that there is no planet B.
15. Ocean sunrise or sunset? Any reason why?
Enrico: Sunset! I don’t know why but sunset feels lasting longer to me. To me, the colours are also more vivid at sunset. When we used to track white sharks with a small boat for over 5 days at sea continuously, I remember watching sunrise which brought a sense of relaxation, tranquility, and easiness, as the worst was passed. Instead sunset was the foyer of the night, to an almost different dimension we are not supposed to be comfortable in, when all your survival instincts wake up. Sunset is the beauty that leads to a realization of our fragility. However, it is the real domain of sharks, as we showed in a Netflix documentary called Night on Earth, portraying the incredible night life of white sharks, never seen before. Thus, to me, sunset is a true oxymoron: light and darkness, calm and unknown, excitement and fragility.
16. A species you think deserves more attention?
Enrico: This little shark is called the smoothhound shark (gummy shark in Australia). It is a shark hanging on the coastal seafloor. It schools in large number (or used to unfortunately) and was able to sustain even several fisheries in South Africa. It is what we call a mesopredator, supporting apex predators preying on it, but also being a predator itself controlling the functions of other species below it. A fishery, not properly managed as even less enforced, has been responsible for the collapse of this species in South Africa. This fishery does not benefit South Africa (or at least maybe just a handful of already rich people), provides very little job opportunities and everything is exported especially to Australia for “flake and chips”. Furthermore, the South African smoothhound sharks have been proven being loaded with high level of heavy metals (link). Therefore, while Australia is contributing to the destruction of nature “assets” in a foreign country but pushing for better management of its own stocks, it is also poisoning its own citizens slowly. Furthermore, the smoothhound sharks are also related to the same battle to conserve white sharks in South Africa (link). The South Africa’s government assessed smoothhound sharks as Endangered (and soupfin sharks as Critically Endangered) in 2019, Yet, in 2025, the same Department of Fisheries allows the same 2 species to still be the main target species by the Demersal Shark Longline fishery, with no maximum quota (link).
In December 2025, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild fauna and flora (CITES) has ratified a more strict international trade regulation for the smoothhound sharks (and also the soupfin or tope sharks). At the present, I don’t know whether South Africa voted against or did not vote at all (the vote was unanimous) but the point is that South Africa is facing a choice now: we can wait for 18 months (the timeline decided by CITES) pushing this unsustainable and unmanaged fishery until it cannot export anymore overseas, OR we can show that we support the use of natural resources only when sustainable, shutting down this fishery which has been proven, over and over again, disregarding all regulations, not benefiting South Africans, and having a massive ecological impact. I believe South Africa should apply the core of its Constitution with aims at preserving nature for present and future generations.
17. If you could be any marine animal, what would you be?
Enrico: I know I am getting older as most of my students do not even know movies or TV series I do reference from time to time. One tv series I truly loved when I was a kid was Manimal, the story of a man able to transform itself into many animals. I always wondered, besides growing fur or feathers, how its physiology could change that quickly at cellular levels. BORING! Sorry! I am diverging.
Anyway, my animal choice is not a shark! I instead always dreamt of flying like an albatross which spends years without touching land (obviously they stop, and float, and feed on the ocean), or even (not marine though) a peregrine falcon able to reach almost 400 km/h, or a vulture being able to soar using the power of thermals without flipping a wing.
18. Most unexpected or interesting place your work has taken you?
Enrico: Mana Pools in Zimbabwe, hands down. With a team of friends, photographers and videographers, while they try to capture nature in two dimensions, I personally search for close footage of animals in 360 to be able to show city-kids the beauty of one of Africa’s wildest places. It is one of the few places on Earth where you are allowed, at your own risk, to walk among lions, elephants, hippos, hyenas etc. It is a magical place, dangerous for sure, if you are not careful at all times, but a place able to put your being back into perspective. We humans feel powerful, too often omnipotent, able to bend nature at our will. Our technologies can hold the powers of nature. We feel bigger. In Mana, instead, you feel so small (when an elephant walks by you), fragile (when a hyena is busy chewing on an impala’s bone while staring at you), almost insignificant (for that lion who has just eaten, when you are passing by it in the middle of the day). In Mana, I reassess my life, my commitments, I realign my priorities: it is a mystical experience, the yearly enlightenment on my road to Damascus. If only more people leading this world could feel themselves that small, maybe we would have less problems and create less problems.
19. One book, film, or documentary everyone should experience?
Enrico: Carrying on with my amazement for birds (but don’t tell Chris Fallows who is obviously an avid birder), I would say “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” by Richard Bach. A short book, I read many times since I was around 10 years old. It is about independent thinking: no matter what the “flock” around you does, or how crazy you appear, or how different your ideas are, following your own heart and dreams is the only way to ultimately reach the real freedom and self-determination.
20. If you weren’t in conservation, what would you be doing?
Enrico: Since it is about fantasizing, as I cannot see myself outside acting for conservation, I would like not only to be someone else but also at another time. I would have loved being an explorer, when the unknowns were normal and not the exceptions. That is why, when I dive, or when I walk in the bush, I tend not to follow the beaten path, for the joy of my mom 😊
21. One word you associate with the future of the ocean?
Enrico: Actions with impacts, sorry, three words, but this is my interview 😊
