The 65-foot research vessel cuts through Caribbean waters while a man with a PhD in marine biology leans over the stern, watching a tagged bull shark disappear into the blue. On deck, watercolor palettes wait beside satellite tracking equipment. This is the contradiction at the heart of Guy Harvey: a scientist who abandoned academia for art, only to discover his paintings could accomplish what peer-reviewed journals could not.

After four decades of transforming marine wildlife into cultural currency, Harvey’s story finally arrives on screen. Guy Harvey, directed by 22-time Emmy Award winner Nick Nanton and produced by Astonish Entertainment, will close the 40th Annual Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival with its world premiere on February 28 at 6:30 p.m. at the Museum of Discovery and Science. The screening includes a Q&A with cast and crew, followed by a celebratory reception.

The Artist Who Rebuilt Billfish Populations With Brushstrokes

Harvey never intended to become a conservation icon. Born in Jamaica with a British Army father, he earned his doctorate from the University of the West Indies in 1984, fully prepared for a life of academic marine biology. Then came 1988, when he set up a modest booth at a Fort Lauderdale boat show to sell his fish paintings.

What happened next reshaped marine conservation funding in ways traditional nonprofits still study. Harvey’s scientifically accurate depictions of marlin, sailfish, and sharks resonated with the sportfishing community at a visceral level. His T-shirts became ubiquitous along coastal America. That revenue stream, now reaching over one million followers across social platforms, generates ongoing support for the Guy Harvey Foundation and Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova Southeastern University.

Consider the scope: over $800,000 in marine science scholarships funded, 2,168 teachers trained in marine science education as of late 2024, curriculum reaching an estimated 50 million students globally through partnerships with Discovery Education and Florida Virtual School. Research projects span from 22-year stingray population surveys in the Cayman Islands to groundbreaking billfish tracking studies proving catch-and-release sustainability.

“Guy Harvey bridges worlds: he’s as much a scientist as he is an artist, and his work has changed how millions of people see the ocean,” Nanton explains in the film’s press materials. “This film celebrates not just his achievements, but the movement he’s inspired to preserve our planet’s most vital resource.”

Nanton’s Lens: Where Biography Meets Cultural Archaeology

Nanton brings complementary credentials to Harvey’s story. Dubbed “America’s Biographer” by Larry King, the Orlando-based director has spent two decades documenting how individuals catalyze cultural change. His 60-plus documentaries cover everyone from Notre Dame’s Rudy Ruettiger to XPRIZE founder Peter Diamandis, collecting 43 Emmy nominations and 22 wins along the way.

Nanton’s filmmaking philosophy rejects hagiography in favor of what he calls “connection through contradiction.” His subjects succeed not despite their complexities but because of them. For Guy Harvey, this meant filming across the Cayman Islands, Panama, California, and Florida, capturing not just the artist at his easel but the diver photographing free-swimming billfish at depths most people avoid, the scientist collaborating with Tropic Star Lodge researchers on sailfish migration patterns, the educator developing STEAM curriculum for elementary schools.

The director assembled a production team matching the subject’s scope. Underwater cinematographer Carlo Alberto Orecchia captures what Harvey sees before he paints it. The film features fellow marine artist Robert Wyland, wildlife sculptor Kent Ullberg, photographer Jim Abernethy, Harvey’s children Alex and Jessica Harvey (the latter now serving as Guy Harvey Foundation CEO), and dozens of scientists whose research Harvey funds.

Fort Lauderdale: The Only Logical Stage

Lisa Grigorian, Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival president and CEO, notes the fitting symmetry of hosting Harvey’s premiere: “As the fishing capital of the world, Fort Lauderdale is the perfect home for a film that celebrates marine life, conservation, and the legacy of one of the most iconic ocean artists of our time.”

The 40th anniversary festival (February 20-28) represents one of America’s longest-running film celebrations, founded in 1986 by the Broward County Film Society. Over four decades, FLIFF has hosted everyone from Audrey Hepburn to Matt Damon across venues including the historic Savor Cinema art house and Cinema Paradiso. The festival showcases 100-plus films annually, maintaining its reputation as a crucial test market for American independents and international cinema while operating year-round programming through its arthouse theaters.

Harvey’s journey mirrors the festival’s timeline almost exactly. They emerged together in the mid-1980s, when South Florida’s cultural infrastructure was finding its voice, and both survived the transition from analog to digital, from local to global. Each proved that regional institutions could achieve international impact through authenticity and relentless quality.

The Foundation’s Living Laboratory

While Harvey became famous for his art, the Guy Harvey Foundation and Research Institute conduct the science justifying conservation policy. Recent research demonstrates that a commercially harvested billfish generates $50-60 in value, while the same fish in recreational catch-and-release fisheries produces $2,000-plus in economic impact and can be caught repeatedly, creating both ecological sustainability and economic multiplier effects.

The Foundation’s current projects include monitoring Nassau grouper spawning aggregations in the Caribbean (among the last remaining), tracking shortfin mako sharks (classified as vulnerable to extinction), studying how juvenile bull sharks function as nutrient pumps between Everglades habitats, and maintaining the world’s longest-running wildlife interactive zone study at Stingray City in Grand Cayman.

Jessica Harvey, who leads the Foundation after years conducting fieldwork in the Cayman Islands Department of Environment, recently expanded educational reach through the Guy Harvey Conservation Education Program. The initiative provides free professional development in environmental STEAM education, turning participants into certified Guy Harvey Conservation Educators with grants and resources for classroom enhancement.

“It is our collective responsibility to preserve our marine environment and maintain the biodiversity of this planet,” Harvey states in the film. “But it takes cash to care.” His model proved that conservation could be self-sustaining if it connected emotionally with people who love the ocean, even if they never publish research papers.

Measuring Impact Beyond Gallery Walls

Harvey’s cultural penetration extends far beyond marine biology circles. His distinctive style appears on everything from Tervis tumblers (which donate $1 per product to the Foundation) to Norwegian Cruise Line partnerships to Florida Lottery scratch-off games funding marine science education. The Guy Harvey brand operates across the U.S., Caribbean, and Central America, with solar-powered manufacturing in El Salvador producing sustainable apparel that funds research.

International recognition followed: Panama’s Order of Vasco Núñez de Balboa Grand Officer (the nation’s highest honor for non-Panamanians), induction into the International Game Fish Association Hall of Fame, NOGI Award from the diving industry, Wyland ICON Award, and Artists for Conservation honors. He’s been inducted into fishing, scuba diving, and swimming halls of fame, a trifecta reflecting his multi-disciplinary approach.

The documentary captures this scope by filming Harvey in his natural habitats: underwater photographing subjects before painting them, aboard research vessels deploying satellite tags, visiting classrooms where teachers use his curriculum, and in his studio where scientific observation transforms into art that funds more science.

The Closing Night Convergence

Guy Harvey screens February 28 at 6:30 p.m. at Fort Lauderdale’s Museum of Discovery and Science, with tickets available through the FLIFF website. The post-screening Q&A and reception provide attendees access to filmmakers and potentially Harvey himself, offering rare insight into four decades of conservation work that rewrote the relationship between art, commerce, and environmental protection.

For Nanton, the film represents something larger than biography: a case study in how individual passion scales into movement. That movement includes the 2,000-plus teachers trained in marine science, the graduate students receiving Guy Harvey Fellowships through partnerships with Florida Sea Grant, the commercial fishermen adopting sustainable practices after seeing research funded by T-shirt sales, and the millions of people who wear Harvey’s art as a declaration of alliance with healthy oceans.

The documentary arrives as marine ecosystems face compounding threats: warming waters, overfishing, and accelerating habitat loss. Harvey’s model offers something conventional conservation often lacks: a bridge between scientific rigor and popular culture, between research journals and everyday life, between understanding marine ecology and actually caring enough to protect it.

When Harvey set up that booth at the Fort Lauderdale boat show in 1988, he was just trying to sell paintings. He created something more durable: proof that art could fund science, that commerce could serve conservation, and that one person’s obsession with accurately painting fish could help ensure those fish survive for future generations to see.

Event Details:

• Film: Guy Harvey (World Premiere)
• Date: Saturday, February 28, 2026
• Time: 6:30 p.m.
• Venue: Museum of Discovery and Science, Fort Lauderdale
• Festival: 40th Annual Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival
• Post-Screening: Q&A with cast and crew, followed by reception
• Tickets: Available at fliff.com

Written by: Junior Thanong Aiamkhophueng

Attribution: This article draws on information from an Astonish Entertainment press release; details on the Guy Harvey documentary directed by Nick Nanton; research and educational programs by the Guy Harvey Foundation and Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova Southeastern University; Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival programming for the 40th anniversary celebration; and biographical information on Dr. Guy Harvey’s marine conservation work spanning Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Panama, and Florida waters.

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ABOUT THE ORGANIZATIONS

A North Atlantic right whale sighted off Georgia with a serious entanglement is facing uncertain survival, experts say, highlighting the ongoing threats facing this critically endangered species.

An aerial survey team from Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) first sighted “Division” (Catalog #5217, named for his callosity pattern that looks like a division sign) entangled off Jekyll Island, Georgia, on Dec. 3. The 3-year-old male had fishing line wrapping his head and mouth cutting into this blowhole and embedded in his upper jaw. NOAA Fisheries biologists have categorized the case as a “serious injury.” Scientists in the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium assessed the impact of the entanglement on the whale’s health, and what they saw was concerning. 

“Division’s entanglement is significant and life-threatening,” said Heather Pettis, Senior Scientist in the Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center. “There are multiple indicators that Division has been entangled for some time and that the entanglement has led to a worrisome decline in his overall health. Aggregations of whale lice on the head, body, and tail, a pronounced decline in body condition, and a section of remaining rope that is deeply embedded in the top of the whale’s head leave us very concerned for this whale’s welfare and survival.” 

Trained responders from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, in collaboration with FWC and Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute, were able to remove some of the fishing gear from the whale. Further response efforts will depend on the whale’s condition, weather, and resightings, according to NOAA.

Division was born to mother “Silt” (Catalog #1817) in 2022 and has been regularly sighted in the waters of New England and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. He was last seen gear-free in July 2025 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

North Atlantic right whales are one of the most endangered large whale species in the world, with an estimated population of about 380 and only 72 reproductive females. This case marks the first right whale entangled with attached gear detected in 2025. Despite a relatively quiet year for right whale injury detections, researchers have noted that the low number may not represent accurate levels of events being experienced by the population, and it will take more time to determine if this reduction is real. The late fall and winter are not uncommon months for new entanglements to be detected for this population.

“Last year, there were four detected entanglement events in December, and so sighting this whale in its current state, while incredibly disheartening, was not a complete surprise,” Pettis said. “We are grateful for the extraordinary efforts that went into trying to free this whale from the gear and hold out hope that Division can overcome the odds stacked against him.”

Entanglements and vessel strikes remain the leading causes of death and injury for North Atlantic right whales. From 1980 to the present, scientists have documented over 1,800 entanglement events involving over 85 percent of the right whale population. Serious injuries and deaths of right whales caused by entanglements are preventable and highlight the importance of broad-scale adoption of ropeless or “on-demand” gear and weaker ropes. Without adequate protection measures implemented throughout the right whale’s range in U.S. and Canadian waters, combined with significant funding support, entanglements and vessel strikes will continue to threaten the survival of the species.

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ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION

When I think about some of the most impactful conservation wins of our time, the global ivory bans, the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act, or Canada’s phaseout of open-net salmon farms immediately surfaces. But there’s one that seems to present front-and-center for me, especially since I identify as both a capitalist and a conservationist, as being particularly timely. The large-scale rewilding efforts across Chile and Argentina stand out as compelling case studies of what’s possible when bold vision, private capital, and ecological urgency collide. For anyone in business today, it challenges us to rethink what meaningful contribution looks like in a world that can no longer afford business as usual.

The pair behind this effort are Kris Tompkins and the late Doug Tompkins. Doug co-founded The North Face and later Esprit, two powerhouse brands that redefined outdoor and fashion industries. Kris was Patagonia’s inaugural CEO, shaping it into a globally recognized ethical apparel company. Together, they drew a direct line between wealth and responsibility to establish Tompkins Conservation. The organization’s objective was to place focus on and highlight geographical regions or areas that they held personal ties to. Doug stated he would use his fortune to “pay rent to planet Earth.”

Over two decades, Doug and Kris donated more than 3 million acres in Chile and Argentina, creating over a dozen national parks. Before his untimely death exactly 10 years ago from a kayaking accident, Doug’s final vision was the Route of Parks of Patagonia—a 2,800-kilometer corridor linking 17 parks and 60 communities across Chile. It was a radical undertaking aiming to restore entire ecosystems that reconnected wildlife, all while creating livelihoods that didn’t rely on extractive industries like mining or industrial fishing.

Born from Tompkins Conservation, both Rewilding Chile and Rewilding Argentina were created to carry out Doug and Kris’s mission, but more so to ensure these efforts evolved beyond the individuals themselves. They made a deliberate choice to hand the work to local leaders who understand these ecosystems as home. Today, those leaders and their counterparts are both honoring Doug’s legacy and expanding Kris’s vision in ways only they can. That has even meant taking their work beyond the two country borders.

This year at Climate Week in New York, Kris inspired the launch of the Jaguar River Initiative, which is a continental-scale rewilding effort stretching across Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay. It’s one of the most ambitious ecological restoration projects in the Global South, led by on-ground conservationists who understand these landscapes as more than boundaries, but as a single, continuous living system.

Directed by Deli Saavedra, the vision is to rewild the river corridors that function as the connective tissue of a million square mile ecosystem. In doing so, this will restore the movement of jaguars, giant river otters, anteaters, and other keystone species, while addressing the cascading pressures of climate change and habitat loss. Drought, wildfires, industrial encroachment, agriculture, and deforestation have fragmented this region for decades. However, the success of Argentina’s Iberá Wetlands—where jaguars have returned after more than 70 years and local communities built an economy around restoration—proved that recovery at scale is not only possible, but replicable.

The concept is to take what worked in Iberá and apply the concept elsewhere. It’s the essence of “positive deviance,” or identifying what’s working against the odds, understanding why, and helping others replicate and adapt it in their own contexts. This initiative is the genesis of my work with Edges of Earth, where we seek out ready-made solutions already succeeding locally, and help these organizational stories reach the world so there’s opportunities to scale both locally and globally.

Over nearly eight weeks, Adam Moore—our expedition operations lead—and I, immersed into the worlds of Rewilding Chile and Rewilding Argentina to see their impact firsthand. In Patagonia National Park, we saw why rewilding matters. As we crossed sweeping valleys filled with guanaco herds and climbed ridgelines where Darwin’s rhea now roam after teetering on the edge of extinction, the vision that Doug and Kris championed felt like a promise made, and kept, to Chile.

The park’s rewilding story continues: Running Wild: The Return of Patagonia National Park’s Rheas

A place Doug loved so deeply it now carries his name, Pumalín Douglas Tompkins National Park, showed us a completely different face of Patagonia. At Caleta Gonzalo Lodge, designed by Doug and Kris themselves, the scenery shifts from the iconic windblown steppe to a world of fjords, waterfalls, glaciers, ancient alerce trees, and volcanoes that rival the Pacific Ring of Fire. This was Doug’s living laboratory, where he tested the radical idea that conservation could be run with the same rigor and ambition as a business empire. By 2018, that experiment became history. When 1,063,000 acres were protected in the largest private land donation ever made to any government, Kris proved that when vision meets capital, an entire nation’s map can be redrawn.

On the other side, Rewilding Argentina has created and/or expanded 10 national and provincial parks through the donation of 464,098 hectares of land. Altogether, their work now protects an extraordinary 1,611,413 hectares—an area so vast it’s almost hard to comprehend. And at the heart of it sits the Iberá Wetlands, one of the world’s largest freshwater ecosystems. Argentina’s most powerful rewilding success story.

Traveling with Marisi López, who has been part of this movement since the earliest days, we learned just how improbable this transformation once seemed. Iberá was not always a wildlife stronghold. For decades, much of the region was hunted out, fragmented by agriculture, heavily deforested for industrial purposes, and degraded by invasive species. The land once felt empty, without critical keystone species keeping the balance in check. Today, we moved through landscapes that had once been silent, only to be met with an explosion of life featuring jaguars relaxing in dense underbrush; giant river otters carving patterns through the water and; capibaras rolling around on the dirt road blocking our car from moving much more than an inch at times.

Yes, the return of wildlife makes this story impressive. But perhaps even more critical has been the return of identity. Communities that once relied on extractive industries or had no work opportunity at all, now have alternate livelihoods. The success of Iberá is what sparked a continental ripple after decades of working towards it. Today, it serves as the blueprint for rewilding across the Americas, and perhaps beyond.

It’s important to recognize that the Tompkins legacy has inspired a new generation of conservationists to launch their own initiatives and chart their own paths. Edges of Earth partnered with Por el Mar, a grassroots marine conservation group working to protect the region’s cold-water ecosystems, especially its pristine giant kelp forests.

For three weeks, we traveled with their team from Tierra del Fuego to Santa Cruz, living aboard a small sailing vessel and diving into some of the last intact underwater forests like this on the planet. These ecosystems, towering and ancient, are now threatened by warming seas, industrial fishing, and invasive species all over the world. But here, this team has been instrumental in protecting giant kelp up and down the coast, mitigating the crisis the best they can before it’s too late.

Co-Founder & CEO Martina Sasso, along with some of her founding team, emerged from the Rewilding Argentina network. People once touched by the Tompkins philosophy but determined to create their own impact. Their work blends science and community outreach, building stewardship for ecosystems that have long been overlooked. In many ways, Por el Mar represents the natural evolution of the Tompkins vision, by helping those who have turned their back on natural resources to see their value once again.

I also must acknowledge that the Tompkins’ work wasn’t without criticism. They were accused of land grabs or of not involving local communities early enough, for example. And when you speak with the people who lived through those early years of building the Rewilding teams, they don’t sugarcoat the struggle. Trust had to be earned and deep, emotional tension showed up everywhere. But standing inside these restored ecosystems today, the outcome is simply undeniable.

Pride is a word we’ve heard a lot of over the course of those 8 weeks. It’s returned to places once written off and places that were hardly on a global map. And the closer we’ve gotten to the teams on the ground, the more we’ve come to learn that the number one driver of success has been local ownership. Rewilding only works when communities see themselves in the future of these landscapes and must never feel displaced by it.

After traveling through 45+ countries, 250 locations, and speaking with nearly 3,000 people working towards a more sustainable future, I’ve come to realize growth means nothing if it harms the communities and ecosystems that make it possible in the first place. The people doing the hardest work—fishers, farmers, Indigenous leaders, grassroots conservationists—have shown me that true progress is defined by how that scale shapes the world around it.

So what can the next generation of business leaders learn from this?

Use capital as a lever: The Tompkins treated wealth as a tool. Money, in their world, was something to deploy with intention. They redirected their financial success outward, not inward. Imagine how differently our world might look if more business leaders viewed their balance sheets as a means to shape healthier futures?

Stretch your timeline: While most companies obsess over shareholder value, the Tompkins were thinking in generations. They invested in ecosystems knowing they might not live to see the impact. And yet, that long-range mindset is exactly why the work is still expanding. The businesses that will endure the next century are going to be the ones building with an eye on what a sustainable horizon looks like.

Lead by releasing: Their greatest measure of success was what Doug and Kris gave back. Donating millions of acres to the public did not show up as a loss or a tax write off. It was actually the whole point. Sometimes the most powerful form of leadership is knowing when to hand over the keys.

Don’t wait for perfection: The Tompkins and their teams were criticized, and rather harshly for that matter, early days. They made mistakes and were categorically misunderstood. But that fueled the fire. Progress was the most used word when talking to the on-ground teams about what Doug stood for. If you’re waiting for a flawless plan or unanimous approval, you’ll never do anything meaningful.

I’m currently writing this somewhere between Argentina and Brazil, on our final week in the field with the Jaguar Rivers Initiative. I’ve found myself rethinking what power and influence are actually for as we drive through these countries once so wild we can hardly visualize what it means in our modern world. Hearing those who knew Doug describe the kind of leader he was has forced me to look inward. At the kind of impact I want to leave behind. We spend so much energy in business chasing perception—titles, property, status, awards. But what does it all mean if the resources beneath our feet disappear?

Legacy is built through the choices we make about where our skills, capital, time, and effort go. It’s built by uplifting the communities who need it most and inspiring others to carry the work forward long after we’re gone. The question no longer is whether we can make a difference. We already know how. It’s whether we will rise up and choose to do so.

Written by: Andi Cross

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andi Cross is an explorer, strategist, and extended range diver with Scuba Schools International and Scubapro, who leads Edges of Earth—a global expedition and consulting collective documenting resilience and climate solutions across the world’s most remote coastlines. Her work centers on “positive deviance”—spotlighting outliers succeeding against the odds—and using storytelling and strategy to help scale their impact.

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MEET THE LEADERS BEHIND THE LEGACY

REWILDING CHILE

REWILDING ARGENTINA

POR EL MAR