Issue 128 - January 2026
SEVENSEAS Travel Magazine – No. 128 January 2025
Welcome to the January issue of SEVENSEAS. This month, our journey takes us to Patagonia, where large-scale rewilding, scientific innovation, and cultural legacy intersect across land and sea. This issue features our January Cover Conservationist, Dr Enrico Gennari, a marine biologist and white shark researcher known for pushing science beyond publications toward tangible conservation impact. You’ll also find global updates on seafloor mapping technology, blue carbon science, marine education partnerships, ocean policy at COP30, endangered North Atlantic right whales, and new investments in artificial intelligence shaping the humanities. Together, these stories reflect the growing connections between place-based conservation and global ocean action.
Cover Conservationist photo: Chris Fallows
Meet Dr Enrico Gennari, the January Cover Conservationist
A marine biologist born in Rome sent a single email offering free help to white shark researchers in South Africa. That answered message changed everything: 18 years later, Dr Enrico Gennari has trained over 3,000 students in field-based marine research, founded Oceans Research Institute, and witnessed South Africa transform from the white shark capital of the world to a coastline where seeing a single shark warrants celebration. The collapse happened in less than 10 years. His response: push science beyond publications toward tangible conservation impact, demand government accountability, and remember that we borrow Earth from our children. As he puts it, he’s not in the business of describing extinction but trying to prevent it. [Read more]
What Next Generation Leaders Can Learn From The Tompkins’ Legacy
Doug and Kris Tompkins donated more than 3 million acres across Chile and Argentina, creating over a dozen national parks before Doug’s death exactly 10 years ago. The North Face co-founder and Patagonia’s inaugural CEO redirected fashion empire wealth into ecosystems, proving conservation could operate with business rigor: 1,063,000 acres became the largest private land donation ever made to any government. Their work birthed Rewilding Chile, Rewilding Argentina, Por el Mar, and this year’s Jaguar Rivers Initiative spanning four countries. Local leaders now carry the vision forward, restoring jaguars to Iberá Wetlands and giant kelp forests to Tierra del Fuego while communities build economies around restoration. [Read more]
Running Wild: The Return of Patagonia National Park’s Rheas
A decade ago, surveys found fewer than 22 Darwin’s rheas remaining in Patagonia National Park’s Chacabuco Valley. Decades of ranching had trapped birds in barbed wire, stolen eggs, and chased down chicks until the species nearly vanished from Chile’s largest sheep ranch turned wilderness. Today, more than 70 rheas roam the golden steppe, including 15 wild individuals translocated from Argentina carrying what captive-bred birds cannot: diverse DNA, sharper instincts, and survival memory. Emiliana Retamal and Rewilding Chile’s team now track GPS-collared birds building toward a self-sustaining population of 100 adults actively reproducing across restored grasslands. [Read more]
Patagonia National Park, Book by Rewilding Chile
Rewilding Chile published a 276-page book celebrating one of the largest private land donations in history: 304,000 hectares of former cattle ranch transformed into Patagonia National Park. Photographer Linde Waidhofer’s images capture forests, glaciers, and steppe alongside endangered huemul, recovering rhea populations, and returning pumas. Contributors include Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and former President Michelle Bachelet. The book documents the Chacabuco Valley’s journey from Estancia Valle Chacabuco through Tompkins Conservation’s acquisition to the 2018 donation creating Chile’s newest national park, where 370 vascular plant species now support all of Aysén’s native wildlife across the highest biodiversity levels in the region. [Read more]
The Place You Can’t Explain Until You Go
Patagonia National Park occupies Chile’s Aysén region where scale distorts time and silence feels physical. The Chacabuco Valley once functioned as one of Chile’s largest sheep ranches: fences carved land into parcels, livestock grazed intensively, wildlife movement stopped. Tompkins Conservation removed livestock, dismantled fence lines, restored native ecosystems, then donated everything to the Chilean state in 2018. Guanacos returned in significant numbers, pumas reclaimed predator roles, wetlands recovered, grasslands thickened. The reward accumulates through time outdoors rather than single dramatic moments. This is landscape mid-recovery, still carrying past traces, clearly moving toward balance. [Read more]
Monitoring the Patagonian Red Octopus
Twenty-one wildlife rangers, artisanal fishermen, and students gathered at Camarones for intensive training on Patagonian Red Octopus biology: a species reaching over 1 meter length and 7 kilograms weight, fished exclusively in the intertidal zone since the 1960s. Dr. Nicolás Ortiz and Dr. Silvina Van der Molen from IBIOMAR led the September workshop focusing on reproductive status monitoring, critical because mature specimens migrate to deep waters for spawning, spatially and temporally modeling the fishery. The MaRes Project training strengthens conservation capacity for emblematic artisanal fishery resources, ensuring communities possess technical skills to sustain long-term monitoring of marine ecosystems across Patagonia’s coast. [Read more]
R/V Falkor (too) Reaches 2M km² Mapped with New AUV Technology
Schmidt Ocean Institute’s R/V Falkor (too) reached 2 million square kilometers mapped after reconstructing its bow and adding the Kongsberg Hugin Superior AUV, capable of operating 6,000 meters deep for 72 hours continuously. [Read more]
Atlantic Right Whale Entanglement Threatens Juvenile Division
Three-year-old right whale “Division” was spotted off Jekyll Island with fishing line embedded in his blowhole and upper jaw. Responders removed some gear. Only 380 right whales remain, with just 72 reproductive females. [Read more]
Guy Harvey Foundation and FPL Mark Marine Education Milestone
Florida Power & Light contributed over $60,000 supporting Guy Harvey Foundation’s marine education program, training 100+ Florida teachers in 2025 with classroom supplies and field trip grants reaching Title I schools statewide. [Read more]
Humanities Artificial Intelligence Research Gets $11M Boost | HAVI 2025
Schmidt Sciences awarded $11 million to 23 teams developing AI tools for humanities research: decoding ancient texts, analyzing film narratives, mapping archaeological landscapes, and examining medieval manuscripts across archaeology, art history, and linguistics disciplines. [Read more]
Blue Carbon Measurement Method Refined for Coastal Wetlands
University of Rhode Island researchers identified a critical flaw in blue carbon measurement: “volumeless” organic matter dissolved in sediment porewater doesn’t contribute to marsh elevation. The study examined 23,000+ samples, refining carbon storage estimates globally. [Read more]
COP30 Adds Cultural Heritage to Ocean Action Agend
COP30 in Belem formally recognized culture and heritage in UN climate negotiations for the first time, adopting five cultural heritage indicators. The Virtual Ocean Pavilion hosted 2,500 delegates from 150+ countries discussing oceans as cultural spaces. [Read more]
What 550 days at sea taught me about belonging, teamwork, and creating safe spaces in remote environments
SEVENSEAS Travel Magazine — No. 133 June 2026
Coral Reef Field Training in Little Cayman: CCMI’s Summer Professional Courses
Reimagining Our Oceans: Five Art Shows Celebrating World Oceans Day
What WFP’s HungerMap LIVE Knows About Fisheries (Without Quite Knowing It)
Finding Ourselves on the Edges: Three Years on a Global Expedition
UNESCO Releases People and Nature Report: How UNESCO Sites Sustain Biodiversity and Communities Worldwide
