About the People in Sharkwater

Captain Paul Watson
Paul Watson is the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society—an organization dedicated to research, investigation, and enforcement of laws, treaties, resolutions, and regulations established to protect marine wildlife worldwide.

• Co-founder of Greenpeace in 1972 and Greenpeace International, 1979
• Founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, 1977
• Field Correspondent for Defenders of Wildlife, 1976–1980
• Field Representative for the Fund for Animals, 1978–1981
• Representative for the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals, 1979
• Co-founder of Friends of the Wolf, 1984
• Co-founder Earthforce Environmental Society, 1977
• Director, National Board of the Sierra Club USA, 2003–present  

Watson majored in communications and linguistics at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. He has lectured extensively at universities around the world, and was a professor of ecology at Pasadena College of Design from 1990–1994. He was also an instructor for UCLA’s Honors Program in 1998 and 1999. Currently, Watson is a registered speaker with the Jodi Solomon Speakers Bureau of Boston and regularly gives presentations at colleges and universities in the United States, and at special events throughout world.

In 2000, Watson was chosen by Time Magazine as one of the environmental heroes of the 20th century.

Dr. Erich K. Ritter
Erich Ritter has a PhD from Zurich University in behavioral ecology, and is the only shark-human interaction specialist who professionally applies his expertise in the field. Ritter’s main area of expertise is in the body language of sharks; he also has a major interest in shark attacks and their causes. Many theories explaining the reasons sharks attack have been debunked through his experiments, and he has proposed new, contrary theories. He is the only shark attack expert to have recreated many typical attack scenarios with the respective species. His conclusions concerning possible reasons for shark attacks have opened new doors in this field of research.

Ritter is the senior scientist of Green Marine. His research group focuses on conditioning, agonistic display, and subordinate hierarchies. Most of these field projects are conducted by master and doctoral students from different universities. Dr. Ritter is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Hofstra University.

Ritter is the co-editor of Shark Info, a shark information service located in Switzerland that serves more than five hundred news stations in German-speaking Europe. Many of his mainstream articles on shark behavior have been translated into English. Ritter is the co-founder of the Hai-Stiftung in Switzerland and the Shark Foundation in the U.S., whose main focus is the protection of sharks through better understanding. The foundation is currently sponsoring several projects.

Ritter developed the first system for the interaction between sharks and swimmers, divers, and snorkelers (ADORE-SANE). This system allows safe swimming and interaction with any potentially dangerous sharks under different conditions. He has spent the last eight years collecting data from around the world. Besides some reef species, his primary focus is on bull sharks, lemon sharks, and great whites. Ritter has been extensively interviewed in magazines and on TV shows, where he has promoted his methods for shark-human interaction, and given explanations for shark attacks. Ritter holds workshops in the Bahamas, South Africa, and the Maldives on a regular basis.

Boris Worm
Boris Worm is a marine biologist and an Assistant Professor in Marine Conservation Biology at Dalhousie University in Halifax. His research focuses on the causes and consequences of changes in marine life, and its conservation on a global scale.

The open ocean is by far the largest geographic element on Earth, covering more than 70 percent of the planet by area, and an even larger percentage by volume. Humans now dominate many aspects of ocean life through the combined effects of overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution, and climate change. Many species, particularly large predators such as some tuna, billfishes, sharks, and turtles are being reduced to dangerously low population levels.

Apart from looming species extinction, there are wider ecosystem concerns. Large predators can play an important role in maintaining aquatic diversity and ecosystem health, and the elimination of some large predators and herbivores from inshore areas has triggered cascading ecosystem effects. These ecological chain reactions have contributed to the collapse of some coastal ecosystems. If similar changes occur in the open ocean, they are bound to be massive in scale, and probably difficult to reverse.

This looming crisis is the reason Boris Worm assesses changes in marine biodiversity—to understand both the consequences of these changes and the means of halting or reversing deleterious trends.

Carlos Pérez Cembrero
Carlos Cembrero was born in Madrid, Spain. His family was very concerned that their children, although growing up in a big city, have some contact with nature and wildlife. Cembrero spent his teenage years studying in the country near the beautiful Alberche River, surrounded by trees and hills. There, he learned to value animals, plants—and friendship. As a university student, Cembrero studied biological sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid.

His first professional occupations included work as a zoologist, sailing instructor, and crew officer for the Spanish Coast Guard patrol boats. During this period, Cembrero joined the environmental movement, building maritime educational programs, and developing the First Actions Team for Greenpeace Spain. Cembrero left that organization in 2001, along with ten colleagues, to protest the direction Greenpeace Spain was taking.

In an attempt to participate in what he considers true environmental activism, Cembrero joined the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, volunteering on the Farley Mowat during a six-month campaign that was highlighted by front-line environmental activism. After the Farley Mowat campaign in 2002, he joined a project in Costa Rica named MarViva—a fleet that patrols and surveys maritime-protected areas in cooperation with the government authorities in Central America.

Currently, Cembrero is the Director of Operations for Oceana in Europe. Oceana is a foundation focused on the research, protection, and documentation of marine habitats in the world’s oceans.

Patrick Moore, PhD
Dr. Patrick Moore has been a leader in the international environmental field for over thirty years. He is a co-founder of Greenpeace, served for nine years as the President of Greenpeace Canada, and seven years as a Director of Greenpeace International. As the leader of many campaigns, Dr. Moore was a driving force in shaping policy and direction as Greenpeace became the world’s largest environmental activist organization.

In recent years, Dr. Moore has been focused on the promotion of sustainability and consensus building among competing concerns. He was a member of the government-appointed British Columbia Round Table on the Environment and Economy from 1990–1994. In 1990, Dr. Moore founded and chaired the BC Carbon Project, a group that worked to develop a common understanding of climate change.

Dr. Moore served for four years as Vice President of the Environment for Waterfurnace International, a manufacturer of geothermal heat pumps that provide residential heating and cooling using renewable earth energy. He is now a director of NextEnergy Solutions, the largest distributor of geothermal systems in Canada.

As Chair of the Sustainable Forestry Committee of the Forest Alliance of BC from 1991–2002, he led the process of developing the “Principles of Sustainable Forestry,” which were adopted by a majority of the industry. In 2000, Dr. Moore published Green Spirit: Trees are the Answer, a photography book that also provides new insight into how forests work and how they can play a powerful role in solving many of our current environmental problems.

Dr. Moore currently serves as Chair and Chief Scientist of Greenspirit Strategies, a consultancy focusing on environmental policy and communications in forestry, agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture, mining, biodiversity, energy, and climate change.

• Honorary Doctorate of Science, North Carolina State University, 2005
• PhD in Ecology, Institute of Resource Ecology, University of British Columbia, 1974
• Ford Foundation Fellowship, 1969–1972
• Honours BS in Forest Biology, University of British Columbia

All photos courtesy of Sharkwater Productions

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• Learn more about Sharkwater and watch the movie trailer

• Video: The Making of Sharkwater

• Read an Interview with Rob Stewart, Director of Sharkwater

• Read more about Shark Finning