We we chose Al as a Fellow

Al is a marine ecologist working to develop market-based solutions to address marine conservation. A social entrepreneur with an unhealthy interest in corals, Al has spent the past decade researching and tackling marine environmental crises in tropical developing countries. He founded Blue Ventures, a science-led marine conservation organization, to develop and scale market-based approaches to catalyze conservation in some of the poorest communities.

All too often, marine conservation efforts fail because of market economics: the costs of actions far outweigh the perceived benefits of inaction. As a result, few conservation efforts are financially sustainable beyond the end of a grant, and fewer still harbor any hope of being replicated to scale and address the broader marine biodiversity crisis. Blue Ventures is working to overcome the conservation conundrum by anchoring its efforts in management approaches that demonstrate the economic benefits of sustainable fisheries.