About Us

Steering Group

Jeff Ardron

Jeff is Director of High Seas Program at Marine Conservation Institute and co-lead on its Surveillance and Enforcement of Remote Maritime Areas (SERMA) project. Previously, for three years he was a senior scientific advisor on marine protected areas (MPAs) for the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation. He has also consulted widely, recently for marine planning projects in West Africa, Canada, and Europe. He serves on the IUCN World Commission on Protected areas as Advisor on MPA Design, Tools, and Software, and also serves as a Scientific Advisor on the High Seas MPA Task Force. He is a co-founder and current President of the Board for the Pacific Marine Analysis and Research Association (PacMARA.org) in British Columbia, Canada. He has worked in the fishing sector, NGO sector, in federal government, and within international conventions. Most recently, he is an active member of the Global Ocean Biodiversity Initiative (GOBI.org), serving on its Scientific Steering Committee. A specialist in marine spatial planning, systematic conservation design, and international maritime policy, a central theme throughout his work is the bridging of marine science with policy development.

Duncan Currie

Duncan Currie has practiced international law and environmental law for over 25 years, and over that time has advised organisations, corporations and governments on a wide range of environmental issues including climate change, the law of the sea, whaling, fisheries, Antarctica, nuclear, liability, biosafety, toxic and chemical, forestry, mining, and waste issues. He has particular interests in the law of the sea, especially fisheries and biodiversity, climate change in the oceans context, and renewable energy. He regularly attends international meetings on these topics. Duncan has advised the DSCC on bottom trawling issues since its inception.

Susanna Fuller

Susanna Fuller is the Marine Conservation Coordinator at the Ecology Action Centre (EAC), based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The EAC has been an active member of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition since 2005. Susanna has been working on marine conservation issues, and particularly the impacts of fishing for since the 1990's. Susanna recently completed her Phd. on marine sponges in the Northwest Atlantic. She has also done extensive policy work both at the international and national level in Canada, and assisted in a review of the implementation of the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement for the Canadian government. Susanna sits on the NAFO Working Group on Ecosystem Approach to Management. She also completed a research project together with other conservation organizations, on the impacts of fishing gear in Canadian waters.

Matthew Gianni

Matthew Gianni is an independent advisor and advocate for ocean conservation based in the Netherlands. He is a co-founder of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition and is currently the Political and Policy Advisor to the coalition. Matthew regularly speaks on marine conservation issues at a variety of international fora, including the United Nations General Assembly oceans working group (UNICPOLOS); the Fisheries Committee of the European Parliament; and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has actively participated in fisheries and oceans related negotiations at the UN General Assembly, the UN FAO, Conferences of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity and elsewhere. He has authored several reports related to fisheries and marine biodiversity on the high seas.

Andrea Kavanagh

For the past 16 years, Kavanagh has worked as a communications specialist and campaign director on a variety of environmental issues, including sustainable seafood, global climate change and national legislation to regulate toxic chemicals. In January 2011, Andrea Kavanagh became manager of the Protecting the Deep Sea Campaign, a project dedicated to stopping the destructive practice of bottom trawling. Kavanagh joined the Pew Environment Group in January 2008, as manager of the Marine Aquaculture Campaign and later managed the Antarctic Krill Conservation Project, a network of organizations promoting krill conservation.

Sebastian Losada

Sebastian Losada currently works as an oceans policy adviser at Greenpeace International, based in Spain. He has been involved with the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition since 2004, when as an oceans campaigner at Greenpeace Spain and as part of an at-sea expedition on board the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, he confronted the deep-sea fleets operating on the high seas of the North East Atlantic. Mr. Losada has combined his work in political fora with several at-sea expeditions to document both deep sea fisheries and the impacts of IUU fishing on the coasts of West Africa or the Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishery. Sebastian often collaborates with artisanal fishermen organisation and has been an active member of international networks to protect mangroves and other coastal habitats against the impacts of shrimp aquaculture.

Sian Owen

Sian Owen is coordinating the global strategy for the DSCC in 2011. She is founder and principal consultant of Sustainability Options Consulting, working to accelerate change toward a new global economic system based on triple bottom line principles - people, planet and profit. Her role with the DSCC draws on eight years of programme development, policy and partnerships experience within WWF-International's Global Marine Programme. Prior to her entry into the world of environmental advocacy, Sian spent several years in Asia and Europe working on national and regional media and marketing research.

Lisa Speer

Lisa Speer directs the International Oceans Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental organization dedicated to protecting natural resources and public health with offices in the United States and China.Ms. Ms. Speer conducts advocacy in a variety of international fora to promote integrated, ecosystem based management of human activities on the high seas, with a particular focus on marine fisheries. She has served on US delegations to many high seas fisheries negotiations, and has testified before Congress and the United Nations on a variety of high seas conservation and management topics.

Mirella Von Lindenfels

Mirella Von Lindenfels is an award winning communications expert and has been advising the DSCC campaign since 2004. With over 20 years' experience of media and communications work in the international non-governmental sector, including senior positions with Greenpeace and Amnesty International, Mirella founded Communications Inc in 2003. A specialist communicator in environmental issues, particularly in the oceans, she co-founded The International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) in 2006, with the aim of saving the Earth and all life on it.

Monica Verbeek

Dr. Monica Verbeek is the executive director of Seas At Risk, an independent non-governmental European association of environmental organisations concerned with the protection and restoration of the marine environment. She also serves as vice president of the South Western Waters Regional Advisory Council for fisheries and as member of the executive committee of the Long Distance Regional Advisory Council. Prior to becoming executive director she held the post of fisheries policy officer with Seas At Risk and served, amongst others, as representative of environmental organisations at the Advisory Committee for Fisheries and Aquaculture of the European Commission and as European coordinator for the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition. Protection and conservation of the deep sea has been one of her priorities ever since she joined Seas At Risk.