Newsletter - July 2026

July belonged to the sharks. Shark Week gave us the occasion to publish two long articles, one on why sharks matter and why the fear surrounding them is out of proportion, the other on how two decades of research turned into law in Mozambique. Both appear below, along with the organisations behind them, Bite-Back Shark & Marine Conservation and the Marine Megafauna Foundation.

The month also took us to Dominica, where Christopher was guiding two swim with sperm whales trips. Being on the island for the trip gave us time with both of our partners there. Oceans Forward has moved a long way since we last wrote about the Coral Rescue Center, and three puppies from Saint Nicholas Animal Rescue travelled back with us as far as Miami, on their way to their adoptive families.

From the Caribbean to Zimbabwe, where the first Rhino Conservation & Safari Journey has now run, and to Kenya, where one seat remains for November.

Shark Week 2026 and What the Numbers Actually Say

Shark Week is one of the largest annual moments for shark awareness, reaching millions of people worldwide. It has been criticised for sensationalising the animals it features, and that criticism lands in places. It also puts an audience of that size in front of the subject once a year, which is an opening worth taking. We used it to share the science, following the example of Bite-Back Shark & Marine Conservation, whose campaigns work by replacing the fear with the figures.

Across a world of eight billion people, sharks are responsible for six or seven human deaths a year. Set that against other animals:

• Mosquitoes: more than 750,000 deaths a year
• Snakes: roughly 100,000
• Dogs: around 25,000
• Hippos, crocodiles and cows: each well ahead of sharks

The odds of a person being killed by a shark sit somewhere near 1 in 3.7 million. Fishing, by comparison, killed an estimated 80 million sharks in 2019. The danger runs overwhelmingly in one direction, and it is not the one the films suggest.

The second surprise is how little the animals have in common. More than 500 species have come through 450 million years of ocean history, and the great white most people picture is one of them. The epaulette shark walks on its fins across exposed reef and up to 30 metres of dry ground to reach the next tidal pool. The tasselled wobbegong lies on the seabed under fringes of skin that pass for seaweed, waiting for prey to wander close. The cookie-cutter shark, a few tens of centimetres long, fastens onto much larger animals and removes a clean circular plug of flesh. The basking shark, second largest fish in the world at around 11 metres, lives on plankton and turns up off south-west Britain each summer. There is no such thing as the shark.

The reel below introduces the species we featured through the week.

​

→ Read the full post: Why Sharks Are Important​

Meet Bite-Back Shark & Marine Conservation (United Kingdom)

Most shark conservation happens at sea. Bite-Back Shark & Marine Conservation works on the high street instead, and the logic behind that choice is straightforward: remove the profit and you remove much of the incentive to kill.

The charity was founded in the United Kingdom in 2004, after its campaign director asked during a scuba diving course what would happen if he met a shark, and found instead that sharks had become noticeably less common than a few decades earlier. That sent him looking into what was driving the decline. The main causes sat on land, in commercial fishing and in what people were buying.

Much of the charity's work since has gone into reducing the shark products sold in Britain. Its longest-running campaign closed the loophole that allowed travellers to bring dried shark fins into the country for personal use, and the Shark Fins Act received Royal Assent on 29 June 2023, banning the import and export of detached fins and products containing them. Bite-Back reports an 82 per cent fall in the number of UK restaurants serving shark fin soup. It also persuaded Asda to stop selling shark steaks, with Iceland Foods, Makro and dozens of smaller businesses following, and convinced Holland & Barrett to withdraw shark cartilage capsules from its 580 stores.

The other half of the work is perception. Bite-Back produces guidance for journalists on reporting shark encounters accurately, and a free education pack for schools built with First News.

It has more recently turned to the tinned tuna aisle, where the fishing method printed on the label decides how many sharks were taken alongside the catch. Tuna caught by pole and line is landed one fish at a time, which lets sharks and other non-target animals go. Look for the wording on the tin before you buy: caught one by one using pole and line, or pêché à la canne on a French label. The blue MSC label is the other one to look for, marking fisheries independently assessed as sustainably managed.

Bite-Back recommends choosing tuna caught one by one using pole and line.

→ Bite-Back Shark & Marine Conservation on our partner page​

Meet Marine Megafauna Foundation (Mozambique)

Where Bite-Back works on the high street, the Marine Megafauna Foundation works on the evidence.

MMF was founded in 2009 by two marine scientists, Dr Andrea Marshall and Dr Simon Pierce, building on research that had started at Tofo Beach in 2003. Its mission is stated plainly as saving ocean giants from extinction, and its Mozambique programme runs along roughly a fifth of the country's coastline, covering whale sharks, bull sharks, zebra sharks, manta and devil rays, wedgefish and smalleye stingrays.

The method rests on recognising individual animals. Every whale shark carries a pattern of pale spots behind its gills that is unique to it and stays the same for life, so a clear photograph identifies that particular shark without anyone needing to catch or mark it. Photograph the same animal a year later, further along the coast, and its movements begin to take shape. Acoustic tags, satellite tags, genetic sampling and fisheries surveys fill in the rest. What turns all of it into evidence is time. A single season shows where animals were seen over a few months, while 20 years of records show whether the same individuals return and whether sightings are becoming rarer.

That is what made the law possible. A new commercial fishing law took effect on 8 January 2021, giving whale sharks, manta rays and all mobula species full protection in Mozambican waters, which means they can no longer be targeted, retained or sold. It also required sharks to be landed with their fins still attached and gave community fishing councils the power to establish local no-take zones. Behind it lay two decades of MMF records, including an 88 per cent fall in manta ray sightings off Tofo, and its research valuing manta ray tourism in Inhambane Province at US$10.9 million a year to dive operators. Four Important Shark and Ray Areas have since been designated along this coast on the strength of MMF's survey and tagging data, cited by name in the IUCN assessments.

Our connection goes back to the beginning. Christopher Bartlett met Andrea Marshall and Simon Pierce while diving in Mozambique in 2009, as Andrea was completing the work that would split the manta ray into two different species. Until that year all manta rays were treated as a single species. Her paper separated the reef manta from the giant oceanic manta, a distinction that matters because the two differ in range, movement and exposure to fishing, and a measure written for one can miss the other. Indigo Earth Foundation supports the organisation through annual donations.

→ Read the full post: How the Marine Megafauna Foundation Protects Sharks in Mozambique​

Coral Restoration Moves Forward with Oceans Forward (Dominica)

Corals get sick, and in the Caribbean the illness to watch is stony coral tissue loss disease. Oceans Forward divers treat it with antibiotics on affected colonies in the Soufriere Scotts Head Marine Reserve, colony by colony, and that steady maintenance runs underneath everything else described here.

We visited the team again in July and found the project a long way on from the one we wrote about in our earlier article. They have bought the building next door to the Coral Rescue Center, which gives them an off-site habitat where nascent coral can be incubated and raised in security, ready to repopulate the reefs when they are needed.

​

Two things happened while we were there. The first was a coral tree, a device Oceans Forward designed themselves to concentrate corals at their original location so that spawning and the chances of successful reproduction both rise. Where the trees have been installed, reproduction in the surrounding area has increased. An earlier one had been damaged, so the team built a reinforced version and put it in during our visit. Our own contribution was modest: we kept the boat while they worked below.

The second was the spawning. Corals release eggs and sperm into the water on only a handful of nights each year, and the team went out at the end of the day, several evenings running, to collect what was released. The eggs fertilised, confirmed under the microscope, and the young corals then settled and attached to the supports prepared for them in the tank. The nursery is now under way, and with it the full cycle from spawning to reef, held on land rather than left to chance.

The antibiotics, the tanks and the trees all run on donations.

→ Support the Oceans Forward Coral Rescue Center​

Flight Angels and Saint Nicholas Animal Rescue (Dominica)

Three puppies flew from Dominica to Miami in July, and they travelled with passengers who had never met them before that morning.

That is what a flight angel is. Adopting a rescue dog from Dominica means getting the animal to the United States, and the cheapest way to do that is in the cabin with a traveller already making the journey. The escort handles the paperwork at check-in, keeps an eye on the dog through the flight, walks it through passport control at Miami and hands it over to the person waiting on the other side. The transfer costs around US$150 a dog, which Saint Nicholas Animal Rescue covers.

The puppies on this flight were born at the rescue centre, to a stray mother who arrived carrying a litter of 13.

​

Saint Nicholas Animal Rescue is run entirely by volunteers and provides shelter, emergency after-hours rescue and rehabilitation for animals across Dominica. It currently houses more than 90 dogs, along with goats, cats, donkeys, cows and a horse. Alongside the shelter work it runs spay and neuter services for dog owners at a reduced fee, which is the part that changes the picture over time rather than one animal at a time. The stated aim is a Dominica where a visitor arrives and finds no stray dogs.

Indigo Earth Foundation supports the programme through annual donations and by finding flight angels, and funded the transfer described here. More are needed, and both ways of helping are open to anyone reading this: fly the route and take a dog with you, or contribute to the veterinary care, the food and the sterilisation programme behind every adoption.

→ Saint Nicholas Animal Rescue​

Our First Rhino Conservation Trip (Zimbabwe)

Our first Rhino Conservation & Safari trip ran from 12 to 25 July. Three travellers, one family, made the first departure.

The trip divides into three sections: two days at Victoria Falls, seven days on the conservation programme, and five days on safari at Jozibanini.

Victoria Falls opened with a school and township visit, then a day at Painted Dog Conservation, one of the initiatives working to safeguard African wild dogs, and the Elephant Express, the train that runs alongside Hwange National Park and turns the journey to the lodges into a game viewing session of its own.

From there the trip moved its focus to the rhino programme. Over the days that followed the group worked on fire guards, trained with the Cobras Community Wildlife Protection scouts and spent an afternoon with the K9 anti-poaching unit. Preparations for a rhino translocation were running alongside, and the guests spent a morning gluing 1,000 flags to welcome the animals. They also walked with the habituated white rhinos in the sanctuary, on foot and at close quarters, with game drives running through those days.

The programme is built that way on purpose. Activities follow what the projects need that week and what the season allows, rather than a fixed list repeated on every departure. Fire guards are work for the early dry season, when a burn can still be controlled. By October the bush is too dry for that, and the days go to whatever the projects need then.

The time in the villages went further than a visit. At the schools the family talked about artificial intelligence and about life in Denmark, then took the children through the games played there, including a medieval one, and ran an ice hockey training session on the ground. The hockey equipment stayed behind for the children to keep using.

They also brought equipment for the programme, among it a computer, a GoPro and a camera, and trained the community scouts on how to use it. The scouts have put the camera to work already.

It closed with five days at Jozibanini, one of the remotest parts of Hwange National Park, where the days focused on bush walks, cycling, game drives and the underground hide.

Elephants were fewer than usual across the whole area. The rains this year have been well above normal and water was still lying across the park in July, so there was no reason for elephants to walk to the pans, and they spread out instead. Wildlife is never a given, and a park where animals can drink wherever they choose is a park in good health.

We are gathering the photographs from the journey and will share them shortly.

The next journey runs from 3 to 16 October 2027. October is the last month before the rains, when the pans are the only water for miles and the animals have to come to them.

→ See the full itinerary​

One Seat Remaining on Our Conservation & Safari Trip (Kenya)

One place remains on the Conservation & Safari Trip to Kenya, 8 to 20 November 2026. Thirteen days, six participants at most, guided throughout by Caroline Leclerc.

The trip opens with a game drive in Nairobi National Park, then the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and the Giraffe Centre.

It then moves to Enarau Conservancy, where the conservation work sits and where the group stays at the researchers' base. This is the part that puts participants alongside the people doing the job year round: habitat restoration, vegetation and bird surveys, camera trapping, wildlife monitoring and tree planting. The community side runs from here too, with the health outreach in the surrounding area and beadwork with the Maasai women.

The road towards the Mara takes in two stops. The Mara Elephant Project opens up its work across the landscape, from monitoring and response to the technology now behind it, including a drone demonstration. At the Olchoro Rhino Sanctuary the group walks among habituated southern white rhinos on foot.

The safari section follows, and Christopher Bartlett joins here, after attempting to complete the 50 km Mara Ultramarathon on 14 November in support of the Mara Elephant Project and other conservation work in the Mara. Three nights in Mara Naboisho Conservancy bring predator sightings with a fraction of the vehicles, and bush walks, which conservancy rules allow and the national reserve does not. Saruni Basecamp opens its own initiatives, among them the Enjoolata Educational Centre and its collection of Maasai cultural heritage, the women-led workshop at Basecamp Maasai Brand and the tree nursery raising seedlings for restoration work. One evening is given to a bush dinner and Maasai storytelling around the fire. The Maasai Mara National Reserve closes the wildlife section before the return to Nairobi.

If November 2026 is full by the time you read this, the next edition follows soon after in November 2027. Interest in this trip has been strong enough to open that one to a larger group, up to 12, built on what the first two departures have taught us.

→ See the full itinerary (November 2026 trip)

Two more white rhino bulls arrived at the Community Rhino Conservation Initiative sanctuaries in Hwange at the end of July, brought from Malilangwe Reserve, the same source as the previous four and one of CRCI's most important partners. That takes the programme another step forward on communal land.

We have also agreed to fund a solar installation for the dormitories at Nkuringo Community Secondary School, working with Gorilla Junction Foundation, so that boarders can read and study after dark. More on that once the system is running.

Christopher is in Papua New Guinea as this edition goes out, and we expect to bring back news from the partners and projects there next month.

If a project in this edition has caught your eye, there is a way in. One seat remains in Kenya (November 2026). South Africa, 2 to 14 May 2027 and Zimbabwe, 3 to 16 October 2027 are both open for booking now, and the next Kenya journey follows in November 2027.

Beyond travelling, the organisations described above take donations, welcome volunteers, and gain something every time their work is passed on to someone new.

Our thanks to everyone reading, giving, volunteering and travelling alongside these projects. The work carries on because of it.

—
Indigo Earth Foundation