Shark Poachers for National Geographic

Photographs from my first expedition with National Geographic in which I received the first Young Explorer Grant. The goal of this expedition was to expose the illegal shark finning practices by the Chinese and Taiwanese fishing industry. My work took me from Cocos Island and Corcovado National Park where I photographed the sharks and the illegal fishing, to Hong Kong and China where I covered the demand side of the story. This project was part of a larger initiative to expand park boundaries and increase the level of protection. This work was presented to the president of Costa Rica, and to policy makers who subsequently expanded the park boundaries and created the worlds largest marine preserve. Watch a short piece about this project here