DR. GUY STEVENS

CEO & Co-Founder

Guy Stevens is the Chief Executive and Founder of the Manta Trust. He has spent the last 20 years studying mobulids all over the world and is one of the foremost experts on these species. He founded the Maldives Manta Conservation Programme in 2005 and after 11 years of research, he completed his PhD on the world’s largest population of reef manta rays at the end of 2016.

His conservation efforts in the Maldives have led to the creation of several marine protected areas at key manta aggregation sites, most notably at Hanifaru Bay. Internationally, he is part of a team which has driven the conservation of mobulids forward, resulting in the listing of all manta and devil rays in the Appendices of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (the Bonn Convention) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). He is the author of two books; the award-winning MANTA – The Secret Life of Devil Rays, published in 2017, and the Guide to Manta and Devil Rays of the World, published in 2018, and he has also published over 40 peer-reviewed research papers.

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THOMAS P. PESCHAK

Co-Founder

Thomas P. Peschak is National Geographic Photographer, Explorer and NGS Storytelling Fellow who specializes in documenting both the beauty and fragility of the world’s oceans, islands and coasts. For National Geographic Magazine he has produced 14 feature stories that cover a variety of natural history and conservation issues, from manta rays to marine protected areas.

Originally trained as a marine biologist, he embraced photojournalism 15 years ago after realizing that his photographs could have greater conservation impact than scientific statistics. Thomas is the Director of Storytelling for the Save our Seas Foundation, an organization he has been an integral part of for over a decade. He is a Founding Director of the Manta Trust and a senior fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers.