Mariasole Bianco

Mariasole preserves Italy's marine areas by innovating the marine conservation system through the model she created, SEATY, to contribute to the international 30X30 goal. She achieves large-scale public policy change through a systemic methodology of mindset shift and building an alliance of many stakeholders to transform our relationship with the ocean.

Mariasole has created a science and community-based approach to marine conservation that integrates the protection of biological diversity and human development, with the aim of bringing people closer to Blue Planet issues. In 2013, she founded Worldrise, a non-profit organization that has been working to conserve the Italian seas effectively and foster positive cultural change. Mariasole envisioned moving from a culture of delegating marine protection to large NGOs, whose approaches are often distant from citizens or tied to local micro-actions (e.g., beach cleanups), to a culture of educated ‘blue changemaking’. To that end, in 2019, Mariasole created SEATY (Sea+City), a program within Worldrise, which amplifies the impact of Marine Protected Areas by adding focus on biological restoration of the areas, accompanied by training implementers – people who become experts in marine protection issues and can contribute at multiple levels of engagement.



Mariasole believes that caring for the ocean has never been more relevant and that it is our responsibility to transform for the conservation of nature. Her approach is to empower people who have the potential to advance the future of conservation, to give back as global citizens, and to rise to the challenges of their generation. Mariasole has created free educational capacity building and leadership training opportunities to foster professional development and facilitate creativity, inclusiveness, and entrepreneurship of the future guardians of the Mediterranean’s natural heritage. Since its start, more than 7800 young people have participated in Worldrise's educational activities. Over a hundred have received professional training to become Marine Protected Area Managers, experts in helping to protect habitats and representative samples of marine life that can help restore ocean productivity and prevent further degradation. Worldrise has created four SEATY areas in Italy, and the recognition of the new managers allows them to work those areas and to continue specializing in the field.



To make the issue of marine environmental protection visible at the national political level, Mariasole founded and currently leads the Italian arm of the 30x30 campaign, the global goal to protect 30 percent of the oceans by 2030. She leads the Italian alliance of more than 60 conservation associations to achieve the goal in the Italian seas. The campaign has become a powerful complement to Worldrise’s mission. To achieve the 30x30 goal, Mariasole has developed an inclusive and collaborative approach within a blue changemaking alliance of environmental NGOs, citizens, media, businesses, and policymakers. In this context, SEATY serves as both a research laboratory and a pivotal intervention in the reconstruction of marine protected areas. Mariasole’s involvement in the 30x30 alliance aims to integrate SEATY’s practices into national policy, thus reinforcing its significance and impact.

Our planet is the Planet Ocean: home to the largest ecosystems on Earth, a food source for more than a billion people, covering approximately 70% of the Earth’s surface. At the same time, many people are unaware of the importance of the ocean and its intrinsic connection to life on Earth. The ocean provides the oxygen we breathe and absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and is crucial for many processes such as food supply and climate regulation. According to the UNESCO State of the Ocean Report (2022), the ocean is distressed. Marine ecosystems face serious threats, from pollution to climate change, overfishing to biodiversity loss. Ocean resources are not infinite and not immune from the impacts of human activities. Yet the ocean has an amazing ability to regenerate itself, and the international scientific community unanimously agrees on the efficacy of establishing marine protected areas (MPAs). In Marine Protected Areas, fish can reproduce and repopulate the surrounding areas (Reserve Effect and Spillover Effect), leading to a cascade of benefits that are reflected in the improvement of ecosystems. For instance, there are 166% more fish to be found within the MPAs than in similar areas outside them and marine biodiversity regenerates and increases by 21%.



Globally, there is a clear disparity in the establishment of protected areas for terrestrial and inland water areas versus marine areas: the former are much more covered by Protected Areas than coastal and marine ones. In both, conservation lags behind: there have been no clear tools to encourage increased conservation of the designated areas, nor effective management of restoration, nor support from investment, awareness and regulation. According to The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA), the most up-to-date source of data on protected areas, nowadays only 8.2% of the ocean is covered by Marine Protected Areas versus 16.1% of terrestrial and inland water protected areas. In Italy, only 10.6% of the 539,000 km² marine and coastal area is protected, compared to 21.6% of terrestrial and inland waters, with just 0.06% effectively managed. The impact on biodiversity is severe: of the 17,000 species in the Mediterranean Sea, 40% are at risk.



The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), adopted in December 2022, aims to conserve 30% of the planet by 2030, emphasizing ecologically representative, well-connected, and equitably governed protected areas. However, to achieve a common goal, it is necessary to overcome the current siloed structures of large marine NGOs. In Italy, these international and national organizations are not connected to a common systemic thinking framework. The national government frequently delegates the resolution of marine protection issues to these fragmented initiatives without activating a truly integrated policy strategy. As a result, small local marine conservation organizations operate at micro levels and lack the needed shared vision to achieve the 30x30 goal in Italy and beyond.

Mariasole’s goal is to work with communities to protect the marine environment. Her approach is science-based: beginning with public awareness, then moving to professional training to address gaps in marine environmental protection, while also building networks within professionals and policymakers to build standards for protection in the future.



Thanks to her natural inclination for scientific dissemination, Mariasole has led Worldrise as a key organization in marine protection in Italy, supporting Triblù – the Worldrise community – on several fronts. Using simple language to translate scientific data into more understandable concepts, she engages the community to reconnect people to the blue planet through books, podcasts, and TV appearances. Her book “Planet Ocean” is a compendium of marine science that is fascinating and understandable for all and has been translated into three languages. She has utilized children's TV shows to insert messages about ocean preservation: her avatar Merisun is the main character of the multi-awarded animated cartoon Acqua Team-Mission Sea, which has an educational mission to protect the sea from harmful human behavior. She is also a STEM ambassador for the young members of the community, creating Worldrise Ambassadors, a group of influencers, and utilizing their substantial social media followings. The community's main event is the Festivalmar, a traveling festival that celebrates the sea and promotes the positive role everyone can play in protecting it. In the last four years, she has produced 20 scientific documentaries on national and international marine environments, each achieving a TV share of 1.5 million people.



Worldrise educates and raises the next generation of Blue Changemakers to become custodians of the Mediterranean natural heritage by offering several training paths related to the fields of marine management. Mariasole aims to address the capacity gap in the national education system by facilitating the implementation of specific marine conservation and management training adapted for different school levels, from primary to high school. She is also partnering at the university institutional level to recognize these training programs dedicated to young people enrolling in marine science faculties as specialized degree programs. Worldrise capacity building camps and leadership trainings are the first environmental education leadership programs in Italy. In line with the goal of making conservation accessible, young participants are involved in free bootcamps to learn how to tackle marine conservation problems and how to find their own solutions in specific coastal areas of Italy. Approximately 3,000 young people participated, carried out their own projects, and received mentoring opportunities. Many of the alumni are now founders of environmental and social enterprises or are actively leading SEATY Camps, socio-civic initiatives, and research marine conservation projects.



In 2019, Mariasole invented SEATY (Sea+City) to directly apply her systemic strategy. It establishes Local Marine Conservation and Education Areas to protect stretches of coast with naturalistic value. Through a comprehensive strategy that embraces education, awareness, and scientific research, SEATY became an alliance platform for the public to experience and learn to take care of the sea. It represents an innovative solution to marine conservation based on a two-sided approach: foster more rigorous management plans in existing protected areas and set up new conservation areas, that will be recognized by the scientific community as OECM – Other Effective area-based Conservation Measure. So far, SEATY has directly involved more than 2000 people, including youths, students, and tourists, in marine conservation and awareness-building initiatives. Each area has a marine biologist, managers of the protected area who accompany residents and tourists on guided tours, and young people who are part of the Triblù community, who organize various marine conservation and protection activities such as beach cleanups or outreach activities during the summers. The synergy between marine science experts, local politicians, and involved young people has achieved important results in marine protected areas through Mariasole’s model. They effectively protected more than 184.170 square meters of coastal and marine environment in Italy, including 47.898 square meters of Posidonia oceanica seagrass, a fundamental ecosystem for the health of the Mediterranean Sea.



The third part of the strategy started when she realized that she needed a more systemic approach to influence norms and political attention. Reinforcing SEATY’s operations, she is leading the 30X30 Italian campaign, a network of more than sixty marine associations that engage companies, public administrations, media, and citizens. She recognizes the urgent need to end compartmentalization and expand alliances including different sectors of society. Since each marine area is under the jurisdiction of distinct regions and local governments, their implementation depends on broader coordination work that Mariasole is carrying out with local policymakers involved in the alliance. Since its launch, Mariasole has provided free capacity-building opportunities for Italian marine conservation associations that are part of the network. The courses include the development of effective strategies to bring positive change into communities and aim at fostering their professional capacity in fundraising youth engagement methodologies, science communication, and media positioning.



Mariasole's work with SEATY is gaining traction: ten PhD candidates across six European countries will study how education opportunities influence pro-environment behavioural change to deepen her impact in the long term. The goal is to emphasize the human role in conservation and promote biodiversity as a central focus of Mediterranean Ocean Literacy. PhD candidates will investigate how people's perception of marine biodiversity changes when they are provided with education and engage in exploration and knowledge activities. Also, with her role as an activator of the Next Generation Marine Leaders inside the World Commission on Protected Areas (IUCN), she is establishing guidelines for engaging youth and diverse stakeholders in marine conservation.

When she was just a child, Mariasole spent her summers in Sardinia, where she stood barefoot, almost always soaking in the sea, feeling like her own version of the Little Mermaid. When she was fifteen, Mariasole got her first scuba diving certification, and it was during those early dives that her passion for the underwater world truly blossomed. Mariasole also became keenly aware of its fragility and capacity to recover. It was then that she decided not only to protect these areas but also to be their voice by revealing their hidden wonders to the world, where people's eyes cannot reach.



After studying Environmental Sciences and Marine Environment Management in Genoa, she jetted off to Australia for a master's degree in marine Protected Area Management. During that time, she became involved in an awareness campaign to protect the Coral Sea, which led to a chance encounter with relevant personalities of marine conservation. Mariasole became a member of the steering committee of the World Commission on Protected Areas of the IUCN where she championed the next generation of conservation leaders. However, Mariasole's greatest passion has always been the Mediterranean Sea, and she was determined to bring back to her country what she would learn abroad. She founded Worldrise to effectively conserve the Italian seas and to empower positive change in people’s awareness.



Since 2015 she has been an integral member of the Kilimangiaro TV show, as an expert on ocean-related topics. She has traveled the globe, sharing the wonders of the sea as an author and presenter of acclaimed naturalistic documentaries that have reached millions of people. In 2018, Mariasole took on the role of lecturer in naturalistic communication at the University of Genoa, marking a pivotal moment in her career, although she later left academia in search of greater impact. Her inaugural TEDx talk unfolded her passion for the sea and commitment to safeguarding it, resonating with a global audience.