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MARKETING & PROMO: National, regional, and subject-specific print features, excerpts, review coverage, broadcast and television interviews Blogger outreach, online ads, and social media campaigns Publicity and promotion in conjunction with author’s speaking engagements Outreach to subject-specific organizations, markets, and festivals Electronic and print ARCs Excerpts available KEY SELLING POINTS: Stewart was born in 1979, in Toronto, Ontario. He began underwater photography as a teenager, and became a trainer at 18 years old. He attended both Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute and Crescent School in Toronto as a youth. For four years, Stewart was chief photographer for the Canadian Wildlife Federation’s magazines. He also worked as a freelance journalist, winning numerous awards. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Western Ontario and studied zoology and marine biology in Kenya and Jamaica. Stewart got the idea to make the movie Sharkwater at age 22, when he discovered illegal longline fishing being done in the Galapagos Marine Reserve. He travelled through 15 countries for the next four years, studying and filming sharks and going undercover to confront the shark-fin industry. Sharkwater went on to win more than 40 awards at top film festivals. His follow-up film, 2012’s Revolution, built on Sharkwater, examining environmental collapse. In 2013 it was the highest-grossing Canadian documentary and garnered 19 awards from global film festivals. Also in 2012 Stewart released a book, Save the Humans, a biography detailing the importance of sharks in his life and the necessity to make a positive impact in the ocean. In 2016 Stewart launched a Kickstarter to fund Sharkwater: Extinction, a sequel to Sharkwater that was to focus on the 80 million sharks killed every year that are unaccounted for by scientists. He was working on this film at the time of his death. Stewart won more than 40 international awards for Sharkwater and 19 for Revolution. Sharkwater earned Stewart the Best Documentary and the Audience Favorite Award at the 2006 Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, the People’s Choice Award at the 2006 Atlantic Film Festival, and a Special Jury Award at the 2006 Hawaii International Film Festival. The film was also selected by the Toronto International Film Festival Group as one of the top ten Canadian films of 2006. In 2007 Stewart’s film won the Audience and Best Feature awards at the Gen Art Film festival. In 2008 Stewart received a Genie nomination for Best Documentary; a Genesis Award for Outstanding Documentary; and an Environmental Vision award at the 35th annual Vision Awards, held in Los Angeles. By 2013, some 27 countries and the European Union had banned shark finning. International waters are unregulated, but international fishing authorities are considering banning shark fishing (and finning) in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Finning is banned in the eastern Pacific, but shark fishing and finning continues unabated in most of the rest of the Pacific and the Indian oceans. In countries such as Thailand and Singapore, public awareness advertisements on finning have reportedly reduced consumption by 25 per cent. As of September 2018, 12 U.S. states and 3 U.S. territories had banned the sale or possession of shark fins. And in 2019 Canada outlawed the import and export of shark fins, becoming the first country to impose a national ban. Rob Stewart continues to be hailed as the most important voice in shark conservation, in spite of his death, and his efforts continue to impact the ways in which countries around the world deal with ocean-based conservation strategies.
