As coastal populations grow and water sports become more popular, more people are spending time in the ocean. And, as we know, where there are people in the sea, there will also be sharks.

Conservation success leads to healthier ecosystems. It means more sharks in places where they belong. But it also means that as human activity expands, the likelihood of us encountering one another increases. So what does coexistence look like today? And what might it look like in the future?

Like any wildlife story, there are positives and there will inevitably be tensions. During this Shark Trust project, and in this podcast series, we’ll explore both. We’ll look at scenarios which could escalate human-shark conflict, such as the impacts of ecotourism on shark populations, the significance of depredation (where sharks remove catch from a line) in recreational and commercial fisheries, bite mitigation methods such as detection technology, and the cultural and ecological importance of sharing space with these animals. There’s much work to be done to understand the issues, work with communities, and develop models of practice that enable us to co-exist with sharks, while preventing rollback of conservation measures.

During the series we’ll also unpack how media shapes narrative and we can change that, how climate change is shifting shark ranges, and explore how communities around the world are finding evidence-based ways to co-exist.

“Living with Sharks” isn’t only a future scenario, it’s happening now.

If there are any questions you’d like answered in the episodes, or topics you think we should tackle, comment below or email me at mark@sharktrust.org. This conversation belongs to all of us who use, love, and depend on the ocean.