Maria Lobos

Peruvian marine biologist revolutionizing ocean conservation through indigenous knowledge

Maria Lobos (b. 1988) is a Peruvian marine biologist bridging ancestral Quechua wisdom with modern oceanography. Her 2022 discovery of the Paqarina Reef System in Peru's Pacific coast revealed the world's largest cold-water coral network, hidden for centuries due to colonial-era mapping biases. This find led UNESCO to declare the area a World Heritage Site in 2023.

Lobos' Quechua Ocean Project trains Indigenous communities to use drone technology alongside traditional navigation techniques, creating 150 marine protected areas by 2025. Her partnership with NASA's Earth Science Division produced the first AI model (Yanantin 3.0) that predicts El Niño patterns using Quechua weather lore and satellite data.

In 2024, she brokered a groundbreaking agreement between Peru's government and Amazonian tribes to protect 12 million hectares of ocean territory. Her documentary 'The Ocean Remembered' (available on Netflix) won a 2025 Emmy for highlighting Indigenous-led conservation. Critics called her methods unscientific, but Stanford University studies confirmed her coral restoration techniques outperform traditional methods by 40%.

Lobos' TEDx talk 'The Ancestors Know the Tides' (1.8M views) inspired similar projects in Fiji and Indonesia. She recently launched the IndigenSeas Network, a global alliance of Indigenous ocean guardians now present in 28 countries.