On the other side of the world, Faine Pearl Loubser spent her formative years exploring the Great African Seaforest, which stretches from the shores of her native South Africa northward to Namibia.
“My connection to the sea has really been instilled in me since I was a child from my parents — they both grew up in Namibia, which is a country just north of South Africa, on the West Coast. And they were deeply connected to the ocean,” Loubser shared.
Now a free diver and filmmaker, Loubser utilizes the power of film to document these human impacts on the flora and fauna of coastal marine ecosystems. She’s contributed her multimedia work to visual exhibitions, social media campaigns, and several film projects, most notably Craig Foster’s Oscar-winning documentary, My Octopus Teacher, TIDAL, and AZILALI: THEY DO NOT SLEEP, her directorial debut. Most recently, she helped create Forests of the Sea, a collective effort between several global marine conservation organizations to protect and restore kelp forests around the world.
Growing up and listening to her parents’ stories of their ocean adventures was a catalyst for Loubser to dive in and create some of her own. “[My dad] told these crazy stories about seals and growing up as a child, hearing the stories and getting a sense of what it’s like to connect to an animal that lives in the sea was deeply inspiring and moving for me.”
“My dad did diamond diving in his twenties, and during that time he found a Cape fur seal, a juvenile, washed up on the beach,” Loubser continued. “That seal was totally dehydrated, malnourished, and he had no idea what to do but wanted to help. He brought the seal back to his tiny town on the coast of Namibia, and fortunately was staying right next to a marine biologist who happened to be studying seals. And he asked this marine biologist what to do, and he said, “You have to give him fish. That’s how they get their warmth, that’s how you start to rehydrate them.” So my dad ended up developing this relationship with this seal, called it Nellie, which was short for Smelly, because it had a terrible smell. And this seal went in and out of his house, they stayed right next to the water.”
She added, “[My dad would] have to drive into the Sperrgebiet zone — this was the prohibited section where they’d dive for diamonds — which was a two-hour drive up the coast. And one day he was diving and had this seal arrive next to him and started swimming around him and playing with him. And my dad couldn’t understand because the seals there usually don’t interact — so my dad assumed that it was the seal that he’d come to befriend, Nellie. Turns out it was, and he came out of the water with him, got in the car, and they drove back home together.”
Inspired by these tales of human-ocean connection, Loubser has been exploring the beauty of the coastal ecosystems around her native Cape Town ever since — diving, surfing, swimming, and magnifying the stories of the Great African Kelp Forest.