Stefano Tricanico | Founder of DRIFTR

Stefano Tricanico is the founder of DRIFTR, an independent due diligence service that checks whether conservation projects are delivering what their reports claim. He is commissioned by trustees, family offices and philanthropy advisers, and he reports only to them. He has spent more than two decades working in remote and high-consequence environments: the Arctic and Antarctic, offshore and expedition vessels, and frontier regions where access and logistics decide whether a project works. He is a PTGA Senior Polar Guide. For more than ten years he has worked on operations against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, including patrol, inspection and enforcement deployments in Mexico's Sea of Cortez, Liberia, Suriname and French Guiana. In Liberia he trained Coast Guard personnel in vessel inspection and boarding. That work showed him how wide the gap can be between a protected area on a map and what actually happens in the water. He writes on conservation due diligence for STEP Journal, published by the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners. His article "Credible conservation" appeared in Issue 4, 2026. Based in British Columbia, Canada. Works worldwide.