00:00:52.480she volunteered and worked at several conservation organizations in Argentina.
00:00:56.420She received a degree in nature conservation in South Africa and worked in nature reserves and communities in Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Tanzania.
00:01:06.120In Argentina, Deanna coordinated field activities at the Hooded Greby Project for three seasons and worked as a field technician on rewilding Argentina's project to reintroduce giant anteaters and red and green macaws.
00:01:20.680She currently lives in Patagonia and manages the Patagonia Azul Project's Parks and Communities
00:01:26.840program. Oh, Deanna, this is so exciting and also feels very full circle to be speaking with you
00:01:39.920today. I had mentioned a bit before we started the official interview that I fell in love with
00:01:47.920the wild in Patagonia, as well as, well, how could I say this? The podcast idea came to me
00:01:56.000driving the dirt roads through Argentina and Chile. And so even just the few moments we got
00:02:03.460to talk before this, I started being transported back to a decade ago when I was so naive or I
00:02:14.740don't know how to say it, but just at the beginnings of this journey with the podcast. So
00:02:20.420I'm really looking forward to connecting and so happy to be transported back to the land that
00:02:27.940you dedicate so much of yourself to. Thank you, Ayanna, for having me. I'm also super excited.
00:02:35.980As I told you just now, I have been listening to For the Wild podcast for a long time, and we
00:02:42.700always share these episodes that we like most and we listen to them on the long roads in
00:02:49.460Badawania because the senses are huge here so potfels are the best way to to travel and to
00:02:57.760to learn about things that happen elsewhere in the world and and have philosophical conversations
00:03:06.200so I'm really really excited to have this conversation with you and I'm so happy you
00:03:11.400know where I am and how it looks like yeah oh I'm remembering the dirt roads the long distances
00:03:20.020I think that really captivated my heart to be in a place that was so vast and well although I
00:03:31.240am reminded of this land I'd love if you could share with listeners
00:03:35.640details about this landscape that you're on and kind of take us there, transport us to what it
00:03:43.480feels like and looks like and smells like even. I think that'd be a really beautiful way to ground
00:03:49.580this conversation. Yeah, definitely. Patagonia is at the southern tip of South America in Argentina
00:03:57.160and Chile. And there are two very different parts in Patagonia. There are the mountains
00:04:03.260in the Andes. And it's full of lakes and forests, which make it very, very beautiful and diverse
00:04:10.680and beautiful to hike. And then the winds go over the Andes from Chile and all the rain
00:04:18.060falls down there. And after that, the clouds are dry. The wind continues, but dry, completely dry.
00:04:25.160And then a big desert forms. It's not a desert like sand dunes, but a step. It has thorny bushes
00:04:33.160and grasses. And then where I am is already on the Atlantic side. And I live on a very,
00:04:41.220very wild coastline with huge rocks and big waves and lots of wind. And the ocean is very,
00:04:48.700very, very blue. And what's special about this place is that we have more than 60 islands.
00:04:55.140And the islands are teeming with wildlife. There's sea lions and penguin colonies and
00:05:01.260giant petrels and cormorants and then in the ocean and the water we have four different species of
00:05:07.920whales and two or three different species of dolphins and yeah it is it is amazing to be here
00:05:15.480with all this wildlife surrounding it's one of the places where you can see wildlife the easiest
00:05:21.260because it's so it's so bundled there on the islands that where the colonies are and this
00:05:29.060place, what is also very remarkable is that Patagonia used to be inhabited by ancestral
00:05:35.660tribes, people that lived here and had lived here for 6,000 years before the white colonizer
00:05:43.560arrived. And first, it were just explorers. And then, well, the people that came to colonize.
00:05:50.020Nowadays, it's sad that there's nothing left of those people that lived here before,
00:05:56.380but their paintings in some rock caves and the archaeologists that dig out some of the things
00:06:03.380they had. But it was a very, very drastic change from these people to the white people bringing0.99
00:06:11.740the sheep in and killing off even the guanacos and the native wildlife that was here. So I think0.99
00:06:19.120it's always very important to remember that Bataonia still seems like a very wild place,0.99
00:06:25.220but it is actually very tamed already or very desertified by the human. And what I am working0.97
00:06:33.300on here now is on the ocean, which is going the same path to being desertified.
00:06:41.760Oh, thank you for sharing all that. And I'd love to hear more about this path to desertification
00:06:51.600that you just spoke about on the ocean and maybe also to give some more background on
00:06:59.940Rewilding Argentina and the work you've been doing across the realms of conservation down there.
00:07:08.340So Rewilding Argentina is the organization that was born when Doug and Chris Tompkins
00:07:15.680came down to South America and started buying land in order to give it back to the state.
00:07:23.160You know, what I just said is that colonizers came and took big swaths of land for themselves
00:07:29.200and colonized it with sheep. And Doug and Chris did exactly the opposite, reversed this process by
00:07:37.260buying the land back and donating it to the states of Chile and Argentina.
00:07:44.700that's something they started doing and then now it's rewilding argentina that keeps
00:07:51.720this legacy alive and and keeps doing this work and halfway we have learned that just buying the
00:08:01.320land and donating it to the state is not enough because many species were already extinct so
00:08:07.300we started this rewilding process where we started bringing back the species that were extinct and
00:08:14.180also controlling the invasive species that are everywhere. And the oldest and most important
00:08:21.900project we have for now is in the north of Argentina in a big wetland. It's called the
00:08:27.780IberĂĄ wetlands, where we have reintroduced the jaguar, which was extinct in that province,
00:08:33.940among 10 other species that were also brought back. And then the youngest project is this one
00:08:39.620that where I am at is called Patagonia Azul because that means blue Patagonia because it is
00:08:47.680on the Atlantic Ocean. And we aim to create a huge marine protected area here. We are working on
00:08:55.940little reserves, provincial reserves that were created by the province long ago. And we are also
00:09:04.460So inside a biosphere reserve that was declared by the UNESCO, but that actually means nothing in the Argentinian law.
00:09:14.120It's just a declaration that helps us to say that internationally, this place was viewed as an important site for conservation.
00:09:22.660So we took the name of this biosphere reserve, Patagonia Azul, and we aim to protect around 100,000 square kilometers of this ocean that we have here.
00:09:35.340That is so, so important to sustain the life on Earth.
00:09:40.800That's really exciting and healing work.
00:09:47.600I feel like I'm standing in these places with you. And I wanted to read something from your
00:09:56.740website, Rewilding on Argentina. And it says, quote, Rewilding Argentina is a foundation created
00:10:03.600to confront and reverse the crisis of species extinction and the resulting environmental
00:10:09.340degradation to restore the healthy functioning of ecosystems and to promote the well-being of
00:10:15.560local communities, end quote. And so I'm wondering, I'm trying to, I guess, see a fuller picture of
00:10:23.240what it takes to rewild and restore. Of course, speaking about the reintroduction of jaguar,
00:10:31.380but what else has to happen on the ground, especially with landscapes that have been
00:10:37.380degraded and land use change has occurred over the years of colonization with herding,
00:10:44.760sheep herding and I'm sure other development projects so I don't know if I want to ask what's
00:10:52.320the first step but more what is the process because I would imagine it's very full in scope
00:10:59.860yeah and that is a very good question because I could say some biological things that you could
00:11:07.900do but actually the most important first step that you have to do in any conservation project
00:11:13.700And I think everyone will agree who lives on the ground and does what I do is to get to know the community and be part of the community of the people that live here.
00:11:27.780Because they are the ones who've lived here for longer than we have.
00:11:33.880And they are generally not aware of the need of the changes that we are aware of.
00:11:42.300At least I come from the big city in Buenos Aires and I know I have traveled and I've read and I've seen and I've studied what's happening to the planet and I've felt it in my own body and I've seen many things.
00:11:57.360And so I come into this small town where all this is just far away talk that they are not aware of very often and something that they don't don't realize in their own lives yet.
00:12:09.820and you come and tell them that now their life has to change
00:12:13.540and now they have to do something else
00:13:03.400so what is most important in this process is to get along well with the community and have them
00:13:09.000on your side this what I just said is in every manual and in every class and it's known already
00:13:16.160because it happens I think every time in every project it's the most difficult thing to do
00:13:22.360and I always very surprised when I see how maybe a fishing industry comes into this town and
00:13:30.520gives people a lot of jobs but we with our project we also aim to give people a lot of jobs with the
00:13:38.380tourism nature tourism industry and other things too but it's a longer process so they can't see
00:13:45.160it and so yeah what we're working on now mainly is on bringing the community here into the protected
00:13:52.900area into the place where we work to make them feel how important it is to be connected with
00:13:59.580nature and make them see everything there is because most of them haven't even gone into the
00:14:06.680ocean. Most of them don't know what the wildlife looks like on the islands. Many people in this
00:14:14.040town called Camarones don't have the possibility to get on a boat and go to the park, to the
00:14:22.760islands, see all the wildlife that is there. And even worse, if they had boats, some couldn't even
00:14:28.680go because most of the coastline is private ranches that have owners that don't let people
00:14:36.120go through their ranch to access the coast. So it's basically blocked for the people. The park
00:14:42.600has no access. And what we do at Rewilding Argentina through the ranch that we purchased
00:14:48.240a few years ago that has a long coastline is to give people access to the park, to the ocean,
00:14:55.600to their islands to the wildlife that is there and show them the treasure that they have right
00:15:00.440before their their doors i'm really grateful that you brought up the challenges of community
00:15:10.100unification because i think this is gosh it's nuanced and challenging and there's so many
00:15:22.240words I could think of but I I understand what you're speaking about it with you know how to
00:15:30.120build inroads into communities and I would love to even hear a bit more about whether some of the
00:15:38.280challenges some of the wins that you've had what you've seen work on psychological levels because
00:15:45.700you know we've all been conditioned and raised in different ways and our belief systems and our
00:15:51.360value systems stem from so much input. And I could imagine coming into a town and telling people
00:16:00.540they're doing something wrong is not a great conversation starter. And it's not a great way
00:16:06.860to build trust. And so, you know, I would, I hear that part of that trust building and relationship
00:16:14.000building is providing access to community members who hadn't had that for potentially hundreds of
00:16:20.480years. But there's also, of course, the economic discussion of if you take a community's way of
00:16:28.860supporting themselves off the table or are saying that's not good for the environment, but what
00:16:34.840other choice do they have? And so, of course, you brought up a bit about ecotourism. So maybe we
00:16:41.680could talk about alternative economics in ecotourism or otherwise and the benefits and issues
00:16:48.460there and and maybe just other stories of how you've built trust and what have been the hard
00:16:56.540moments that you've gotten through and where you see people really starting to shift and change
00:17:03.960their belief systems okay so i'll start with the last question that is the alternative economy that
00:17:12.440we are proposing to them so we we did this already in the Iberra wetland in in the north of Argentina
00:17:22.160and it it has worked perfectly but obviously that was another context so here we went for the same
00:17:29.400model where we say nature tourism in this area could create so many jobs and so much income and
00:17:36.360And so we started giving courses and workshops to them on how to do these new jobs, you know, like guiding and diving, snorkeling and hiking.
00:17:49.680Well, we need guides for everything, for all of these activities.
00:17:52.880And we could do these all in the ranch that we bought.
00:17:56.580Or you have this huge and beautiful bay where you can dive very safely and snorkel and kayak and everything.
00:18:04.460So we could do this, but as I said, they still very much believe that they are a fishery
00:18:12.120town, even though they're not, they're not really, not many people live off the fishing
00:18:17.340industry, but anyway, and the way of approaching them, the best way we found is when they see
00:18:24.040that you are a human being just like them and that what you do is just a job too, and
00:18:30.680that you have a big passion for something that they love too and when you get to that point where
00:18:36.520you connect to a person in that way then you've won then they there's a spark of trust that that
00:18:46.640you can build on to we have a few of those examples and obviously you try to do that with the most
00:18:54.160people possible but it's impossible to do it with everyone and so what we also do is we take people
00:19:01.940we take mainly the the school children to our park camping having amazing experiences in the
00:19:09.400wild with them so that they can connect with us but also with the land and with the ocean so we
00:19:15.980have a little ocean club where we teach children to swim and to snuggle and take them to different
00:19:22.120points of the park that they've never seen before and we take them to the islands and show them the
00:19:29.220wildlife and then also we we always teach them that there are so many more opportunities than
00:19:35.860what they've seen so far and that they must just be curious and and explore and do what they really
00:19:43.380love to do and not just for the money as long as they can choose obviously and then further we do
00:19:50.880another work that is comparing how much really comes in from the fishing industry
00:19:57.820and how much we could generate by alternative economic activities such as tourism. But we also
00:20:06.140explored regenerative ocean farming and holistic ranch management. And well, we developed a whole
00:20:14.540local veggie garden to produce local food so we're not only focused on tourism because we know that
00:20:22.080well the pandemic taught us that that is not enough but this little town is so full of
00:20:28.740opportunities that for now very few people are seeing so for me as a human as a young woman
00:20:35.700it's also amazing to explore and that is what actually is the best thing about this job for me
00:20:43.280to be here to have so many opportunities and being able to to just explore what's good what's not
00:20:51.780good what works what doesn't and yeah I think that is that is very exciting and and also to
00:20:59.140see how people react to everything and and how they feel how they see it because sometimes you
00:21:07.340bring very amazing ideas from from the world and and it's just out of context or out of the time
00:21:13.580it's not right but not the right moment so it's it's been very interesting and challenging for me
00:21:20.160but also also fun yeah i think there's something to sparking people's creativity
00:21:30.360both your own of course but the communities because so many of us feel stuck or think
00:21:38.220there's only a certain amount of options but to be able to stretch and expand and inspire each other
00:21:48.660and feed each other's curiosity of what else is possible you know how can we either make money
00:21:55.820in different ways or what can we do to support each other without money so we don't need to rely
00:22:01.220on capitalism in the same ways because our basic needs like food are being provided that's also
00:22:07.980better for us because it's local and so on and so forth. I really appreciate the holistic way
00:22:15.060you understand preservation of community and ecology. It's, you know, it's really hard.
00:25:59.100Indiana, I feel you. I love that raw and intense and aggressive wildness. It's like nothing else
00:26:12.620and it moves me and changes me and humbles me and I'm so grateful to feel the earth so potently
00:26:23.360And I also am called by these places to protect them and to be with them and to push myself out of a lot of comfort. But yeah, the comfort is just not worth the experience of living somewhere so epic and forceful.
00:26:46.700And I really hear the magic in your voice and the magic of the land speaks through you. It's beautiful. And I guess I realize how unique Argentina is in its conservation efforts.
00:27:02.240and there's a quote from Rewilding Argentina where it says, quote, currently Argentina along
00:27:09.680with Uruguay is one of the countries with the greatest loss of animal species in South America.
00:27:15.540The prospect is discouraging but at the same time in Argentina we have an enormous potential to
00:27:22.060restore our ecosystems through wilding. We are fortunate to have a relatively well-consolidated
00:27:28.120national park system with rooms for expansion, as well as the knowledge and technology to bring back
00:27:34.260lost species, end quote. So I guess I'm wondering, what role do national parks and national policy
00:27:42.980play in Argentina's conservation efforts? Well, the National Parks Administration is
00:27:49.900the oldest organization here, conservation organization, and the strongest. In Argentina,
00:27:56.580we need to pass two laws in order to create a national park because we are a very federal
00:28:02.880country and we have a lot of national parks very well managed by the national park system
00:28:10.740but it it wouldn't grow as much when it for the the NGOs from Argentina rewilding Argentina but
00:28:19.120also there are many others that also work every day to create new national parks and I think
00:28:26.380on earth we are doing pretty well or i think we have to keep working more mainly on the ocean
00:28:33.940because only less than 10 percent of our ocean is protected in real marine protected areas but
00:28:41.040even there it is still allowed to fish and also they were created in areas where there were very
00:28:48.420little fishing vessels working so what we are trying to do here is to reach the the agreement
00:28:57.440that we've signed with all the other countries to reach 30 percent of our ocean protected before
00:29:04.8402030 and well we still have 20 percent to go so we have a lot of work to do and the the marine
00:29:16.060predicted area that we are proposing is more than 100,000 square kilometers big. Well, that's
00:29:22.940what we hope for. And it's also a very heavily fished area. But in that sense, the National
00:29:31.100Parks Administration is a very good stakeholder of ours, but we constantly push them to do more,
00:29:39.740As I think is a role in society, the NGOs pushing the state to do more and to do better, we really rely on each other and we work together to do this.
00:29:52.540And as we work together, obviously, sometimes there are problems, but that only demonstrates that we really work.
00:30:01.020So I think obviously what is most important is to rewild, to bring back the species to the national parks where they've been extinct because as habitat is lost between different parks, connection is lost and then species go extinct faster.
00:30:18.540So we need to work more on establishing corridors for the species between parks
00:30:24.320and to really protect the species within the parks and to make parks much bigger
00:30:29.540because otherwise some species who need a lot of habitat don't have enough.
00:30:34.860So those are our worries, I think, at this time,
00:30:39.460as well as invasive species, which are very, very difficult to control,
00:30:45.520which are a big problem. And for the state, that is often way too expensive to do. So I think we
00:30:54.760are also a good ally in that sense, where we try to do the best we can to control some species that
00:31:02.780are really, really bad for the wildlife or the native species. Gosh, the invasive species
00:31:09.060topic is such a challenging one because it's hard to know sometimes how to deal with these
00:31:20.500invasive species. I'm not, you know, I don't feel usually in favor of using poisons and stuff like
00:31:29.540that to kill invasive species, which I know are done in some places. And I've had conversations
00:31:36.180with people who are completely against invasive species and think that no matter what they should
00:31:43.280be removed by any means possible to protect the native species and other people have more of a
00:31:51.060outlook of well what are the invasive species offering us why are they growing here is there
00:31:58.200some type of benefit or can we understand the earth is ever changing and that species are
00:32:04.220moving around the planet all the time especially plant species with seeds on the wind and you know
00:32:11.200in the feathers of birds and things like that so i guess that kind of leads me to this question
00:32:18.120around acknowledging the biodiversity loss and then the scope of what there is still to lose
00:32:24.860and the nature conservancy in argentina writes quote argentina is emblematic of latin america's
00:32:31.920abundance of life and ecosystems. The country's 18 ecoregions form a complex territory that
00:32:38.540includes a subtropical zone, the Antarctic, the tallest mountains in the Americas,
00:32:44.360and some of the Atlantic's ocean's greatest depths. According to the National Biodiversity
00:32:49.760Strategy, Argentina is the habitat of 1,002 bird varieties and hundreds of reptile, mammal,
00:32:57.520and amphibian species. Unfortunately, 25% of them are under the threat of extinction according to
00:33:04.360the International Union for Conservation of Nature, or the IUCN, end quote. So there's this general
00:33:12.160question that I am feeling is like, can we even fully understand the scope and scale of biodiversity
00:33:19.620loss, but maybe a more specific question would be around something you discussed during the
00:33:28.540Global Biodiversity Festival that the Tompkins Conservation put on, which is you discussing how
00:33:34.380biodiversity was instrumental in the recovery of the Iberia wetlands following forest fires.
00:33:41.460Yeah, I guess I'm wondering if you can explain a bit more about this process and the ecosystem-wide
00:33:47.640interdependence that comes from biodiversity. Yeah. So it's exactly what you said. The
00:33:55.480biodiversity builds resilience. The more biodiversity there is, the more resilient
00:34:01.880is an ecosystem. If Ibera was not invaded with pines that they plant for the paper industry,
00:34:09.560which are incredibly huge monocultures then the fires wouldn't be so bad and if that wasn't
00:34:19.340overgrazed by thousands of cows then the ecosystem would be more resilient because there would be
00:34:25.560swamps and forest in the middle and fires would be different you know they would burn
00:34:31.060in different temperatures and different places and not so immense and so I think that is a very
00:34:38.820good example of how we change everything and then we are confronted with these questions. Is it good
00:34:46.280or bad to eradicate or to control invasive species? Well, if invasive species reduce
00:34:53.520the biodiversity, then I think we have no option because if we don't, then ecosystems become
00:35:01.380simpler and simpler until they can't be sustained anymore. And we are destroying habitat on a rate
00:35:12.360that is incredible. And that's exactly the dilemma that I was speaking about before. I know a lot of
00:35:19.940things that are happening that people from the town where I live don't know of. And then I get
00:35:27.340It's so sad and it's so horrible to see how the fishing industry is bottom trawling the ocean floors and taking everything that's in their way out of the ocean to process it and take it overseas to I don't even know who eats the fish that is fished in Argentina.
00:35:51.720and that industry seems to be more important to defend than the biodiversity that we have
00:35:58.820I don't know it makes me so sad and so I don't know I don't know what's you know it's it's so
00:36:05.880difficult to know what's right and what's wrong if so many people say it's right to fish it's
00:36:12.520to take out all the fish out of lotion even though all half of the oxygen that we breathe
00:36:20.340is generated in a healthy ocean it is our life we are nothing without the ocean but the ocean
00:36:27.400needs to be healthy and full of life in order to absorb 30 of the carbon we emit that is a good
00:36:34.500service for us but if we emit more carbon the the ocean absorbs it and that's bad for it
00:36:44.420it affects the life in the ocean and 95 percent of all life on earth is in the ocean most of it
00:36:54.400so if we destroy the ocean if we manage to do to the ocean what we do to the earth
00:36:59.600then we're doomed basically and we pull out a hundred million tons of fish out of the ocean
00:37:07.820every year there's such an incredible number a hundred million tons of fish every year and now
00:37:16.240obviously they already saying that fish stocks are declining and marine life populations are
00:37:22.840declining and what we give back to the ocean is lots of garbage so obviously all is very depressing
00:37:30.560And I wouldn't like to say all the things I know about this because I try not to think about it too much because I know that even though it seems like we're lost, we still have to keep working and we have to believe in the magic and we have to be here and do our little good for the planet every day.
00:37:54.940And that's what will keep us alive and breathing and happy.
00:37:58.880I know that in Argentina, we are doing very many things very badly, as much as in South America as a whole, because we live in the third world. Somehow, the first world countries take a lot of the resources that we have. We export it without asking. And those are injustices that happen in the world.
00:38:24.260And what frustrates me the most is that most of our problems are based on a lack of good
00:38:32.460If we would organize ourselves better, then none of this would be a problem because there
00:38:37.420is enough food for everyone and there's enough space to live for everyone.
00:38:42.200I think there is enough money for everyone.
00:38:44.240We just have to be fair and organize ourselves better.
00:38:48.740And so, yeah, that is something I try to implement in my work every day.
00:38:54.260Mm-hmm. I feel you, the heartbreak and frustration. And it's amazing how much we're consuming
00:39:03.460as a humanity and how much waste is being produced from that consumption. It is kind
00:39:12.840of infuriating, actually, whether it's the fishing industry or plastic products going
00:39:19.380into landfills at such exorbitant rates. It's really a type of insanity. And there's this
00:39:28.280question that I want to ask and don't, which is, can we ever really go back, even if we changed
00:39:37.020everything starting tomorrow? Or what does the future have in store for us? Not that we can even
00:39:44.140really answer that but just this question around the reclamation after mass extinction and yeah
00:39:52.720there was this quote from the Tompkins conservation from the 25 a quarter century of work to save the
00:40:01.660wild and it was landscapes badly damaged by past land use practices often show remarkable
00:40:08.640resilience if exploitative activity is ended and natural processes are given freedom to begin the
00:40:15.420work of recovery, end quote. Which is really relieving to read that, especially when we're
00:40:22.880in the midst and mired in the statistics of how much is being lost, like what you were speaking
00:40:30.680to about the fishing industry and thinking about the plantation pines and just on and on and on.
00:40:36.520It's like, oh my gosh, how do we even begin to wrap our heads around this? But I guess when we're thinking about this work of recovery, there's a lot of questions that come to me. There's, of course, wondering about more detail of what this work of recovery has been for you, which we've heard a bit about.
00:40:57.220But there's also these more general questions I'm coming to, which is, what are the actual goals of conservation? And even how do we see beyond the savior mindset that conservation is seen to take on and probably does take on in some people's work?
00:41:18.300but rather knowing what we're up against, knowing that we don't know the future,
00:41:25.240probably knowing that we can't go back. What is a deeper conversation into regenerative relationship
00:41:32.700from where we are right now? I think there are a few things that we can still do and that
00:41:39.860I don't think and haven't read that we're lost already completely, that if we start tomorrow,
00:41:46.240we could still go back to bringing the ocean back to life. It's not dead yet. And I've heard
00:41:54.580one person say that, you know that the ocean, every country has the first 200 nautical miles
00:42:05.220belong to the economic exclusive zone of each country. And from there on, it's everyone's and
00:42:13.600no one's land. And that means that 60% of the ocean is no man's land. So it's not very clear
00:42:24.560who can fish there and who can't. And it's obviously the more important countries,
00:42:31.960the fishing countries, but have the biggest fleets and the most money and the most subsidies
00:42:37.280that go and fish there and this person says if we just closed this part of the ocean to everyone
00:42:44.620to be fair then every country could just fish in its own exclusive economic zone and then we would
00:42:52.500have 60 percent of the ocean protected that is like a fish bank you know and that would be good
00:42:59.540but instead of that they discussing how to create marine protected areas in that 60 percent of the
00:43:06.820global ocean, which is very difficult because if we can't even create proper marine protected
00:43:12.780areas in our own exclusive economic zones, then how would we protect and do that in the global
00:43:19.060ocean that is not even ours? I'm not sure that would work, but it makes me very hopeful that
00:43:25.280someone is at least thinking about two thirds of the ocean that could be completely protected.
00:43:30.620And then what I also think on a more personal and local scale is that if we could just start doing things from a more loving position and not just always trying to find the best strategy, the best strategy to approach a community with a new conservation project and tell them you're going to save their world or save them or something.
00:43:54.040as you said the savior mentality the best strategy to replace one economy with another
00:44:00.420the best strategy we always think about strategies and never from the love and the joy and the dream
00:44:07.520of living that dream you know living in this beautiful society where we all protect the ocean
00:44:15.740together and enjoy the process together because it is actually such a beautiful process it is such a
00:44:21.860purpose for your life to give yourself to doing something good for everyone for yourself first
00:44:29.640and foremost but also for your neighbor and your sister and your team and your family and your
00:44:35.880community i think that is for me the most hopeful and the most important thing that i have to remind
00:44:42.980myself every day when i see these facts on how the world is collapsing to say no i'm not doing
00:44:48.800it to save the world. I'm doing it for myself because I enjoy the process, because I'm surrounded
00:44:53.840by loving people, by passionate people who do the same, who feel the same, who do this for the joy
00:45:01.380of it, for swimming in the ocean every day, for talking to my neighbor every day, to growing my
00:45:07.600veggies in the garden every day and not forget about the big context while we do that, not
00:45:13.380forgetting about the fishing industry that is destroying the world. But that mustn't be our
00:45:19.120focus because then we're doomed. Because if everyone's just focused on destroying the fishing
00:45:25.460industry, we're not any better than those destroying the world. And we will never be
00:45:31.620able to do that anyway. I think we have to work consistently on remembering that we do this
00:45:40.200for ourselves we do this because it is the purpose of our lives and you get inspiration from it and
00:45:47.860I get inspiration from the ocean and from my friends who work here with me who are actually
00:45:56.460my sisters and my brothers and I think if we could concentrate and get more people to
00:46:04.360to see things like that then life would be much easier
00:50:23.860Their family lived on fishing forever.
00:50:26.780So I think those are the best allies for fighting against the industrial destruction of the oceans.
00:50:35.200The problem is here in Argentina, there are only very few real artisanal fishermen.
00:50:40.860So the regulations that we implement is mainly creating national parks.
00:50:47.280And we work very hard on making that national park really work.
00:50:50.780Not only abandoning the land there once the law is created, but working on, as I said, rewilding, controlling exotic species, controlling poaching and building the fences around it so the cows don't go in, for example.
00:51:08.360And in the ocean, it would be to bring in global fishing watch and other technologies to monitor the area and really avoid fishing in our parks.
00:51:20.780I'm also wondering about 30 by 30, and some folks listening may not be aware, but in the
00:51:30.120conservation world, it's a pretty big agreement. And Oceana explains, quote,
00:51:36.040during the 15th conference of the parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, COP15,
00:51:43.220in Canada last December 2022, nearly 200 countries approved an ambitious agreement
00:51:49.540that includes the 30 by 30 target, better methods of measuring progress, and an acknowledgement of
00:51:55.620the importance of working closely with indigenous peoples and other local communities whose history
00:52:00.680and connections to the land and sea must be respected, end quote. So maybe you could give us
00:52:06.560an intro into 30 by 30, and then I'd love to hear your opinion on how effective
00:52:12.660are global regulations, suggestions, agreements, etc. like this in both on the groundwork and
00:52:20.580maybe even in the mindset changes regarding conservation?
00:52:25.560I think this agreement has been quite internationally. I have been traveling and
00:52:34.840and been on a few congresses where they speak about this and it seems like every country is
00:52:40.400very committed to trying to achieve that 30% before 2030.
00:52:46.460Obviously, there are countries who are more committed and some are overachievers, such
00:52:51.620as Australia and Panama and some other countries that have way past that 30% already.
00:52:59.400The problem is we don't need to just declare marine protected areas everywhere and not
00:53:07.120really protect them because what is most important is that those areas are really free of any
00:53:14.140industrial activity and that is not always the case that is the problem the paper parks is what
00:53:20.280they say now is is a very big trend many countries have reached the 30 percent and they actually
00:53:28.960haven't restricted fishing in any of the 30 percent of the parks that they created so that is of no
00:53:35.160value. It is just a declaration. And in Argentina, we are at less than 10%. And what we are doing at
00:53:44.360the moment, what is most important is to put this thing in the political agenda, to make politicians
00:53:52.880aware that Argentina has signed an agreement. And it is very important to reach that percentage and
00:54:00.060that somebody has to do it. It's not just an agreement that you can sign and then wait for
00:54:05.380others to create these marine protected areas. And so what we're doing here, for example, is
00:54:11.060this month in June, we are having a big Congress where we have invited people internationally to
00:54:19.400give talks about how marine protected areas work in other places and how everyone has signed this
00:54:28.720agreement of 30 by 30 and how important it is that Argentina has also signed it, but needs to
00:54:35.060work towards reaching that percentage. And then we have local scientists who will listen to these
00:54:41.860talks and also give their own talks about how important the biodiversity of the Argentinian
00:54:48.300sea is. And then we have local politicians that we very much want to hear all this.
00:54:53.280And then in October, we have the elections. So we really want to put this in the public agenda
00:55:00.060before the next president or next governor of this province gets into office. And after this
00:55:07.160Congress, we're going to really work so that they start speaking about the ocean in their
00:55:13.880public speeches and all that. It's a whole very strange work that I have found myself doing
00:55:21.180these days, but I'm seeing how important it is because everyone who has an interest in doing
00:55:28.600something speaks with the local leaders and the local leaders are the ones that then go to the
00:55:35.560regional leaders and then the national leaders. And I think it is such a beautiful concept to see
00:55:42.660that we from the territory, we as inhabitants of a place are putting this into the light,
00:55:50.460into the focus of people and saying this is important to consider also not just all the
00:55:56.580other aspects of of your agenda you know and about the 30 by 30 I won't say I don't believe
00:56:03.900that Argentina is going to reach it in time but at least we're going to work very hard to to get
00:56:10.060closer to it and if we do then it's going to be a real park and not a paper park that I am committed
00:56:17.880to. Deanna, thank you for explaining some of those nitty gritty details with us. These big
00:56:26.660global programs can feel overwhelming to understand. And I also just want to thank
00:56:33.040you for taking us so many places. I really appreciated the mix of the magical with the
00:56:39.300logistical and the struggle and the heart that you bring to this work. And I could talk to you
00:56:46.460for many more hours and I hope we get a second conversation to keep diving deeper. I really
00:56:53.220appreciate your time. Thank you so much, Ayanna, for having me and I hope people will come to
00:56:59.580Patagonia to see the complex reality of this place and the beauty and the magic that is in the air
00:57:06.120here. Thanks for listening to For the Wild. The music you heard today
00:57:16.180is by Aaron Glass, Bird by Snow, and Aviva Lafay.
00:57:21.220For the Wild is created by Ayanna Young,