00:03:35.200whether it's islands or whole continents, end quote.
00:03:39.120So would you mind starting us off by speaking about the unity of the oceans
00:03:43.240as the heart of a living planet and elaborate on how it drives climate
00:03:47.980and shapes the processes that uphold life here on land?
00:03:53.440In recent years, we've been able to look at the world as a connected system.
00:04:00.900When astronauts first went high in the sky and looked back, it really brought together many of the disparate pieces.
00:04:15.420We've known for a very long time that the ocean is a continuous system.
00:04:22.540It's one ocean, not really separate entities, but everything connects and it all connects to the land.
00:04:30.900The atmosphere above, the air and the water, the land, but holding it all together is life, life that occurs in the deepest sea and high in the sky as well.
00:04:48.760But wherever there's water, there's likely to be life.
00:04:51.000Understanding that and really being able to connect the dots has never been more evident, never as possible as it has become in recent times.
00:05:09.660One of the reasons for this is the ability to connect with people and data all over the world and to have the technologies that now exist to be able to crunch the numbers, to take the bits and pieces of evidence and see the patterns.
00:06:42.800Where does water come from that's in the ground or that falls out of the sky as rain?
00:06:47.820Well, currently, the water cycle is driven by the ocean, and people should ask, well, where did that water come from?
00:06:58.080What is water anyway? Why is it so special?
00:07:00.940Children are really good at asking questions that everyone should be asking.
00:07:08.280Why does taking care of the ocean matter?
00:07:12.080Why are changes in the ocean a matter of concern?
00:07:14.620I do refer to the ocean as the blue heart of the planet, because like the heart that we have, each of us in our bodies, it drives our circulatory system.
00:07:30.400The ocean, in effect, is the planet's circulatory system.
00:07:35.800That the currents that flow and the distribution of water, not just through the ocean, but into the atmosphere above, that falls back from clouds as rain, sleet, and snow.
00:07:49.560Now we can see these things with new eyes, armed with evidence that has been acquired mostly, mostly in my lifetime, in the lifetime of people who now exist, that that knowledge did not and could not exist before the 20th century and now going into the 21st.
00:08:12.300And to continue in this vein of awe and appreciation, can you explain how the ocean is a repository of historical knowledge? And what can we learn about the past and possibly the future of evolution through a study of the ocean?
00:08:32.220diving into the ocean for me is like diving into the history of life on earth because
00:08:37.840essentially the major divisions of life as we as we know it today are still there
00:08:46.320look at the the record as we're able to read it now geologically going back into time there are
00:08:55.200many creatures that did exist more than half a billion years ago and they're still out there
00:09:01.160sponges jellyfish the building blocks of life the genetic material that is common basically to
00:09:10.800life itself big miracles of life as far as i can see are basically twofold with the common chemistry
00:09:20.340that life shares the dna the rna the recipes for the genetic makeup of all life and of course
00:09:30.760There are many variations on the theme.
00:09:32.780In fact, no two humans are exactly alike.
00:09:36.280No two cats, no two dogs, no two birds, no two fish, no two trees, no two leaves on trees.
00:09:43.160There's immense capacity for diversity, given this basic common recipe for life.
00:09:52.760Cause for, well, great reflection, I would say, in the sense of humility.
00:09:59.460But humans have the capacity to perceive these things, to see them, and to consider what it all means.
00:10:10.500There is within the ocean the diversity in terms of these patterns of life, divisions that we call phyla of animals.
00:10:21.620Essentially, we've identified somewhere between 30 and 35 of these major distinctive categories of animal life that have the underlying common ground of chemistry, but with distinctive variations that set echinoderms, the starfish and their relatives apart from sponges and their relatives and apart from the annelids.
00:10:50.280variations on the theme of polychaete worms and other variations on the form of annulids,
00:10:57.760such as the earthworms that are on land in our backyards.
00:11:02.180And on through these many divisions, only about half of those major divisions occur on the land.
00:11:09.540Essentially, all of them are represented in the sea, either with living forms or with fossil representation.
00:13:19.600our species wreaks on the rest of the world.
00:13:23.640Marine fish populations have experienced
00:13:25.720drastic declines in the past century. You published back in 2011 that 90% of large fish
00:13:33.780in the oceans are gone. And in the meantime, I've heard 93% now. Aquaculture farm-raised fish has
00:13:42.000been steadily rising over the last three decades to exceed wild fish consumption, which plateaued
00:13:48.220in the late 1980s and has held steady at those levels, roughly 100 million tons a year.
00:13:55.720So if that harvest level continues, how long do large fish have?
00:14:02.660And taking into account your knowledge of fish life cycles and all the facets of the war on the oceans and human population dynamics, what is your professional prediction for the wild fish catch in coming years?
00:14:19.520I did not make up those figures. About 90% of the big fish were gone.
00:14:23.760I just communicated the results that scientists who have analyzed the data, largely drawn from the fishermen's own records over many years, came up with that figure in about 2003, I believe, analyzing just the trends.
00:14:42.060Here's where we were. Here's where we are. And looking forward, the projections suggest that by the middle of the 21st century, commercial fishing will not be possible, will not be viable because the populations of the desired species for commercial extraction will basically be down at such low levels that it would not be financially feasible to do it.
00:15:11.060But when you look at the current status, it's not really financially feasible today to continue much of the fishing that is taking place.
00:15:25.340If, in fact, there were no subsidies, much of the high seas fishing, for example, is supported by taxpayers subsidies from many countries.
00:15:38.780The high seas, that is the area beyond the jurisdiction of nations that claim out 200 miles, and nations with the coastline currently do that for the most part.
00:15:49.160But the high seas, half the world, 64% of the ocean, is beyond national jurisdiction and beyond the reach of traditional fishing.
00:16:01.160Most of the fishing that supports communities and families that has a long history is coastal.
00:16:11.260To go out as much as 200 miles is expensive.
00:16:14.980The fuel cost, the kind of ships that are needed to actually operate far out at sea, are larger, more expensive, and costly to operate.
00:16:26.600The reality of our current status of extraction wildlife from the ocean is that we're really good at catching and really not so good about understanding the basic ecology of the life history of most of the creatures that wind up on our tables.
00:16:49.440Most people are not aware that a tuna fish does not get from an egg to an adult as quickly as a chicken or a cow.
00:16:57.360Quite the contrary, these are relatively long-lived species that takes, well, for bluefin tuna,
00:17:03.780the figures that are most reliable suggest 10 to 14 years for an egg to get to the point where a mature fish is able to reproduce.
00:17:15.700And many of the fish that are taken today are not even at the stage
00:17:58.900You know, most people do not think of fish as wildlife.
00:18:03.040They don't think of them in the same way that we think of songbirds and eagles and owls or bears and rhinoceroses and elephants and things.
00:18:13.240That's how they're advertised, fish and chips, fish chowder, fish, whatever it is, anonymous fish on a menu side by side with creatures that we can identify very specifically, like chicken or beef or lamb.
00:18:30.220Or when we talk about pork, we know we're talking about pigs.
00:18:33.880But when you talk about fish, what kind of fish?
00:18:36.660There are 33,000 variations on the theme of fish, freshwater, and marine together.
00:18:42.880But we kind of lump them all together with this anonymous characterization.
00:19:42.260There are many variations on the theme of shrimp and quite a few variations on the theme of lobster.
00:19:49.800And sometimes in a market you can see that the lobster comes from Brazil or South Africa or from New England or from California or whatever.
00:20:01.740But for the most part, the identity of those creatures that we label with the overarching term seafood is pretty mysterious.
00:20:13.500That's part of what gives a cloak of anonymity, of we don't know what we're eating, who we're eating, or what's in that tasty chowder, or those fish and chips.
00:20:32.380The catch is we don't know who we're eating.
00:20:35.860We should also know what the status is.
00:20:38.120And there are some guides that have been prepared by various sources, such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium guide, the New England Aquarium has a guide.
00:20:51.380New Zealand has a guide to ocean wildlife about best choices for consumption, which ones we definitely should not be consuming, which ones are better choices and so on.
00:21:05.340But I think from my standpoint, I've come to a personal perspective of just leaving wild fish alone.
00:21:14.340When you look at the trends, how good we are at catching them, how the status of most is certainly not anything comparable to the health of the systems when I was a child or even 20 years ago.
00:21:31.640the decline overall is clear we should give fish a break we should give ocean wildlife a break
00:21:39.200if you like them on your plate or if you want them alive swimming in the ocean
00:21:43.340right now it would make sense to just stand back unless you have true needs if your
00:21:53.240sustenance is related to taking wildlife from the sea then I think you're a special case and
00:22:00.680It ought to be given some latitude, and that applies to coastal communities, to island countries, to people who really don't have the kinds of choices that those living in most of North America, in most of Australia, in most of Europe, and certainly in Japan and most of China.
00:22:20.840But in times past, going back through the history of humankind, wild fish has not been on the menu of the great majority of people.
00:22:32.580It's a new feature that has come about as we have gained technological capacity to reach the deep sea, to reach the ocean in places that were inaccessible until the latter part of the 20th century.
00:22:49.320Going into areas in Antarctica to capture fish that have never known humans as predators before, before we had the capacity to get to these places distant from where most people live and into the deep sea where fish had been safe until recent times.
00:23:10.200When we have technologies developed, really, in times of war to find submarines and things, we're now able to find fish and to target them with new gear that did not exist until the latter part of the 20th century.
00:23:25.960We're getting better all the time about finding, catching, and marketing ocean wildlife.
00:23:31.760The consequences, not just to those creatures in the sea, but the extraction of wildlife on this massive scale is having consequences to the network of life, to the ecology, to the chemistry of the ocean itself.
00:23:49.600So there's more than one reason why we ought to think carefully about the choices we make when we look at a menu that features fish.
00:23:59.000It's really incredible to imagine using these tactics of war to find fish and all of the technology that's going into finding these last hidden treasures of the ocean.
00:24:14.540and to go back to what you were saying about the ocean communities of people you know people in
00:24:23.000China and Japan and people who rely on the oceans for their livelihood and I was recently speaking
00:24:29.680with Paul Watson of Sea Shepherd and I asked him this question and I'd like to ask you as well
00:24:34.580how can marine conservationists balance the unforgiving limits of biology and the needs of
00:24:42.620traditional indigenous fishing cultures or even settler communities that have revolved around
00:24:49.400maritime culture for centuries. You know, I can't imagine a solution that isn't complex and imperfect.
00:24:56.400But do you see a way forward coming into focus around this issue? Or is it as unresolved as
00:25:04.220in land conservation? I think the good news is, for the first time, we're armed with knowledge
00:25:11.040that could not exist before we had the technologies able to look at what the issues are, to identify
00:25:17.820the status of what's happening to the world, to zero in on the problems, and in so doing,
00:25:25.540be able to find some solutions. One piece of positive thinking that's happening right now is
00:25:33.100about the high seas. That's half of the world. The area beyond where nations starting in the 1980s
00:25:39.980really extended their reach the nations with the coastline extended their reach out 200 miles
00:25:46.480the exclusive economic zones that the authority the responsibility for managing these aquatic
00:25:53.480regions that are you know like the united states is now twice as big as it was before
00:25:59.300that extension into the sea took place we have jurisdiction out over a new country that is
00:26:15.080oil and gas, but we have not focused so much on how do we manage ourselves so that we don't
00:26:23.680extract beyond the capacity of this newly designated blue part of the planet, blue part
00:26:31.960of our country in ways that they can continue. The catch word is sustainably. Well, we can't
00:26:40.220sustainably extract fossil fuels because once they're extracted, they're basically gone. We
00:26:46.400can't sustainably take minerals because once we've extracted them, they're out of the picture.
00:26:52.600They're in another part of the equation, but they're not part of what had been in the past.
00:26:57.540We're finding that this is true with fish, too. It's hard to extract without disrupting the systems that have taken preceding history to put into place, and never in the recipe for their life history is their latitude to account for predation on the scale that we have imposed.
00:27:20.440humans as predators take far more than the natural systems are prepared to accept and
00:27:28.420keep going on the same level that they have in the past it's just common sense you wouldn't expect
00:27:34.280a system that is fine-tuned over literally billions of years to be tuned in with some
00:27:43.760predation some latitude for disease some latitude for storms but on top of all of that humans have
00:27:49.980arrived with the capacity to extract levels of adult reproducing populations and destroy
00:27:59.040the ecosystems in the process of taking? Why would we expect them to continue reproducing
00:28:07.240on the scale that they have before we begin to take on this extravagant level? I mean,
00:28:13.800it just doesn't make sense. So it doesn't take a scientist. It doesn't take a computer expert.
00:28:18.940It doesn't take a fancy model, or those are all useful tools, but just look at it.
00:28:26.760It doesn't make sense that we should expect to be able to extract continuously at the same level we have in the past.
00:28:34.880Maybe we can take some, if we're careful, if we respect what it takes, not just in the United States, but in coastal areas globally.
00:30:03.980People are beginning to wise up and say, when grouper get together to make more grouper, let's leave them alone and let them do this so that we can have grouper on our plates as well as have grouper as a part of the ecosystem.
00:30:22.400The fishermen are beginning, those who really care about having a viable source of sustenance for local consumption.
00:30:33.780But that is in a totally different category of fishing that is now really stripping the ocean of life.
00:30:43.120That's the industrial scale extraction of wildlife.
00:30:47.800not just to catch fish such as tuna or creatures that are taken to supply this increasing demand
00:30:57.700by those who are marketing seafood as if it's as common as chicken and beef and lamb and so on,
00:31:05.240but the extraction of wildlife for products, for oil, for fish meal.
00:31:11.160There's real concern about the growing interest in using fine mesh necks going into the midwater areas of the ocean where small fish and small crustaceans and squid are an important part of the chemistry of the ocean.
00:31:30.560about the cycles of life, about the nutrients that are transported from the surface into the
00:31:37.200midwater levels and into the depths below, carbon sequestration, the carbon cycle, the nitrogen
00:31:43.460cycle, the cycles of life that make Earth function as a viable system, not just for all the other
00:31:51.540creatures, but for us as well. We take the production of oxygen in the atmosphere pretty
00:31:57.500much for granted, whether trees on the land or phytoplankton in the sea. We have not really put
00:32:05.100on the balance sheet the importance of protecting these life support functions that nature heretofore
00:32:13.080has provided for free. We haven't thought about the cost to killing fish or the cost to cutting
00:32:21.460down trees beyond what we can see as the benefits.
00:32:26.440Bored feet of lumber when you cut down trees, fish to be sent to market as food or products
00:32:32.680when we take clear-cut fish from the oceans.
00:32:36.480But what are we losing in the process?
00:32:39.820That is a cost-benefit ratio that we need to look at going forward and realize that
00:32:46.080There's a value to these natural systems that we need to protect and be mindful of that it's not just what we can sell.
00:32:55.120It's also the cost that it's not free or no free lunch.
00:33:00.980There is a real cost to the extraction of wild fish or shrimp or lobsters or whatever it is that we're taking from the ocean that we have to put on the balance sheet before we make choices.
00:38:06.120The diversity of life in coral reefs, it varies from place to place.
00:38:11.060There's greater diversity in Indo-Pacific coral reefs than, for example, in the Mediterranean
00:38:16.080or in the Caribbean or many other places in the Atlantic.
00:38:22.820But the Indian Ocean is notoriously diverse globally.
00:38:29.120The Great Barrier Reef in the South Pacific, whether the numbers of coral or the numbers of fish or the starfish or the pikey worms or sponges of the related organisms, the levels of diversity vary.
00:38:43.360Certainly the species vary from place to place, and it's becoming pretty clear that the level of endemism in coral reefs is regionally pretty high.
00:38:57.000So if you lose a coral reef, you don't just lose corals in a generic term.
00:39:03.900You lose specific kinds of corals, specific kinds of invertebrates that are unique to that area.
00:39:10.360So you're not just affecting the overarching term of coral reefs, similar to rainforests.
00:39:19.900There's no two rainforests, they're exactly alike, and the composition varies from place to place.
00:39:25.360But I guess the concerns about this serious decline of coral reefs overall is an indication that the ocean is in trouble.
00:39:36.680If the ocean is in trouble, it means things that underpin our existence are in trouble too.
00:39:46.460And we ought to listen up, pay attention, and be aware of what is driving the decline.
00:39:57.400What we put into the ocean, aside from the excess carbon dioxide that is not only warming the planet but is driving ocean acidification, that's looking back at us as the cause, the driver.
00:40:12.080What we're taking out of the ocean is also a factor. Studies that go back to the 90s and actually before that, the awareness that what we take out of the ocean, sharks, groupers, the big fish, as well as lobsters and the small fish, all of the extraction of wildlife, the loss of diversity, the loss of the healthy functioning of the systems that make a coral reef what it is.
00:44:38.980Well, be a witness. Observe. Do what scientists do. Observe carefully. Report honestly what you see. It doesn't take university or academic training to be an honest witness and an honest reporter of what you see without embellishment.
00:44:58.520It isn't just here's what I witness, here's what I see.
00:45:21.600We know where many of the critical areas are, seagrass meadows, the marshes, and the coral reefs, to protect them, to be proactive about looking at what remains of healthy areas and do what we can to restore places that have been depleted.
00:45:45.140There are some efforts to recreate coral reefs in places where they have been depleted.
00:45:50.400Well, I'm much more in favor of taking the pressure off existing reefs, even places that have been damaged.
00:45:57.760If you stop killing the wildlife in those areas, stop taking the fish, it's amazing what kind of recovery can take place.
00:46:09.660And when you stop killing and really start proactively caring that, although you can never go back to what was, you can make things better than they currently are by removing the pressure, by doing what we are able to do to give nature a break.
00:46:31.260The Gulf of Mexico has very few places where fishing is not allowed.
00:46:37.500I mean, very few places where we have said consciously, let's give the fish a break.
00:48:30.840But then there's these larger dilemmas like ice melt. And, you know, we've reached another milestone in the warming of the planet, namely a large portion of the Larson Sea ice shelf. One trillion tons of ice broke off into the ocean in Antarctica. And then the Larson A ice shelf collapsed in 1995. And the Larson B collapsed in 2002.
00:48:54.840And so now the Larson Sea is in the process of breaking apart, which will open the way for glaciers to slide into the ocean.
00:49:03.120You know, I'd hope this event would triangulate the pattern that's playing out and put the skepticism to rest.
00:49:11.500But while skepticism is the last resort for the powerful, it won't go away.
00:49:18.100For the audience of this program, we don't need more disasters to convince us.
00:49:22.640You know, we're beyond that. And we're looking for radical ways to intervene in the spiral of
00:49:29.600chaos that this calving event embodies. At the other pole, the countdown to an ice-free Arctic
00:49:36.400is ticking. And the Arctic ice is really the last thread holding the climate together.
00:49:42.560And when it's gone, global average temperatures begin to rise rapidly in water and on land.
00:49:48.780And so, you know, I tremble to ask what effects we can expect to see in marine communities from these unprecedented global changes.
00:50:01.360We should look at these changes as evidence, as you say, that anybody can see.
00:50:08.440Actually, we can see it because we have the technology that enables us to gather data, gather the evidence, using satellites, using humans who are able to get to places that most humans do not get to, and then to share the view.
00:50:27.600Imagine if we did not have that evidence.
00:50:29.460We would be oblivious to these trends and not able to respond.
00:50:37.080And the key is knowing we've got a problem.
00:50:40.840And if you don't know you've got a problem, you can't fix it.
00:50:44.380We're the only creatures on the planet with all the smart animals that are out there, the elephants, the smart birds, the smart horses, our fellow primates, whatever it is.
00:50:55.800I know some really smart fish, but they cannot either see the nature of the problems, nor even if they knew what they were, how to fix it.
00:51:04.940We are, in some ways, the planet's worst nightmare, but we're also the best hope.
00:51:28.260Everyone can choose to do something that will lighten the load of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere, or you can make a choice that increases the amount of carbon dioxide that goes in the atmosphere.
00:51:41.200You can make a choice to convert whatever land you may have, a little patch in your backyard into something that is good for nature, or you can mow it down and have a very costly kind of impact on your little piece of the planet that added up with what actions others take around the world that ultimately add up to either a better world or a world that is not so good.
00:52:09.920make choices about what you eat or what you choose not to eat. Eating a lot of meat has a big carbon
00:52:16.480footprint. Having a smaller amount on your diet or going to be a vegetarian means you're making a
00:52:24.440choice that is good for you and good for the planet. I mean, it sounds like, oh, I'm just one
00:52:29.000person. It doesn't matter. But it does. That's the point. Every choice adds up. And the footprint
00:52:36.040each of us makes times whether it's a billion or seven billion it all adds up so what you do
00:52:45.160and what you can influence others to do using your power to inform people to make better choices
00:52:53.500that's the best thing that each of us can do as a starting point some people have tremendous power
00:53:02.100to do far more. If they're CEOs of corporations, if they're leaders in their community, if they're
00:53:09.920teachers, I mean, everybody has magnified power in some way or another. And the thing is to not
00:53:18.800be complacent or to not give up and say, oh, it's too big a problem. I can't do anything. I'm just
00:53:24.580one person. Forget that nonsense, because that is making a choice. If you choose to do nothing,
00:53:31.640you are part of the problem. You are adding to the negative side of the balance sheet.
00:53:37.160But by being proactive, what can I do that will make a difference for the planet? And then inspire
00:53:43.860somebody else or somebody else beyond that. It's amazing how the changes that have influenced the
00:53:52.480world, influenced civilization through all of history, inevitably start because someone made
00:53:59.180choice. And Sylvia, you are an incredible example of putting your knowledge and privileges and your
00:54:09.660passion fully into creating a better world, let alone your explorations and your studies and
00:54:17.180your scientific findings, but also Mission Blue and the Hope Spots. And I'm hoping that we can,
00:54:24.440And to close our conversation, if you would mind telling us about these hope spots and
00:54:29.700how you have stood up as one person and helped to create protected places.
00:54:37.180The idea of using the term hope spot came about really in a conversation that took place at the
00:54:43.560National Geographic a few years ago, where there's a discussion about hotspots, H-O-T spots,
00:54:50.160places that have been identified by scientists as places that have on the land mostly that are
00:54:56.540high diversity and also have a high degree of threat and the concept has given rise to
00:55:05.420efforts to zero in on these special places where if you protect them if you take the pressure off
00:55:12.800if you really look at high diversity and remove the threats that now are upon them you might have
00:55:19.760a magnified impact on restoring and well first of all protecting what we have of the legacy of
00:55:28.280biodiversity and and the natural systems that are so important to the functioning of the planet
00:55:34.200and restore what we can of places that have been depleted so it just occurred to me that they're
00:55:40.760hot spots but they also are hope spots areas that if they can be protected provide a degree of hope
00:55:48.560And I was thinking primarily of just another way of looking at these special places, but the idea kind of stuck, that in the ocean we've begun, starting in the 20th century, to realize that the ocean is not able to truly take care of itself, given the pressures that humans impose.
00:56:09.840We have to proactively look at the ocean the same way we have proactively looked at the land.
00:56:16.260Early in the 20th century, national parks came into being.
00:56:20.100The United States was really a leader in this regard with the national park system starting in 2016.
00:56:28.160Other nations have likewise taken up the idea.
00:56:31.300You think about places for their natural, their historic, their cultural value to civilization.
00:56:38.760So national parks, great idea for the land, but an equally good idea for the ocean.
00:56:44.460Calling them hope spots, places that, whether they're regarded as, quotes, blue parks, like the Great Barrier Reef in Australia that came into existence in the mid-1970s,
00:56:57.240Or more recent areas, such as the Papanamakuakea area in Hawaii, first established as a blue park, if you will, a national monument by President Bush and then expanded by President Barack Obama in 2016.
00:57:16.540These are hope spots, areas that both protect areas of high diversity and threat, but also a high degree of value in terms of protecting the nature of nature.
00:57:29.680Hope spots are really applied primarily to the ocean as our overarching term for monuments, sanctuaries, marine reserves, whatever they are, places that are still in good shape, like the pristine seas, areas that have been identified with the National Geographic Project of that name.
00:57:50.960but also areas that are not exactly pristine but given protection, respect, and care can recover,
00:58:02.000can at least be better than they are at present if we stop killing things.
00:58:07.120A particular value of those are those areas where full protection is given,
00:58:12.860not just management about how much or what kind of creatures we extract,
00:58:16.520but really full protection to give proactive care for large areas of the sea,
00:58:24.460where we say we're just going to give nature a break and let the wild things be wild,
00:58:30.640let them do what they have historically done the best, provide the underpinnings of life.
00:58:38.160The most important thing that we extract from the ocean is our existence.
01:01:09.700to accept proposals that people have about places they know and love.
01:01:15.580We're working with the diving community to identify and get training on how do you become knowledgeable about gathering evidence to provide images and information about places that have been identified.
01:01:32.380So far, more than 400 places have been nominated by going to the Mission Blue website, where they're being reviewed. More than 80 have been dignified with designation as hope spots and appear on a globe are serving as places where you can upload data.
01:01:51.940The number is growing. The number should grow with people who support the concept and are willing to volunteer their time and energy to support protection in places they love.
01:02:06.940Thank you so much, Dr. Earl, for taking this time to speak with us and for your life's work.
01:02:11.820i find it so enlivening to hear about the hope spots and also this global commons and i will
01:02:23.100do what i can to support that and this audience as well so thank you again for spending this time
01:02:29.080with us a deep bow to you well my deep bell back to you and thank you for what you're doing to
01:02:35.040make people aware of the concerns and inspire them to care
01:02:39.060thank you for listening to for the wild podcast i'm ayanna young the music you heard today was
01:03:02.360and breaks with Standing on the Shore, then Lulu Jackson, Careless Love, followed by There's a Sunny
01:03:09.960Side to Everything by Cab Calloway. Our theme music is Bow with Silence Returns and Like a River
01:03:16.880by Kate Wolfe. I'd like to thank our entire team at For the Wild, including March Young and Reach
01:03:24.700out, our amazing producers, Madison Magulski, our research director extraordinaire, and Molly
01:03:33.020Lebov, our media director. If you haven't already, sign up for our newsletter at forthewild.world,
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