For The Wild - Reshaping the Landscape of Conservation Media at JACKSON WILD ⧸146

00:00:00.680 This podcast is brought to you in part by support from our partner, the Calliopeia Foundation.

00:00:07.160 Calliopeia believes in uplifting individuals and organizations that work to transform our

00:00:12.700 ecological, cultural, and spiritual relationships with each other and our common home. We thank

00:00:18.620 Calliopeia for their ongoing support of creative projects that we believe in. To learn more,

00:00:24.500 visit calliopeia.org.

00:00:30.000 Welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young.

00:00:36.320 Today we'll be sharing a special edition episode from our time at Jackson Wild Summit,

00:00:42.160 an annual convergence of filmmakers, conservationists, scientists, and innovators exploring critical conservation and environmental issues.

00:00:51.520 As one of many voices for independent media working within these realms,

00:00:55.580 For the Wild has always sought to creatively push the boundaries between storytelling,

00:01:01.160 media strategy, and conservation. That is, how can we hold space for the emergent narratives

00:01:07.240 of the Anthropocene, in their full complexity, to find their way to the surface? How do we inspire

00:01:13.700 people to stand up for the places they love and translate care into meaningful action?

00:01:19.540 Wielding the tools of storytelling, however, also requires an honest acknowledgement of their power.

00:01:24.520 A reminder that the stories we tell about people in place don't just inform the future from afar, they become the future.

00:01:32.940 They define the boundaries of what is possible.

00:01:35.840 Thus, the question of who has access to big media and who sits behind the camera are urgent matters of justice.

00:01:43.180 What we hold to be true is that communities must have the space and resources to tell their own stories and take leadership in designing our earthly futures.

00:01:52.200 This isn't just a matter of truth, but rather a deep knowing that we all suffer when the voices

00:01:57.400 of others are silenced and our solutions do not include the diversity of brilliance that

00:02:02.140 we desperately need for radical global change. Today we speak with seven storytellers who are

00:02:08.340 shifting the landscape of conservation from behind their cameras and bold new media strategies.

00:02:14.500 We hope these conversations spark your investigative curiosity to dig deeper into

00:02:20.000 their stories of survival and renewal of life, land, and water. To kick off our Jackson Wild

00:02:26.720 episode, we'll be speaking with Tiffany McNeil, an award-winning filmmaker and new media strategist

00:02:33.080 who currently works as a creative director and innovations lead for CBS. Tiffany is committed

00:02:39.260 to expanding narrative both in the stories we tell as filmmakers, the way we tell them,

00:02:44.300 and how we distribute them.

00:02:48.400 Hey y'all, it's Jackson Wilde.

00:02:50.320 We are here with the magnificent Tiffany McNeil.

00:02:53.020 We're so excited to be speaking with her right now.

00:02:55.600 And Tiffany, we had an incredible meeting.

00:02:59.300 It felt kind of cosmic, synchronistic,

00:03:01.600 meeting each other in the big hall.

00:03:03.300 And the more that I was able to speak with you

00:03:05.620 and saw this internal strategy that you have

00:03:09.280 around getting yourself into spaces

00:03:11.900 where you can really shift the narrative,

00:03:13.420 It was so powerful to hear your story.

00:03:16.460 And I would love just to open up with hearing a bit about your story, like with your mother and then how you got to where you got and why you wanted to follow this particular path of media and strategy.

00:03:28.700 Sure. Yeah. A lot of people ask me how I got here or if I have the beliefs that I do because I've been like exposed to a lot of things or because I've had a roadmap.

00:03:36.860 And the answer is no, there is no roadmap for people who look like me.

00:03:40.580 so you talked about my mother and this is a great place to start so my mom she

00:03:45.820 always gave me permission to take up space to take up full space to take up

00:03:49.820 my full space I could ask questions I could do whatever I wanted to do but I

00:03:53.780 had to do it and take up my full space so when I looked at media when I you know

00:04:00.380 when I read stories in books often I didn't see myself reflected when I

00:04:05.900 thought about how I wanted to explore when I saw people who are exploring they

00:04:09.740 all look the same, sound the same, old, white, male, with an accent. And so I never heard like

00:04:17.700 the voices that sounded like my mother or my grandmother or the places where I lived

00:04:21.760 or the people who I loved or myself. So I decided that I was going to get into media and at first

00:04:27.840 I thought I'd be a writer, but my life just changed. So I went to grad school. I took a

00:04:32.800 class with some documentary filmmakers and they showed me this movie War Dance. And when I saw

00:04:38.240 what a documentary could be, which is artistic and creative and honest, I decided I wanted to

00:04:44.060 make those. So I've been doing that ever since. I've done it in music. I've done it in fashion.

00:04:48.920 But what I really focus on now are like really human stories that expand the narrative, any

00:04:54.300 narrative, and give us a better view of what this world looks like. Because it's not just white.

00:05:00.460 It's not old. It's not just British. But what led you into conservation documentation or

00:05:08.160 ecological documentation? Like what made you come into this sector of media?

00:05:13.920 I didn't feel that I had a choice because for me it was about figuring out how

00:05:17.520 me and my people could survive. And so that means talking about like the black body and

00:05:22.920 experiences and how we've gotten here. It means talking about the environment and our connection

00:05:28.140 with the environment and how it's been severed and how we can reconnect it. It means listening

00:05:32.220 to native people who understand that better than a lot of us do. And so when I thought about

00:05:37.680 helping my voice be heard and other people's voices be heard I understood that it can't be

00:05:42.540 separate from conserving or protecting the environment and the people who live there

00:05:47.900 so that's how I got here but most of my work is actually focused on people and that's not

00:05:53.500 removed from nature right that's not removed from conservation in nature none of us are removed

00:05:58.540 and I think that what's super interesting is a lot of the time especially in spaces like this

00:06:02.720 or at Jackson Wilde, and all of the films are very similar.

00:06:06.540 And if you came here 10 years ago,

00:06:08.680 they were similar to the ones you see here now.

00:06:11.120 Everybody cares so much about how we protect the landscape

00:06:14.620 or how we protect the animals there,

00:06:16.280 but they don't talk about the people.

00:06:17.760 There is no way on the planet to save an area

00:06:21.380 to protect a species of animal or a species of plant

00:06:24.720 if you do not care about the people.

00:06:26.680 If the people are desperate,

00:06:28.820 if the people have a poor life trajectory,

00:06:30.480 if the people do not have a way to sustain themselves,

00:06:33.720 if you do not care about that,

00:06:35.240 if you do not care about the people being healthy,

00:06:37.040 there is no way to continue to protect the planet

00:06:39.460 because people are going to do what they have to do to survive.

00:06:42.760 I couldn't agree with you more.

00:06:44.540 And the years that I've spent doing interviews with For the Wild,

00:06:48.060 the people aspect is so left out of the conservation equation a lot of the time.

00:06:53.400 And I think it's really fascinating how we still have this dominant colonial conservation methodology that is used in media.

00:07:03.500 It's used in conservation projects.

00:07:05.680 And I am really interested to hear how you see yourself and others breaking this pattern of colonial conservation, not just in media, but in other projects.

00:07:19.420 Because I agree, if there are people that are desperate and you're trying to conserve an elephant or a tiger,

00:07:26.760 there's not enough people to protect that tiger if people are desperate enough because they're starving to death

00:07:32.220 or if their water isn't clean enough because it's been polluted by some multinational corporation

00:07:36.720 and now, oh, we're only saving the clean water for these creatures over here,

00:07:40.900 but these other folks have to somehow tend for themselves.

00:07:43.960 I mean, it's kind of a crazy thought to not be able to see the intersectionality in all of those moving pieces.

00:07:50.720 So, yeah, I want to dive a little bit deeper into colonial conservation and how you see the movement starting to shift that.

00:07:58.380 Or if you don't see the movement starting to shift that, that's one thing.

00:08:01.600 And how could we get there?

00:08:03.500 I think one of the most radical things that I ever do is just take up space in places like this.

00:08:09.380 Me just being here is radical as hell.

00:08:12.160 Ayana, the other Ayana, just being here is radical as hell.

00:08:15.880 And so part of it is showing up and doing what my mom taught me, which is taking up my full space.

00:08:20.420 Once you've done that, then you have to ask yourself what you do with that space, right?

00:08:24.440 Who else you welcome into the space?

00:08:26.840 How do you tell a story in that space?

00:08:29.800 And it's something that I think about a lot, a lot.

00:08:33.140 And so part of it is whose stories I share my platform with.

00:08:38.700 Because I have developed one now.

00:08:40.480 it could be bigger it can always be bigger but who do you pull into the space with you

00:08:45.040 and that's part of of enacting the change but the other thing is listening in a new way so for

00:08:51.060 example when I was working at National Geographic they had this climate change initiative and they

00:08:56.780 were trying to figure out how to talk about climate change in a way that was like people

00:09:00.980 would listen to because they were like people are tired of climate change is depressing all

00:09:04.920 anybody talks about is like polar bears dying and like ice caps melting it's depressing

00:09:08.500 and one of the things that someone said in a meeting when I said like well we need more diverse 0.98

00:09:13.860 voices in this conversation they said well black people don't care about climate change

00:09:17.020 and I heard that and I knew that that wasn't true internally I knew that that wasn't true but even I 0.66

00:09:24.780 in that moment did not know how to respond to that so I left that meeting feeling horrible

00:09:31.460 and I was like people cannot like believe this this can't be something that people believe

00:09:36.500 so I googled it right and this is like three years ago and before I fill out the whole thing you know 0.68

00:09:41.840 how google will like auto-populate your question I put in black people don't care about and I put

00:09:47.020 in a c and climate change came up immediately so it means that it's something that people thought 0.84

00:09:51.900 was true so then I sat there and I asked myself why would people believe that and I also asked

00:09:57.980 myself a hard question which is do black people care about climate change of course we do of course

00:10:02.740 we do. There's no way for somebody who's affected way more by something than somebody else,

00:10:08.500 exponentially more, to not care about it. If you're brown, you're affected by climate change

00:10:13.240 more than if you're white. If you're a woman, you're affected more than if you're a man.

00:10:16.940 If you are elderly, you're affected more than if you're young. If you are poor or underserved,

00:10:22.960 you're affected more than if you have money. So you can't afford to not care. So then it was,

00:10:28.060 why do people think that we don't care? And it's because we're only talking about it from this

00:10:32.440 super it's like a academic very white privileged way of talking about it if you've never seen a

00:10:41.240 polar bear in real life but your kid has asthma like five times more than kids that are like just

00:10:48.620 a few miles away you're not going to be worried about polar bears and talking about polar bears

00:10:52.400 drowning you're going to be worried about your kid and your child and how they have asthma and

00:10:56.800 when you talk about that you're talking about climate change when you talk about the immigration

00:11:01.160 crisis and how part of it is due to like fighting over resources because the resources are so scarce

00:11:06.260 you're talking about climate change so there are people talking about climate change in a way that's

00:11:10.940 a one-to-one ratio problem to them and it's not this weird academic or like super like headspace

00:11:16.860 of environmental the ice caps are melting but it doesn't mean that one is more important than the

00:11:21.280 other and if we want to invite everybody into the conversation we have to talk about it in a way

00:11:26.700 that makes sense to them. And we have to remind them that it's not that people don't care about

00:11:31.960 it. It's that they care about all these other aspects of it that are so important that you

00:11:35.940 don't care about because you haven't placed value on these people like you place value on a polar

00:11:39.740 bear. Yeah, I absolutely see that. And I think too, most people can't do anything about polar

00:11:48.060 bear conservation. And so when we're talking about these horrific, true things that are

00:11:55.000 happening, these facts of what's happening to the other creatures, somewhere halfway across the

00:11:58.400 world, we expect people to care about that. I don't think it's that people don't care,

00:12:02.580 but how are they actually going to impact polar bears when they are dealing with an incinerator

00:12:07.620 in their neighborhood, when they're dealing with toxic spills coming into their waterways where

00:12:12.600 they used to drink from? So I agree that when we try to put so much pressure on people to care

00:12:17.680 about things that are so far from their reality, they don't have the resources or the energy to

00:12:23.640 put impact into that or even the connections that they do in their own neighborhoods and i think

00:12:28.640 there's that balance of global and local so i do think what you're doing is revolutionary and being

00:12:34.400 here feels it feels so much more full it feels like okay now we're getting somewhere we're really

00:12:40.420 talking about these intersections that when they're left out of the story we are never going to get

00:12:46.860 where any of us want to get no because we're not actually looking at the expansiveness of the

00:12:51.740 narrative we're picking one little compartment and trying to reduce everything into that compartment

00:12:55.940 but clearly it's not working or else we wouldn't be in the place that we're in today so I really

00:13:01.080 appreciate that and I do now want to talk a little bit about the creativity that you mentioned before

00:13:06.080 because you're saying to me like yeah I do weird stuff like yeah I push these creative envelopes

00:13:12.260 and I love hearing that because you do work in a lot of I would say conventional spaces and to see

00:13:19.060 you and your personality and your creativity coming into these spaces, pushing the boundaries

00:13:24.340 of what people or these organizations are putting out there. It's really exciting for me. So I want

00:13:29.020 to hear a little bit more about your own creativity, your own projects, and what are the ways you see

00:13:35.060 these larger organizations being able to be pushed and molded to something that feels more relevant

00:13:41.600 to today's issues? Sure. So what's interesting about me and people have like come up to me before

00:13:48.740 and thought that maybe it meant that I wasn't as invested in moving my people along as they were

00:13:56.080 because they're doing grassroots stuff.

00:13:58.360 And I've always worked for large media companies, HBO, National Geographic, CNN, HuffPost, CBS, now.

00:14:06.080 I think that that is wildly untrue because I think all of it's important, right?

00:14:10.180 We need people in every single space.

00:14:12.940 We need people in the spaces where big media is,

00:14:16.840 where big media holds the key to whose voice gets to be heard.

00:14:19.980 I get to, like, not sneak people in the back door,

00:14:22.380 but open the front door and let them walk in,

00:14:24.740 because that's how we should be doing this.

00:14:26.940 We should all be walking in the front door.

00:14:28.860 We should all be pulling up chairs to the same table.

00:14:31.260 And so that's the route that I took.

00:14:33.260 It's not the route that everybody has to take,

00:14:34.800 but each space is important.

00:14:36.520 We need somebody in each space.

00:14:38.580 I want to make space.

00:14:40.800 All of this for me is about making space, and there are lots of ways to make space.

00:14:44.480 You can make space by moving somebody else away from the table, by deleting somebody else.

00:14:50.560 That's not what I'm trying to do.

00:14:52.360 I'm not telling other people they cannot make media the way that they've been making it.

00:14:56.740 I'm saying there's enough room at this table for me to be there, too.

00:15:02.120 And I'm not just making room for myself.

00:15:03.960 I don't want people to tell stories the way that I do, either.

00:15:06.020 I'm telling stories in these radical ways because hopefully it makes so much room that other people can come tell stories in their own way

00:15:13.100 I'm saying there's enough room at this table for everyone and if there's not we need to make it because any questions we've been asking

00:15:19.860 To the people we've been asking them. We've gotten those answers

00:15:23.000 And maybe the reason that we're stalled

00:15:25.040 We're not able to figure out solutions to these problems is because we keep asking the same people

00:15:30.160 Is because we keep talking about it the same way and it's not enough for me to just be able to talk about it my way

00:15:36.260 Everybody has to be able to talk about it their way.

00:15:39.200 That's how we get a fuller picture.

00:15:41.000 That's how we expand the narrative.

00:15:42.500 And that's what I'm really hoping that we're able to do.

00:15:47.480 Next, I sat down with Dr. Ayanna Flewellen,

00:15:51.120 a black feminist, an archaeologist, a storyteller, and an artist.

00:15:55.680 She is the co-founder of the Society of Black Archaeologists

00:15:59.480 and sits on the board of Diving with a Purpose.

00:16:02.280 So, I think just to begin, it would be great for you to give us a brief overview of your

00:16:09.480 work with Diving with a Purpose and the Society for Black Archaeologists.

00:16:14.360 So I'm going to leave it really broad and let you just give us a sense of your work,

00:16:19.640 what these two organizations are up to, and then we can go from there and get deeper into

00:16:23.140 both of those pieces.

00:16:24.140 Definitely.

00:16:25.140 Diving with a Purpose is a non-profit organization dedicated to maritime heritage conservation

00:16:30.640 in oceanic conservation worldwide.

00:16:33.500 We're here at Jackson Hole really promoting the work

00:16:35.540 that we're doing in collaboration

00:16:37.660 with a number of different organizations

00:16:39.380 really looking for ships involved

00:16:41.200 in the transatlantic slave trade

00:16:43.060 that wrecked off the coast of Africa. 0.83

00:16:45.180 So work in Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa,

00:16:49.700 throughout the Caribbean as well.

00:16:52.080 And I'm specifically working on a project in St. Croix

00:16:55.200 with Diving with a Purpose.

00:16:56.800 In addition to Diving with a Purpose,

00:16:58.760 I'm a co-founder and vice president of the Society of Black Archaeologists.

00:17:02.900 We were founded in 2011 as a nonprofit really dedicated to the preservation and conservation

00:17:08.800 of African diasporic material culture worldwide.

00:17:11.660 And we have about 200 different scholars who are both doing work in academia

00:17:16.640 as well as cultural resource management throughout North, South, Central America,

00:17:21.240 throughout the Caribbean as well, and on the continent of Africa.

00:17:24.280 Wow, your work is so deep and so important.

00:17:27.700 And I remember when I caught some of the panel that you were on, just in terms of black archaeologists, just how almost ignored that whole sector of people have been.

00:17:39.660 And you were kind of discussing how black archaeologists have been relegated to certain realms and haven't been able to bring their full talents to the table.

00:17:48.700 So I would love to hear just a little bit about how you all have been able to push the boundaries of this very white science, you know, and be able to stand in your power and say, no, there is a space for us and our work is important.

00:18:05.140 And so just a little bit about your experience with that and even the societies and what you're doing to change the narrative and really shift perspectives on this science that has really been pretty siloed.

00:18:16.500 Yeah, definitely. Thank you for that question. Archaeology, especially here in North America, really is an offshoot of anthropology, which has deep, deep ties to colonialism and the colonial project of really just viewing and dissecting others, right?

00:18:33.460 And archaeology, really, its foundation here in North America, especially with the decimation and desecration of Native American burial grounds, that's really what the foundation is in this country.

00:18:42.620 So doing the work of really saying, hey, we're asking different questions of our past and we're doing that in really innovative ways.

00:18:52.000 So for a lot of the members of the Society of Black Archaeologists, one of our core sort of values is community collaborative research and really placing community at the center of the work that we're doing.

00:19:01.960 in collaboration from research design, the actual work and excavation being done

00:19:06.840 to whatever capacity people are able, and then also the dissemination process afterward.

00:19:12.080 What sort of deliverables do community members need, want?

00:19:16.140 And oftentimes it might not be academic journals and publications,

00:19:19.080 which is what us as academics are really striving for in terms of the sort of needs and necessities of our jobs.

00:19:26.600 Sometimes communities actually just want displays.

00:19:29.240 Sometimes they want comic books to be able to actually show their children.

00:19:32.520 Sometimes they want performance pieces.

00:19:34.680 Sometimes they want installations.

00:19:36.000 Sometimes they want photography.

00:19:37.600 So really just being in conversation and being open to what is possible.

00:19:42.100 In terms of really thinking about racial diversity in archaeology,

00:19:47.460 the academic conference that I go to every year is called the Society for Historical Archaeology.

00:19:52.120 And it looks quite frankly a lot like Jackson Hole.

00:19:56.120 When we come up here, there are maybe, or when I go to SHA, there are maybe a handful of people of African descent who are at that conference, who attend that conference. 1.00

00:20:06.540 And for me, it was really jarring. 1.00

00:20:09.580 You know, my first time attending SHA, I want to say it was in 2009 or maybe 10, at their annual conference in Austin, Texas.

00:20:16.620 and I remember walking into that space and even though I had a very powerful introduction to

00:20:23.760 archaeology that really centered on racial politics at the University of Florida, being

00:20:29.000 confronted with the very reality of who I would be in conversation with, that was jarring and one

00:20:35.020 of the first things I did was really think about okay who can I be in community with in this space

00:20:39.900 and quite frankly it really was you know me and a colleague of mine Justin Donovan walking up to

00:20:45.520 people at SHA, it's like, hey, what work are you doing? What work are you doing? What work are you

00:20:49.300 doing? Can we talk about our experiences here? But also in this way of acknowledging that I'm 28

00:20:55.580 years old. I'm not the first black archaeologist. Like the space that's been created for me,

00:21:02.340 created for my supervisor and mentor, Maria Franklin, those are longstanding spaces. And

00:21:08.620 really being able to not only talk about the experiences that we're having today,

00:21:12.080 but also acknowledge and highlight the work that African Americans and people of African descent have been doing in the field of archaeology as part of the work that SBA does as well.

00:21:22.360 So I really wanted to just, in talking about Diving with a Purpose and talking about the work that SBA is doing on stage here,

00:21:29.100 really just highlight how when we have diverse teams, when we have people coming from a variety of different social positionalities,

00:21:37.460 So thinking not just racially, but class as well, geographically, really having diverse voices at that table allows us to really think creatively and differently about the past.

00:21:49.440 And then asking those questions of the past, we're able to really think critically about this present moment and how we want to envision ourselves in the future.

00:21:56.220 it's so deep so beautiful your work I'm amazed and like I felt with Tiffany I have so many

00:22:03.960 more questions and and so much more listening to do about both of your work but I do

00:22:10.020 want to give you the space to say anything that hasn't been said anything that you feel

00:22:15.400 is really coming up for you as being potent whether that's something you're excited about

00:22:19.740 something that you want to critique something that a story that maybe you've had or somebody

00:22:24.660 else's that you've been involved in. So the slate is blank for you. Yeah. Something that I'm really

00:22:29.740 excited about is really seeing and witnessing the reach that this short National Geographic

00:22:38.100 doc has had in the world. My barber sent me like a text message yesterday that was like,

00:22:44.680 I saw that Nat Geo on YouTube. And I was like, that's amazing. Like this is someone who ordinarily

00:22:51.880 doesn't have access to this sort of information or knowledge and he like reached out to me on

00:22:56.560 Instagram was like hey I saw you doing this and it had an impact with him so there's a way that like

00:23:02.740 me coming from this you know neck deep in academia space that I'm really opening my mind up wide to

00:23:11.260 what multi-platform storytelling really looks like what it looks like to actually create content that

00:23:17.020 could be disseminated to a wide variety of audiences in a number of different ways and

00:23:23.380 you know the short that we have with National Geographic is just one story and it's just one

00:23:28.980 of the many stories that Diving with a Purpose is doing and it's just one of the many stories

00:23:34.700 of scholars who are doing work who are associated with SBA so it's been really exciting to really

00:23:40.320 think about hey with like the network of amazing scholars doing dope work around the world what

00:23:46.260 sort of stories can we tell what sort of threads can we weave together how do we want to tell it

00:23:51.540 who do we who do we want that voice to be how do we want it to feel what's the flesh of it

00:23:55.680 and really thinking about that has been an exciting process with Tiffany who like her

00:24:00.800 way of doing media in this world her way of being in this world it's boundary shafting it's breaking

00:24:08.220 it's some it's creating something completely anew and I think it's the perfect space to really think

00:24:13.340 about how we can tell the story and the continuing stories of the African diaspora.

00:24:20.600 The conservation focus of this year's summit was Living Oceans, and I can't think of a better

00:24:26.420 person to introduce this topic than Megan Bronson. Megan oversees all aspects of Wild

00:24:33.180 Aid's marine protection work and is currently focused on expanding their program to strengthen

00:24:38.080 the enforcement of hundreds of marine protected areas globally.

00:24:43.340 Megan, as I was reading up for this interview, just seeing that you've been in this work

00:24:48.660 for, what, 15 years now, fighting illegal fishing, poaching, the information that you

00:24:54.680 must see on a daily basis must be horrifying in a lot of ways.

00:24:58.900 And yeah, I wonder how you deal with the grief and still stay really active.

00:25:04.820 So first off, you can't be in this field and not be an optimist.

00:25:07.820 You have to be the kind of person that focuses on finding the best out of a situation.

00:25:13.340 But even beyond that, my job is to support the Rangers that are doing all the hard work that are out there just getting it done.

00:25:25.500 And while there's often steps up and setbacks with that process, you're there for them.

00:25:34.600 And if they're feeling down, your job is to lift them up, right?

00:25:40.640 So you do it because you have to.

00:25:43.340 And there is, I mean, I think there is reason.

00:25:46.880 I have all, I always have all these stories of hope, you know, of successes from the people on the ground as well.

00:25:52.380 So I just fall back on that of like, okay, so it's a setback, but we have achieved this.

00:25:59.040 Well, and I think too, when you're in service to something other than yourself, whether that's rangers, whether that's a forest, salmon, a people,

00:26:06.740 there is a type of strength that comes when it's not all about you and it's not all about your

00:26:12.060 grief and your needs and your desires you are working for them and and I do think that really

00:26:18.540 is supportive when we're dealing with the sometimes unsurmountable shock and awe and horror

00:26:24.160 of what's happening and and so when you're telling me about the setbacks and you know you had

00:26:29.240 mentioned just the setbacks and some of the successes yeah and supporting these rangers

00:26:32.980 is there any stories that maybe either kind of go over all of those themes or a couple stories

00:26:38.300 that touch on a few of them? Yeah sure so recently like on a positive note well it's a positive and

00:26:45.220 negative right when you find when you find a case of illegal fishing or poaching the goal is for

00:26:51.380 there not illegal fishing or poaching right so it's it's a double-edged sword but that does mean

00:26:56.060 that the system's working and you need to be able to do that to build a sustainable system. In Ecuador

00:27:02.220 recently they there was a partnership and with the park and the navy and they did everything

00:27:10.960 right in terms of how they were monitoring their waters where was this uh this was in ecuador

00:27:15.420 just outside of the colapagos national park and they found a peruvian shark hunting vessel

00:27:19.760 and captured it and ecuador has been really so effective in recent years of bringing strong

00:27:30.620 prosecution in these cases. So I'm very hopeful that not only will this vessel be seized, but

00:27:37.100 there's also going to be potential jail time or appropriate consequences. Seizure of the vessel

00:27:43.420 often can have the bigger impacts because that's when the owners start hurting. So that's one very

00:27:49.520 recent cause for hope for me. And there's other stories when you talk about setbacks, where if

00:27:54.860 you're talking about often political changes you know a reserve that was declared is suddenly

00:28:02.420 you know no longer reversing of laws like that's that's the usual yeah because usually when you

00:28:08.700 build that strong partnership and engagement with the community on the ground I mean it's

00:28:12.800 their natural heritage that you are supporting the protection of you see more sharks you see

00:28:18.960 a healthy robust ecosystem that allows wildlife and people to thrive so you still have that core

00:28:25.340 but there's going to be you're going to see an upward trend with setbacks as you're going on

00:28:30.960 yeah i want to talk to you about conservation and colonial conservation and this is probably

00:28:36.860 a question i'm going to ask a lot of participants at jackson wild a lot of the groups and communities

00:28:42.960 that I work with, they have some pretty strong feelings about conservation and being kicked off

00:28:49.800 land. Look at what happened in Yosemite. And, you know, I think we need to look at that. I think we

00:28:54.620 need to explain the history of conservation in the past and what conservation is doing now,

00:28:59.880 because I think in a lot of groups, conservation has gotten a bad rap. And it's hard because in

00:29:05.620 some ways we really are losing the last remnants of wild spaces. And I absolutely think places

00:29:12.120 need to be protected but I wonder how can we protect places while building relationships

00:29:19.340 with the first peoples of the land more delicately more gracefully and with the folks who are living

00:29:26.360 with that land who are economically tied to the land for much longer than the conservationists

00:29:31.300 for the most part who come in and try to buy things up so you know it's a challenging question

00:29:36.860 to sit with because I understand the need to protect places. And I also see that it's been

00:29:43.300 done in ways that have been really harmful and created a lot of fissures between groups.

00:29:47.980 To me, it's very, very clear. So I am an example of colonial past, right? Who am I to go into the

00:29:56.940 Galapagos, to go to Ecuador, to go to Gabon and say, hey, you guys need to do XYZ and I'm here

00:30:03.720 to tell you how to do it yeah right that's disrespectful and it's ineffective what when

00:30:08.760 you're engaging with these people they must be not just educated but meaningfully included in

00:30:18.760 the management of their own resources their own natural heritage yeah and depending on where you

00:30:23.960 are in the world and what the status is of those people you're talking about that's going to be

00:30:28.640 very foreign to the people that you're talking to like of including these people in yeah that

00:30:33.720 management framework but that's a non-negotiable outcome for me so the last question I want to ask

00:30:39.400 you again I kind of mentioned it earlier but how do we balance the issue between what is deemed

00:30:45.920 illegal fishing and legal fishing like I mean I maybe wild aid is just like we don't work on that

00:30:51.820 because we not one organization can work on at all but I'm interested in trying to break that

00:30:57.280 down a little bit because i think i feel like some fisher companies they can pay for a permit

00:31:05.520 and suddenly make it legal like it's it's not you know it's it's funny to think well why does this

00:31:11.240 company get to completely rape the oceans and it's legal but then these mostly poor people can't do

00:31:17.960 their illegal fishing because like and that's another thing too you know you have these people

00:31:22.580 over here that might be totally in poverty but they get like a little bit of clean water but

00:31:26.560 they're stealing the water. But then this corporation over here just pays a low permit

00:31:29.700 and gets able to pollute billions of gallons of water and drill. But it's like, that's okay,

00:31:33.840 because that is deemed legal. And these smaller cartels that are mostly oppressed and usually

00:31:40.100 people of color, like those are the criminals. So yeah, I guess it's like, who are we choosing 1.00

00:31:44.900 who to place criminality onto? Absolutely. And I think fundamentally, you need to look at what

00:31:49.960 are your conservation goals, right? And you have to look at the full suite of what's going on.

00:31:55.940 It is one ocean. Fish have this pesky habit of not respecting borders, right?

00:32:01.320 So you need to look at the full picture and fundamentally integrate into that considerations of equity, considerations of food security.

00:32:15.040 What's your responsibility and whose benefit are you going to be aiming it at?

00:32:25.940 Our next guest, Rodrigo Farias, grew up exploring and documenting much of the beautiful Chilean coastline and the surf scene in the last decade, filming, traveling, and working with environmental surfer Ramon Navarro.

00:32:41.120 His mission is to communicate the sea culture that surrounds this sport, which has led him to be the director at Parley for the Oceans in Chile and raise awareness about the beauty and fragility of our oceans.

00:32:55.940 Just to start off, I'd love to hear about where you're working within Chile

00:33:02.220 and what are some of the threats to the coastal ecosystems there

00:33:06.060 and what are the ways that you see surfing as a culture being able to engage in conservation

00:33:11.800 in a way maybe other groups are not able to?

00:33:14.780 Yeah, totally.

00:33:16.000 Actually, Sylvia Earle said that divers and surfers are the more active users in the ocean now.

00:33:22.220 and the surfing in Chile has grown a lot

00:33:25.660 the last 10 years

00:33:27.400 even like the same

00:33:29.520 when I started working on surfing

00:33:31.760 in Chile, so we feel

00:33:33.620 kind of responsible for the growth

00:33:35.920 of the sport, but also

00:33:37.820 the development of the industry

00:33:39.720 and that comes in the hand

00:33:41.920 with the development of the real

00:33:43.720 estate for example

00:33:44.840 we have been making

00:33:47.900 surf films for 10-12

00:33:49.980 years and the last

00:33:51.200 But even like the 70% of my career, I have tried to make less surf films and more surf documentaries

00:33:58.360 and use the voice of surfing to really raise awareness about our ocean

00:34:03.120 and show stories that need to be listened and seen about what's going on in our coastline.

00:34:11.500 Actually, Chile has a really good economy now.

00:34:15.200 More industries are getting into the country.

00:34:18.480 but that means that the development is really without control you know you got from the north

00:34:25.560 you got the mining that is contaminating all the ocean you got thermoelectrics you got a mega ports

00:34:33.140 you got in the center south you got salmon industry that is starting to approach to the

00:34:40.820 center of the coastline and we have a beautiful coastline that we need to protect you know i live

00:34:47.420 in Pichilemu which is like a central the Chilean surf capital and we are in the

00:34:52.460 last highway of pure ocean without industries without thermoelectric without

00:34:59.840 port so we're trying to work and raise awareness to create a marine sanctuary

00:35:05.000 area there and it could be the last pristine place in the coastline so we

00:35:11.840 use surfing I work a lot from the beginning with Ramon Navarro who is our

00:35:17.120 local environmental leader, he's a Patagonian ambassador, he's the best

00:35:21.980 surfer in Chile and he also has changed his career a long time ago to spread the

00:35:28.400 message and his sport to the people that really needs to know, all the fans, all

00:35:34.820 the people like him surfing. We quit making films about how good I was for

00:35:40.880 surfing, Ramon as a good surfer or the perfect wave or even a show and

00:35:46.640 ego who is the best surfer in the movement to show that the surf gets positive for something

00:35:53.120 that is going in local community that's it i was reading how resource extraction projects can

00:35:59.840 actually disrupt waves yeah and i would love to hear more about that how how do these projects

00:36:06.240 actually destroy the surf well um i've been working since two years ago from parley for the

00:36:14.320 oceans a big foundation worldwide because surf films and surf documentaries doesn't give a

00:36:20.240 living you know but i i i've been working with parley and i have the opportunity to organize

00:36:27.840 more than 150 beach cleanups in two years and beach cleanups like trash like yeah we organize

00:36:33.840 and we made a beach cleanup guide for the army and we make cleanups with 40 50 100 volunteers

00:36:41.120 each two weeks in Chile, in 10 islands, 34 locations, we have been working with more than

00:36:46.880 3,000 volunteers in two years. What we, I've been traveling to mostly all of the cleanups and what

00:36:53.040 I see is like each island, each location has a different type of pollution, a different

00:37:01.440 contamination source and that has a guilty. In the hundred percent of the cases the guilty is the

00:37:09.680 human you know so we have been working and traveling through all the coastline of chile

00:37:16.000 surfing with the mother home with my my friends making the cleanups and we in each cleanup we

00:37:22.080 work with the local community and the local community tell us the biggest problem there

00:37:26.880 they say okay we know we're not cleaning a beach we're gonna resolve the problem with the plastic

00:37:31.440 you know but when we grab something from the beach we say hey okay what's this

00:37:35.760 and we find a rope for example and that rope we found a million of ropes and that rope comes from

00:37:45.240 the salmon farm that is in front of this island small island in the middle of Chile and Patagonia

00:37:52.920 and the salmon industry has been there for 30 years you know and they know that the that rope

00:37:59.940 is from them they never take care of that you know what happened if you contaminate a beach

00:38:07.140 that beach receives less tourism you don't want to go to a beach that is completely contaminated

00:38:12.660 you know and you start checking that oh wow what is going on the industry is affecting all the

00:38:19.780 chilean coastline you know in other places you got dumps illegal dumps you got how do you say

00:38:27.300 these pipelines of the pulp mills you know that even they get direct to the wave and they destroy

00:38:36.420 the wave you can't surf in a contaminated area in uncontaminated water but they don't care they

00:38:42.020 don't care they just put the industry it has been the industry there for 30 years and they got a

00:38:47.620 pipeline in the middle of the ocean the same as the mining in the north the thing is like our

00:38:53.220 Our coastline is so big that you can travel six hours through the desert, you know, and

00:38:58.460 see maybe three thermoelectrics, but the rest of land is desert.

00:39:04.140 So the people say, okay, one here doesn't bother a lot, you know, and the government

00:39:09.720 has the same feeling.

00:39:11.720 They give license and regulations each some meters, but in that way, they are contaminating

00:39:18.220 waves, they are destroying towns, and they can't do the people that live in the coastal

00:39:24.260 communities that the people, the ones that were fishermen, because the fishing industry

00:39:29.900 has destroyed the artisanal fisheries in Chile, the people that is from the coastal community

00:39:36.400 works for that industry, so they can't say, hey, you're contaminating my backyard, because

00:39:43.760 if they say that they get fired they can't bring feed to the family you know so we as we are like

00:39:50.840 external agents we can really say hey man you are doing bad to the local community yeah and so it's

00:39:57.580 hard you know it's really hard because we can even destroy an industry i can put all my energy to

00:40:04.740 destroy an industry but if i quit that industry maybe i'm taking 3 000 people without job

00:40:12.360 and if you see it from the side of the surfing it's a really ego thing oh just these kids they

00:40:19.800 want to surf in their way we don't double think that that kind of stuff you know but it's important

00:40:26.020 i was also grateful to sit down with the wonderful caitlin yarnell senior vice president and chief

00:40:35.820 storytelling officer at the national geographic society who is responsible for expanding the

00:40:40.940 organization's impact through all forms of storytelling, including photography,

00:40:44.960 journalism, film, and public experiences.

00:40:50.440 There's so much strategy that goes into what you do and I'm so appreciative of

00:40:55.680 the expansiveness in which you understand the situations and I agree

00:41:00.000 that National Geographic does have this brand that feels trustworthy and safe

00:41:04.980 to a lot of people and that's something that's really interesting to meet people

00:41:09.540 where they're at. And at the same time, I think about the last couple of covers, like the man

00:41:14.260 with the rhino, putting his head to the head of the rhino. And that image does feel like, in a way,

00:41:20.220 it's taking a stand. It doesn't feel completely like you're just hands off, like, oh, well,

00:41:24.600 whatever's happening is happening. You know, I think that there's ways in which National Geographic

00:41:28.680 nuances potentially what you all at the organization want people to begin to be more engaged with.

00:41:35.420 Totally. And it's a fact. That rhino was the last of his kind. Some of the most charismatic megafauna go extinct right in front of us. And you could say it's just a fact. It's the last one. We had a photojournalist who was there. She had a deep relationship with the keepers of this rhino. It was a heartbreaking moment.

00:41:57.900 That's a fact.

00:41:58.640 That happened and we documented it.

00:42:00.580 But what you choose to put on the cover, you know, the editor and the team that works on that, of course they're thinking about.

00:42:07.380 But you have to think about a lot of things, right?

00:42:09.540 One, what do you want to say with a cover?

00:42:11.680 But also, what is going to make people want to pick up the magazine and read it?

00:42:15.560 Because there's a fine line.

00:42:17.540 You know, there's a lot of scary things in the world and there's a lot of negativity.

00:42:22.840 And so you have to balance the wonder and the worry.

00:42:26.960 And I think National Geographic has done that well, right?

00:42:29.820 We take you places that you'd never go otherwise.

00:42:33.200 You meet people, you meet animals that you wouldn't otherwise.

00:42:37.100 But there's a worry.

00:42:38.760 But you have to balance that because at the end of the day,

00:42:41.320 we're not competing against other publishing houses or other media companies.

00:42:46.400 We're competing for people's time.

00:42:47.960 Yeah.

00:42:48.960 Right?

00:42:49.180 We only, I think, our most precious resources are time.

00:42:53.060 and you're competing against you know every novel ever written every movie ever made you know and

00:43:00.320 every cat video on the internet and and and people walking outside in the woods you know all of which

00:43:05.440 are valuable so how do you create content that is worthy of people's leisure time the wonder and the

00:43:11.780 worry statement i am going to remember that because that's so beautiful and i think a lot about the

00:43:17.380 beauty and the terror it's the same thing it's that it's balancing inspiring people and allowing

00:43:25.340 them to feel safe and welcomed into a space of inspiration but then at the same time being like

00:43:31.800 and this is the truth and this is what's happening and and I think about just the saturation of

00:43:37.280 digital media these days and like you're saying negative news I mean you can't go on Facebook or

00:43:42.680 Instagram or Twitter and not be bombarded with stories all over the world at this point that

00:43:47.400 are extremely devastating. And I wonder how does National Geographic and how does your work

00:43:53.560 specifically deal with this oversaturation point? What are some of the strategies that you see

00:43:58.960 unfolding when you're thinking, okay, this story is really important and we want to get people's

00:44:03.740 attention and why, you know, is it that you want them to call their Senator? Is it like, I'm

00:44:09.560 I'm interested to understand when you're saying these people are valuable, for what?

00:44:14.160 Is there an end goal?

00:44:15.340 And then, yeah, just kind of also talking about people are exhausted to an extent of media.

00:44:21.220 Yeah, we all are.

00:44:22.440 And it's my job to absorb and watch and read.

00:44:25.880 And I'm tired.

00:44:26.940 We borrowed some framing from a lot of other groups.

00:44:30.300 But from the storytelling perspective, what I always say is, you know, we need people to understand, to care.

00:44:37.180 And we need people to care to act.

00:44:38.620 and you can't jump through like that scaring part of that that sequence right I think a lot

00:44:45.540 of times what happens in the media that's hard is that we throw information at people so they'll

00:44:51.100 understand and then we expect them to act well just knowing something's happening doesn't mean

00:44:56.260 I'm going to change my behavior or doesn't mean I'm going to absorb it and and do anything different

00:45:00.780 right but when you care about something when you love something I would do anything for for the

00:45:05.180 people I love. I would do things for the places I love. So how do you get people to understand

00:45:11.140 something enough so that then they can care about it so that then they're going to do something to

00:45:16.000 act and be that stop using straws I think is the perfect example or donate or write a letter to

00:45:22.060 their senator and oftentimes we're not prescriptive. We just want you to care because we know if that

00:45:26.620 you care enough you will act right and and but what we have to do as a non-profit is be there

00:45:31.760 on the side to say if you want to act here are the ways but I think in terms of my work specifically

00:45:37.120 in funding storytellers and funding people who make the content what I look at in them because

00:45:43.820 they're the ones doing the work is do they understand what they're trying to do and do

00:45:48.120 they understand their audience because kind of design school 101 is purpose and audience

00:45:54.000 and so what are you trying to do and who are you trying to reach because I think sometimes there's

00:46:00.120 great intentions or great pieces of content great stories that the audience was not considered

00:46:06.920 and that means that you end up with a film or a photo essay or or a written piece that

00:46:14.380 doesn't reach the right people or doesn't ever see the light of day doesn't get distribution in

00:46:18.720 the right way and distribution does not necessarily mean mass global media it can mean if depending

00:46:25.120 you know what's the purpose it can mean a podcast in a local language that highlights you know some

00:46:31.920 issue in a very specific place that's really interesting to think about the audience because

00:46:36.700 when I was imagining a reach like National Geographic you're reaching you know I don't

00:46:43.180 know millions millions okay so you're reaching millions of people with these stories all over

00:46:47.300 the world and most of the stories people can't do much about like for instance even the Amazon

00:46:52.880 burning. Yeah. I kind of zoom back and I think, okay, now all these people are riled up about

00:46:58.980 the Amazon burning and they're frustrated and they want to do something. And they may be in

00:47:03.060 Wyoming or California and literally have no ties to the Amazon, no understanding of the government,

00:47:07.860 no understanding of the indigenous people, never been there, never will. But yet they don't even 0.77

00:47:12.120 know what's happening in their backyard where they actually do have more agency. And so I love

00:47:17.980 hearing about how you fund stories that may literally go to one person or may go to a small

00:47:25.120 group of people that the public will never know that that film was even made. But because the

00:47:29.160 purpose is to impact this specific audience, I think that's a really fascinating thing for people

00:47:34.680 to understand, especially the work that y'all are doing is that this isn't always for everybody.

00:47:41.140 But I do have that question around with the saturation point and with all of this global

00:47:46.300 news which I don't I don't imagine that humans evolved to take in all of this all the time or

00:47:51.820 to even understand the scale of it I don't think we actually understand we understand it intellectually

00:47:57.080 but I don't think we understand no scale no and how can we no how can we and and I wonder this

00:48:04.280 with even for the wilds media of I want to be able to share stories from all over the world and I

00:48:09.960 don't want people to get so riled up about things that ultimately debilitate them because they can't

00:48:15.440 really have an impact there, but then where can they have an impact? Where are they going to have

00:48:20.720 the most agency, connection, responsibility? So I guess I'm wondering, how do you balance

00:48:26.640 the global and the local in your storytelling? So I'd say that, you know, it really comes down

00:48:31.620 to what do you want to do? What's the goal? Like I said before, and sometimes groundswell is what

00:48:36.180 you need. And sometimes impact measurement is one of the hardest things to do. And sometimes you

00:48:41.320 can't measure back like what was the tipping point that caused global consciousness to change.

00:48:46.620 National Geographic, you know, we're two companies. We have the non-profit side that can be very

00:48:50.760 specific targeted because our goal is, you know, to really invest in that local and change impact

00:48:59.560 driven, but also stand for journalism. We're not an advocacy group in that sense. But then we have

00:49:05.920 the other side, which is a media company and a massive media company that reaches, you know,

00:49:11.220 hundreds of millions of people a day.

00:49:13.740 And when we can get those two things synced up together,

00:49:17.920 so we fund someone who creates some content

00:49:20.620 that then gets amplified through our platforms globally,

00:49:23.800 that's when you have power.

00:49:25.000 But sometimes we might,

00:49:26.420 amplification does not have to be global.

00:49:28.480 It can be those tiny micro examples I talked about,

00:49:30.760 but oftentimes it can be, you know,

00:49:32.060 an Indian filmmaker makes something. 0.87

00:49:33.920 It's not great for global,

00:49:34.840 but it hits national broadcast in India.

00:49:37.340 you can reach like 700 million people with one broadcast so we I try to talk people away from

00:49:46.140 thinking about like global is king right because people are the same everywhere we fundamentally

00:49:52.880 believe that people are different what plays in one culture and what plays in one market

00:49:56.760 does not necessarily play in another and and the cultural nuance there is important you know I was

00:50:02.720 at a conference, I don't even remember where, in the last couple years, and someone said

00:50:07.160 to me, well, he said on stage, he said it, see, I reframed it.

00:50:10.660 He said to me, because that's how much it resonated with me.

00:50:14.340 He said, the opposite of complexity can often be seen as reductionism, and it shouldn't

00:50:22.460 be.

00:50:22.740 Like, the world is complex, and we all strive simplicity, and simplicity is okay.

00:50:27.600 So keeping the balance between it's all right to make your life more simple, to make your thinking simple, grounded in a place of complexity versus reductionism, which is dangerous.

00:50:41.660 So every time I hear someone use the word reductionism, I'm like, good, good, because it's something that hit me there.

00:50:50.800 Any other projects?

00:50:52.380 I don't know.

00:50:52.920 You know, I'm so fortunate to have traveled and been involved with incredible stories and close to incredible people and places.

00:51:01.340 But one program I just love is a program we call Photo Camp, where we work with underprivileged youth around the world, 20 at a time, send our best photographers out with them.

00:51:13.580 and in one week they learn the basics of photography but more importantly they learn

00:51:19.780 that their stories matter and that they have a voice that needs to be amplified and that to me

00:51:25.720 has been some of the most powerful work I've done and while it doesn't go huge big distribution

00:51:32.040 although we have had exhibits at you know the Nobel Peace Center and the Kennedy Center of their work

00:51:36.120 it's knowing that you are reaching a young person at a pivotal point in their life and telling them

00:51:42.100 that your story matters what you see and what you hear and how you're able to express that is

00:51:47.840 very important so that to me has been some of the most powerful work I've done that's so beautiful

00:51:53.060 and I agree so many times people need to feel acknowledged and valued and to give opportunities

00:51:58.420 like that to the youth and to say you matter your perspective matters imagine just the watering of

00:52:04.580 their seed of creativity that gets to be amplified through their growing up I mean that's absolutely

00:52:10.400 so beautiful

00:52:11.200 last but certainly not least

00:52:18.000 we hear from Faith Mozambi

00:52:20.120 Faith is an award-winning visual

00:52:22.540 storyteller with a deep and abiding

00:52:24.560 love for motion pictures, writing

00:52:26.600 and nature. After obtaining

00:52:28.620 a Master's of Arts in the Visual

00:52:30.520 Media Arts from Emerson College

00:52:32.220 she returned to her native Kenya

00:52:34.180 where she has crafted films including

00:52:36.280 Underwater Treasures and Saltwater Survivors

00:52:38.900 for the award-winning Giving Nature a Voice series.

00:52:45.760 So when I embarked on this project, I was just fascinated by the fact that you have

00:52:50.480 trees that grow in salt water and survive. And there's a really cool organization in Kenya,

00:52:56.360 I think the only one that supports environmental filmmaking. So I got a grant to do this production

00:53:01.600 thinking it would be like the ins and outs of mangrove conservation. And it wasn't. It was

00:53:07.580 literally a discovery I went to the coast of Kenya and the coast of Kenya is quite massive

00:53:12.260 you know I don't know how many kilometers a mile you know square whatever it is and I found this

00:53:17.760 interesting situation in coastal Kenya where you know you had the government and non-government

00:53:23.660 organizations coming in and you know laying down the law you can't cut down mangroves which is great

00:53:28.920 for the environment but then that would leave the local communities out in the cold because you know

00:53:34.420 for some of them they'd owned tracts of land with mangroves and the way they sent their kids to

00:53:39.400 school the way they made a living was through cutting them and selling them you know for

00:53:43.560 building houses because mangrove wood is really sturdy so it was you know there was this gap where

00:53:49.380 the local communities are incredibly angry at you know the government because there's been no effort

00:53:53.780 of trying to understand the predicament that the local residents are in and this documentary was

00:54:00.220 awesome because it literally facilitated conversation between like all these different

00:54:04.900 groups of people in such a way that they could you know hear each other out because efforts in

00:54:10.120 the past had just ended in disaster because no one would give anyone the time of day and there

00:54:15.960 was another angle another issue that upset some of the residents because there are areas in Kenya

00:54:21.320 where you're allowed to cut mangroves but in a controlled fashion and people from areas where

00:54:26.600 they're not allowed to cut at all didn't understand like why are they allowed to cut you know mangroves

00:54:31.940 and we're not um so it was a really simple explanation you know the the areas where they're

00:54:36.820 allowed to cut they have you know acres and acres and acres of mangroves and areas where they're not

00:54:41.740 allowed to cut it it would be incredibly unsustainable for them to cut so it was just

00:54:46.360 it was just incredible discovery for me for you know everyone involved and educational but also

00:54:53.220 learning experience for me in the sense that I realized you know it's conservation is not a

00:54:58.420 simple it's not a two-dimensional thing man it has so many dimensions and the challenge is always on

00:55:04.800 us filmmakers like how do we tell that story to justice without taking on an angle that's forcing

00:55:10.220 an agenda. Conservation is so complex especially around economics and I think it's fascinating to

00:55:20.100 look at the conservation projects around the world that are happening now but have happened

00:55:23.960 in the past couple hundred years and so many times conservation doesn't uplift everybody

00:55:30.860 and I think that's a story that needs to be told more and understood and I don't know what the

00:55:36.600 solution to that is and I'm interested to hear how you think that can be balanced because I see

00:55:41.920 people coming in and they're really focusing on just environmental factors land whether that's

00:55:47.860 trees, the other more than human kin that are living in those places, but the human dynamic

00:55:53.500 is left out of the equation. And when people are struggling for economic stability and their

00:55:59.980 resources of the land are what they use to put food on the table, it gets really tricky. Or when

00:56:05.320 people are kicked out of their lands to make a park. You know, that happened a lot here in the

00:56:09.780 United States, so-called United States. There are stories about Yosemite and John Muir, and

00:56:14.800 there's a lot of pain around conservation here so I'd like to hear your angle on how you think

00:56:22.440 in Kenya specifically there could be a way where conservation was prioritized at the same time as

00:56:29.600 the humans living in those areas and economic stability for them is there an answer to that

00:56:33.620 nothing that's a great question because that's you know what we have to deal with as filmmakers

00:56:38.460 And with saltwater survivors, it's what I came across, where, you know, you had these really good things for the environment where, you know, there are laws that are meant to look after the environment.

00:56:49.920 But then by neglecting the fact that there is a human factor to conservation and by neglecting that, you put a timestamp on whatever you're doing.

00:56:58.200 Because if you're restricting mangrove cutting but completely neglecting the fact that there are people that rely on those mangroves, it's only going to be a matter of time.

00:57:06.920 I mean, these guys are going to keep cutting, you know, whether it's in the dead of night, it will undermine all the efforts.

00:57:13.020 What I've seen that's positive or moving in the right direction is when the local residents are involved because essentially it's their thing to run.

00:57:23.420 You know, that's their area. And, you know, it doesn't matter how wealthy an organization is.

00:57:28.280 They can't stay there forever. You know, they literally need to have the guys on the ground like this.

00:57:33.160 that's their area. What I've seen work is when they involve them and they kind of create

00:57:38.640 alternative ways to make money. Like what? For instance, with the mangroves, there's another

00:57:45.700 kind of tree that also has sturdy wood and that wouldn't be devastating to the environment if

00:57:50.880 it's cut. So there are a few organizations that have come in and that have helped the local

00:57:56.120 residents plant these trees. So now they have an alternative where they can grow these trees.

00:58:00.520 it's okay to cut them and you also have they use the mangroves to create eco-tourism there's a

00:58:07.060 place in in coastal Kenya that has a mangrove boardwalk so they've created this really cool

00:58:12.040 boardwalk you know through a mangrove channel and tourists come in they pay to go on and they can

00:58:18.160 also pay for canoe trips to go into the channel and it's all community run lead and everything

00:58:24.320 so all the money they're making through the eco-tourism is getting channeled into conservation

00:58:29.000 So it's become their thing and they're sending the kids to school and not just primary or secondary education.

00:58:34.980 You know, these kids are going to university and the kids are coming back into the community and working as opposed to what would happen before.

00:58:43.120 You know, the kids, if they're lucky enough to get a scholarship to go, they go and they never come back.

00:58:48.680 So, I mean, I think it's a it has to go hand in hand, you know, the care for the community.

00:58:54.020 Otherwise, literally what you're doing, it's not sustainable.

00:58:57.240 Maybe it might be great for two years and then it dies and then the mangroves also die.

00:59:02.540 But I'm all about celebrating Kenya and Africa.

00:59:05.420 I'm sick and tired of the narrative of, you know, hunger, you know, depression when we're such a rich continent.

00:59:12.840 I want to hear more about the narrative that you feel like is coming from the outside world.

00:59:19.280 And I just want to also want to hear more about what you want the outside world to know about Africa and Kenya specifically.

00:59:27.100 The narrative that's coming out is super negative.

00:59:30.040 And I think it's because we're not telling our own stories.

00:59:32.340 You know, like the story about the black leopard.

00:59:34.900 The reason the article ran with the fact that it hasn't been seen in 100 years,

00:59:39.120 it's because the person telling the story, it's true for them.

00:59:42.320 They hadn't seen it in 100 years.

00:59:44.520 And so that's been the common theme that becomes so frustrating

00:59:48.160 is because of who we tend to be as a people,

00:59:51.860 and I hate speaking in generalities, but I feel like I can in this,

00:59:54.820 we tend to step back and kind of be like okay you can you know take the stage and tell our story

01:00:00.000 and it literally is time for us to step up and be like we have incredible places you know we

01:00:07.100 we don't want to be always seen as a charity case I don't think Africa needs any more aid because

01:00:12.960 we're literally we're such a wealthy continent and I mean that you know in terms of resources

01:00:17.900 just things that you find in Africa we're so wealthy but there's a mindset where you find

01:00:25.140 people kind of just like sitting back and just with their you know hands outstretched waiting

01:00:30.340 for aid or waiting for someone else to tell the story and I'm interested in doing my bit

01:00:36.760 in giving people platform as much as I can to kind of tell their own stories of love and heartache

01:00:42.820 and beauty and all those things but also giving kids that courage to kind of be like you can also

01:00:48.520 step up and you know and tell your story you know you don't have to wait read your story from the

01:00:53.320 history books from a different angle this is this is yours to write yeah

01:00:57.880 thank you for listening to another episode of for the wild podcast

01:01:11.840 I'm Ayanna Young

01:01:13.040 The music you heard today was from

01:01:15.820 South London Hi-Fi

01:01:17.240 Bad Snacks

01:01:19.040 Chris Hogan

01:01:20.720 Josh Lippe and the Overtimers 1.00

01:01:23.960 I'd like to thank

01:01:26.180 our team

01:01:26.820 Aiden McRae, Andrew Storrs

01:01:29.160 Cameron Stallones

01:01:30.860 Carter Lou McElroy

01:01:32.680 Erica Eckram, Aaron Wise

01:01:35.140 Francesca Glassbell

01:01:36.840 Hannah Wilton and Melanie Younger

01:01:41.840 Thank you.

For The Wild - November 27, 2019

Reshaping the Landscape of Conservation Media at JACKSON WILD ⧸146

Episode Stats

Transcript