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Why Nearshore Ocean Conservation Is Critical for Climate, Biodiversity, and Communities · How To Protect The Ocean

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  Protection of the ocean for the last
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  couple of decades has really focused on
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  area based protection.
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  So how much of an area can we protect?
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  What is the percentage?
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  And over the last decade or so, we've
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  been really focusing on protecting 30% of
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  ocean and land by 2030.
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  So 30 by 30, commonly known as 30 by 30.
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  This is something that's been a big
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  focus, area based focus.
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  But a lot of the times it's focused on
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  the offshore area,
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  not the near shore area.
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  And there's a new paper that was
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  published by the Center of American
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  Progress called the
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  near shore ocean progress.
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  It's a document that really highlights
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  people who have been in communities who
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  have been doing more near
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  shore local conservation.
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  And that's going to be the subject of
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  today's podcast, because we're going to
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  be talking about why it's important to
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  also focus on the near
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  shore as well as the offshore.
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  Some of the challenges, some of the
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  successes have come through it.
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  And we're going to talk about some of the
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  projects that have been going on in there
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  and some of the reasons why we should go
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  more locally these days and not always
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  depend on federal resources.
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  And we're going to talk about some of the things that we should do in that regard.
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  So we're going to talk about that on
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  today's episode of the How to Protect the
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  Ocean Podcast. Let's start the show.
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  Hey everybody, welcome back to another
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  exciting episode of the How
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  to Protect the Ocean Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.
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  And this is the podcast where you find
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  out what's happening with the ocean, how
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  you can speak up for the ocean, and what
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  you can do to live for a better ocean by
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  taking action on today's episode.
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  We've got a special one for you today
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  because we have guests from
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  the Center of American Progress.
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  We've had some of these people on before
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  from this organization, like a think
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  thing that talks a lot about ocean
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  conservation, ocean protection.
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  We're going to be going from 30 by 30 and
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  into the near shore and why protecting
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  the near shore is really important.
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  We have Dr. Alia Hadiat, who's here to
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  talk about the document as well as Angelo
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  Villagomez, friend of the podcast.
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  And Alia is going to be
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  here a number of times as well.
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  I've invited her back a couple of times
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  to talk to us in the future about not
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  only near shore, but stuff that's coming
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  out of the Center of American Progress.
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  You're going to love both of them and how
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  they are talking about this stuff.
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  We're going to talk a lot about why it's
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  important to protect the near shore,
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  who's involved in protecting the near
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  shore, some of the challenges, some of
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  the successes that we've seen before in
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  protecting the near shore, and a lot of
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  other stuff that talks about, you know,
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  new federal policies that are coming out
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  in the US and why it's important to
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  really focus on a local.
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  But not always.
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  That's the reason is we've
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  always had to focus on local.
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  So we're going to be talking about a
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  document that's been worked on for the
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  last two years and where
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  it's going to go in the future.
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  So I want you to listen to
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  this interview carefully.
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  It's not going to be the
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  last time we talk about this.
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  Here is Dr. Alia Hadiat and Angelo
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  Villagomez talking about
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  near shore ocean progress.
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  Enjoy the interview and
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  I'll talk to you after.
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  Hey, Alia.
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  Hey, Angelo.
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  Welcome to the How to
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  Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  I almost messed it up there.
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  Are you ready to talk
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  about near shore conservation?
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  Yeah, let's do it.
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  Why I'm here, man.
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  All right. I'm excited for this because this is
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  something that's been
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  it's very close to my heart.
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  It's very close to all of our hearts
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  because when we look out at a lake or at
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  the ocean, we look out a lot of times,
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  not necessarily from a boat, but we look
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  out from the coast and you always want to
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  see a nice coastline.
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  You always want to you
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  don't want to see green water.
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  You don't want it to smell.
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  You don't want to see pollution.
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  You want to see beautiful water, but that
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  hasn't been the focus
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  for the last little bit.
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  We've we've heard the 30 by 30 rule, you
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  know, protect 30 percent of
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  the ocean and land by 2030.
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  But we haven't really talked a lot about
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  the coastal area, the near shore area.
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  And it seems to always get more into the
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  deep, which is fine.
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  Obviously, it's needed, but we always
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  need to protect the near shore where we
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  are and where we have
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  the most disturbance.
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  So I'm looking forward
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  to getting into this.
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  Why such a shift?
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  There's a there's a new paper out that
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  that's on your website as well.
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  People can download it and people go in.
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  From my understanding, you've been
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  talking about it at
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  conferences and so forth.
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  So we're here to talk about it today.
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  But before we do, I want to get to know
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  all the ideas the first
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  time you're on the podcast.
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  Angel's been on the podcast.
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  We'll remind that we'll get Angela to
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  remind people who he is and what he does.
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  But I want you to let us know
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  who you are and what you do.
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  All right. Thanks, Andrew.
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  This is really exciting.
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  This is I think my
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  first podcast recording.
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  I love it.
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  I love it.
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  Yeah. Yeah. So I'm Ali.
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  I'm a senior policy analyst at the Center
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  for American Progress with Angelo working
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  on conservation policy
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  and ocean conservation.
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  Before this, I actually got a PhD in
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  ocean science in the impacts of climate
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  on human health and then ended up coming
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  to policy after realizing that, hey, a
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  lot of ocean problems are not science
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  problems or research problems.
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  So a couple of years ago, made a pivot
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  into ocean policy, started
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  move to D.C. and started here.
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  So I have to ask this question because my
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  daughter is in grade 12.
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  She is going to
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  university for wildlife biology.
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  She wants to be a biologist and I've
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  talked to her about policy and the
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  importance of policy, but
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  she's on like one track mind.
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  I want to work with animals.
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  So for you going into science, what was
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  your like, what was this type of science?
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  What were you doing? Were you were like,
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  were you doing science on specific
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  animals or was it like
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  habitats or like oceanography?
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  What was it about?
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  Yeah, no, I think that's sort of the I
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  think bringing marine biologists is a
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  very glamorous position.
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  I think like what when you think of like
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  kids, like what you want to do, like as a
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  child, I feel like it's
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  marine biologists or astronaut.
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  They actually caught that bug early.
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  And I imagine sort of the science and
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  research career to be.
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  And so during my PhD, I worked with
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  zebrafish and looked at
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  the effects of our flowers.
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  So red tide by other types
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  of purple algae on the brain.
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  So it's still extremely fun.
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  I love science, but it's
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  also really difficult work.
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  And it's a lot of being able to
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  troubleshoot and run into all again and
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  again and again and solve problems.
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  I think I really enjoyed
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  the research aspect of it.
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  But again, as I mentioned, so much of the
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  problems that we're facing right now are
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  not research problems.
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  Science can help us understand them.
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  But we really need to bring people along
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  and convince our policymakers and the
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  community that they represent to get on
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  board with these solutions.
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  So made a clear pivot towards that.
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  I think your daughter definitely like has
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  like I love that interest.
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  That's really exciting. Yeah.
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  Just increasing that hate like the ocean
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  and the animals that live in it and all
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  that ecosystems are really exciting.
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  Think about what are the most effective
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  ways that we as people can help support
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  them and keep them safe.
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  And a lot of those
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  solutions that are policy solutions.
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  Yeah, especially when you're talking
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  about harmful algal blooms to write it
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  kind of hits you right in the face of
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  what you need to do to get over that.
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  And I find a lot of people who come up
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  through the ranks of academia and they
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  and they do marine biology or wildlife
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  biology or more research on on specific
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  biology research
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  questions pivot to policy.
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  But was that a
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  difficult thing for you to do?
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  Like, you know, you're always when you're
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  a kid, were you imagining
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  always working with animals?
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  And then as you as you mature through the
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  academic process and you start to see and
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  you start to kind of get enlightened.
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  I always called it when I got it when I
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  started to get into conservation.
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  Was it a hard to pivot to that or was it
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  something like, no, I
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  this is where I need it.
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  Yeah, I think it was
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  definitely a learning process.
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  I think I definitely had that image of my
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  head of working on a boat diving being
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  out in nature a lot more and you don't
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  realize that, hey, I'm a couple years
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  into my PhD and I'm spending most of my
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  time in a lab or working in Python.
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  I think that's not
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  necessarily a bad thing.
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  I think all those
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  skills are really important.
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  And that's that's how real science works.
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  But yeah, I think there is definitely a
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  transition into what what
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  does this actually look like?
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  What is a science career in science
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  actually look like in the day to day?
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  And that's different than
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  what you might imagine as a kid.
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  And I think it's where from my position
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  now it's I think it was definitely took a
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  little bit to see how being I work in
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  office nine to five and in
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  in DC far away from the ocean.
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  But I still think that the work that we
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  do is really important even if we're not
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  interacting with that every day.
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  And so, yeah, I think there's definitely
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  like a little bit of a switch to see that
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  type of job is still really important,
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  even if it doesn't look like what you
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  would imagine as a wildlife
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  biologist or a marine biologist.
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  It's important work.
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  It's probably one of the most important
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  works we do as conservationists and as
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  scientists really is to make sure that we
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  can enact the stuff that we identify as the problems in science to make sure we get through.
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  Angela, you've been doing this for quite
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  some time now and working a lot of policy
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  and and working with different groups and
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  working in offices and also being out and
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  traveling the world and stuff.
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  What are your when you
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  first started your career?
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  Let's go way back.
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  You and I were about the same.
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  We're the same age going way back.
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  I'm not sure if you remember when you
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  first started and then coming into
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  policy, like, how do you find your career
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  shifting and going into more.
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  I mean, you were you were always into conservation. Right.
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  Like you.
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  And so where you're at now with some of
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  the things that you're kind of leading
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  and pushing in terms of policy, how do
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  you find your work now, like at this
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  stage of your career?
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  Well, I'm a large marine mammal.
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  I don't know if you knew that.
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  So to a certain degree, Alia does work with animals every single day.
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  It's in an office and it's with a boat.
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  But I also you know, when I was in high
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  school, I wanted I like the only thing I
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  thought I could be was a scientist like
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  the other things just did not excite me.
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  And in the 1990s, the things that were
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  offered to me were either
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  chemistry, physics or biology.
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  You kind of had to
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  pick between those three.
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  And I gravitated.
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  I started with physics, which I hated because it was all math. And then I I'm actually good at math.
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  I just didn't want to
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  do it for my entire life.
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  But then I pivoted into biology.
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  And that's kind of where I discovered
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  conservation because I learned that you
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  know, you could you could spend your
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  entire life studying beetles, naming them
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  and learning what they do.
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  But then a multinational, a multinational
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  corporation could come in and cut down
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  your rank for the weekend.
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  And your life's work would be over.
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  So that kind of made me think about what I was going to do. And I started knocking on doors for
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  political campaigns in college.
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  And I was always stabbed by that mysterious
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  I love, which is you guys are on this
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  podcast today to talk
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  about, you know, how policies
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  need to switch.
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  Now for the last, I would say good, like
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  five, six years even,
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  we've been really focusing
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  on 30 by 30.
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  So protecting 30% of
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  water and 30% of land by 2030.
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  Regimes shift, you know,
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  administration shift, they change.
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  There's still a focus on
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  that, still talking about that.
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  Whether we're going to be able to get
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  that from a, from an
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  international perspective,
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  like a worldwide perspective, that's
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  still to be debated.
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  And it seems like as we get closer and
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  closer to the 2030 time,
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  it doesn't look like we'll
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  get there, but we'll get
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  better than what we were before.
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  But, you know, now with everything that's
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  happening in the US,
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  you know, there's, there's
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  a shift away from conservation.
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  You know, Angela, where is the 30 by 30
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  sort of, I guess, not
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  activism or advocacy, but
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  the trying to push 30 by 30.
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  Where is that at right now in the US with
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  these changes with the government?
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  So first of all, I think
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  you're absolutely right.
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  This shift in conservation priorities has
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  always happened, you
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  know, for the last hundred
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  years, you know, back in Teddy Roosevelt
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  days, and he was the
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  American president in
• 1:12:23
  the early 1900s.
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  He created all these national parks
• 1:12:26
  because he wanted scenic landscapes.
• 1:12:29
  And we still love scenic landscapes, and
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  we love to go there and
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  take our Instagram photos.
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  But it's not the driving
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  reason why we do conservation today.
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  And the conservation movement has always
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  changed every 10 or 15
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  years with Rachel Carson's
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  book in the 1960s.
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  Aldo Leopold before that.
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  And then like when you and I were growing
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  up was all about save
• 1:12:50
  the whales, you know,
• 1:12:52
  fix the save the ozone layer.
• 1:12:55
  Save the rainforest.
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  And then, you know, climate change kind
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  of became much more
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  important in the 2000s.
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  And then after 2020, it was equity and
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  justice because of the
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  murder of George Floyd.
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  So I, you know, before I even answer that
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  question, this change is good.
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  And we the conservation community has
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  talked about these area
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  targets for literally decades.
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  If you look back at David Brower, who led
• 1:13:20
  the Sierra Club in the 1960s and 70s,
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  the Sierra Club was talking about
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  protecting 10% of the
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  land back in the 1960s.
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  So it's not a new idea, but what changed
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  is it became the primary, it became the
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  bumper sticker slogan for about,
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  I would say about 10 years, because when
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  I worked for the Pew
• 1:13:38
  Charitable Trusts in 2016,
• 1:13:42
  we were actually the ones who sponsored
• 1:13:44
  that resolution at the
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  International Union for the
• 1:13:46
  Conservation of Nature.
• 1:13:48
  So I helped draft that resolution and
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  recruited the other 20 sponsors
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  negotiated the language.
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  So like for a good
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  decade, 30 by 30 has been it.
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  And if you if you if you browse people's
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  websites today, they talk about we have
• 1:14:02
  to achieve 30 by 30,
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  which is 30% of lands and oceans by 2030.
• 1:14:07
  But if you really start to pick apart
• 1:14:09
  some of these, like the arguments for 20,
• 1:14:11
  the arguments for 30 by 30, at its core,
• 1:14:14
  what it really means is
• 1:14:16
  we need more conservation
• 1:14:18
  we need better conservation and we need
• 1:14:20
  faster conservation.
• 1:14:22
  And then I would add in there in the last
• 1:14:24
  five years, it's we need more equitable
• 1:14:26
  and just conservation.
• 1:14:28
  So I don't think that 30 by 30 is coming
• 1:14:30
  to the coming to an end.
• 1:14:32
  I think we're going to continue to use
• 1:14:34
  area targets as a metric.
• 1:14:36
  You know, you're still going to want to
• 1:14:37
  know we're going to
• 1:14:38
  talk about kelp, right?
• 1:14:39
  You're going to want to know how much
• 1:14:40
  kelp is protected
• 1:14:40
  because that's going to help
• 1:14:42
  managers with their their
• 1:14:43
  decisions on how to manage it.
• 1:14:45
  But it's not going to be the goal.
• 1:14:47
  It's not going to be it's not going to be
• 1:14:49
  the thing at the top of your paper.
• 1:14:51
  It's and you know, the funny thing about
• 1:14:53
  this paper that we just proposed
• 1:14:55
  is that we haven't come to agreement
• 1:14:57
  around what that thing is.
• 1:14:59
  Like there's these all of these targets
• 1:15:02
  and in 2030, and in 2031,
• 1:15:05
  we're going to need a new
• 1:15:06
  bumper sticker. And I don't think there's
• 1:15:09
  agreement yet as to what
• 1:15:10
  that bumper sticker is.
• 1:15:11
  And I think different different
• 1:15:12
  organizations are kind of
• 1:15:13
  hovering around what it might be.
• 1:15:16
  The World Wildlife Foundation
• 1:15:17
  talks about nature positive.
• 1:15:21
  I just went to the Tiyaki Moana
• 1:15:22
  conference with Tiyaki in sort of like
• 1:15:24
  guardian and Moana means
• 1:15:26
  ocean. So I think there's this
• 1:15:28
  combination of people and
• 1:15:30
  nature and equity and justice,
• 1:15:32
  but also strong and good conservation
• 1:15:34
  that is that is well
• 1:15:36
  designed and implemented.
• 1:15:38
  And I've literally just spent like
• 1:15:40
  several minutes talking
• 1:15:41
  about what could go down on
• 1:15:43
  a bumper sticker and you know, and some
• 1:15:45
  brilliant person is going to offer
• 1:15:46
  something at some moment.
• 1:15:48
  And that's what the 2030s will be about.
• 1:15:50
  And so that that's
• 1:15:51
  what I hope this report
• 1:15:53
  helps begin that discussion of, you know,
• 1:15:56
  30 by 30 has been
• 1:15:57
  great. It's raised ambitions.
• 1:16:00
  More money is pouring into the
• 1:16:02
  conservation movement than
• 1:16:03
  ever. It's inspired people.
• 1:16:05
  You've got presidents, you know, Joe
• 1:16:07
  Biden talked about 30 by 30
• 1:16:09
  in his state of the union.
• 1:16:10
  When has that ever happened in the United
• 1:16:12
  States? So like it's
• 1:16:14
  been incredibly great.
• 1:16:17
  You know, so but what have we learned?
• 1:16:21
  You know, post most of the science for 30
• 1:16:24
  by 30 is from the 2000s and the 2010s.
• 1:16:27
  And it doesn't really take into account
• 1:16:28
  everything that
• 1:16:29
  happened after George Floyd.
• 1:16:31
  So, you know, so much science and so much
• 1:16:33
  learning and experience
• 1:16:34
  has happened in the 2020s.
• 1:16:36
  How do we take that and come up with the
• 1:16:39
  next thing? And that's the
• 1:16:40
  question that we're asking.
• 1:16:42
  And I think it's great because I think,
• 1:16:43
  you know, one of the concerns I remember
• 1:16:45
  when all this was happening
• 1:16:47
  when the 2030 was being proposed.
• 1:16:50
  I remember here in Canada, the federal
• 1:16:52
  government under Trudeau was like, we're
• 1:16:54
  going to increase ours.
• 1:16:55
  And we were at like 1% at the time or
• 1:16:57
  1.5% and he increased it or his
• 1:16:59
  government increased it to
• 1:17:00
  like 15% within a few years.
• 1:17:02
  And so the big the big worry was like,
• 1:17:04
  are these going to be like properly
• 1:17:06
  protected or are they just picking random
• 1:17:08
  areas like the low hanging fruit?
• 1:17:10
  Like, you know, we picked Arctic areas,
• 1:17:12
  which, you know, Angela, you've talked
• 1:17:14
  about this on huge stages before where we
• 1:17:17
  we tend to go to indigenous places to be
• 1:17:19
  able to protect those places because
• 1:17:21
  there there tend to be larger coverages
• 1:17:24
  and you tend to get more area.
• 1:17:26
  But are they really, you know, talking
• 1:17:28
  about justice and equity and equitability
• 1:17:30
  in in their equity in these areas?
• 1:17:32
  Are they really where we need to focus or
• 1:17:34
  do we need to focus in areas where
• 1:17:36
  there's a little bit more controversy, a
• 1:17:38
  little bit more action in terms of
• 1:17:39
  disturbance in terms of really where we
• 1:17:41
  need to get that conservation.
• 1:17:43
  So I really like that sort of the
• 1:17:46
  evolution of
• 1:17:46
  conservation, how it's going.
• 1:17:48
  It's not to say that 30 by 30 sucked into
• 1:17:50
  it. It didn't do anything.
• 1:17:51
  It obviously did a lot
• 1:17:52
  and it made us learn a lot.
• 1:17:54
  And then with all these things that
• 1:17:55
  happened, such as, you know, the
• 1:17:58
  unfortunate events of what happened to
• 1:17:59
  George Floyd and then what happened after
• 1:18:01
  that, we started to really push on this.
• 1:18:04
  Now, I have to ask this.
• 1:18:06
  I'm in Canada.
• 1:18:07
  You know, I'm here sitting sitting above
• 1:18:09
  you, sitting above you guys
• 1:18:10
  geographically and looking down and and,
• 1:18:13
  you know, the the the definite focus has
• 1:18:16
  been, you know, when we look at
• 1:18:17
  conservation is is
• 1:18:19
  justice, equity, inclusion.
• 1:18:22
  But then, of course, you know, this
• 1:18:24
  administration comes in in the U.S.
• 1:18:26
  And it says, yeah, well, well, D.I.
• 1:18:28
  is gone. It's over like everybody.
• 1:18:30
  And here in Canada is kind of resonated
• 1:18:32
  with a lot of people.
• 1:18:32
  It's like we're not doing that anymore.
• 1:18:35
  This is this is all B.S.
• 1:18:36
  And we're not doing this.
• 1:18:37
  But we've really found a
• 1:18:39
  good thing in conservation.
• 1:18:40
  Like, obviously, I'm not saying that D.I.
• 1:18:42
  was was worth nothing.
• 1:18:43
  It's obviously it's still there.
• 1:18:45
  It's not disappeared just because one
• 1:18:46
  person says so or a
• 1:18:47
  couple of people say so.
• 1:18:48
  And it's still needed.
• 1:18:49
  It's still it's still good for us.
• 1:18:51
  In conservation, especially, because now
• 1:18:53
  we're really starting to dive into
• 1:18:56
  community management and so forth.
• 1:19:00
  How is is that being met in the
• 1:19:02
  conservation community
• 1:19:03
  when you have an ally?
• 1:19:06
  Maybe you can comment on this.
• 1:19:07
  And when you have such of like a
• 1:19:10
  controversy here or like a conflict
• 1:19:13
  between what the federal government is
• 1:19:14
  saying and then what the conservation
• 1:19:16
  community is saying, what
• 1:19:17
  we need to move forward with.
• 1:19:20
  Yeah, that's a really good question.
• 1:19:21
  A really hard question.
• 1:19:24
  I'd say that one of the cool things about
• 1:19:26
  the nearshore framework and the concept
• 1:19:28
  of moving nearshore in general with our
• 1:19:31
  conservation focus is that it's like you
• 1:19:34
  mentioned a really fundamental shift in
• 1:19:36
  what our goals are for
• 1:19:37
  conservation, what it's getting to do.
• 1:19:38
  I think to go back to what Angela was
• 1:19:41
  saying, there was a time period for Teddy
• 1:19:44
  Roosevelt where a lot of the focus was on
• 1:19:46
  putting nature and protecting it and
• 1:19:48
  safeguarding it away from where people
• 1:19:49
  are and nature is
• 1:19:50
  something that you go and visit.
• 1:19:52
  And today with this report, we want to
• 1:19:54
  really encourage people to see nature as
• 1:19:56
  something that works for people, works
• 1:19:58
  for coastal communities
• 1:19:59
  in addition to ecosystems.
• 1:20:00
  So this means helping protect coastal
• 1:20:04
  communities from effects of storms and
• 1:20:06
  flooding, helping provide livelihoods,
• 1:20:10
  economic benefits, important part of
• 1:20:12
  culture or religious
• 1:20:15
  connection for some communities.
• 1:20:17
  All of these are aspects of nature and
• 1:20:19
  coastal communities that are really
• 1:20:20
  important and I think our focus as
• 1:20:23
  conservation
• 1:20:24
  professionals should focus there.
• 1:20:26
  So I think one nice thing about moving
• 1:20:29
  nearshore away from those really large,
• 1:20:31
  tragic protected areas is that you're
• 1:20:34
  putting nature within reach of people and
• 1:20:36
  make putting your protections where
• 1:20:38
  people can see them and experience them
• 1:20:39
  and benefit from them.
• 1:20:41
  So even though for my frustration, a lot
• 1:20:47
  of people are walking away from DEI
• 1:20:49
  promises and interest in equity, I think
• 1:20:52
  that there's still a lot of benefits that
• 1:20:53
  can be provided to communities that have
• 1:20:55
  historically not been able to access
• 1:20:57
  nature who have not been
• 1:20:58
  able to benefit from nature.
• 1:20:59
  I just shifting our focus conservation.
• 1:21:04
  So while I would love to be a place where
• 1:21:06
  there's a strong federal commitment to
• 1:21:09
  the AI and saying this principle is out
• 1:21:10
  loud, I think one of the benefits of
• 1:21:13
  shifting focus is that
• 1:21:14
  there's going to be benefits for
• 1:21:16
  sort of underserved communities, even if
• 1:21:19
  you have to fly under the radar a little
• 1:21:21
  bit. Does it also help that when you
• 1:21:25
  start to talk about nearshore, you're
• 1:21:26
  starting to talk about state jurisdiction
• 1:21:28
  instead of federal jurisdiction.
• 1:21:29
  And so certain states, I'm not saying all
• 1:21:32
  states, but certain states might be more
• 1:21:34
  likable and more agreeable with this type
• 1:21:38
  of equity justice, sort of DEI type of
• 1:21:42
  work that will really focus
• 1:21:43
  conservation in the nearshore.
• 1:21:45
  Angela, do you find that is a benefit in
• 1:21:47
  this situation when the federal
• 1:21:48
  government may not be willing to work as
• 1:21:50
  hard to do these conservation goals?
• 1:21:52
  I mean, the real answer is we were going
• 1:21:55
  to do this regardless who won the
• 1:21:57
  president election. Trump didn't win and
• 1:22:00
  we said, oh, we need to pivot to
• 1:22:01
  nearshore. We've been
• 1:22:03
  working on this for two years.
• 1:22:05
  Now, it would have looked slightly
• 1:22:06
  different under Biden and Trump has ended
• 1:22:09
  30 by 30. So let's not
• 1:22:11
  get ourselves. That's true.
• 1:22:12
  30 by 30 is over at the federal level and
• 1:22:16
  then many DEI initiatives while may not
• 1:22:19
  overturned or under attack by Trump. And
• 1:22:23
  Trump is a guy who loves to build walls.
• 1:22:26
  He loves to build walls between peoples.
• 1:22:30
  And right now what they're doing is
• 1:22:32
  they're building walls to keep women and
• 1:22:35
  people of color who are qualified to
• 1:22:38
  participate in these positions.
• 1:22:40
  And he's building those walls back up.
• 1:22:42
  And America has always had those walls.
• 1:22:44
  You know, we've only allowed white women
• 1:22:46
  to vote in this country for 100 years.
• 1:22:49
  And America turns 250 next year. So it's
• 1:22:53
  for 150 years. White women were not
• 1:22:57
  allowed to vote and then only for 100
• 1:22:59
  years. So less than half the time that
• 1:23:02
  this country has been a country.
• 1:23:03
  And so, you know, indigenous peoples have
• 1:23:06
  been able to vote for less than 100
• 1:23:08
  years. The territories are still
• 1:23:11
  considered savages like officially by the
• 1:23:15
  Supreme Court. So like there's the Biden
• 1:23:17
  administration had done a lot of work to
• 1:23:20
  break down the barriers that keep
• 1:23:22
  qualified people out of positions.
• 1:23:50
  And so, you know, I think that's what
• 1:23:50
  we're going to look at.
• 1:23:53
  I think what's going on there is an Nightmare's Day this year. I actually saw he was in a group of brown faces and I thought I knew what Miles']
• 1:24:15
  Everybody is going to be the king and I know you can say this what Miles' mom person said.
• 1:24:15
  going to work there. You know,
• 1:24:17
  with these doge cuts that are
• 1:24:18
  happening, I think NOAA has
• 1:24:20
  already lost 28% of its staff
• 1:24:24
  that worked there in
• 1:24:24
  December. And then the number for the
• 1:24:27
  Department of Interior was
• 1:24:28
  in my head. But in the last 60
• 1:24:30
  seconds, it departed my head.
• 1:24:32
  But it's in the double digits.
• 1:24:34
  Yeah, it's insane.
• 1:24:36
  And they're not done like
• 1:24:37
  they're more cuts are coming
• 1:24:40
  to our federal government. And you just
• 1:24:41
  think about the people
• 1:24:42
  who work there. And the literal the
• 1:24:44
  centuries of experience
• 1:24:46
  that these hundreds and
• 1:24:47
  thousands of people who had,
• 1:24:49
  and like, just imagine you
• 1:24:50
  worked at a restaurant, you
• 1:24:51
  know, if you work at a
• 1:24:52
  restaurant, and you know, so
• 1:24:53
  what they've already done is
• 1:24:55
  they fired all of the young
• 1:24:57
  waiters and all of the young cooks who
• 1:24:59
  are doing, you know,
• 1:25:00
  chopping the vegetables, right? Or
• 1:25:01
  they're doing the side work.
• 1:25:03
  And then they forced all of your senior
• 1:25:05
  waiters, your senior
• 1:25:06
  managers and your senior cooks to retire.
• 1:25:09
  Like who's left? And
• 1:25:10
  what has that done to the
• 1:25:12
  culture of your business, right?
• 1:25:14
  You know, these people have people, if
• 1:25:16
  you want to get good
• 1:25:17
  stuff out of your employees,
• 1:25:19
  they have to they have to like
• 1:25:20
  to work there. And so just
• 1:25:22
  sort of like at, at all angles,
• 1:25:25
  conservation is being attacked, the
• 1:25:27
  federal government is cutting
• 1:25:28
  the funding, they're cutting the staff,
• 1:25:30
  they're destroying the
• 1:25:31
  culture of some of these places, they're
• 1:25:33
  deleting databases of
• 1:25:34
  information, you know, wiping it off so
• 1:25:37
  that people can't even
• 1:25:38
  access this kind of stuff. So we have to
• 1:25:44
  work with the states
• 1:25:45
  because of Trump. Yeah, but at the same
• 1:25:47
  time, I do think a lot
• 1:25:50
  of work had already gone into thinking
• 1:25:51
  about this. And, you
• 1:25:55
  know, hopefully Trump is just a temporary
• 1:25:56
  thing, you know, three
• 1:25:58
  to four years. But but I do think we
• 1:26:01
  will, this will be a
• 1:26:03
  big part of the conversation in the
• 1:26:05
  2030s. Like how, how do we
• 1:26:07
  capture the bio biodiversity
• 1:26:09
  that is near shore, the cultures
• 1:26:11
  that have emerged and live with this
• 1:26:13
  nature near shore. And
• 1:26:15
  Lenfest did a has this thing called the
• 1:26:17
  biodiversity dialogues
• 1:26:19
  that they did with Smithsonian. And they
• 1:26:21
  published a paper last
• 1:26:22
  year and found that if you look at the
• 1:26:24
  United States network of
• 1:26:25
  marine protected areas, and
• 1:26:27
  compared it to where all the
• 1:26:28
  biodiversity is, there's almost a
• 1:26:30
  complete mismatch. And you know,
• 1:26:33
  that that paper was published
• 1:26:34
  a year ago. And again, several
• 1:26:35
  years of work went into getting it to
• 1:26:37
  publication. So this is
• 1:26:39
  there's a reality that Trump is
• 1:26:41
  president. And he's like just
• 1:26:42
  undermining everything that we care
• 1:26:44
  about. At the same time, this
• 1:26:47
  work has been ongoing for many, many
• 1:26:48
  years now. And, you know, I
• 1:26:51
  think the thing that take off your
• 1:26:53
  listeners is that America is
• 1:26:56
  being forced to deal with this
• 1:26:57
  five years ahead of everybody
• 1:26:59
  else. So what lessons are we going to
• 1:27:02
  learn? And what lessons
• 1:27:03
  can we share with the rest of the world?
• 1:27:05
  Because it was forced on us, whereas the
• 1:27:08
  rest of the world is going to hopefully
• 1:27:09
  be able to deal with it more on their own
• 1:27:12
  timelines. But this is a
• 1:27:14
  thing. This is something that the
• 1:27:16
  conservation movement has been discussing
• 1:27:17
  for many, many years.
• 1:27:19
  And what we've done, and we've been on
• 1:27:21
  the phone for like 25 minutes, and we
• 1:27:23
  haven't even talked about the report yet.
• 1:27:27
  So let's go ahead and start that
• 1:27:28
  recording right now.
• 1:27:30
  This is all pretext is there's all of
• 1:27:35
  this work happening all across the
• 1:27:37
  country in the United
• 1:27:38
  States. And what we've tried to do is
• 1:27:41
  just highlight some of
• 1:27:42
  that to give people some hope.
• 1:27:44
  Yeah, because it's not over. Ocean
• 1:27:47
  conservation has not ended.
• 1:27:49
  We're still thousands of people
• 1:27:51
  out there doing great work. And here are
• 1:27:53
  some examples. And what
• 1:27:54
  can we learn from each other?
• 1:27:55
  And what can we do on what's working well
• 1:27:58
  on the West Coast? How can
• 1:27:59
  we adopt it on the East Coast
• 1:28:00
  and vice versa? And that's basically what
• 1:28:03
  we hope the crux of
• 1:28:04
  this report will contribute
• 1:28:06
  to the national conversation. Yeah. Oh,
• 1:28:09
  yeah. Like how did this all
• 1:28:10
  begin with this near shore
• 1:28:12
  focus? Like, you know, Angela mentioned,
• 1:28:13
  you guys have been
• 1:28:14
  working on this for two years.
• 1:28:16
  Where did all this, where did it all
• 1:28:18
  start from and getting into that purpose?
• 1:28:21
  Yeah, I'd say to answer that and to build
• 1:28:25
  off what Angela was.
• 1:28:27
  There's so much great work already being
• 1:28:28
  done at the state and local level that
• 1:28:30
  doesn't rise to the
• 1:28:31
  same level attention as
• 1:28:32
  some of the federal sort of large and
• 1:28:35
  more glamorous conservation actions. And
• 1:28:37
  we thought that that was
• 1:28:39
  a challenge one because we don't want to
• 1:28:42
  reinvent the wheel. We want to learn from
• 1:28:43
  these successes that are being
• 1:28:44
  happening at a smaller level.
• 1:28:47
  And I think there's a lot of important
• 1:28:48
  lessons that can be learned
• 1:28:49
  from there. So I think that
• 1:28:52
  the desire to one, not reinvent the wheel
• 1:28:54
  and to take those lessons
• 1:28:56
  and try and replicate them
• 1:28:57
  on a larger scale and figure out how we
• 1:28:58
  can better support states and local
• 1:29:00
  organizations in this really great
• 1:29:03
  conservation work that they're doing
• 1:29:05
  was the motivating factor. And at the
• 1:29:07
  same time, recognizing that a lot of this
• 1:29:11
  work is paving the way for
• 1:29:13
  how we can build on top of 30 by 30. So
• 1:29:17
  like we discussed earlier, there are
• 1:29:20
  blind 30 by 30 does a lot of things well.
• 1:29:23
  It does have some blind spots and a lot
• 1:29:25
  of those blind spots are in the near
• 1:29:27
  short areas that are
• 1:29:28
  within state jurisdictions.
• 1:29:30
  So I think as Angelo said, even if Trump
• 1:29:32
  was not elected president, those waters
• 1:29:35
  are still within the control of states.
• 1:29:37
  And you have to work with them and have
• 1:29:39
  to understand how things are working at a
• 1:29:41
  much smaller level in order to be able to
• 1:29:44
  functionally do
• 1:29:45
  conservation at that scale.
• 1:29:47
  So I think we always knew that that was
• 1:29:48
  the direction that we had to head in. I
• 1:29:50
  think the presidency really
• 1:29:52
  just put some of that into focus.
• 1:29:55
  And I was trying to focus like prep for
• 1:29:57
  this answer. I was Angelo was talking,
• 1:29:59
  but also like getting mad.
• 1:30:00
  I started going into the judge cuts and
• 1:30:03
  all this because there's a real human
• 1:30:05
  impact of a lot of this. And as we were
• 1:30:08
  saying, hey, these states are doing great
• 1:30:09
  things and they can continue to do
• 1:30:10
  leadership in a time when there isn't a
• 1:30:14
  lot of federal leadership this level.
• 1:30:15
  And so many of these projects rely on
• 1:30:22
  federal funding. They rely on support
• 1:30:24
  from NOAA staff who are now getting cut.
• 1:30:28
  And as well as at the same time as we can
• 1:30:30
  point to this as a place for hope and a
• 1:30:32
  place where leadership can still happen.
• 1:30:34
  I think it's also important to step back
• 1:30:37
  and see that even when you're looking at
• 1:30:38
  the state level, it's hard to avoid some
• 1:30:41
  of these federal impacts.
• 1:30:45
  And so I think it's important for the state to be able to be able to get a sense of this. And so I think it's important for the state to be able to be able to get a sense of this.
• 1:30:45
  And I think that that's something that we really ripple
• 1:30:46
  throughout this entire ecosystem.
• 1:30:47
  For sure. Absolutely. It's something
• 1:30:50
  that, you know, obviously has to get
• 1:30:53
  addressed. But to keep up with that hope
• 1:30:55
  of, you know, seeing areas conserved in
• 1:30:58
  the nearshore, how is it different from
• 1:31:02
  the area based conservation targets that
• 1:31:05
  we looked at with the 30 by 30?
• 1:31:14
  Is there just no number? It's just, you
• 1:31:17
  know, whatever that local community wants
• 1:31:19
  to protect as what they define
• 1:31:20
  as what is important to them?
• 1:31:24
  Yeah, I think the interesting thing is
• 1:31:25
  that when you move near shore, you run
• 1:31:29
  into a whole different set of challenges,
• 1:31:31
  right? Instead of looking at certain
• 1:31:33
  these project remote areas, you're
• 1:31:36
  looking at, for example, we talked about
• 1:31:38
  the Chesapeake Bay in our report, which
• 1:31:39
  is 18 million people
• 1:31:40
  living in a much smaller area.
• 1:31:43
  And so you have to contend with the
• 1:31:45
  political context, the social context,
• 1:31:46
  and a lot of those impacts. So a lot of
• 1:31:48
  the strategy that works for larger, sort
• 1:31:51
  of more plastic areas won't
• 1:31:53
  work when you move in nearshore.
• 1:31:55
  So you have this sort of challenge, but
• 1:31:57
  also a new opportunity to think of new
• 1:31:59
  metrics outside of acreage alone. So
• 1:32:02
  that's we've highlighted a couple of
• 1:32:04
  different things are a lot of different
• 1:32:05
  things in this report.
• 1:32:05
  But that looks like water quality
• 1:32:09
  measures, looks like individual, let's
• 1:32:15
  say, looking at the amount of certain
• 1:32:18
  habitat forming species like oysters or
• 1:32:20
  seagrass, really trying to get more
• 1:32:23
  creative with the metrics that we use.
• 1:32:25
  And part of that will be community input.
• 1:32:28
  So for example, how much of the simple,
• 1:32:33
  if we restore this seagrass meadow or the
• 1:32:36
  seagrass bed, how does that impact the
• 1:32:38
  production of crabs or fish that can then
• 1:32:41
  go be caught by fishermen and sold off
• 1:32:43
  and support local economies?
• 1:32:45
  So there's definitely an interplay
• 1:32:47
  between coastal conservation and local
• 1:32:50
  communities. And I think the metrics will
• 1:32:52
  have to shift in order to sort of
• 1:32:54
  incorporate a larger set of benefits.
• 1:32:56
  I think what's great too, when you're
• 1:32:58
  looking at nearshore and a community
• 1:33:01
  that's been there for a long time
• 1:33:02
  compared to offshore is offshore, you may
• 1:33:04
  not have the history of what it looked
• 1:33:05
  like before you started to conserve it.
• 1:33:06
  You might have a little bit from say
• 1:33:08
  users that were using it, whether it be
• 1:33:10
  fishing or oil and gas or whatever.
• 1:33:13
  But near here, you have a coastal
• 1:33:14
  community that's probably been there for
• 1:33:15
  centuries, if more, knowing what was
• 1:33:19
  there before, why it disappeared.
• 1:33:21
  And so you know the benefits of having
• 1:33:23
  that seagrass meadow, that kelp forest or
• 1:33:26
  that oyster bed and knowing that, hey,
• 1:33:29
  there could be those stories are still
• 1:33:31
  around and people know that history.
• 1:33:34
  There's a reason to put this back, not
• 1:33:36
  only from an ecological perspective, but
• 1:33:38
  also from a cultural perspective. But
• 1:33:41
  when you have that, when you have people
• 1:33:42
  in there, there tends to be a little bit
• 1:33:44
  more conflict in terms of
• 1:33:46
  how things should be done.
• 1:33:47
  So how with some of the examples that
• 1:33:51
  they've talked that that the report
• 1:33:53
  talked about, there's the Hawaii's and
• 1:33:56
  I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing this,
• 1:33:57
  Halamua Marine Initiative and there's
• 1:33:59
  Florida Track Rescue Project,
• 1:34:01
  Guam Green Growth Initiative.
• 1:34:03
  Is there a lot when it comes to near
• 1:34:05
  shore where more people are active and
• 1:34:08
  responding to it? Is there a lot more
• 1:34:10
  conflict at the beginning of this process
• 1:34:13
  when you bring all the stakeholders
• 1:34:14
  together or did that happen with some of
• 1:34:17
  these projects? Maybe just highlighting
• 1:34:18
  one or two, if you know more of that.
• 1:34:21
  I mean, I guess like the big question is
• 1:34:23
  like we're asking the conservation
• 1:34:25
  community to ask
• 1:34:26
  themselves two questions.
• 1:34:29
  The first question is, what do you mean
• 1:34:31
  by conservation success? And Ali, I
• 1:34:34
  brought up this idea of like just
• 1:34:35
  different metrics and for a long time,
• 1:34:38
  success meant is it big?
• 1:34:41
  And I was a funder for a couple of years.
• 1:34:43
  And one of the most important metrics was
• 1:34:45
  is it big? And given the opportunity
• 1:34:48
  between funding something that was big
• 1:34:50
  and meaningless, meaning like there were
• 1:34:52
  no protections or tiny, but amazing.
• 1:34:57
  Most of the funders would pick big and
• 1:35:00
  meaningless. I have real world experience
• 1:35:04
  with that. The second question that we're
• 1:35:06
  asking them to reexamine
• 1:35:08
  is, who is this success for?
• 1:35:12
  Right. So I was on a I was on a paper
• 1:35:15
  with Beth Pike last year. We looked at
• 1:35:17
  the hundred largest marine protected
• 1:35:19
  areas around the world.
• 1:35:20
  And two thirds of the highly to fully
• 1:35:22
  marine protected areas are in overseas
• 1:35:24
  territories and un-polite company. We
• 1:35:27
  call these colonies.
• 1:35:29
  And so most of the progress towards 30 by
• 1:35:31
  30 has been in these colonies where the
• 1:35:33
  people are disenfranchised, but not
• 1:35:36
  disenfranchised, meaning like you're left
• 1:35:38
  out disenfranchised,
• 1:35:39
  meaning you don't vote.
• 1:35:41
  You don't have a vote on this. You don't
• 1:35:42
  vote for your president. You don't vote
• 1:35:44
  for the people who represent you in the
• 1:35:46
  national government. And most of the
• 1:35:48
  protected areas around the world, the big
• 1:35:50
  ones that contribute to the coverage, for
• 1:35:54
  the most part, have benefited the people
• 1:35:56
  in the capitals who asked for these
• 1:35:58
  things, the people who fly to
• 1:36:00
  international conferences to gloat about
• 1:36:03
  some of these big changes.
• 1:36:16
  And so I think that's a really great
• 1:36:17
  question. And I think that's a really
• 1:36:18
  great question. And I think that's a
• 1:36:19
  really great question.
• 1:36:20
  And I think a number of people going back
• 1:36:23
  more than 10 years have asked the
• 1:36:25
  question, is that ethical? And then you
• 1:36:29
  point out, do we even know what's
• 1:36:30
  happening offshore? In a
• 1:36:32
  certain degree, we kind of do.
• 1:36:34
  The University of British Columbia has
• 1:36:36
  the Sea Around Us project where they have
• 1:36:38
  most of the fishing capture data from the
• 1:36:40
  last 60 or 70 years. So we actually know
• 1:36:46
  what type of fishing was taking place in
• 1:36:48
  most places around the world. And oh my
• 1:36:50
  gosh, I'm going to blank on this
• 1:36:51
  scientist's name. Veronica something, but
• 1:36:55
  she was at UBC under Daniel Polly. And
• 1:36:57
  she compared some of the fisheries data
• 1:37:01
  to when the EZs, the exclusive economic
• 1:37:04
  zones were designated versus to when the
• 1:37:06
  marine protected areas were designated.
• 1:37:09
  And actually for a lot of these overseas
• 1:37:11
  territories in the 1980s and 1990s,
• 1:37:15
  international waters
• 1:37:17
  started at three miles.
• 1:37:20
  Right. So like around Guam, international
• 1:37:22
  waters started at three miles. And then
• 1:37:24
  when Ronald Reagan declared the EZ, it
• 1:37:27
  went out to 200 miles, which you can't
• 1:37:29
  even see the screen isn't that big.
• 1:37:31
  But there used to be lots of Japanese
• 1:37:33
  squid fishing happening in the Marianas.
• 1:37:36
  But when the US claimed that waters, all
• 1:37:39
  of the fishing was pushed out.
• 1:37:41
  And so and then 10, 20, 30 years later,
• 1:37:44
  when France had done the same thing in
• 1:37:46
  England and New Zealand and Mexico had
• 1:37:48
  done the same thing, these politicians
• 1:37:50
  came along and said, oh,
• 1:37:52
  here's an area with no fishing.
• 1:37:54
  This is a place that's good for a
• 1:37:55
  protected area. Now, in the United
• 1:37:58
  States, this actually models the same
• 1:37:59
  story on land. In the 1920s, President
• 1:38:03
  Jackson forced all of the native people
• 1:38:06
  living on the east coast of the United
• 1:38:07
  States to move to Oklahoma.
• 1:38:09
  And that's the lots of American lands
• 1:38:13
  were deep people were forcibly removed in
• 1:38:18
  the 1820s. But then by the time John Muir
• 1:38:21
  came around in the 1870s and 1890s, these
• 1:38:25
  places were wilderness.
• 1:38:27
  Right. Nobody lives there. It's empty.
• 1:38:31
  And that's how we got most of our
• 1:38:32
  national parks is that these places where
• 1:38:35
  nobody lived, something got protected.
• 1:38:38
  But the reality is is that something
• 1:38:40
  earlier had happened to
• 1:38:43
  force out the human connection.
• 1:38:46
  And, you know, there just aren't going to
• 1:38:48
  be there aren't many places in the world
• 1:38:50
  where you can create large land protected
• 1:38:53
  areas because people live there now and
• 1:38:55
  you would never think about for you.
• 1:38:57
  I mean, some people do think about it.
• 1:39:00
  But, you know, it's considered unethical
• 1:39:02
  to do that. Yeah. And on the water, you
• 1:39:06
  know, a lot of people don't know that the
• 1:39:07
  UN Convention of the Law of
• 1:39:09
  the Sea was ratified in 1994.
• 1:39:13
  I was in high school in 1994. But a lot
• 1:39:15
  of the people I work with were not alive
• 1:39:17
  in 1994. So, you know, they just kind of
• 1:39:19
  assume that it may be
• 1:39:20
  somebody on this call.
• 1:39:23
  Call me out, Angela. It's an assumption
• 1:39:27
  that the ocean has always kind of been
• 1:39:29
  managed like this. But the
• 1:39:30
  point of it is that it wasn't.
• 1:39:33
  And, you know, other older cultures and
• 1:39:36
  again, you and I, American Canadian, we
• 1:39:38
  have a very American Canadian worldview,
• 1:39:41
  other cultures like France and Japan that
• 1:39:45
  have lived in landscapes for a lot longer
• 1:39:47
  have a very different relationship with
• 1:39:49
  nature when it comes to
• 1:39:51
  nature where people are.
• 1:39:53
  Right. You have a French countryside,
• 1:39:55
  which protects nature to a certain degree
• 1:39:59
  in a certain way. You have the Japanese
• 1:40:01
  park like Ken Rokowen is
• 1:40:04
  the great Japanese park.
• 1:40:05
  If you know anything about that.
• 1:40:09
  And, you know, America is a young
• 1:40:10
  country. We're still kind of figuring
• 1:40:12
  some of these things out.
• 1:40:14
  And, you know, just as we've learned the
• 1:40:16
  importance of green spaces in cities,
• 1:40:20
  this is a report we're saying blue spaces
• 1:40:22
  on coastal areas are
• 1:40:25
  also critically important.
• 1:40:27
  And, you know, just as we had a period of
• 1:40:30
  time where we created these large
• 1:40:32
  protected areas on land, it just, you
• 1:40:35
  know, logically, it makes sense that
• 1:40:36
  there would be a period of time where we
• 1:40:38
  created these large spaces on the water.
• 1:40:41
  And for many years, I've postulated that
• 1:40:44
  that moment is coming to an end.
• 1:40:47
  We've run out of colonies to protect.
• 1:40:50
  They're all protected.
• 1:40:52
  So now we need to work on blue spaces,
• 1:40:55
  blue spaces in coastal areas.
• 1:40:58
  How much more talent? I would love to
• 1:41:01
  jump in on that. I think Angela did a
• 1:41:02
  really good job of laying out what sort
• 1:41:04
  of the status quo was or the history of
• 1:41:07
  this very top down
• 1:41:08
  approach to conservation.
• 1:41:10
  So to flip it, one thing that we're
• 1:41:11
  really excited is the fact that moving
• 1:41:13
  your shore, it has to
• 1:41:15
  necessarily be bottom up.
• 1:41:17
  We talked to, I think, over 50, or we
• 1:41:19
  conducted 50, sorry, we collected 50
• 1:41:23
  survey responses or interviews in the
• 1:41:25
  process of making this report.
• 1:41:27
  And one thing that sort of a repeated
• 1:41:29
  theme throughout is that these projects
• 1:41:32
  are successful because they
• 1:41:33
  have buy in from the community.
• 1:41:35
  And there's no way to be successful if
• 1:41:37
  you don't have that.
• 1:41:39
  One, because that's what you're asking
• 1:41:41
  people to participate in the community
• 1:41:42
  and change their behavior, but also
• 1:41:44
  because people in the community know
• 1:41:45
  those ecosystems the best, as you said,
• 1:41:48
  they're because they're
• 1:41:48
  near it and experiencing it.
• 1:41:50
  They have a better sense of what will
• 1:41:51
  work and what won't.
• 1:41:54
  So I think that's one of the cool things
• 1:41:56
  that it's very democratic. And one of the
• 1:41:59
  things that gave me hope in doing this
• 1:42:01
  report is that even red states, blue
• 1:42:05
  states, when you're working at a more
• 1:42:07
  local level and people can experience,
• 1:42:09
  hey, if we preserve this ecosystem,
• 1:42:11
  this means a better catch for me or
• 1:42:14
  better tourism or I can enjoy the speech
• 1:42:17
  better. It's very personal to people and
• 1:42:20
  they're more willing to
• 1:42:21
  engage in those major changes.
• 1:42:23
  So I think in addition to what you said
• 1:42:25
  about people can see sort of the
• 1:42:27
  historical record about what that habitat
• 1:42:28
  used to be. They know why it's important
• 1:42:31
  and that gives them like a personal stake
• 1:42:32
  about why they should be invested.
• 1:42:35
  So in.
• 1:42:38
  So I think rather than this really top
• 1:42:40
  down like coming from as Angela said the
• 1:42:42
  capital is people say, hey, we're going
• 1:42:43
  to draw this line and this is our new
• 1:42:44
  protected area, stay out of it.
• 1:42:47
  This is a strategy that says, hey, we
• 1:42:50
  understand that you live here and have
• 1:42:52
  lived here for a long time of experience
• 1:42:53
  this ecosystem and its benefits to you.
• 1:42:56
  How can we build on that knowledge in
• 1:42:59
  order to create a conservation strategy
• 1:43:01
  that works better. And that's definitely
• 1:43:04
  hard because it's going to change a lot
• 1:43:06
  between different ecosystems.
• 1:43:08
  If you move between different towns or
• 1:43:10
  cities or states, it's all going to look
• 1:43:12
  a little bit different.
• 1:43:13
  But I think one thing that we really try
• 1:43:16
  to stress is that you really need to look
• 1:43:18
  towards those local leaders in order to
• 1:43:20
  have any chance of success there.
• 1:43:21
  When do you find to as you get sort of
• 1:43:24
  lower more to that
• 1:43:25
  local level, you get less.
• 1:43:27
  You get more into who really loves the
• 1:43:29
  environment who really wants stands up
• 1:43:31
  for their environment and
• 1:43:32
  less of that political divide.
• 1:43:33
  You start to strip the parties down a
• 1:43:36
  little bit into just like I like I live
• 1:43:39
  20 minutes a walk from from
• 1:43:41
  my lakefront like Lake Ontario.
• 1:43:43
  I love going down by the lake.
• 1:43:45
  That's something that I would love to
• 1:43:47
  make sure that that's protected and
• 1:43:49
  that's that the water
• 1:43:49
  quality stays nicely.
• 1:43:51
  There's and it's less more of a political
• 1:43:53
  situation that you would get at the
• 1:43:55
  federal level and more of a I really want
• 1:43:57
  to preserve this place
• 1:43:58
  because it's near and dear to me.
• 1:43:59
  I see it every day. Whereas I
• 1:44:02
  may not see something offshore.
• 1:44:03
  So it's just a little bit more you get
• 1:44:05
  you get really down into people's
• 1:44:07
  personal choices in terms of what they
• 1:44:08
  want to protect and what they love to see
• 1:44:10
  if they live along coastline.
• 1:44:12
  They're going to want
• 1:44:12
  to go by the coastline.
• 1:44:13
  There's always a waterfront of some sort
• 1:44:15
  and they want to protect that area so
• 1:44:16
  that they get to enjoy it and their kids
• 1:44:18
  get to enjoy it as well.
• 1:44:19
  Right. Angel, it looks
• 1:44:20
  like you have something to.
• 1:44:21
  Yes. But you don't want to be too
• 1:44:24
  idealistic about all of this.
• 1:44:26
  There's always there's always that guy
• 1:44:28
  who sees the beautiful state park.
• 1:44:30
  It's like that'd be a great place to put
• 1:44:31
  my house. Yeah. True. True.
• 1:44:33
  So yeah, I think all politics are local
• 1:44:37
  and talking about these things.
• 1:44:41
  People are invested in some of these near
• 1:44:43
  short places like it's as you said, it's
• 1:44:45
  their backyard or home.
• 1:44:47
  But yeah, I don't want to be too
• 1:44:48
  idealistic about how
• 1:44:49
  difficult or how easy this is.
• 1:44:50
  You know, if if governments listen to
• 1:44:54
  science, none of us would have jobs.
• 1:44:56
  We have to we have to force governments
• 1:44:59
  to listen to science.
• 1:45:01
  That's never been truer than today.
• 1:45:04
  Well, and with near short conservation to
• 1:45:07
  get people to speak up
• 1:45:08
  about a specific item.
• 1:45:11
  Is it like is so I guess I'm sorry.
• 1:45:13
  It's taking a step back just
• 1:45:14
  for near short conservation.
• 1:45:15
  Is it better to. Like is it better to other
• 1:45:21
  frameworks involved in this?
• 1:45:23
  Is there like a national framework that
• 1:45:26
  that can be put in like on the west coast
• 1:45:28
  of say the US or the east coast of the US
• 1:45:30
  or Alaska or Hawaii?
• 1:45:34
  Is there a general framework that's
• 1:45:36
  followed or is it very much piecemeal to everybody's trying to figure out their own way of doing near short conservation?
• 1:45:39
  Who wants to answer that?
• 1:45:46
  Oh, yeah, maybe I can
• 1:45:47
  I can give it a stab.
• 1:45:49
  I think as Angela mentioned, we highlight
• 1:45:52
  a ton of different examples of good
• 1:45:54
  policy across six
• 1:45:56
  different habitats across the US.
• 1:45:59
  And I'd say it is
• 1:45:59
  definitely more piecemeal.
• 1:46:01
  It varies based on habitat.
• 1:46:03
  Every say is doing this one thing.
• 1:46:04
  There is some really cool regional efforts where we have a lot of different types of habitats. And I think that's one of the challenges
• 1:46:13
  is when you're working on a local level
• 1:46:15
  and focusing on these really hyper local
• 1:46:19
  issues, how do you make sure that you
• 1:46:20
  still have a sense of the larger picture that people are working together and coordinating at the same time?
• 1:46:33
  And all of that.
• 1:46:37
  As far as regulations go to every state
• 1:46:40
  does something different when it comes to
• 1:46:42
  each of these habitats and that can be
• 1:46:44
  challenging to understand.
• 1:46:45
  I think just for us, honestly, just to go through and understand the landscape of what exists out there because it can vary a lot between the state and the state. So, yeah, I think there's a lot of
• 1:46:55
  opportunity to coordinate
• 1:46:57
  between these different groups.
• 1:46:59
  And honestly, this is where having some
• 1:47:00
  sort of federal overarching structure
• 1:47:02
  would be really helpful to help make sure
• 1:47:05
  that everyone's on the same page and can learn from each other.
• 1:47:06
  That's why some of these these federal
• 1:47:09
  interventions can seem so exciting for
• 1:47:13
  funders, though, because they love to say
• 1:47:16
  the word scalable and
• 1:47:18
  scalable and for coast.
• 1:47:21
  None of this is scalable.
• 1:47:23
  Like just because something works, you
• 1:47:25
  know, you pass a law in Florida and it
• 1:47:26
  works great does not mean
• 1:47:27
  it's going to work in Washington.
• 1:47:29
  And just because people in Washington
• 1:47:31
  support something does not mean that
• 1:47:32
  people in Oregon are going to support something.
• 1:47:34
  And I love quoting one of my favorite
• 1:47:37
  scientists is Dr. Ashita Voss from Sri
• 1:47:40
  Lanka. She's a whale scientist.
• 1:47:42
  And she says every coastline needs a hero
• 1:47:44
  and the world's largest habitat is going
• 1:47:48
  to need the world's largest team.
• 1:47:50
  And so rather than thinking about scaling
• 1:47:53
  the protections, we need to think about
• 1:47:55
  scaling the workforce because we have to
• 1:47:58
  find we have to find the person who's going to be the chief of the world.
• 1:48:03
  And so we need to be the champion for
• 1:48:04
  this. And we need a we need a violet sage
• 1:48:06
  walker for every 50 kilometers of the
• 1:48:10
  East Coast and every 50
• 1:48:12
  kilometers of the West Coast.
• 1:48:14
  We're not going to get and violet sage
• 1:48:15
  walker just won an award last night. So
• 1:48:17
  did, you know, Don and Chairman Chair
• 1:48:21
  Mallory, you know, we
• 1:48:22
  need more ocean heroes.
• 1:48:49
  And I think that's where
• 1:48:50
  the investment has to happen.
• 1:48:53
  And so you know, the ocean community
• 1:49:02
  doesn't have a pipeline to support people
• 1:49:05
  through their entire career.
• 1:49:07
  You know, we've got lots of things to
• 1:49:09
  bring people in early, like an earth echo
• 1:49:11
  or a Sustainable Ocean Alliance and Airstore Ocean.
• 1:49:12
  or Sustainable Ocean
• 1:49:14
  Alliance and Airstore Ocean.
• 1:49:16
  There's a lot of
• 1:49:16
  things for a junior person
• 1:49:18
  to do for a year or two,
• 1:49:20
  and you go in and you get
• 1:49:21
  that when you're 22, 23, 24,
• 1:49:23
  but what happens when you're 29?
• 1:49:25
  What's that next step?
• 1:49:27
  And how do I keep you in the movement?
• 1:49:30
  Because when you're in your late 20s
• 1:49:31
  and you're late early 30s,
• 1:49:33
  you're gonna learn a lot of lessons then.
• 1:49:35
  So how do we bridge
• 1:49:36
  you from junior person
• 1:49:39
  to senior person?
• 1:50:02
  And just there's not a lot of money to go around. The reason why it happens
• 1:50:22
  is they're more delusional.
• 1:50:22
  You can't sell offitz that you've beenpopled off on TV because you're signed up and you
• 1:50:25
  had to tell them to pay lead.
• 1:50:27
  For example, if one of the
• 1:50:29
  major things they receive
• 1:50:29
  is the hungerronics.
• 1:50:32
  But then after that, when they want to
• 1:50:34
  grow and they want to have a
• 1:50:34
  family and they want to have,
• 1:50:35
  you know, you know, a house and live like
• 1:50:38
  everybody else, oh, we
• 1:50:40
  don't, we can't pay you
• 1:50:41
  more because the funding won't allow it
• 1:50:43
  to happen. I feel like there
• 1:50:44
  needs to be a switch in this
• 1:50:46
  paradigm to just be like, we need to
• 1:50:48
  invest more in the people,
• 1:50:49
  not only like individually,
• 1:50:50
  but also within the organization so that
• 1:50:52
  we can grow that experience and get
• 1:50:54
  better and better and
• 1:50:55
  better as we go through. I would love to
• 1:50:58
  see that. I think that's a
• 1:50:58
  really great point, Angela. And
• 1:51:02
  I don't know how it's done. I really
• 1:51:04
  don't know how it's done. If that's done
• 1:51:05
  at a community level,
• 1:51:06
  or it's like, if you see someone who's
• 1:51:08
  willing to stand up,
• 1:51:08
  does the community back it
• 1:51:10
  financially or does like, was it the
• 1:51:12
  region or county or
• 1:51:14
  however, how would you propose,
• 1:51:18
  either of you propose that to be done?
• 1:51:20
  Yeah, I was a
• 1:51:21
  beneficiary of that, to be honest.
• 1:51:23
  So back when I was living on the island
• 1:51:25
  of a nature
• 1:51:26
  Conservancy, had this thing called
• 1:51:27
  Micronesians and Island Conservation and
• 1:51:30
  TNC was led by Bill
• 1:51:34
  Rayner, who passed away
• 1:51:36
  several years ago, but Bill was a mentor
• 1:51:38
  to a dozen of us, of the Micronesian
• 1:51:42
  Conservation leaders.
• 1:51:44
  And TNC created learning spaces for us
• 1:51:48
  where we could learn from one another and
• 1:51:50
  you know, advance our career and gain
• 1:51:52
  skills. So it's not that
• 1:51:54
  nobody is doing this. Right.
• 1:51:56
  I think there, you know, there are, I
• 1:51:59
  love the SACNIS conference,
• 1:52:00
  the Society for the Advancement
• 1:52:01
  of Chicanos, Native Americans and
• 1:52:03
  Science. If you are under 30
• 1:52:05
  and you are a person of color,
• 1:52:09
  get your butt to SACNIS. It will, it'll
• 1:52:12
  be one of the most fulfilling conferences
• 1:52:14
  that you'll ever see. Again, it can be a
• 1:52:16
  little bit expensive,
• 1:52:17
  right? So I admit that. I
• 1:52:20
  find that IMCC is also one of the, one of
• 1:52:22
  the better places for
• 1:52:24
  helping early career folks
• 1:52:26
  sort of learn skills to keep them in the
• 1:52:28
  space and feel wanted and
• 1:52:29
  needed. So it's not that none
• 1:52:32
  of this is happening, but you know, when
• 1:52:35
  the, when the millions and
• 1:52:36
  the billions are discussed,
• 1:52:38
  a lot of times the people themselves are
• 1:52:41
  left out. Yeah. So, you know, we're
• 1:52:44
  talking about near shore
• 1:52:47
  and although that's been going on for a
• 1:52:49
  while and these projects
• 1:52:50
  have been going on for a while
• 1:52:52
  with this paper that's coming out, where
• 1:52:54
  do you want, where does this
• 1:52:56
  paper want to see near shore
• 1:52:58
  conservation go over the next five to 10
• 1:53:01
  years in terms of the focus
• 1:53:05
  of this? How is that going
• 1:53:08
  to proceed or like the, like where do you
• 1:53:11
  see it going in the future or hope to see
• 1:53:13
  it go in the future?
• 1:53:17
  I think there's a lot of different ways
• 1:53:19
  and I think as Angela mentioned, we are
• 1:53:21
  still looking for that
• 1:53:21
  bumper sticker that will replace 30 by
• 1:53:23
  30. It's hard to wrap up into
• 1:53:25
  one concise measure and I think
• 1:53:27
  you can tell we had a hard time summing
• 1:53:29
  it up because our report has like 50
• 1:53:31
  different recommendations
• 1:53:32
  and places that this could go. I think to
• 1:53:35
  like sum up into a couple of
• 1:53:37
  big themes that looking for
• 1:53:39
  metrics outside of acreage. So again,
• 1:53:41
  looking towards how can
• 1:53:44
  we make this ecosystem work
• 1:53:45
  better for people as well as preserve
• 1:53:47
  biodiversity and then in
• 1:53:50
  order to support that, have that
• 1:53:52
  long-term funding and monitoring and
• 1:53:55
  really invest in a place rather than sort
• 1:53:57
  of setting it and walking away,
• 1:53:59
  how do we continue to invest in making
• 1:54:01
  sure that this conservation succeeds
• 1:54:03
  because conservation
• 1:54:04
  restoration is happens across a decade or
• 1:54:08
  more rather than just a
• 1:54:09
  couple of years and what we
• 1:54:10
  found is that we really have to keep
• 1:54:12
  investing in a community to
• 1:54:13
  make sure that that succeeds.
• 1:54:15
  And then I guess if I had to pick a third
• 1:54:18
  thing also, looking to things in order to
• 1:54:23
  ensure success in ocean
• 1:54:25
  conservation, making sure that we're
• 1:54:27
  looking towards what's happening on land
• 1:54:29
  first because we know that
• 1:54:31
  there are a lot of things that even if
• 1:54:33
  you draw from a marine protected area,
• 1:54:35
  there are things outside
• 1:54:37
  of those boundaries that can really
• 1:54:38
  impact the success of it. So looking at
• 1:54:41
  things like development,
• 1:54:43
  pollution, climate change, all of those
• 1:54:45
  really diffuse effects,
• 1:54:48
  which really have an impact on
• 1:54:49
  biodiversity and start outside of those
• 1:54:52
  boundaries. So try and rethinking
• 1:54:54
  conservation to look at those
• 1:54:56
  stressors in addition to what's happening
• 1:54:57
  at that sort of local area.
• 1:55:00
  Well, it's also it's interesting when you
• 1:55:01
  get to the near shore, because like how
• 1:55:03
  far inland do you go?
• 1:55:05
  You know, like we went through an
• 1:55:07
  exercise here in the Great
• 1:55:08
  Lakes when I was working for
• 1:55:10
  Environment Canada, now Environment
• 1:55:12
  Canada Climate Change, but we were asking
• 1:55:14
  that question all the time.
• 1:55:15
  It's like, where do we go? How far up the
• 1:55:18
  watershed do you go where it's going to
• 1:55:20
  impact the coastline?
• 1:55:21
  You know, like where do you get into land
• 1:55:23
  management as well as
• 1:55:25
  near shore management?
• 1:55:27
  Because there's that intersection, and
• 1:55:28
  it's so highly influenced, it's so
• 1:55:31
  connected, it's like how far up you go.
• 1:55:33
  And then like, there's almost like you
• 1:55:35
  needed to do as the top of the watershed,
• 1:55:37
  and then you look down,
• 1:55:38
  and that's what it is for. Because
• 1:55:40
  they're all delineated, like there's a
• 1:55:41
  lot of research within that.
• 1:55:43
  It's just how, but there's not a lot of
• 1:55:44
  research and how it interacts with the
• 1:55:46
  bigger body of water,
• 1:55:48
  whether it be a lake or in this
• 1:55:49
  situation, an ocean, and how that that's
• 1:55:51
  managed. Because now you're
• 1:55:52
  looking at, you know, realms that we
• 1:55:55
  never really, we always treated
• 1:55:56
  separately. And I think that's
• 1:55:58
  one of the challenges that can be
• 1:55:59
  overcome, it could be addressed, it's
• 1:56:01
  just that you need to
• 1:56:02
  bring other people in that are not just
• 1:56:05
  ocean people, but other
• 1:56:07
  people in. Yeah, for sure.
• 1:56:08
  That are land people, not only from a
• 1:56:09
  science perspective, but
• 1:56:10
  from a steward perspective,
• 1:56:11
  right? So there's a lot of things that
• 1:56:16
  complicate the process, but
• 1:56:18
  make it better in the end,
• 1:56:20
  and probably better for ocean, just in
• 1:56:22
  general, right? Yeah,
• 1:56:23
  there's a lot of siloing between
• 1:56:25
  the sort of the land and ocean and world.
• 1:56:26
  And I think it makes it
• 1:56:28
  harder to do the things that
• 1:56:29
  we need to do. One of our sort of like,
• 1:56:32
  kill your darlings
• 1:56:32
  moments for this report is we
• 1:56:34
  originally had included, we would love to
• 1:56:37
  include salmon and rivers
• 1:56:38
  and freshwater impacts as well.
• 1:56:40
  And so we ended up saving that for
• 1:56:42
  something else, maybe down the line, but
• 1:56:44
  it was difficult because
• 1:56:46
  everything that happens in freshwater and
• 1:56:49
  rivers and streams ends up
• 1:56:51
  affecting the ocean. So it's
• 1:56:53
  all very sort of a gray area in terms of
• 1:56:57
  where does that
• 1:56:57
  conservation focus stop. And so I think
• 1:57:01
  we try and make a note of that in this
• 1:57:03
  report. And again, say that
• 1:57:06
  if you really care about what
• 1:57:07
  happens to the ocean, you need to care
• 1:57:08
  about what happens on land. But again,
• 1:57:11
  it's a difficult space because
• 1:57:13
  it really the focus is so large. Yeah,
• 1:57:17
  but I think also too, you can get
• 1:57:19
  probably more people involved
• 1:57:20
  because they can actually see the
• 1:57:22
  results. It's almost like a beach
• 1:57:23
  cleanup, right? When you do a
• 1:57:24
  beach kind of a community together, you
• 1:57:26
  can clean up the beaches, you see that
• 1:57:27
  the beaches are clean,
• 1:57:29
  people want to go more on the beach and
• 1:57:30
  as they get more connected. I
• 1:57:32
  feel almost the same way with
• 1:57:33
  with a near shore habitat, you can get
• 1:57:35
  people from land going towards
• 1:57:37
  the coast, maybe do a cleanup
• 1:57:38
  in a wetland or something like that, and
• 1:57:39
  really understand and get
• 1:57:41
  to know that area that they
• 1:57:42
  may not have gotten to know in the first
• 1:57:44
  place. Like I live in a
• 1:57:45
  temperate area, mud flats are
• 1:57:47
  key ecosystems, but nobody wants to go
• 1:57:49
  play in the mud anymore.
• 1:57:50
  They don't want to get dirty
• 1:57:51
  when that's probably one of the best
• 1:57:52
  places to go or salt marsh and things
• 1:57:55
  like that. It could be
• 1:57:56
  hard to get into. But once you start
• 1:57:57
  getting kids in and youth
• 1:57:59
  programs and stuff like that,
• 1:58:01
  and even adult programs to get into
• 1:58:03
  there, then maybe it can
• 1:58:04
  help. So there could be a way to
• 1:58:05
  really get more people interested because
• 1:58:07
  they can see the results
• 1:58:09
  based on this. But like,
• 1:58:10
  if someone is listening to this right now
• 1:58:13
  and they're in a coastal community,
• 1:58:15
  and they want to be that champion,
• 1:58:18
  whether it be now or in the future, they
• 1:58:19
  want to build up to that.
• 1:58:22
  How can a document like this or what
• 1:58:24
  comes out of the documents, like this
• 1:58:26
  near shore conservation
• 1:58:27
  document that can help those communities
• 1:58:30
  and people who want to
• 1:58:32
  become that near shore champion?
• 1:58:35
  Every coastline needs a hero, man. I
• 1:58:39
  mean, as individuals, we are more
• 1:58:43
  effective in the place we live
• 1:58:45
  than these other places that are far off.
• 1:58:48
  And not only that, you have expertise
• 1:58:53
  in relationships that an outsider will
• 1:58:56
  never have. And so I think
• 1:58:59
  for this report, it's meant
• 1:59:01
  as a resource. We kind of the way it's
• 1:59:07
  there's six habitats in the
• 1:59:08
  paper. And we considered others,
• 1:59:11
  but they didn't make the report. I didn't
• 1:59:14
  see mudflats in that
• 1:59:15
  report. Yeah, we found
• 1:59:18
  we'll do a separate report on mangroves
• 1:59:20
  mudflats and sand. But we, you know,
• 1:59:26
  we made it on these six because there's
• 1:59:28
  people all around the
• 1:59:29
  country who care about kelp.
• 1:59:32
  And like, kelp is just a great example.
• 1:59:34
  The largest habitat for
• 1:59:36
  kelp is in the United States
• 1:59:38
  and Canada. So if we're going to, if we
• 1:59:41
  protect the kelp in Canada
• 1:59:43
  and the United States, it is
• 1:59:44
  going to be a globally significant
• 1:59:46
  action. But only 2% of US waters have
• 1:59:49
  kelp. And it tends to
• 1:59:51
  be near shore, like it tends to be a
• 1:59:53
  water shallower than 130
• 1:59:54
  feet, which is like 30 meters.
• 1:59:57
  And so it's just you don't, if you care,
• 2:00:01
  if your metric of success is 30 by 30,
• 2:00:03
  you don't capture kelp, right? It's just,
• 2:00:05
  it's not a part of it. So
• 2:00:06
  we're trying to change a
• 2:00:08
  narrative and just showing that there's
• 2:00:10
  all this great work
• 2:00:11
  happening all across the country.
• 2:00:13
  So if you're just a person living
• 2:00:15
  somewhere, you know what you care about.
• 2:00:17
  You know, if there's
• 2:00:18
  coral reefs off your water, you know, if
• 2:00:20
  it's kelp, you know, if
• 2:00:22
  you're surrounded by seagrasses,
• 2:00:24
  because all of all across the country,
• 2:00:26
  these habitats
• 2:00:27
  dominate in different places.
• 2:00:30
  And this is a resource for you to
• 2:00:32
  understand some of the
• 2:00:33
  more successful interventions
• 2:00:35
  that are happening all across the United
• 2:00:37
  States. And it can be a
• 2:00:39
  starting place for you.
• 2:00:41
  So, you know, maybe you're in the US
• 2:00:43
  Virgin Islands, and they have a really
• 2:00:46
  good watershed plan.
• 2:00:47
  But other things that you can learn from
• 2:00:49
  Guam, you know, like how,
• 2:00:52
  what are the things that they can learn
• 2:00:53
  from one another? But the big picture is,
• 2:00:57
  we're trying to change this narrative of,
• 2:01:00
  you know, nobody has ever
• 2:01:00
  stood in front of the Grand Canyon
• 2:01:02
  and said, I bet you didn't know how many
• 2:01:04
  acres in here. You know,
• 2:01:06
  it's the Grand freaking Canyon.
• 2:01:08
  That's grand. That's the grand. It's
• 2:01:10
  great. You know, I think Ron
• 2:01:12
  Swanson said crying is allowed
• 2:01:14
  when looking at the grain. I didn't get
• 2:01:15
  this exactly right. This
• 2:01:17
  is crying is allowed when
• 2:01:18
  you're in front of the Grand Canyon
• 2:01:19
  because it's a magnificent, beautiful
• 2:01:21
  place. And I feel that
• 2:01:23
  way about coral reefs. These are
• 2:01:26
  magnificent, beautiful
• 2:01:27
  places. And they do not get enough
• 2:01:31
  attention in the national conservation
• 2:01:33
  discussion. And we're hoping to help
• 2:01:36
  change that narrative
• 2:01:37
  and, you know, deliver a hero for every
• 2:01:40
  coastline. Well, this I love
• 2:01:41
  this. This is something that's
• 2:01:43
  that I've been behind for a while now.
• 2:01:45
  And I'm really glad both of you were able
• 2:01:47
  to come on to the podcast and be able to
• 2:01:49
  talk about this. I think this will be the
• 2:01:51
  first of many conversations we have about
• 2:01:52
  near shore conservation and, you know,
• 2:01:56
  highlighting leaders, highlighting these
• 2:01:57
  coastal champions, these community
• 2:01:59
  champions, and help others and inspire
• 2:02:02
  others to do the same. You know, like you
• 2:02:05
  said, every community has one. It's just
• 2:02:07
  a matter of prying with the resources to
• 2:02:09
  get them to get to the level that they
• 2:02:11
  need to get and to be able to get to the
• 2:02:13
  the results that they want and their
• 2:02:15
  community wants. So I want to thank both
• 2:02:17
  the Aliyah and Angela for coming on the
• 2:02:19
  podcast sharing this report. We'll link
• 2:02:20
  to the report in the show notes and other
• 2:02:23
  resources that you might have. And then,
• 2:02:26
  yeah, we want to thank you so much for
• 2:02:28
  coming on the podcast again. And Aliyah,
• 2:02:30
  we'd love to have you back on to be able
• 2:02:34
  to discuss more about this near shore
• 2:02:36
  frameworks and conservation. And Angela,
• 2:02:38
  of course, you're always welcome to come
• 2:02:40
  back on. And I want to
• 2:02:42
  thank you. Thank you very much.
• 2:02:43
  Awesome. Thanks for having us.
• 2:02:46
  Thank you, Alia and Angelo for joining me
• 2:02:47
  on today's episode of the
• 2:02:48
  How to Protect the Ocean
• 2:02:49
  podcast. It was great to have you on to
• 2:02:51
  be able to talk about
• 2:02:51
  near shore conservation,
• 2:02:53
  something that has been always near and
• 2:02:55
  dear to me. I always found
• 2:02:56
  that when you're living along
• 2:02:57
  the coast, somebody told me this a while
• 2:02:59
  ago, and I always go by
• 2:03:00
  this. When you live along the
• 2:03:01
  coastline, you want to look out onto a
• 2:03:03
  lake, onto a river, onto an
• 2:03:05
  ocean, and you want to say,
• 2:03:07
  "This looks pretty cool." You don't want
• 2:03:09
  to see green water.
• 2:03:09
  You don't want to smell
• 2:03:10
  nastiness in the water. You want to see
• 2:03:12
  intact and natural areas,
• 2:03:14
  not all just concrete barriers
• 2:03:16
  and seawalls and things like that. You
• 2:03:18
  want to see natural areas.
• 2:03:20
  And I think we are getting to
• 2:03:21
  that point now where the focus starts to
• 2:03:23
  go onto near shore
• 2:03:24
  conservation. I really thought it was
• 2:03:25
  interesting how the conversation really
• 2:03:27
  started from the evolution of the
• 2:03:29
  different focuses of
• 2:03:31
  conservation as from like 70s and 80s
• 2:03:33
  when Angelo and I were young
• 2:03:35
  kids in the 80s and then seeing
• 2:03:36
  how that's evolved over time and even to
• 2:03:38
  now from 30 by 32 near shore and justice
• 2:03:42
  and equity within conservation
• 2:03:43
  in that focus. And I think even doing
• 2:03:46
  this type of conservation, no matter what
• 2:03:47
  happens in different
• 2:03:48
  countries and how different government
• 2:03:50
  administrations change their ways and
• 2:03:52
  change the way they see things,
• 2:03:53
  but also being able to work with ocean
• 2:03:56
  heroes, ocean communities,
• 2:03:58
  and just any type of coastal
• 2:03:59
  community to be able to champion the idea
• 2:04:03
  and support and lead the idea of coastal
• 2:04:05
  conservation. So I just thought it was a
• 2:04:07
  really good interview and a really good
• 2:04:08
  topic to discuss something that we'll be
• 2:04:10
  discussing a lot more in the future. I'd
• 2:04:12
  love to hear your thoughts though on it.
• 2:04:14
  Let us know in the comments below if
• 2:04:16
  you're watching this on YouTube or you
• 2:04:17
  can DM me at how to protect the ocean on
• 2:04:19
  Instagram. That's at how to protect the
• 2:04:21
  ocean or you can go to speakupforblue.com
• 2:04:23
  forward slash contact and just fill out
• 2:04:25
  the form. Let me know how you feel. It
• 2:04:27
  goes right to my inbox. I'll
• 2:04:28
  answer you as soon as I can.
• 2:04:30
  Again, thank you to Alia. Thank you to
• 2:04:32
  Angela for coming on the podcast and
• 2:04:33
  sharing this knowledge with us. Love to
• 2:04:35
  have you back on in the future to talk
• 2:04:36
  more about near shore conservation as
• 2:04:38
  well as other types of conservation. And
• 2:04:40
  I want to thank you, the audience for
• 2:04:41
  listening to this episode of the how to
• 2:04:43
  protect the ocean podcast. I'm your host,
• 2:04:44
  Angela from the true north, strong and
• 2:04:46
  free. Have a great day. We'll talk to you
• 2:04:48
  next time and happy conservation.