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From Engineer to Ocean Advocate: Carlos Mallo's Journey with Innoceana · How To Protect The Ocean

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The purpose of this podcast, not just this episode, but this whole
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How to Protect the Ocean podcast and the business that I do is to meet people who are
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doing phenomenal things within the ocean and
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to help conserve the ocean, not only from an environmental perspective,
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but also from a societal approach. It's
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great to see when people are starting new things or doing
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what they can with what they have and being able to really move the
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needle in terms of ocean protection and marine conservation protection,
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as well as engaging local communities. And that is what we're
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going to be discussing today. I want you to be prepared to
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get inspired because I have Carlos Malo,
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who is the founder and CEO of InOceana. It
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is a phenomenal organization that goes
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around the world, works with local communities to say, hey, what do
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you need help with? And we're going to help you do that. He's an engineer
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turned marine conservationist, always sticking to
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his engineering blood and being able to use
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engineering practices and logic to build phenomenal
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things just from conservation center in the Canary Islands or
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building out a eco hub essentially for
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tourism as well as conservation projects and
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coral research projects in Costa Rica. And
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even working with people in Fiji to train
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them on how to do marine conservation from
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a technology point of view and work with them from afar.
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It is phenomenal. And I was truly inspired after this interview. So
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that's what we're going to talk about on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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Let's start the show. Hey
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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm
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your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how
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you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean
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by taking action. And today we're going to be talking a lot about action,
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but also community engagement. We're going to be talking about innovation and
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using technology to take on some of the biggest challenges
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in marine conservation. We're going to be talking to Carlos Malo, who is the
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founder and CEO of InOceana. It
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is an innovative oceanic organization that really
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hits home of, hey, do you want to do something about the ocean?
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Then just go ahead and do it. Not through easy
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processes, Carlos describes how hard it was to
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quit an engineering job and going into doing something where
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he was inspired to be through a conservation project they did in Thailand and
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start his own organization to do what he
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is doing now. And when you hear what he's been doing,
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it's absolutely phenomenal. You know, I try to inspire
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people through these interviews. And when you get someone on that
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can inspire just like Carlos can, you run
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with it and you let them do the talking. So I am not going to
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talk any further. Here is the interview with Carlos Malo,
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engineer and the founder and CEO of InOceana.
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Enjoy the interview and I will talk to you after. Hey Carlos, welcome
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to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about
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Thank you. I'm very excited as well. I'm so happy that
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you could be here. First of all, happy new year. It is my first interview
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of the new year, so this is going to be a good way, a great way
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to kick off 2025. We're going to be talking about
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your organization in Oceania, what it's all about,
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how it came to be. You were an engineer and now you're a full-time I'm
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sure you're using your engineer practice and sort of workflows and
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everything like that, but now you're full-time marine conservationist. We're going to talk
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about how that happened. We're going to talk about the building of this
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organization and sort of where it's gone and how far
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off. You're in Costa Rica. You're from Spain. You're traveling all over the
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place. It sounds awesome. It sounds busy. And so we're going to
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find out all about that. But before we do that, Carlos,
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Okay, well, I am, I guess, an ocean
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lover to start. I love the ocean. And I
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am from Spain. As you said, my background is in engineering.
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I was working in different construction projects in Spain and in
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England, actually. And my expertise
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is in harbor, marina, sports construction, so
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it's very related to the ocean, but in a very different field. So I
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actually followed the path of my dad, who was a
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very successful developer in the coastline of Spain. So he built
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a lot of ports. I was born by the ocean while my
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dad was leading construction of ports. So I
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guess that's where the love for the ocean is coming. And yeah,
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and along my career, I decided to change my
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Well, and that's what I wanted to dive deep in. So obviously we know your
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passion for the ocean. Growing up around the ocean, along coastlines,
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very easy to fall in love with that. What
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in particular do you remember from your childhood where you
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Yeah, so I was born in the north of Spain where
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the ocean is pretty rough, there is big waves, but
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in the summer it gets like beautifully calm and I remember
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when I was a kid like just free diving every day and like
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spending a lot of time by the beach and with my friends. Yeah, I
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think that's where I really connected to the ocean. My grandfather
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was the first one who brought me to a clean-up back
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in the 90s when clean-up wasn't even a thing. But I
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was living next to the
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production of a lot of fisheries and there
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was some trash. So we were doing clean-ups and I think that opened my
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eyes that the ocean has a limit. And but again,
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I think it was living by the ocean what actually connected
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Yeah. Yeah. Well, then doing all these cleanups and everything, it kind
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of you kind of see things that you don't expect to normally
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see, some that are good and some that are bad. And depending
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on your age, you may connect with that. I mean, we've all been
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there before. We've all seen like sandals and stuff on the beach that nobody's
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don't belong to anybody. And you're wondering where do those come from? Like, how do they
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I remember specifically this situation that I was fishing in the port,
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and I was so excited because I caught this big fish. And
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again, I was like six years old, so this was 1992 or
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something like that, so I was just a little kid. And
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when we opened the fish at home, it was full of pollution inside, and we're
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like, whoa, whoa, whoa, how is this possible? The fish was alive, and it
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has plastics, and it has a lot of bad things inside of
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Yeah, I can imagine. I can imagine. Now, you
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grew up as an engineer, though. You always wanted to be an engineer. Your dad was
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an engineer. Was that just like, dad's
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doing it, so this looks pretty cool. You get to build some pretty cool
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things. I feel like engineers have a different way of thinking. It's
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a very logical kind of thinking. Was that sort
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I would also say that I
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wanted to be connected to the ocean in my career. So I wanted to work
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connected to the ocean. And in my country, in Spain, if
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you study marine biologists, you know you are not going to
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have a lot of opportunities to work in the field. And
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you will probably be a teacher, or you will be doing other things. So it
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was also a way to find a path into the ocean
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Okay, so like working more by the ocean, building things.
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Did you ever have that thought process of like,
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I want to be an engineer, but I want to help the ocean and
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not build things that would maybe not like not that your dad wasn't because ports
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are obviously very important. And there's different ways of doing it.
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But with that focus, the love of the ocean, did you ever have that conservation
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I think so. I think, well, conservation, marine conservation specifically
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in my country is not a big thing yet. It's still growing. It's still
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far from, I don't know, in California, everything is
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about marine conservation. That doesn't mean that it's good, but at
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least people are more aware. In Spain, people are just starting
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to connect to the concept of marine conservation. seven
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years ago when I started in Havana in Spain, people were like, but
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what are you doing? What is this about? Nobody really, but I, yeah,
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I think from my personal perspective, like
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when I was working in construction and I understood the impact of
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construction and the environment, that's where I started like connect to, hey,
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there is something wrong here. We are not thinking
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about all of those animals that we are killing, right? And that was kind of the path.
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that drive me straight to starting this.
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So did you work as an engineer beforehand in the construction business?
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So I was, at the end of the university,
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I was kind of mixing, working as an engineer and
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also finishing the university. So I would say I was eight, almost
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10 years in the construction industry. So I have a,
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yeah, it was some time. I have a very vertical career where I
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started as just an intern, but then I was a
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project manager and like I was going up and I was having more responsibilities and
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I was in the front line of understanding what we were
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Yeah. And what's interesting, too, is because I mean, it's
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really difficult to give up or change
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a career when it's so promising, you know, like it's in
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your blood. You know, you know the industry probably inside and out by now
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just because growing up with like watching your dad do his thing and
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then you do your thing for 10 years. You started to get
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that piece where you're like, OK, I can do something else
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here. But what was it that kind of took you
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away from a job that probably would have kept you very
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well employed and pretty comfortable throughout, probably
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Yeah, I think there were a number of situations that it was like
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adding up. So first, I started working in the Canary Islands
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as an engineer, which was very close to the ocean. I remember building
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this highway by the coast and I can see
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all the ocean and I can see the whales from the construction site. And
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So I was so fortunate to be in that. And I was thinking like,
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wow, I want to be closer to the ocean. I want to do something to support those
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animals. And then the biggest, I
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think the biggest trigger for this was I took
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my holidays to go to Thailand. I just went for a whole month.
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I took a whole month of holidays like disconnecting from everything.
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And I meet these people that were doing marine conservation. It was like a marine conservation
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center, a small one in a tiny island in the Gulf of Thailand. And
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then just being with those guys and seeing the energy,
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the passion and seeing the projects and being underwater with them and
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like doing coral restoration and like, I don't know, like
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identifying whale sharks and things like that. It
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was just like, I don't care about my
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stability in construction. I want to find a different path and to do what actually
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makes myself fulfilled. And I think that was the biggest trigger,
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But it's really interesting too, because you say you went for a month. Now, I
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know Europeans, you guys do it differently than here in North America,
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where you guys love to enjoy your vacations and
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you love to explore different parts of the world, which I think is
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fantastic. I think we need to do that more over here. To go away for
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a month allows you to do this type of
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exploration. And we went to Italy for two weeks. We wanted to do all the
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tourist sites. I've never been to Europe. I've been once, but not in
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Italy. And so I'm going around looking at all the Colosseum and
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everything. You don't have time to just relax and
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just be like, oh, this is a cool thing. Let's look up some conservation projects. You're
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there for a month, and you get to explore. You
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don't just fall upon this conservation group. You probably
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looked them up and said, OK, you volunteered for them, right?
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Yeah, so you volunteer with them, which is great. And then it allows you, I mean,
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just to think, it pretty much changed your path. to
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going from, you know, I'm going to be an engineer and I'm going to work around the ocean because
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I want to be around the ocean. I get to see all these pretty cool things. Now
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you're like, OK, I want to help out. So that's
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a big like I talk to a lot of people who are in the process
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or in that process of being inspired. But like, where do
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I go from here? You know, like like I want to help
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here. You're you're in the situation where you're like identifying whale
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sharks and doing coral restoration. Like that's a lot of things to
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do. Did you ever feel overwhelmed of like, where do I
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go from here? Like, how do I obviously
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you're trying to help the ocean, right? Like, that's what you want to do. Where
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did you like, where was your thought process on that? And did you have trouble figuring
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To me, I think that specific moment was about understanding
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that in the conservation field, there were a lot of biologists, there were a
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lot of environmentalists and people with a
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scientific background. But when it comes to engineering, there
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is not that many engineers that are contributing to this world. And
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I saw, yeah, I saw kind of a gap or maybe
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a hole that I could fulfill. And I just, yeah,
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I felt that there was something. I didn't know exactly what
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it was, but I came back to my normal job. I was working
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in England back then. And I was like, okay, what
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I can do? So I started thinking about well, water quality could
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be something we can start doing data analysis of water quality. We can
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build a crane to support like the artificial reefs. And
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I have like a bunch of seven different projects that I wanted to, and like
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maybe only two of them actually then work. But it's
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about just bringing ideas to the projects. And for people that
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are in this moment that they don't know what to do, it's like my advice
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Well, I agree with you. What I love about what you were
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just saying there is you start to think like an engineer, right?
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If we're doing coral restoration, things are heavy. It's not
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easy. You need a crane to do this. We can build this. We can use technology for
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water quality and maybe connect to a phone cell tower and get
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the data back and stuff like that. You're thinking like an engineer. Which
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not a lot of people do. If you talk to scientists, especially academics,
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you'll see them like, oh, we've got to engineer this together. We've got to piece this together.
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We've got to build something. And as a student, you learn that. You learn
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to be handy. You learn to really DIY yourself, do
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it all yourself at that point, which is really cool. But
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I think that's what a big thing is. Not a lot of people think about that.
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I think, and you kind of mentioned it, there are a lot of biologists, a lot
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of environmentalists, but I think that's the first thing people think about. when they
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talk about marine conservation, when they think about the ocean. Well, I don't
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really want to go back to school to do a four-year degree in
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marine biology. And I always tell them, like, you don't have to. You can
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do it yourself just by bringing your own skills. If you have
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marketing, you can start telling stories. If you have business,
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you can help run organizations. If you're an engineer, you
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can build stuff, which is pretty cool, because I never able to
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do that. of so that I think it but it's bringing your own
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personal and your own skill set to the table to
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see what you can build now once you got there you had your own
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ideas now you're working for a company now or
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at this point you're working for a company What made you decide
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to come up with Inoceana, like create an entirely new
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non-profit organization? Even then, even going from
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non-profit to a, compared to a private company, but what made you decide
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to do stuff on your own instead of joining another movement?
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It was like everything in life. It was a process. I
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didn't know what I was going to do in Oceana when I quit my job. I
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wanted to go to the ocean. I wanted to be back in Thailand. I wanted
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to help this conservation group. But I didn't know
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that Oceana was even in my plans. What I knew is that I love Yeah,
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I love building things. I love innovation ideas. And
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actually, I was very successful in my career in England working
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as an engineer. I got this award of innovation in
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construction. So I got this huge recognition. I was like, I
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think I can do something with this that is more aligned with my values and with my
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passion. And when I was in Spain, about to
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just take off to go to Thailand, this guy from the
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environmental, kind of somebody who was working in the Ministry
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of Environment in Spain, came to me and said, have you considered making a
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non-profit organization? Because the government is going to start submitting
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grants or something. I was like, I have no idea how to do that, but let's
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just start looking at that. And I took
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my mother and my best friend, and I was like, I need three signatures, guys. Let's
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put together the signatures for the bylaws, and let's submit this. And
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that was the very beginning of Inoceana. So it was a non-profit organization
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in Spain. Today, Inoceana is a 5-1-2-3 in the
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United States, a non-profit in Spain, a non-profit in Costa Rica.
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We'll have to get you up in Canada, too, at some point. I
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love it. You mentioned something that I didn't really expect.
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You mentioned that you quit your job, and then you were going to fly to Thailand. But
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right before, that's when you started Inoceana. That's
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pretty scary to just quit your job like that and then move
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on to something else, not knowing especially what you're going to
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do. At that time, were you going to get paid by that marine organization or
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No, no, I didn't have any expectation of payment. I have like
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$30,000 savings of life from my engineering curriculum.
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And it just flew over to support these people and to kind of
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see where my path was. And it was just
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to be totally, completely open. It took me three years to start
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seeing money coming. So I needed to live with $30,000, I
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needed to live three years traveling around the world. So it was a challenge.
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Yeah, for sure it's a challenge. But from a personal aspect,
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how was that dealing with... Because there's
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a lot of stress around not having money, right? Especially when you're trying to do
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something and you're trying to push for something. How was
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that on your own mental health or on the
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way you conducted business when you don't have money as
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you're trying to find money wherever you can? How did
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I mean, that was a big struggle for me
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and I guess for everyone. Every entrepreneur probably
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goes through this situation where you are like, oh my God, I don't have even
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the money to bring my girlfriend for dinner. I cannot pay for that. I
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cannot afford that. And you know, I don't have money to rent a house. I
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need to stay in my friend's or family or whoever's house. At
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that time, I was already 30 years old. I
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was coming from this career where being an engineer, my
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money was not a problem. I have a nice place to live. The
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security was strong, was very strong. All
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of my friends were just growing, buying houses, having kids. I'm not
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able to just go out for dinner. It was just a
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When Innocean started, what was the vision when
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Well, I would say that the vision has changed a little bit into the
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details, but the reality is that for me, the vision is
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the same. As a final goal, it's
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about changing the mindset of people and about changing how the
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society works. That's kind of in the
19:47
philosophical level. From a practical standpoint, it's
19:50
about restoring the ecosystems underwater that are damaged, and
19:54
those who are still not damaged protect them. So it's kind of this combination of
19:58
But to do that, we need to work with the communities and with the other
20:01
organizations, with other people and bring them to the water. I've
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just been for eight years bringing a lot of people to the water and
20:08
just to show them what's going on there. And then, of course, we have
20:13
Yeah, for sure. I mean, there are a lot of projects. So trying
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to bring people to the ocean is admirable.
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Obviously, people need to get connected to the ocean. They need to see what's happening.
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Obviously, they see the beauty, but they also see some of the problems. Like Costa
20:28
Rica is fantastic. I've been there before. We were discussing before we
20:31
pressed record. But I remember the first rainfall that we had, the
20:35
amount of trash that came up on the beach just from all
20:39
the water coming from inland as well as coming back from the ocean. It
20:43
was insane. It was like night and day to see that. Obviously, they
20:46
did a great job cleaning it up, but you're just like, well,
20:49
that's interesting to see how much stuff comes up on the beach on
20:54
a night sort of storm. So you get to see
20:57
some of the bad part about what's happening
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in the ocean as well, especially from inside the
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coast. So again, you know, I asked the question like when
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you start an organization like this, you got to focus on specific projects.
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You're an engineer, you can build a lot of things. And that's probably where you're thinking at
21:14
this point. Where did you begin? What was your first? What was your first
21:19
The first project was in Thailand, but it wasn't actually the project that
21:23
I wanted to launch. My idea as an engineer was artificial reefs.
21:26
So I was like, let's build this artificial reef concrete base that
21:30
we can put there and we save the reef. And when I arrived to
21:33
Thailand, I discovered there were so many people doing that. And most
21:37
of those projects weren't even working. There were almost dumping
21:41
stations that people were throwing to the ocean, any kind of trash you can imagine.
21:44
And it was a disaster. There was so many tunicates growing and
21:48
like all the other falling organisms, but when it comes to coral, there
21:51
was no recovery. So I switched
21:54
my mindset and I was like, okay, what is what these people need? And
21:58
we focus on measuring the water. Because as
22:01
an engineer, I'm good at building things, but what engineers do the best
22:04
is assessing. It's assessing the environment, it's assessing what is around.
22:08
Because before you build a bridge, you need to know what kind of soil you have,
22:11
what is the weather, what is the rainfall, all of that. all of the parameters.
22:15
So we started putting a lot of water quality kits into
22:19
the dive centers in Kotal. That was the island I was working
22:22
in. And people were starting measuring the water quality for
22:26
us and getting data that supports those artificial reefs,
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Now, this is interesting. You're getting people to get to take water quality
22:34
samples. Who were you getting? Is it just local community members? And
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So the island of Koh Tao is a very well-known diving
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destiny, and it's a tiny island, eight kilometers long, full
22:47
of tour operators. So we were starting with the tour operators there, and
22:50
they were kind of joining. We were giving lectures, we
22:53
were giving materials, and they were taking sampling for us, and also they
22:57
were using that as a tool to educate other people. So
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it was a very, in my view, it was a very strong project, and
23:05
And you, did you supply all the instrumentation for them? Like you,
23:11
Yeah, we supplied. The first round was all about actually
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me bringing from Spain a lot of water quality elements, like tools.
23:19
And then eventually, we were in the second round, I
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couldn't afford that. And we didn't have a funding opportunity. But
23:26
the dive centers, they have money. So they were able to buy
23:32
So they see it as a, the operators see it as
23:35
a plus because they are showing their people, like
23:39
the tourists. what's happening and people want to
23:42
see healthy. And again, I like I'll be honest, like I
23:45
know I'm biased, but if I go to a tour operator that's doing like
23:48
snorkeling and stuff and they're like, yeah, we've been measuring this area for a while and this
23:51
clarity has got clear. Sometimes there's there's some bad stuff, but
23:55
we know when it's bad. We know when it's good. We know when it's to come and we're trying to
23:58
work to get better. Then you feel as a church like, oh, OK, this is we
24:01
know this outfit's good because they want their water quality to
24:04
be good. Right. And that's so that makes a a big benefit. So it
24:07
almost so much of a benefit that they're willing to buy their own gears
24:13
And the good news and there is not a lot of good news in the world today.
24:16
But one of the good news is that I see more and more people like you or
24:19
me that are very aware and they want to learn more. So there
24:27
Yeah, which is great to see. And that mindset
24:31
changed. I guess in Thailand, too, you said there's a lot of
24:34
people doing conservation work. Yeah. You talked about
24:37
the outfit that inspired you. There's a lot of people doing artificial reefs.
24:41
When you approach them, the tour operators, how did they
24:44
first sort of, were they warm to
24:48
you? Were they saying, oh, yeah, we'd love to work
24:51
with you? Or were they a little skeptical about you coming in to being like,
24:56
In Thailand, I think they were very open, but in Costa Rica,
25:00
at the beginning, it was very hard. It depends on where. It
25:04
changed a lot. And now, the organization has
25:07
grown a lot, and now we are starting new challenges. We are starting projects
25:11
in Africa, and man, that's a next-level problem. I
25:14
don't even know how to approach that situation. But as
25:18
I was saying, the more conservation
25:21
is a normal thing, the more open the people are, because they see us as a
25:25
win-win. But in places where conservation hasn't been a
25:28
thing before, they are a bit skeptical that you are coming to remove
25:31
the, I don't know, to steal the business model or something, things
25:35
Yeah, yeah, it's true. I can see, you know, and you're
25:39
an outsider in a lot of these places, so I can see people being a little skeptical, I'm
25:43
sure. In in the past, you know people
25:46
have taken them for a ride or try to take them for a ride And then you
25:49
have to be a little skeptical, right? And and I
25:53
think it's it's important to when you like actually well I'll ask
25:56
you this is like when you do approach them and and
25:59
like places in Africa places in Costa Rica and Thailand How
26:04
do you approach where they you can gain their trust? Like what
26:10
So in the past it was different because as I was saying, we
26:13
didn't have anything. I have a bunch of volunteers that were following me wherever
26:16
I go, but that was it. And it was much easier because when you
26:19
are small and when you have like a small operation or no
26:23
operation and you are living with the rangers in the national parks
26:26
and the people meet you there and you are like there with just your broken, almost
26:30
clothes because you are just in the middle of nowhere and you don't care too
26:33
much. People are super open to you and they are like, okay, these guys,
26:37
what a cute situation, whatever. Now that Innocena has
26:41
operation and we have boats, we have buildings, we
26:44
have like operation, it's different because the
26:48
approach is more professional, I would say. And sometimes
26:51
the communities are a little bit more skeptical because they are like, oh no, these
26:55
people are big and they just want to take advantage of us.
26:58
So it's about building trust. It's about showing
27:02
slowly but surely how much you can do for them. But
27:06
in the past, again, I didn't need to be careful, because it was just me
27:13
And it's easy, because if you're starting a project, they're probably just like, well, I
27:16
don't have to put in anything. I don't have to pay that much money. And it's like
27:19
a couple of volunteers. And then they get to meet you personally. Now
27:23
I can see it, like people seeing big, because they're probably meeting some of your staff
27:27
and some of the other people. you probably have materials and stuff, and they're
27:30
like, oh, this seems really big, you know, and I need to, I
27:33
need to, you know, do I need to worry about this? What's their ulterior motive, even
27:37
though you don't have one? And I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of questions that
27:40
go on there. And I think it's really important, just, it's important, I guess, is
27:44
more of the communication aspect, right? It's when you do community engagements, like,
27:48
we're here to help you what, like, is that the question you ask? Like, what
27:53
It's, I think, coming from the engineering perspective, communication
27:57
is always the number one challenge in any project, in any
28:00
project. But I think when it comes to marine conservation that has so
28:03
many different stakeholders, you have the fisherman community, you have just
28:07
the community in the village, you have the universities, the other organizations like
28:11
the core of our community. It's such
28:15
a challenge to make everybody happy. That's where
28:18
I am every day now, trying to understand how to make an
28:21
impact that is empowering communities, not making communities more
28:28
Yeah, exactly. Well, I guess it must be fun for you when you
28:31
go to a community and you say, What
28:35
kind of help? We're an organization that helps the
28:39
ocean. We're in for marine conservation. We want to help the ocean. We
28:42
want to help you. Let's talk about your problems. They
28:45
probably present your problems and you're like, all right, your engineer brain's going off and
28:49
you're just like, okay, this is how we help. That
28:56
That's my favorite thing to do. Actually, I have a
29:00
very good example for this. Two months ago, I went to Fiji because
29:04
I have an opportunity to start a project there through some collaborations. And
29:08
I arrived to this community. I didn't know anyone. And, you know, I don't know
29:11
if you've ever been to Fiji, but in Fiji, there is a lot of indigenous pride
29:16
and respect. So the chiefs are
29:19
in charge of giving permits to do anything. If you want to go fishing, you need to
29:23
speak to the chief. If you want to go diving, you need to speak to the chief. So
29:26
the first thing I did is go to meet the chief and drink Cava with him.
29:30
Cava is like this kind of the traditional drink.
29:34
And speaking to the chief, he was like, OK, so what can we do here?
29:37
I have no idea of your land, but you tell me and you hear them and
29:41
you see the problems and then you start building kind of
29:44
connection with the community. And where we are standing now is that we are training
29:48
10 kids of that community in marine conservation. So we are making
29:51
them divers and then they are going to be trained in coral restoration and
29:55
other things. And eventually, that team is going to be leading the
29:58
project in Fiji. Instead of bringing people from the outside, you just train
30:02
the people in the place. And I think that's a very interesting
30:10
Yeah, for sure. And that technology transfer as well. It probably
30:13
makes it easy for your operations too. You can always check in on them, provide
30:17
any kind of support that they need. But let's be honest, they're the ones,
30:21
the local communities are always the ones that have the biggest stake in protecting
30:25
And they know everything. It's like, I'm not going to
30:29
teach you much. I can provide you with the tools and I can be basic
30:32
things, but you have the real knowledge of what is going
30:38
Yeah. And I mean, it's so cool because you're able to talk to
30:41
a lot of different communities. I mean, just from a few conversations, you're
30:44
able to build some nice big projects. How
30:48
do you pay for all this? and pay for yourself. Let's be
30:52
honest, funding in marine conservation is not easy to
30:55
get, as you well know, right? How
30:59
did you really start fundraising for these
31:02
areas, and how has that evolved over time, over
31:08
That has been the hardest part of this because asking for money
31:11
is not easy. I'm building business models out of
31:15
things that are good for the environment, the
31:18
ocean, the world. It's the hardest thing. It seems like this world is
31:21
easy to make money when you do bad things, but when you want to do
31:25
good things, it's just so hard, man. So
31:30
at the beginning, as I told you, for three years, I was just putting my savings
31:33
and friends and family fundraising was the thing, like FNF. And
31:38
then we started kind of being successful
31:42
with some specific grants, and we were applying for small grants. And
31:46
then I had the idea of starting a non-profit organization in
31:49
the US, so in a way that we can have an umbrella funding,
31:54
like an umbrella for all the organizations that we can fundraise money in
31:57
the US, because You know, people can get some benefits in taxes
32:01
if they donate to Oceana. So that was kind of the process. It
32:04
took time to start. It helped. And then, of course, it has been
32:07
a lot of me visiting a lot of people and convincing
32:11
them how important is what we are doing. It's like
32:15
literally many nights without sleeping, without knowing how I'm
32:18
going to pay my team, because I have 25 salaries at the end of the month that I
32:22
need to pay, and 25 salaries is money
32:25
at the end of the year. So now, actually, this
32:32
2025, I can say that is the best situation I've ever been in the
32:35
organization, funding-wise. But we are still far from where
32:38
I want to be. But if you ask me six months ago, I probably
32:42
didn't sleep thinking about how the hell I'm going to find the money for the operation. It's
32:48
Is it a mix of grants and then private donors
32:55
I think it's a mix between grants, private donors, and
32:59
service fee from some business, like business inside the
33:03
nonprofit organization. So we partner with some hotels and
33:06
we do some projects for them. Like for instance, in
33:10
Costa Rica, we run a tour operator with a hotel that we provide
33:14
with all of the community science knowledge and we put some
33:17
tour guides there, like we work with them. So it's just a mix of
33:21
Yeah, for sure. That's smart. I like that. Because
33:25
if you think about it, you're in control of that, right? Your organization
33:30
runs that operation. And it's a way to bring in money, not
33:33
only to pay them to do it, bring in money, plus you're educating tourists
33:38
on the local flora and fauna, right? Exactly. The local areas.
33:42
And then you can talk about the conservation projects that you're working with them.
33:45
Plus it makes the hotel look good because it's like a business that they work with you.
33:50
That's really great. So do you only do that in Costa
33:57
So our two main projects are happening in Costa Rica and in
34:00
Spain. Those are the two locations where we have most of the people. In
34:03
California, we do some awareness projects and some documentaries
34:07
and small things. And now we have a project
34:11
starting in Fiji. That's the one I mentioned. And also we
34:14
have a European-funded project in the Philippines.
34:18
We are also starting another interesting project. And those
34:22
are the main locations right now. But my dream is
34:25
to escalate this organization to a next level and we could go
34:29
all over the place. I will be traveling from country to country,
34:34
That's phenomenal. I love that aspect because as
34:39
you say, finding grants, finding donors, it's
34:45
not always the main source of income, right? You need
34:48
to have your own services. And I'll be honest, as a podcaster, I
34:52
see it too. When we talk about podcasting, everybody's
34:55
like, well, you get sponsorships, you get sponsors, and everybody wants to be a Joe Rogan or
34:59
whatever, and you get major sponsors. But that's not the case for
35:02
a lot of people. The sponsors are really difficult. grants and donors
35:05
right then you can get like people on patreon or people like to donate to
35:09
support but even then it's really three percent of your audience if you
35:12
don't have a huge audience you're not going to get a lot of people
35:16
donating and so it having your
35:19
own services and having your own business where you can make money
35:23
off of that and use it almost as a marketing tool. This
35:27
one is you just bring it back in as education and awareness
35:32
and building. I just think it's it's it's phenomenal allows you
35:35
to do what you need to do in the type of business you do, you can probably do
35:39
it in Fiji, you can probably do it, you know, in Spain,
35:42
you can probably do it in Costa Rica, you're doing it in Costa Rica, you can do it anywhere you
35:45
want in the world, Thailand, And you can work with tour operators to
35:49
get that, or even a percentage of that to get there. There's a lot of
35:52
partnerships that you can work with to be able to do that. I think that's probably
35:57
the best long-term sustainability for a
36:01
nonprofit organization is to do that. And the money just goes right
36:08
Yeah, yeah. Not easy to set up, because you're basically setting up a
36:11
business within a business. How does that
36:15
work? you know, in terms of time, like
36:18
that your staff puts into getting the business,
36:21
as well as, like, is it the same staff that does the eco
36:25
tours, that does the research, or that does the conservation
36:30
Not necessarily, of course. Of course, I have the mentality that
36:33
when you work in marine conservation, the staff should
36:36
be able to do anything. Like, it's kind of, we need to be flexible, because marine
36:40
conservation is flexible. Like, the ocean changes all the time. But
36:44
I have people specialized in different things. So normally, the person who
36:48
is in charge of this collaboration with this hotel is different
36:52
than the people that are doing research. And actually, I just
36:56
come in now from a meeting with all of them, and we were talking about that specific
36:59
topic. It's important that everybody can help everybody, but also there are
37:04
Yeah, and different specializations. But I'm sure everybody, because you
37:08
do so many cool things, I'm sure some people are like, oh, I want to try that
37:11
a little bit, or I want to try that you want to make them happy, right? You want to
37:15
make sure that they have a good spot. I love it.
37:18
I love it. Now, in terms of the project, so
37:24
So if I tell you the truth, we have like, I
37:28
don't know, in total maybe over 40 or 50 projects.
37:31
But we decided to narrow down the projects to more like bulks
37:35
of projects. So if I tell you in Costa Rica, our main
37:38
projects are coral restoration, but we don't do
37:42
coral restoration as normal coral restoration. We are actually working on
37:45
the immunology system. So we are trying to understand why some corals
37:48
are surviving all of the climate change situation and trying to
37:52
kind of focus on what we call super corals. And this
37:56
concept in the scientific world is a tricky concept because it's
37:59
not as easy as a super coral and it's going to survive. But yeah, we
38:02
are trying to find those corals that can survive the future of this planet.
38:08
The other project in Costa Rica is about the humpback whales.
38:11
So we monitor the humpback whales, we put hydrophones, we go in
38:14
the water, we take photos and
38:18
we jump in the water with them, which is the best part, of course. And
38:24
that's the second one. And the third one is about the plastic problem.
38:27
So we do cleanups all year round. And now we are
38:31
working on this other business model that is the
38:34
kind of the precious plastic concept. So we just take the trash
38:37
from the beach and we clean it and then we go through the shredder and
38:41
then we stress it and we create furniture. So we are creating chairs, benches
38:45
and like a lot of things that we are going to sell to the community instead of them
38:48
going to the supermarket and buy things like they can't really buy
38:51
something that support the ocean. That's in Costa Rica. If
38:55
we go to Spain, It's similar, but in Spain
38:59
right now, the biggest, biggest project we have is the building of
39:02
a marine conservation center. So Europe, we
39:06
applied for a big funding and we got it. So we are leading the
39:10
building of a new marine conservation center in the Canary
39:14
Islands, which in my heart, this is
39:17
like the biggest thing because this is coming from us being
39:20
crucial in stopping the construction of a port.
39:25
that I built the road for. So I built the road as an engineer, then
39:29
we were able to build the port, and now we are building a marine conservation center
39:32
in this area, which is a very change of mindset. And
39:37
that project is probably one
39:40
of the biggest we have at the moment. And just to finish with the Canary Islands, we also
39:43
do a lot of cleanups and we are working on the seagrass. So we do
39:46
seagrass restoration in the Canary Islands, because we don't have corals as
39:50
we have in the tropics, but we have seagrass, which is a very
39:55
Well, I mean, it's still just as productive, right? If not even more productive, some
39:58
may argue, in terms of what's necessary. Plus, provides
40:02
a lot of coastline security, and it's a huge
40:06
And as a very quick number,
40:10
in the Canary Islands, we lost 50% of all the seagrass in
40:16
And what was that caused by? Was that just climate change, or was that degradation?
40:23
I can tell you that I've seen it with my eyes and I think the biggest
40:26
stressor is the coastal development and all of the tourism. It's
40:30
just growing and growing and that damage. Because climate change, and
40:34
there is a lot of papers that show how the temperature
40:39
rising in the ocean is not really affecting the seagrass as much as the corals. So
40:46
Yeah, yeah, I can see that. What's
40:50
interesting is people don't care about seagrasses as much as they do about corals, right?
40:54
Man, that has been such a personal fight
40:58
to show everyone that there is plants under the water and everybody, is
41:01
that an algae? No, no, they are plants. They capture, they
41:04
sequester carbon from the atmosphere and we need it for
41:08
You know, I think we need to change the word for
41:12
it. In English, anyway, everybody calls it seaweed. So
41:15
it's like a weed. So they're just like, well, it's going to grow back again. I'm like, not if you
41:18
destroy every part of it. I'm like, think of it as a plant. Would you go into
41:22
your garden and just take out everything because you feel like it's weird on your feet? Because
41:26
that's what everybody complains about. It's weird on my feet. I'm like, look in it. I
41:29
remember I took my, we had some seagrass around like we were at
41:33
a hotel in Mexico, just like on the Yucatan Peninsula. And
41:38
I had my nephews and my daughters and they're like, oh, look at all this, like they call the
41:41
seaweed. And I was like, no, I'm like, this is like, let's go look like grab
41:45
your snorkels. And it was very, very shallow. It was like maybe three feet of
41:48
water. I said, grab your snorkels. I'll take you over there and we'll go
41:51
see if there's we can see any fish or any cool critters. The amount of stuff
41:54
that we saw, you know, Carlos, it was phenomenal.
41:59
The kids couldn't believe they want to go back each and every day. I'm like, just
42:02
because it looks like a weed doesn't mean it's a weed. Just
42:06
because it doesn't have a flower necessarily on at the time doesn't mean
42:10
it's a weed and it's bad for it. It's great for the environment. It's
42:13
great for biodiversity. And it was a nice little teaching lesson
42:20
It's such an incredible ecosystem. And in the Canary
42:23
Islands, we have the opportunity that this is the food for the green sea turtles. So
42:27
we bring the people, and many people is
42:31
like, wow, we need to keep the seagrass for the turtles.
42:38
Well, and that's what it is, right? It's like you're educating the tourists that come over to
42:41
say, hey, look, you want to see more green sea turtles or sea turtles? Let's protect
42:44
this seagrass because that's what they come for. And they're not going to be here
42:48
if there's no seagrass. And so if you want to come and I think
42:52
there's a balance there, right? Where a lot of tourists, they want to go and
42:55
they want to see the ocean. They want to see animals
42:59
and things like that that are pretty cool. But then what happens
43:02
is that that causes so much destruction from
43:06
development that you don't get. And eventually, they'll just be
43:09
like, oh, well, we're just not going to go back there, because we used to see turtles, but now we
43:12
can't see turtles. Or we used to see fish, now we don't see as many fish. Well,
43:15
it's like, you can't have it both ways. You've got to balance it a little bit.
43:19
There's a reason why they come by, right? Yeah. Exactly. So here, you're working
43:22
the Canary Islands, which is kind of like a full circle moment, because you built
43:26
the road that goes out there, the port. Now you have a conservation
43:32
No, actually we are starting. It's a
43:36
four-year project and it's not just the building itself. It's such
43:39
a big collaboration with African countries. We are collaborating with
43:43
Portugal, authorities, Madeira. The
43:47
project, the Marine Conservation Center as a building
43:51
is the smallest thing of the project. It's just so much action that
43:54
we are going to do around. We are going to visit all of the schools in Tenerife. It's
43:58
just a lot of actions that are going to come up. I went to
44:01
one of our partners is in Senegal
44:06
so I went to Dakar like a month ago and it blew my mind man
44:09
like that's what I mean like when I when I think about Africa and the problems in
44:13
Africa that's probably where marine conservation should start focusing now
44:16
because nobody want to go there because it's hard to see what you see there
44:25
It's really cool. I mean, I'm looking at on your site and I see
44:28
all the different places you work, different countries, different
44:32
places on earth, different cultures. You talk about going to
44:35
places and wanting to work within certain places and
44:38
doing some pretty amazing projects there. But projects that require probably
44:43
permits and making sure you know
44:46
the regulations and the laws in each of those places. obviously,
44:50
you know, looking at at the site, you have people in
44:54
in certain places, like you have a team in Costa Rica, you have a team in
44:57
Spain, and you probably have people all around in
45:00
the different areas that you that you have. How do
45:04
you adapt all the different countries,
45:08
the cultures, the laws and everything to get the projects to
45:12
a point where you're like, okay, this especially when it comes to engineering, like,
45:16
A lot of times it requires permitting, building an actual building, it requires
45:19
a lot of permits and stuff. How do you adapt to
45:24
I would say that Spain and Costa Rica are places where
45:28
I feel comfortable with the culture, with the problems.
45:32
I know how to handle it. But for instance, now that
45:35
we are starting a project in Fiji, for
45:38
me, it was very obvious. There is no way I have capacity with my
45:41
organization to do anything here. So we partnered with the local people. And
45:45
they are the ones who know how to do the things. So we are just providing capacity
45:49
building. And probably, this will be more like the future of where Innocena will
45:52
go. We'll be more focused on like finding the right communities that
45:56
can really be supported to do what we want to
45:59
do to support the ocean. Yeah. But
46:02
I think, as you said, as an engineer, I have the capacity
46:06
to really map the situations. And you
46:10
mentioned about the permits. The permits are a pain in the ass,
46:14
man. They're always. It's always. I suffered the
46:17
most with all of this. But But also it's about building trust and
46:20
when people know you, it's much easier to get. So it's just a process. Everything
46:25
I mean, there's a reason for all of it, right? And you have to abide by
46:29
it. But it's a lot to learn. I even know I used to work in private consulting
46:33
and even the laws here in Canada, I was like, oh, I have to learn this new one. Oh, I
46:36
have to learn this new regulation. Oh, there's a change in this one. I didn't know. And it's
46:39
always changing. And it's always so I can just imagine a number of
46:43
different countries that you
46:48
You can only learn what you can learn. I think
46:51
this last 2024 is the year that my brain has a
46:55
limit and I was like, okay, I'm touching the limit of my
46:58
brain. But also the technology, I think, is bringing us
47:02
interesting tools with all of this famous AI. It's
47:06
kind of an opportunity to really have an
47:09
extra support to increase the impact. But
47:13
I think, I hope this goes into the good side because also you can
47:16
increase the bad impact. So it's like how we focus the AI into
47:21
100% and I think there's a lot of room for AI and oceans
47:26
when we're talking a lot more people are getting into it even on the conservation side
47:30
and Learning how to use I know I use it in my workflow all the time and
47:33
it's it's helped so much save time and so much Yeah, it's
47:36
it's so great. Now. I mentioned I was I was on your I'm
47:40
on your site and I'm looking at your team and it's quite big.
47:43
You have a global team, you have a Costa Rican team, you
47:46
have a Spanish team, you have board members, you have collaborators, you have
47:50
ambassadors. It's quite cool
47:53
to see. How have you built
47:57
such a team? First of all, how did you start
48:01
growing the team? Like, what were you really focusing on? That'll be
48:06
I'm glad you asked this because I remember this moment that I
48:09
was going to Thailand, no experience in marine conservation. I
48:14
was only one month on holiday, so I didn't know anything. But
48:18
I've been always good at making people excited. I've
48:21
been always good at making teams. That's kind of my biggest,
48:25
probably my biggest capacity. And
48:29
I remember telling to my mom that my mom has been very important in all
48:32
this process. She has been my biggest supporter and my
48:36
best friend. And I remember telling her, I have the
48:39
feeling that a lot of people are going to follow this. I
48:42
don't know why, but I have the feeling and men. That was literally what
48:46
happened. I remember living in Thailand and I have already like five,
48:50
no, maybe seven people that were coming to Costa Rica to help me. It
48:53
was just a movement. So I created this wave. Do you
48:57
remember in the film Forrest Gump that he's running and then suddenly everyone
49:03
That's awesome. That's awesome. Now, when you hire
49:07
someone, what do you look for in
49:10
that person? Obviously, there's a specific skill set for each position, but
49:15
from a personality standpoint, what do you look for? Because
49:18
it seems like, especially in an organization like this, although you have
49:22
a fairly large team, everybody does
49:25
a little bit of everything at some point. What do you look for
49:30
For me, when this has been like a big process,
49:33
we try different ways to do this. But
49:37
what I learned is that the most important thing in this field, and
49:40
I'm speaking about marine conservation organizations, and maybe
49:44
this applies to startups, because startups could be also a similar environment.
49:48
Yeah, for sure. flexibility, people who are flexible, people
49:52
who are able to change their mind and if there is a
49:55
change in the plan they will adapt and they will continue in
49:58
the other way like efficiently. I think that's the biggest and
50:02
of course people who just love the ocean and are passionate.
50:06
Those are the two main requirements. I don't care then if he's a
50:09
marine biologist or if he's a lawyer or if he's nothing. He
50:12
didn't go to university, but he's very good at doing surveys, whatever.
50:16
It's just about the passion and it's about the flexibility. Those
50:19
are the two. I would say maybe this is obvious,
50:23
but maybe it's not as obvious in the world we live. It's
50:27
somebody with the values. The values are so important. Like, I
50:30
want to build this organization. from the foundations of
50:33
Innocent Art with strong values. So we want people with
50:36
big moral and people with values.
50:41
And sadly, in the world we live, we even
50:45
have presidents that don't have values. And it's not that obvious, this attribute.
50:49
Yeah. Yeah. No, definitely. I think You
50:53
have to have that passion. You have to have that ethics. You have to ask the question,
50:57
even if we do this and we can make, whether it be money or make a
51:00
lot of press, is this really worth it? Is this really
51:03
going to help the overall ocean when we come
51:10
Yeah, well, you mentioned ethics, and we are not religious people. This
51:13
is not about going to the church. No, no, no, no. Our
51:17
church, our cathedral is the ocean, and we go there. That's
51:21
the place where I pray. I remember having a podcast with the
51:24
religion podcast of Spain that I said yes, and they were like, okay,
51:28
I don't care about religion, but let's do it. And I told them, my cathedral is
51:35
That's not a bad life. That's not a bad life at all to
51:38
have that. That's phenomenal. Is
51:42
there anything you want, like as we kind of end this interview, is
51:45
there anything you want people to know about InuOceana that they may
51:49
not have known already? We covered a lot of subjects and a lot of topics and
51:52
love to have you back on to discuss more in depth and certain of
51:56
the projects, but what would you like them to know about InuOceana
52:02
I just, maybe one thing that is important is that here in Costa Rica and
52:06
in Spain, we have a team of amazing people that they can come
52:10
and visit. For instance, here in Costa Rica, we have a big building.
52:13
We even have place for people to stay. And we are constantly looking for
52:16
collaborators. So for instance, like three days ago, there was
52:20
this woman that sent me a message. Hey, I saw in Oceana and I'm a photographer. There
52:24
is something I can do for you guys. And she's just, I'm going to pick her up in
52:27
the next village, like in a few hours. So she's staying here with us and
52:30
she's coming to the ocean. Maybe my message is like, go
52:34
to our website, have a look at where we are, and if you are around, and you love
52:37
the ocean, and you are flexible, and you have the ethics, go
52:43
I love it. I think that is absolutely fantastic. Carlos,
52:47
thank you so much for coming on the podcast, letting us know, and thank
52:50
you for what you've done. I think you've helped out And you're going to
52:54
continue to help out a number of different coastal
52:57
communities, local communities, the ocean in general.
53:01
And it's people like you that we need more of and people like people
53:05
on your team and stuff. I think that's really fantastic. And
53:08
I love You know, it's a little bit of innovation for the ocean.
53:11
I love that. And the name is fantastic. The organization looks
53:15
phenomenal and the work you're doing is awesome. So thank you so much. And
53:18
again, I'd love to invite you back on to talk more about specific projects
53:24
Whenever, Andrew, whenever you want. Thank you for inviting me this time. It
53:29
Absolutely. Looking forward to it. Thank you so much. Thank you, Carlos, for joining
53:32
me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. That
53:36
was awesome. Let's just be honest. That was phenomenal. I
53:40
feel so hyped up right now. You
53:43
know, I feel like I want to do more. That's what
53:46
happens when you start to talk to people who are so passionate about the ocean
53:50
and build teams that are passionate about the ocean. It
53:54
just it becomes infectious in a good
53:57
way. Right. It becomes just it just transfers from
54:01
individual to individual. And this is what we need. We need people
54:05
to be inspired to take action. And Carlos and
54:08
Inociana does that. And I'm super proud. that I had him on
54:11
the podcast. I'm very, very thankful for Roxanne, one of his colleagues to
54:15
reach out and suggest that Carlos comes on
54:18
because it's not gonna be the last time you hear from him or any of his staff. We're
54:22
gonna have him on and we're gonna talk more about specific projects
54:25
that they're going in. We're gonna dive deep into those projects. There are people who
54:29
are doing unbelievable things in and around the ocean.
54:33
And I feel like this is a podcast where you can find out where
54:36
those people are and what they're doing. And I'm gonna have more people on in 2025. to
54:40
be able to discuss those types of things. And I think it's really important that
54:44
you subscribe, and you hit the like button, and the notification button
54:48
on YouTube, and on Spotify, and on Apple Podcasts, and
54:51
you watch or listen, however you consume this show, you
54:55
can do that. Super simple. The technology is there
54:58
for you. All you have to do is just enjoy the episodes, continue
55:02
to listen and share with a friend. And if you want to get ahold of
55:05
me and ask me questions, or you are working on a project that has
55:09
to do with the ocean and conserving the ocean, and you're really excited about
55:12
it, hit me up on Instagram, DM me at how
55:15
to protect the ocean. That's at how to protect the ocean. And
55:19
until next time, I want to thank Carlos for being on the podcast. I
55:22
want to thank you for listening. to this podcast or watching this podcast, wherever
55:25
you're doing it from. All the links are in the description below or in the
55:28
show notes. And I want to thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of
55:32
the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to