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The Ocean Is in Trouble, So Why Is This Report Hopeful? · How To Protect The Ocean

• 0:00
  If you only read the headlines about the
• 0:01
  ocean, you probably think
• 0:03
  using ocean protection is not
• 0:05
  doing well. Coral reefs are bleaching,
• 0:08
  the ocean is warming, fish
• 0:09
  populations are under pressure,
• 0:11
  sea levels are rising. So why does a
• 0:14
  major new United Nation
• 0:15
  report actually leave me feeling
• 0:17
  more hopeful than I have been in years?
• 0:20
  This is the How to Protect the Ocean
• 0:21
  podcast, your weekday
• 0:22
  ocean news update. If you care about
• 0:24
  staying informed on the
• 0:26
  ocean every weekday, Monday to
• 0:28
  Friday, hit that follow button right now
• 0:30
  on the podcast app that
• 0:31
  you're listening to so you don't
• 0:33
  miss next week's episode. Now, this week,
• 0:37
  a new UN report painted a
• 0:38
  stark picture of the challenges
• 0:40
  facing the ocean. But buried inside that
• 0:43
  report was something we
• 0:44
  don't hear much about or often
• 0:47
  enough. While the ocean health continues
• 0:49
  to decline, we're about
• 0:50
  to hit a super El Nino,
• 0:52
  so who knows what's going to happen over
• 0:53
  the next year or so. Our ability to
• 0:56
  govern and protect it
• 0:57
  is actually improving. Today, I want to
• 0:59
  talk about why both of those statements
• 1:01
  can be true at the same time and why that
• 1:03
  distinction matters.
• 1:05
  Let's start with reality. The ocean is
• 1:08
  under tremendous pressure, like a lot of
• 1:11
  pressure. The UN's latest assessment
• 1:14
  doesn't sugarcoat that fact.
• 1:16
  Ocean temperature continues to rise,
• 1:17
  marine heat waves are becoming more
• 1:19
  common. Like I said, we're
• 1:20
  about to enter a super El Nino.
• 1:22
  Sea levels are rising faster than they
• 1:24
  were just a few decades ago. Coral reefs
• 1:26
  continue to experience mass bleaching
• 1:29
  events and many fish populations face
• 1:31
  ongoing pressures from overfishing
• 1:33
  habitat loss and climate change.
• 1:35
  And if you've listened to this podcast
• 1:36
  for a while, none of that is new to you
• 1:38
  because we've covered all these stories
• 1:40
  before. You've heard me talk about the
• 1:42
  reefs. You heard me talk about fisheries.
• 1:43
  You've heard me talk
• 1:44
  about climate change.
• 1:45
  The science is clear. The ocean is
• 1:47
  changing. We know that for a fact.
• 1:49
  Whether we like it or not, it's changing.
• 1:53
  I think a lot of the stories that I've
• 1:55
  covered, you know, deep sea mining, the
• 1:57
  high seas, pilot whales, no pollution and
• 2:00
  just this episode this week.
• 2:02
  And then, of course, discovering the
• 2:04
  Mediterranean Great White Shark that was
• 2:07
  happening on Monday, that was really
• 2:08
  cool. But there's still some stuff that
• 2:10
  we see that every day,
• 2:12
  you know, the rollbacks like just the
• 2:13
  other day or just this last week, you
• 2:15
  know, during Oceans Week of all weeks, we
• 2:18
  saw rollbacks of a lot of marine
• 2:20
  sanctuaries in the US.
• 2:22
  We saw industry allowed to fish. So
• 2:26
  they're going to overfish, of course, not
• 2:27
  going to be managed properly. We see an
• 2:29
  administration in the US and elsewhere
• 2:30
  who are just even in
• 2:32
  Canada who are rolling back,
• 2:35
  rolling back environmental protections
• 2:36
  that are that that will slow down
• 2:41
  any type of natural resource development.
• 2:45
  And that's been a story like since the
• 2:47
  beginning of time where we're seeing all
• 2:50
  these environmental regulations slow down
• 2:53
  economic opportunities.
• 2:54
  And I just got into a debate on a guy
• 2:56
  with a guy in TikTok being like, hey, we
• 2:58
  have to take care of the economy. We have
• 3:00
  to take care of the health of people.
• 3:02
  And I plainly remind them, like, well, if
• 3:04
  you want to take care of the health of
• 3:05
  people, you have to take care of the
• 3:06
  health of the planet.
• 3:07
  Because like there's there's a reason why
• 3:09
  we are seeing like here in the southern
• 3:11
  Ontario, we're seeing areas where you
• 3:13
  have the highest number of people with
• 3:15
  allergies, you know,
• 3:17
  and breathing problems.
• 3:19
  You know, I wonder why we live right
• 3:20
  beside Hamilton Harbor, which at one
• 3:21
  point was responsible for 11% of the
• 3:24
  greenhouse gases that were emitted, you
• 3:26
  know, in southern in the country.
• 3:29
  And no, all the other stuff that goes
• 3:31
  with it, not just about greenhouse gases,
• 3:32
  but all the other stuff, the pollutants
• 3:34
  and stuff that comes with that.
• 3:35
  You know, there's a reason why we
• 3:37
  continue to do this.
• 3:38
  If we want the health of the people to
• 3:39
  improve, we have to improve the health of
• 3:41
  the planet, whether it be
• 3:42
  oceans, freshwater or land.
• 3:44
  That's really what it
• 3:45
  comes down to, you know.
• 3:47
  But, you know, like sometimes, like, you
• 3:49
  know, when you cover ocean every day, it
• 3:51
  can feel like challenges keep piling up.
• 3:53
  I had a recent, you know, person who
• 3:56
  commented on Spotify, which is great,
• 3:58
  comment on Spotify as much as possible.
• 3:59
  I love this, this,
• 4:00
  this topic that she has.
• 4:02
  She said, hey, you know, like I can't
• 4:05
  listen to five days a week because some
• 4:06
  of these topics are heavy and I can't
• 4:08
  listen to them every day.
• 4:09
  Totally understandable.
• 4:10
  Total. I totally get it.
• 4:11
  I don't expect people to listen to five
• 4:13
  times a day or five times a week, you
• 4:15
  know, so I won a day
• 4:16
  pretty much for the weekday.
• 4:17
  But, you know, we do provide the news and
• 4:20
  sometimes it's a little
• 4:20
  light, sometimes a little heavy.
• 4:22
  It just that's just the way it is.
• 4:23
  So I understand the feeling
• 4:24
  of like, hey, you know what?
• 4:26
  People will feel like it's pile up.
• 4:28
  I get it.
• 4:30
  I share honestly.
• 4:31
  Right.
• 4:31
  Like that's what I do.
• 4:33
  You know, but there there have definitely
• 4:34
  been moments over the past few years when
• 4:36
  I've wondered whether
• 4:37
  we're moving fast enough.
• 4:38
  I even said it, you know, I think that's
• 4:40
  something, you know, the audience
• 4:42
  appreciates is what I'm honest with
• 4:44
  becoming without becoming pessimistic.
• 4:47
  You know, even though there are a lot of
• 4:49
  things that are going against the ocean,
• 4:50
  there's been a lot of improvement in
• 4:52
  international agreements and local
• 4:54
  action, regional provincial
• 4:56
  or state and national action.
• 4:59
  We started to see things slowly turn
• 5:02
  around, even though some
• 5:03
  things are getting worse.
• 5:04
  There's things that are happening that
• 5:05
  are really working, even though for the
• 5:07
  time being, like four or five years,
• 5:09
  things will slow down.
• 5:09
  We need to move faster.
• 5:10
  There's no doubt about that.
• 5:12
  But we're starting to see improvement in
• 5:14
  the types of policies that are enacted
• 5:16
  that are put that are put in place and
• 5:18
  that when they're actually
• 5:19
  followed, they actually work.
• 5:21
  But here's what caught my
• 5:22
  attention in this report.
• 5:23
  The story isn't only
• 5:24
  about what's getting worse.
• 5:26
  It's also about what's getting better.
• 5:27
  You know, now let's talk about something
• 5:30
  we rarely celebrate is governance.
• 5:32
  I know, like the word probably doesn't
• 5:34
  even get anybody excited.
• 5:35
  Definitely doesn't get me excited.
• 5:37
  But nobody hangs a poster
• 5:38
  of governance on their wall.
• 5:40
  Nobody plans a
• 5:41
  vacation around governance.
• 5:43
  But governance might be one of the most
• 5:44
  important conservation tools we have in
• 5:47
  that conservation toolbox because
• 5:48
  conservation doesn't happen just because
• 5:50
  science discovers a problem, right?
• 5:53
  Or discovers a trend, a negative trend.
• 5:56
  Right? The science and scientists will
• 5:57
  discover that negative trend, but it has
• 5:58
  to go into law to be able to, you know,
• 6:01
  enact that and to reverse that trend.
• 6:04
  Right?
• 6:04
  Happens when people create systems to
• 6:06
  solve them and it gets boring for sure.
• 6:09
  You know, there's nothing better than
• 6:10
  like tagging a shark or watching a video
• 6:12
  of somebody tagging a shark or or what,
• 6:14
  you know, observing from the air like
• 6:16
  marine mammals and stuff like that.
• 6:18
  Discovering icebergs and how they work
• 6:20
  and how they float and all that stuff.
• 6:22
  But the systems that you put into place
• 6:23
  to solve the problems.
• 6:25
  They're the boring part, but
• 6:26
  they're the effective part.
• 6:28
  Right? And that's where the UN report
• 6:29
  offers some encouraging news.
• 6:31
  Around the world, we've seen stronger
• 6:33
  ocean governance emerge.
• 6:34
  The high seas treaty is moving forward.
• 6:37
  Countries are expanding
• 6:38
  marine protected areas.
• 6:39
  Illegal fishing monitoring is improving.
• 6:42
  Satellite technology is improving
• 6:43
  enforcement, which is great.
• 6:45
  International
• 6:46
  cooperation is also improving.
• 6:48
  None of these things solve ocean problems
• 6:50
  overnight, but they matter because for
• 6:52
  decades, many ocean
• 6:53
  problems existed without means.
• 6:54
  Meaningful global
• 6:56
  systems to address them.
• 6:59
  Like even just I would say about 16 years
• 7:02
  ago, I was working as a contractor with
• 7:05
  the Department of Fisheries and Oceans
• 7:07
  and we were looking at ocean management
• 7:08
  and we were talking about how you put an
• 7:10
  NPA in the middle of the water, like just
• 7:11
  out of, you know, just off the continent
• 7:13
  shelf or within the
• 7:14
  continental shelf, but off the coast.
• 7:16
  You can't see it from land.
• 7:17
  You can't see how
• 7:18
  those people are coming in.
• 7:19
  Those boats are coming in and out.
• 7:21
  You can't see if someone's fishing there
• 7:22
  illegally or anything like that.
• 7:23
  You can put satellites, but that time,
• 7:25
  like 16 years ago, even then the
• 7:27
  satellites aren't coming up often enough
• 7:28
  and we're not getting enough pictures and
• 7:29
  we can't really tell.
• 7:31
  We can't use satellite alone to do that.
• 7:33
  Now we're able to get to that point.
• 7:35
  You know, we can use drones, we can use
• 7:37
  aircraft, we can use satellites or a
• 7:40
  combination of those to
• 7:41
  give us a better picture.
• 7:43
  Like those systems are
• 7:44
  now beginning to emerge.
• 7:46
  AI data is helping, AI data analysis is
• 7:50
  helping and just sort of
• 7:52
  like crunching all that data.
• 7:54
  But I guess the question for you is like,
• 7:56
  what does governance actually mean?
• 7:57
  Like, do you know what it means?
• 8:00
  I guess it's basically rules, agreements,
• 8:02
  any kind of enforcement,
• 8:03
  accountability, cooperation.
• 8:04
  It's not the stuff we hear about.
• 8:07
  We hear about a lot of that illegal
• 8:08
  activity, but we never hear about the
• 8:09
  good things like the enforcement that
• 8:11
  happens to eliminate those agreements.
• 8:14
  Right? Or those that illegal illegal
• 8:17
  illegal legalities, I guess.
• 8:18
  Right? We start to see those change.
• 8:21
  We start to see that like technology
• 8:23
  being able to catch people faster.
• 8:26
  Right. And I think
• 8:27
  that's really important.
• 8:29
  One case in point, you know, fisheries,
• 8:31
  when somebody is fishing illegally, they
• 8:33
  come to a dock, they want to unload as
• 8:35
  fast as possible, get
• 8:36
  their money and then go.
• 8:37
  A lot of times they can do that by
• 8:38
  unloading either major ships.
• 8:40
  They can unload, not have
• 8:42
  anything happen to them.
• 8:45
  Right. Until it's too
• 8:47
  late, until they're gone.
• 8:48
  And then they start to realize that,
• 8:49
  wait, these fish are not coming for the
• 8:50
  right boat or we've been
• 8:51
  looking for this boat for a while.
• 8:52
  They come in and out of
• 8:53
  ports, like almost like ghosts.
• 8:55
  But now with AI and machine learning,
• 8:58
  that data gets crushed a lot faster.
• 9:01
  So managers can actually enforce better.
• 9:03
  And the enforcement arm of the law can
• 9:06
  actually do their jobs faster.
• 9:10
  And we're seeing those ships.
• 9:11
  They can't come into port in those in
• 9:13
  those areas because it's just this risk.
• 9:17
  Right. So that's that's
• 9:17
  getting better and better.
• 9:18
  Now, it's just a matter of like rolling
• 9:20
  out that information and those that
• 9:22
  technology to a lot more people.
• 9:23
  And I don't know if that's happening.
• 9:24
  I hope that's happening. Right.
• 9:26
  But that's important. Right.
• 9:28
  And I think like, you know, when you when
• 9:29
  you it's like you're comparing, like,
• 9:31
  when I compare like
• 9:31
  governance, like traffic laws.
• 9:33
  You know, if people are speeding too much
• 9:35
  or that becomes a problem and there's
• 9:37
  some accidents because of it.
• 9:39
  Well, then they, you know, there's more
• 9:40
  enforcement on on speeding or they they
• 9:43
  make more strict laws and people have to,
• 9:46
  you know, go with those laws and they
• 9:48
  have to abide by those
• 9:49
  laws and there's enforcement.
• 9:50
  Right. Cars don't become safer because we
• 9:52
  hope people drive responsibly.
• 9:55
  They become safer because we create rules
• 9:56
  and force those rules and
• 9:58
  improve the system over time.
• 9:59
  Like people hate his seat
• 10:01
  belts when they first came up.
• 10:02
  But as cars started to drive faster and
• 10:04
  people started to get into accidents,
• 10:06
  yes, seatbelt would save
• 10:07
  lives, still does save lives.
• 10:09
  Now we don't even think about it.
• 10:11
  You know, that's usually not a problem.
• 10:12
  It's very rare where that's a problem.
• 10:14
  Right. The same principle
• 10:15
  applies to ocean management.
• 10:17
  You know, I think I think when we when we
• 10:19
  start to look at things and how things
• 10:20
  are done, the more we
• 10:21
  can enforce, the better.
• 10:23
  Here's just a matter of can we get out to
• 10:24
  the people who are doing illegal
• 10:26
  activities and kept them in the act?
• 10:28
  And then when we do the enforcement, can
• 10:29
  we like, are the there's
• 10:31
  the punishment fit the crime?
• 10:33
  Because sometimes the punishment doesn't
• 10:34
  fit the crime in the past.
• 10:36
  Right. Or even now, I'm sure.
• 10:37
  Right. So I think that there's a lot of
• 10:39
  things that have changed over that.
• 10:41
  You know, when I started my career, I
• 10:43
  think like I focus
• 10:44
  mostly on like the science.
• 10:46
  You know, I didn't
• 10:47
  really know about policy.
• 10:48
  It didn't interest me
• 10:49
  at any point in time.
• 10:50
  But it's something that I was like, as I
• 10:52
  started to mature within and evolve
• 10:55
  within the career, my career and within
• 10:58
  ocean science and conservation, I
• 11:00
  realized that's why I
• 11:00
  can an important part.
• 11:01
  Same with science communication.
• 11:03
  Just as important.
• 11:05
  Getting the information out there on the
• 11:06
  negative trends, but also what's been
• 11:08
  working helps because it gives people
• 11:10
  hope that things can change.
• 11:12
  You know, by telling people that the
• 11:14
  Magnuson-Stevenson's Act and the
• 11:16
  Endangered Species Act have helped and
• 11:18
  the Marine Mountain
• 11:18
  Protection Act have helped.
• 11:20
  Great white sharks become bigger, like
• 11:23
  stronger, basically, and more distributed
• 11:25
  and bigger population has helped because
• 11:28
  of those policies that
• 11:29
  brings hope to people.
• 11:31
  Right.
• 11:32
  Sea lions increase because they weren't
• 11:34
  allowed to be hunted.
• 11:35
  They weren't allowed to be harassed.
• 11:37
  Magnuson-Stevenson's Act gave them the
• 11:39
  fish that they needed so the sea lions
• 11:40
  can increase in size and number as well
• 11:43
  as the great white sharks
• 11:44
  because that's what they eat.
• 11:45
  Right.
• 11:45
  It's all connected and we were able to
• 11:48
  help that and have a great conservation
• 11:50
  success story because of
• 11:52
  that policy and that governance.
• 11:54
  I just want to remind people, if you're
• 11:55
  getting value from this quick ocean news
• 11:57
  update or these quick ocean news update
• 11:59
  Monday to Friday, please follow the show.
• 12:01
  So you never miss another episode on your
• 12:03
  favorite podcast app.
• 12:04
  I personally, I usually listen to
• 12:06
  podcasts on either YouTube.
• 12:08
  I know they're not technically podcasts,
• 12:10
  but also I'll listen to Apple podcasts
• 12:13
  and Spotify every once in a while.
• 12:14
  I mix all over the place.
• 12:15
  So follow me on all those if you want so
• 12:17
  that you can always get updates whenever
• 12:19
  we put out episodes.
• 12:20
  I think it's important, but follow it
• 12:22
  helps other people discover the podcast
• 12:24
  as well as well as keep
• 12:25
  you in for the subscription.
• 12:27
  So that really helps.
• 12:28
  So sometimes progress
• 12:29
  doesn't feel like progress.
• 12:30
  Like one reason people feel discouraged
• 12:32
  about the ocean is because ecological
• 12:34
  recovery takes time like a long time.
• 12:37
  You know, let's say a government creates
• 12:38
  a marine protected area today.
• 12:40
  Fish populations don't
• 12:40
  imagine you recover tomorrow.
• 12:42
  It's not a one day process.
• 12:44
  Coral reefs take a lot of time.
• 12:45
  They don't immediately bounce back.
• 12:47
  Ecosystems are not going to just
• 12:49
  instantly heal at a snap of the fingers.
• 12:53
  Nature works over longer timelines,
• 12:55
  longer than politics.
• 12:57
  Right. That's why sometimes politicians
• 12:58
  don't like to make these big, big
• 12:59
  promises and commitments
• 13:01
  over longer than their tenure.
• 13:04
  Longer times than even social media, you
• 13:07
  know, longer times than news cycles.
• 13:09
  Although I going back to the social
• 13:10
  media, like this is a perfect opportunity
• 13:14
  for you science communicators to create
• 13:16
  like journey type of content.
• 13:19
  Like follow me while we watch the ups and
• 13:21
  downs of trying to bring this coral reef
• 13:23
  back or this mangrove back as we see
• 13:26
  plantings and ice as the
• 13:27
  cuttings and restoration happen.
• 13:30
  And, you know, we'll talk about grants
• 13:32
  and how sometimes we get them.
• 13:33
  Sometimes we don't are donors that help
• 13:35
  in because they follow this great
• 13:37
  opportunity, especially
• 13:38
  with these longer times.
• 13:39
  And we don't have time
• 13:40
  lines say, hey, you know what?
• 13:42
  We're actually following this for long
• 13:44
  terms and people on social media can
• 13:45
  follow you during that time.
• 13:47
  That's really important.
• 13:48
  So these long timelines, you know,
• 13:50
  they're longer than the new cycles.
• 13:51
  We know news doesn't
• 13:52
  like to cover it too often.
• 13:53
  They just like the quick clicks because
• 13:55
  that's where they
• 13:56
  make most of their money.
• 13:58
  This one reason why
• 13:58
  conservation can feel frustrating.
• 14:01
  We often don't.
• 14:02
  We often see the damage immediately.
• 14:04
  So I can say that again.
• 14:05
  We often see the damage immediately, but
• 14:07
  recovery happens slowly.
• 14:09
  Sometimes over a year,
• 14:10
  sometimes over decades.
• 14:12
  The U.N. report that that really inspired
• 14:15
  me to do this episode
• 14:15
  highlights this challenge.
• 14:17
  We're improving governance, but the
• 14:18
  ecological benefits
• 14:19
  may take time to appear.
• 14:22
  And to be honest, that's OK.
• 14:24
  A slow recovery is a good recovery
• 14:25
  because conservation has
• 14:27
  always been the long game.
• 14:30
  Always. You know, when we start to see
• 14:33
  like fishery rebuilds,
• 14:35
  it takes a long time.
• 14:35
  Like even the the the cod of the North
• 14:38
  Atlantic, we have seen rebuild over, you
• 14:41
  know, 30 years, over 30 years.
• 14:44
  It's still not to where we can really
• 14:46
  fish comfortably, even though they're
• 14:49
  expanding the fisheries in Canada, which
• 14:51
  is a big mistake, in my opinion.
• 14:53
  But we're starting to see that rebuild,
• 14:55
  but it's slow, depending on
• 14:56
  how bad the population was.
• 14:59
  We're starting to see that slow recovery.
• 15:00
  You know, recovery of whale populations
• 15:03
  can sometimes be a little quicker,
• 15:04
  depending if you can create the the
• 15:08
  environments where these long lived
• 15:11
  animals can actually reproduce and
• 15:15
  without having their young killed or
• 15:17
  dying for whatever reason.
• 15:19
  We can see a better
• 15:20
  recovery, but it takes time.
• 15:21
  You know, some of these whale
• 15:24
  populations, they'll have one, maybe two
• 15:26
  calves in their entire lives, like for
• 15:29
  per individual, sometimes
• 15:30
  more depending on their health.
• 15:32
  Right. So making a healthy population is
• 15:34
  going to take time protected areas.
• 15:37
  You know, they show the
• 15:37
  benefits years after creation.
• 15:39
  A lot of times we have to find
• 15:40
  alternative livelihoods for what we put
• 15:43
  in a marine protected area for fisheries
• 15:44
  for the fishing community,
• 15:46
  because that's what happens.
• 15:48
  Right. Because like it
• 15:49
  takes time to recover.
• 15:49
  Like what would happen if we got if we
• 15:53
  just fitness after one trip to the gym,
• 15:55
  like, let's be honest, like, anytime I
• 15:57
  start to lose weight, I look at the scale
• 16:00
  and I'm like, if I'm going to die, I'm
• 16:01
  like, I'm looking at the scale.
• 16:02
  I'm like, okay, I lost like three pounds,
• 16:05
  which is probably water weight, but then
• 16:07
  I'll have like reward myself the next day
• 16:10
  and I'll have like a slice of pizza or
• 16:11
  two or three or four.
• 16:12
  And then I go back to higher than what I
• 16:15
  was. You're not going to see that
• 16:17
  overnight success. You're not going to
• 16:18
  lose 20 to 30 pounds or whatever you want
• 16:20
  to use lose overnight.
• 16:23
  Right. That's going to be a long term
• 16:24
  thing. You know, just like it took a long
• 16:27
  time to gain the weight, it's going to
• 16:29
  take a long time to lose the
• 16:30
  weight in a healthy manner.
• 16:32
  Some you might see some progress over
• 16:34
  time that does a little faster, but
• 16:36
  that's because of the work that you put
• 16:38
  in. We might see some ebbs and flows with
• 16:40
  conservation recovery and restoration.
• 16:43
  But, you know, it's not going to be much,
• 16:45
  you know, time a year over year because
• 16:48
  meaningful change takes time,
• 16:51
  especially sustainable change.
• 16:51
  Right. The same is true for ecosystems,
• 16:55
  you know, just like losing weight could
• 16:56
  take a long time, like one to two pounds
• 16:58
  a week. That takes a long time over time
• 17:00
  to lose that 20, 30 pounds. That's
• 17:02
  personally what I want to lose.
• 17:04
  You know, but you know, the same thing
• 17:06
  goes with building a coral reef,
• 17:09
  rebuilding. They're very slow growing
• 17:11
  organisms and it takes time
• 17:13
  to grow that skeleton. Right.
• 17:15
  And it takes time to make sure that all
• 17:17
  the ingredients to help them grow are
• 17:19
  there and they're healthy
• 17:20
  and they're available. Right.
• 17:23
  I mean, if you like, if you look at all
• 17:25
  the episodes that we put this that we
• 17:26
  have this week, there's like ups and
• 17:27
  downs and everything
• 17:28
  that we talked about.
• 17:30
  And we start to see some progress with
• 17:31
  the way people are putting in their
• 17:33
  managing and then we start to see other
• 17:35
  things happen. You know, we're seeing
• 17:37
  like, hey, we saw great white in the
• 17:38
  Mediterranean, you know, pilot whales
• 17:41
  that are can't hear each other because
• 17:43
  there's so much shipping.
• 17:44
  You know, all these things take time to
• 17:46
  develop and take time to detect and take
• 17:49
  time to put into law. You know, one thing
• 17:52
  I could I could tell you, I remember I
• 17:54
  think I've told the story before, but
• 17:56
  when I was working for fisheries and
• 17:57
  oceans in like 2012, 2013, the
• 18:01
  conservative Harper government came in
• 18:02
  government and he was Prime Minister
• 18:05
  Harper and they removed a lot of like,
• 18:07
  they removed the fisheries habitat
• 18:09
  section, like the protecting habitat in
• 18:11
  the fisheries act out of the fisheries act.
• 18:12
  They just took it out and they said, oh,
• 18:15
  we're just going to manage like
• 18:15
  commercially indigenous and
• 18:17
  recreationally important species for
• 18:19
  fisheries. We're not going to worry about
• 18:21
  their habitats because that doesn't
• 18:22
  matter. Apparently, which it does.
• 18:25
  And so when they took it out after they
• 18:27
  got a like basically when when the
• 18:30
  Trudeau government came in, it took them
• 18:32
  like five years to re implement the
• 18:34
  fisheries act the way it was. They made a
• 18:36
  little stronger, but they had to go
• 18:37
  through consultation.
• 18:37
  They had to do a bunch of readings and
• 18:40
  they had to put it back in. They had to
• 18:41
  go through testing that to go through
• 18:42
  debate and all that kind of stuff. It
• 18:44
  takes time. Government takes time, but it
• 18:46
  got better and hopefully changes will be
• 18:50
  harder to make, especially when you roll
• 18:52
  those back. We'll see how that works.
• 18:55
  You know, but like this week, we've
• 18:56
  talked about great whites. We talked
• 18:57
  about fishing regulations, pilot whales,
• 18:59
  indigenous ownership. We talked a lot a
• 19:00
  lot that all has taken time. Right? Like
• 19:05
  all of it has taken time.
• 19:05
  And to be honest, that's why this report
• 19:08
  felt like left me with a little like
• 19:11
  cautiously optimistic. You know, the
• 19:14
  ocean is facing huge challenges, but the
• 19:16
  science is clear about that. We know that
• 19:18
  they're facing challenges. But for the
• 19:20
  first time in a long time, we're also
• 19:21
  seeing stronger systems, better
• 19:23
  cooperation and more tools
• 19:25
  to address those challenges.
• 19:26
  And even though we're not nearly where we
• 19:30
  need to be, you know, the ocean story is
• 19:32
  still a crisis story. We know that, but
• 19:35
  it's also becoming a governance story.
• 19:38
  And that's one reason I believe the
• 19:41
  future can be better than many people
• 19:43
  expect. Now it's just a matter of
• 19:44
  implementing those and
• 19:45
  making sure we follow those.
• 19:47
  And speaking of follow, if you haven't
• 19:49
  followed this podcast yet, please do.
• 19:51
  You'll get access to all of our ocean
• 19:53
  weekday updates. And I think that's
• 19:55
  important to learn how to protect the
• 19:57
  ocean. That's what we do this podcast.
• 19:58
  That's why I named it that way.
• 20:00
  All right. But that's it for today's
• 20:02
  episode. If you want to get ahold of me,
• 20:04
  you can just go in the show notes. You
• 20:05
  can DM me on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook,
• 20:07
  whatever you'd like to do. But I want to
• 20:09
  thank you again for joining me on today's
• 20:10
  episode of the How to
• 20:11
  Protect the Ocean podcast.
• 20:12
  I'm your host, Andrew. Have a great day.
• 20:14
  Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you
• 20:16
  on Monday and happy conservation.