[00:00:00] Speaker A: In the conservation world, few actions are more exciting than rediscovering a lost species, protecting hectares of vital habitat for wildlife, and developing revolutionary tech that transforms the way we study endangered, overlooked species.
Welcome to rewildology, the nature podcast that explores the human side of conservation, travel and rewilding the planet. I am your host, Brooke Mitchell, conservation biologist and adventure traveler.
Charismatic species receive the lion's share of public attention, funding and research, pushing lesser known species out of the spotlight. Today's guest, Scott Chigiser, is changing this narrative through rediscovery expeditions and tech innovations.
As the executive director of the biodiversity group, Scott has led several rediscovery expeditions to find lost or new species and protect habitat. He also designed a brand new 3D Scanner for live animals, removing the need to take individuals out of the wild for biological research. Additionally, hes created countless resources and raised a notable amount of money for NGO's across the world.
While his accomplishment list is quite impressive, his journey is fraught with trials and tribulations, a few of which I can only fathom going through. He openly discusses being accused of unsavory activities by a bangladeshi environmental journalist, which led to warrants for his arrest, betrayals by close colleagues, and more. If all of these struggles dont push a person to quit the conservation field, then I dont know what will.
Scott then shares how he became the executive director of the biodiversity group and together we explore the measurable impact they are generating for wildlife and other conservation NGO's if you'd like to support this show, be sure to follow the show on your favorite podcast and social media platforms, and leave a rating and review to help others find these inspiring stories.
All right friends, please enjoy this conversation with Scott.
Awesome. Hi Scott, thank you so much for sitting down with me today and sharing your fantastic, winding story. And I cannot wait to get into all of this. And from our last conversation, it sounds like you've had a wild ride so far and I don't want to spoil anything, so please take me back in time. Take all of us back in time. Where does your journey begin? What is, like the start of this story for Scott?
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Well, so in some ways it begins like about now, because here I am in Panama, living the life I've always wanted to live.
There's Jeffrey's tamarind, right when we were having issues with the technicals of the call, Jeffrey's tamarind just fell 30ft from a tree about 40ft away from me. And there's these little cool range, respected tiny little primates. Yeah, you just run around. And then now there's a not part of my life dream but our landowners dog who got a pig in our yard. Now there's 30 vultures just climbing like it was about 2 hours ago. And now there's 30 vultures circling overhead. So there's just life all around me. And I love it.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: I am so jealous of you right now. And like the best way possible, like you said, it's hammer and fall to the ground behind you as we're recording. What?
[00:03:40] Speaker B: Yeah, it's just like they squeal. They're awesome. Because there's little guys and I can see them here. They're just there. I wish we had video I could show you. But they're crawling. I can see silhouettes just hopping tree to tree. There's whole, you know, what would you call a group of Jeffrey's tamarinds? Let's call them a pride because they look very proud. But yes.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: Is that a troop?
[00:04:01] Speaker B: They sound like birds. Yeah, troop. I guess they have these little bird calls that they have to each other. So you got to really key in on what, what is not a bird around here. But yeah, they squabbled and then yeah. Fell 30ft straight from a tree. Bounced, then he climbed right back up another tree.
There's always something happening.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay, okay. Well, Panama is amazing. And that's like the culmination of all of your work has led up to that. So let's actually go back to square one and everything that has happened that has led you to today. Like, and I know from our last conversation that that is an unbelievable amount of stuff. So just take me back to where you want to start and then we'll start.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think probably my start is like many of your audiences, it's just like I had a passion when I was a child and it never, never faded. So I'm, I think I'm pretty uh, pretty lucky in that respect and I'm continuing to live out that passion. So I was catching butterflies at age of two and I just uh, my family was really supportive of that stuff. And it led all the way to I guess the first kind of pivot there was in freshman year of college when I met, I always wanted to be an entomologist. And then I met with a famous entomologist at the University of Arizona. And I was all excited to have this meeting with him and be like, oh, this is like, you know, gonna finally key into my life dream.
And then as soon as I meet him he's like, oh, what do you want to do? I'm like, yeah, I want to be an entomological systemicist. He's like, oh, yeah, don't do that. That's a bad idea. There's no money in that. I was like, whoa. Floored. Okay, here we are, back to ground. Ground zero. And so then I had a meandering course through college, trying to figure out, okay, well, there's more money in marine biology, but still it's really competitive and not really that much money, and. And then I said, no, I like solving problems. And so the.
I went into genetics for a hot minute, and. Which ended up going through about two years of grad school and a PhD trying to do genetic engineering. And you know what? I'm just. I'm a field guy, so I wasn't that excited being in front of a computer while I was in, you know, Tucson, Arizona. If you're not familiar, the monsoons come every summer, so we get all this. All this amazing rain, and the Petrichor of the desert is amazing. All the smells and all the reptiles come out, and I'm just sitting in front of a computer, like, aligning jeans, and like, oh, this is off. This is horrible. It's torture. So as soon as.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: That sounds terrible.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: I know, right? So they can't blame me. And then a friend of mine I knew through wildlife photography, he rob shell shout out, thank you.
He gave me a job offer to go do these, to be a consultant, essentially, just go on these big construction projects and ensure they're within environmental compliance. And it's like glorified natural listing. It's. You just go out and you document all the stuff that's there, and. And then you watch the people work around it. But in essence, you're kind of birding all day, and it's, uh. And it was going to pay more than my PhD would, even. So, like, once. Once I had my PhD. So that was a no brainer. I literally quit my PhD the next day and moved out to California. Hadn't really traveled that much before then, so it was kind of just a big jump, and that just snowballed into a whole bunch of changes. And so I just went into. On these jobs, I had a bunch of freedom and. But not a lot of real meaning. Like, sometimes what we're doing is kind of not that important, and there's a lot of replacement. Like, people could easily replace me on there, like, another pile. Just doesn't really take that much skill to do to watch people work. Sometimes I don't want to be too, denigrating to myself, but. So I got in contact with a friend that was out on the job, and he had another guy that was out along with Esh, and he had come to the United States, this shariar, Cesar Rahman, and he needs some help with python work out in Bangladesh. I'm like, well, that sounds easy enough. Like, yeah, why don't we just do that? And then. So I got in contact with him, went out as a surgical implantation specialist for these, the trackers that we put in, like, surgical implant inside of burmese pythons. We started a great tracking program out there for six years and zero deaths. We had a pretty successful program, and that quickly transitioned into realizing that species research isn't necessarily the most impactful way to approach conservation. And because a lot of times we do know how to save things, but we just need the funding or, you know, wherewithal to. To go through with it. Oh, my God. This tamarind is chasing a bird in front of me. I wish you could see this.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: I wish I could, too, because I can hear the commotion, and it is amazing. Like, ah, I wish we were recording in person right now.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: So then we started doing this kind of landscape scale conservation programs, working with the indigenous and southeast and Chittagong Hill tracks, which became really madly successful. We've had started a breeding colony of all these endangered species of tortoises and turtles, and so we're, like, successfully breeding these things for the first time in the country ever and then releasing them into these indigenous community conservation areas. And so that was. And since then, and I kind of left officially in 2019, which is a whole story we can delve into. But.
And then so they. They've been on their own doing amazing work, and we. So then I support them through the biodiversity group, which is an organization in the US that I began running in 2018. So it was a nice little transition there, but one of the things that I realized, and this will transition the biodiversity group. But my power in my service in Bangladesh was largely leveraging my white american position to lend power and credence to a project that is worthwhile that would otherwise struggle to do so. You know, if you have somebody in Bangladesh or Democratic Republic Congo, ask its donors in the US to have a very small organization, they don't really have a great website or whatever, and then it's going to be really hard to convince them be like, no, this isn't a scam. I'm not a nigerian prince. You know, like, this is something we need. So then having a trustworthy face that's familiar to westerners actually does help considerably. And just being able to, you know, speak to the government in a way that they wouldn't be able to also. And providing fiscal resources like bank accounts and, like, we run a physical sponsorship, all these things, like, I was able to just do things that they wouldn't have been able to do. You know, it's such a weird thing, but even having a credit card in these countries is really difficult. So just the fact that I have a credit card and they're able to use it and buy things and then have it shipped to a friend that's coming over to bond with us, that's hugely important. Like, if you want tree calipers or whatever, like, it's actually hard to get if you don't just have a simple credit card, which sometimes you can't even have a bank account in these countries.
So very, very low level things that we can help out with that involve a lot of trust, but then also it's the amount of risk that we take versus the amount of reward they get is asymmetrical, which I like in their favor. So. And, yeah, so then, so I realized that. And then, so with the biodiversity group, it had been founded by the great Paul Hamilton, and he was, he started this back in, like, 2005, and I think officially 2007.
But it's a nonprofit. It was a nonprofit wrapped in a. Or it's like an academic program wrapped in a nonprofit shell, and it wasn't very sustainable. It's really hard to get people to support research programs on what we call life overlooked, which are, like, species and habitats that other people don't pay attention to. They're really difficult to get attention on, like, you know, some.
Some obscure species of frog or lizard or snake or fungus or whatever have you, like, the things that aren't charismatic megafauna. It's much more difficult to fundraise for. So that eventually he kept, you know, having all this friction that kind of burnt him out. And now he go, he. He and his wife are happy living on a boat doing some research in the sea of Cortez. And I took over the biodiversity group and had to restructure it, and I restructured it in the way that really plays to my strengths, which was leveraging these resources and services for these other nonprofits to be able to succeed in the ways that they should be able to succeed in. And so that's kind of where we're at.
I just basically do all the. A ton of things that other nonprofits don't have. Time to figure out, or it's not really worth their time to do. And I kind of do it in. In bulk so I can help, like, all these nonprofits at once doing this one thing. And essentially, the I like, positive incentive structures. And so this positive incentive is for the more money I can get these not other nonprofits to make. The more money we make. So, like, the more money I help, the more I help other people, the more we get helped, which, even if I leave the nonprofit, then it works really well. So that's kind of a very broad overview of what we're doing right now.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: And it's absolutely incredible. And we're going to start just completely breaking down this beautiful thing that you've built. So first, I, like, we definitely need to go back in time. And clearly, 2019 was a big year in your life.
What happened? I mean, if you had six years invested in Bangladesh, like, you had no python desk, I know that you helped create the creative conservation alliance. What happened? Why did you feel the need to transition to the biodiversity group?
[00:13:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I think if I had to point to one thing, it was power struggles, both within and without, of the organization. The biggest one was without. So there was a journalist, an environmental journalist in Bangladesh, who was not a kind person, which, as you would normally expect from an environmental journalist. He was really just trying. He. He was. I don't know, this lusting over power, and he. He also potentially genuinely didn't trust me, but I'm not sure. I haven't really spoken to the man after. But he.
For basically every year I was there in Bangladesh, somebody accused me of something ridiculous. And so it was like, okay, you're somebody coming all the way from the west, and you're here, and, like, you can't just be doing something altruistic. Nobody does that. So you're like, what are you doing? You're like. You're stealing our turtles. I got accused of smuggling python venom, remote controlling pythons with trackers. I could just bring them out to the street if I wanted to.
All kinds of fun things that I wish I could.
Well, some I wouldn't wish to, true. But I do wish I could radio control pythons to some extent.
So then it came to a head in 2019, we were gaining a lot of momentum. And then with that, you're starting to upset people. This guy really thought I was doing something wrong, maybe. But I came out there, I got trained with WCS at the Bronx zoo to do nanopore sequencing with Oxford nanopore sequencer. The minion.
I dedicated three months of my life to getting this thing ready for Bangladesh. We and I applied for grants. We got a bunch of money to go do microbiome for chinese pangolin, which we had been studying in the country. I was going to do a diet reconstruction and characterize the microbiome and possibly the endoparasitology. And all through just scat collection, it was going to be great. And then we could just sequence in field, and then I was going to give the actual unit, the nanopore sequencer plus all the reagents and everything left over. I was going to train people at the university, at university, and then just give it all to them. Super altruistic. I was like, oh, this is going to be a great project. I get what I want and then I'm going to create capacity in the country and they have everything and there's no, you know, I'm not asking anything of them. So what could go wrong? And this guy comes along and he's just like, accuses me of stealing the patent rights to Pangolin, which are like, he assumed I was like, a biotech company. And you know how they come in and they're going to Amazon and steal, like, the gene from some plant to cure something and make a bunch of money off of it. And he thought I was doing that to the entire Pangolin genome or something. And that was simply not true or possible. And so. But it was true enough for them that they got warned out for my arrest. And, you know, I had to, like, lay low. And all these things happened. And then at the same time, there was an internal power struggle where somebody else thought that they would run the organization better. And so then there's just so much. It was just like a ridiculous month. And I woke up to being on national tv twice, and I was just like, white person doing bad things, right all across, like, headline.
I was like, oh, God.
I guess I was naive here. But anyhow, so then I got out of the country safe and I was like, okay, well, that totally burnt me out. And it all got resolved. This guy, now he doesn't have any power anymore because the quality of people who don't like me is pretty low. And this guy ended up. He did bad things to a little eight year old girl and that he got in trouble. Yeah, that's the kind of people who don't like me. So then he's out of the picture. We're actually kind of revving back up. We were going to do a workshop in Bangladesh because now everything's nice and kosher there and has tons of great momentum, and I think it's probably going to be 2025. Cause I'll tell you more, we got a scheduling conflict with a rediscovery expedition that has to happen. So anyhow, things are moving forward, which is fantastic. But that happened at a really kind of fortuitous time because I was transitioning into the biodiversity group in 2018 and, like, getting everything ready, restructuring, doing all the stuff with the IR's, and. And then it just let me dive straight into it. And then now I just realized, like, two days ago, like, I've been doing this for six years now with the TBG, which is crazy to me. That time really, really flew by.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: But, um, isn't it amazing how, you know, hindsight is always 2020? Looking back, like, I'm sure going through that was hell. I can't even freaking imagine. To have warrants of your out for your arrest, like, being accused of terrible things, that was not at all what your intent was, and all you wanted to do was just bring good. And then at the same time, like, you were just put through the freaking wringer. No wonder why you got burnout. I can only imagine the emotional.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: Even my friends within the organization had. That I had supported with my own money to pay their salaries, which I'm not rich, so it's kind of, you know, it's not. Not significant. They were assisting, they were against me, and they were, like, helping the journalists try to find me and, like, give me a rest and giving all this information. Like, maybe my friends were against me there, and I was like, okay, this is just too much. Yes. I gotta take a step back.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: You know, everything. Everything happens. You learn a ton of lessons and just be better for it.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And it's like you've. You've overcome, and it's fantastic to hear how bangladesh has come back into your life, and I'm sure that we can get to that to, um, in a second, to, like, tie everything in a beautiful bow. But first, let's talk about the biodiversity group. Like, like, you, okay? So you just completely restructure this nonprofit, and you're. You're doing amazing things, and. And I don't want to spoil it again. I always want you all to explain what you do. So what are the pillars of the biodiversity group of the nonprofit? Like, what are the main buckets that you spend your time and your effort to do?
[00:19:38] Speaker B: Okay, so I'm going to sandwich this with excitement on either side. So the.
[00:19:41] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: The big thing that people love and that, I mean, it fills my cup, too, is the expeditions. So we get the privilege to go, like, all around the world to any of these organizations that we support and go do surveys in whatever protected area they have, and then provide them with all the scientific data and promotional media, like photos and video or audio, and then be able to then also.
And that is all in order for them to better protect their area. So we can discover new species or rediscover ones that we thought were extinct or just simply ones that are threatened in their reserve. So if you have a reserve and you can. One reserve says that, okay, we have two threatened species, and the SoUTHERN RESERve can say that they have 21, has much more higher chance of GetTInG funding than the other. And so if we can provide that information to Quality Organizations that are then able to say, okay, well, Our reserve has. It's like, truly unique, and we have all this stuff, and so we deserve funding. Then what's happened most recently was with the Rio Mandiriako reserve, and they, with the. I mean, they're doing a lot of this work themselves. We simply just go and give them some data and some photos. And they were able to petition the world LaNd TRUSt and others to essentially double the size of the reserve since the time we started working there within, like three years. It was crazy. Wow. And that was a unique case because they had a lot of amazing Things. That's foundation ecoming and foundation condor and Dino doing fantastic work down in Ecuador.
But that kind of model can be used all across the World. And so we're doing that. And then that ties into one of the less exciting parts is that we get to give them a bunch of financial resources and admin support and things that aren't sexy, but also need to happen. And even sometimes conservations themselves don't understand that they need it. And so when I explain it, they're like, oh, yeah, that's what's missing when it's like, oh, you have all these, like, resources. I can get you all these discounts. We have shipping discounts. Like, all these things just make it so, like, to smooth out all the wrinkles of conservation and make their lives easier, because conservationists, I mean, you know, it's. We. We tend to suffer. Like, there's. There's not a lot of help. Um, I've put that into a big bin. It's, you know, all of. If talk about all the philanthropic contributions from the US, it amounts to like 454 billion, I think, last year.
[00:21:58] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: And of that, you know, less than 2% goes to wildlife. So you can see the amount of support we get relative to anything else. And that's what the kind of support these people are not getting paid much of anything, if at all. And they just literally they're fighting every day of their lives. And so if I can go in there and make their life a little bit easier to do the job that they need to do so that we can all prosper, then, you know, I've had a good day. And so that's one of the things we do. We offer like bank accounts and this fiscal sponsorship that we term altruistic. So we have like the lowest fees available anywhere and we give like, I maintain all these databases, a grant database and all kinds of information for them to just be like, oh, here, like, here's TBG as a resource. Like, let's go in and we can help them write grants. I have these, I code these AI chat bots that are like, you know, there's an IUCN, like a pangolin specialist. There's. We're going to be just about to make a snail specialist. We met with people a couple of days ago, so we just basically can ingest all the data ever published for these, you know, whatever tax on, and then make a very restricted chatbot that only answers of what it knows and so it doesn't make anything up. And then, and then you can ask specialists like, query it because, you know, we don't even know everything. Like, you know, what's the retinal composition of a pangolin? Like, we didn't know. Somebody asked and then we asked, you know, we called Darwin, Darwin AI and Darwin knew. So it's like it had 1500 papers ingested. And so that kind of thing's neat. So we do some tech developments which we can get into. We had like this 3d scanner developing a drone that takes Pam traps up in the canopy or any kind of, any kind of equipment. And so like we, and that can be a service too. If somebody, one of these sponsors has a problem, like, oh, we need, we need this. We don't know how to make it happen. Or we can, we actually have partnerships with other organizations that we can reach out and then design something with these different maker labs and stuff and figure out the solution for their problem. So it's like kind of a one stop shop for conservation issues because I just like solving all problems. That's what I'm trying to do. And then, yes, I guess that's kind of it in a nutshell. That's what biodiversity group does. We do a lot of data analysis too, but we're just trying to help.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: Absolutely freaking amazing. I want to go back to this rediscovery of species branch of what you do.
So how exactly does this process work? Like, is there a certain piece of land where it's like, it's possible that the species might still be here or there's like a clue, like it shows up on a camera trap or. Yeah, how exactly does this work? Because one, I find this unbelievably exciting and so rewarding across just the entire conservation field, but, yeah, how does this work, including your expeditions? And maybe if you maybe, I guess that might make most sense. Is there an example that you could take me through of, like, a lost species that has been found?
Yeah, just like, from step number one. How did this work?
[00:24:58] Speaker B: So I think so there's two kind of major categories of how this works. So one is really just fortuitous and being the right place, right time, and it's exciting and so on. So you're out in the jungle and you're in a place that really hasn't been surveyed much. So that's kind of your key. And then you're aware of what's around you, what species should be there, and potentially what species have been, you know, have been lost or like that, you know, people haven't seen in a long time.
And then you're out there and then all of a sudden this thing just pops up in front of you. You're like, holy shit, you're alive.
And then you just. And then it's just amazing. And you're just like, you celebrate. I always take a selfie with everybody when I do this, and it's much the same as discovering a new species. It's just like, you come out there, you had no idea it was going to be there. Potentially, you knew something was going to be new because it's a new species or area that hasn't been surveyed much. But then it's just super exciting to just be able to come across something that no one else has ever seen or people have been looking for. And so that's just like a monumental moment that you cherish for the rest of your life.
And then so that happens. An instance of that was the mindo glass frog. So in the Mandu Areaku reserve, I was feeling like garbage. One expedition, and I had, like, all these parasites, and I was like, jaundice and, like, just not feeling great.
I wanted to just like, at the middle. In the middle of night, I was like, we're surveying, you survey till 02:00 a.m. or whatever. And then, and I just wanted to lay down in the middle of the mud, like just take, to take a nap real quick. And I'm like, something's wrong. And I had like no energy. And so I was like, all right, you guys go on the expedition. You go on the survey tonight. I'm just gonna go look. There was a species that Ryan lynch and Sebastian Cohen had rediscovered, the tandyoppen Andes toad, rainbow lalai. And that was kind of the start of that whole reserve there. And that was in like 2011, I believe. So they had found that it hadn't been seen like 40, 40 some odd years. And in a similar way, they went there and it was actually right by the like house that they had the little finca there. And they went down the stream and then like, oh, by the way, here's something that you've never seen before. So sometimes it's just like hands itself to you, which is amazing. And this kind of did too. So the one I had was, you know, I go out and I'm going to look for this, this ten day up in Andy's toad. And we knew it was there, but we didn't know basically anything about its ecology or what it's, what it's doing behavior. And so I'm going to go out and just watch it and just see what it does. That seems simple enough for somebody dying, in course of dying. And so I had to climb a couple waterfalls, like small ones, and get up and just sit there all night. That was the goal. On the way, I heard a call that I didn't recognize and I'd known all the other calls for, from, for glass frogs in that region. And so then I stop and I look and I find this beautiful male, tiny glass frog.
My wife's yelling about the tamarinds right now. They're outside our window.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Dream.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: Yeah, they're just playing around. The sad thing is it's such great photos and they're such a pain to try to get good photos of that.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: Ironic timing. We don't even have video on.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Okay, so there I was, I was and I heard the frog call, I grabbed it and I bag it and like, okay, well, sometimes in these situations, and I wasn't really necessarily the expert in that on that. Definitely not the expert on that expedition. People like Ross Maynard knows far more than I do about any of that stuff in Ecuador. And there are some other guys there too, knew way more than me. I'm just going to find stuff sometimes. And so I go out there and I catch it and I bag it. I'm like telling myself, don't get too excited. You know, you could just be wrong. Could just not know what it is. And they're just going to, you're going to come back in the morning and everyone's going to be like, yeah, we, we know it's here. So, so I'm like, calming myself down. Like, you know, it could be cool, but maybe not. So then I carry on with the rest of the night, and I go and I watch this, uh, 10:00 a.m. with Andy's toad. Basically sit on a leaf all night not doing a single thing. It was like the most boring thing I've ever done. And, um, I was even doing callbacks and, like, trying to get it to move. It's just an ambush predator on a broadleaf, and it's just waiting for a bug to go by. So I'm there, and then, like, at night, all night, kind of hallucinating because there's all the, like five different kinds of bioluminescence happening around me, just creating all these shapes and looking at for hours some kind of weird meditation, but, and then come 6615 in the morning, something like that, sun's coming up, and I'm ready to. All right, so this frog's got to do, toad's got to do something. And I stand up and I watch it. And then all of a sudden, this swarm of midges comes up and starts biting me. So I'm kind of swatting it away for a second, and I look back, like literally 510 seconds. And I look back, and the toad's gone. It jumped, it dropped down like, oh, I just waited like 8 hours feeling like garbage, and then it's gone. So, whatever. I got this other frog in a bag. I walk back, everyone's still sleeping, and I wake up and I throw it on onto ross, ross meader's lap, and everyone just starts swearing at me, like, where'd you find this? Like, what the hell? Ended up not having hadn't been seen in the country for 25 years.
[00:29:43] Speaker A: 25 years.
[00:29:45] Speaker B: It was the only known breeding population of them. So it was like this, matt, this big rediscovery, and it's a beautiful glass rock. So sometimes it just happens like that. Like, you're just like casually being like, oh, here's a frog.
And that happened again in that reserve with a foolgul of shatter snake, too. It hadn't been seen 54 years. We grab it and then ends up being like, we didn't, we weren't even aware because it hadn't been known in Ecuador at all. It was like, you know, 500 km away in Colombia. So there's, that's kind of the not so legendary or like esteemed way of finding something. And then the other one is like the world's biggest treasure hunt. You can go out and you can have all this information and you got a target on the move and you're trying to be a detective and Sherlock this thing figure out, okay, what do we know? What could we know? What do we need to know? And then you go out there and you get funding, and then you go out there with this limited time and hopefully a good team, and then you just try your best to find that thing with the knowledge that you have and yeah, it's like, what could be more fun?
And then what you find is that's awesome thing that, you know is going to, like, help protect it. You're going to get all. It's not about like the credibility that you get, it's about what you can actually offer to this animal. Like, if we find it, then we're able, we have all this knowledge that we can then move forward when, like, petition the indonesian government to protect it and, like, save more land or get funding for somebody to do more work with it. So that's like super exciting part of it and that's what we have going on with, in collaboration with re wild for Zug's monitor. It's a, it's a tree, it's a. It's an annull. I'm in. I'm in the new world too much. It's a monitor lizard and, uh, it's probably up in the canopy and so we're going to be having to go and trap for it and try to try discovering this very small place in the island of Halmahara. And we're going to have some indigenous people with us and basically we're just waiting on permits. It's been a long process for that. That's the not so sexy part of these processes.
But then it's hopefully going to be happening this September and we're going to go out and we got a great team and we're going to try our best to find this thing. And then with that we're able to generally, we would even our collaborators out there, they want to take a specimen that you'd have to euthanize whatever you find and put it in a museum, which I think is really shocking to most people.
I don't think they tend to. When I tell people that they're like, wait, what? Like, you find it and then you kill it? Like, well, yes, this is what we've done for 300 years, since the times of Linnaeus. We just collect a bunch of things and put it in jars in the museum, which has tons of value. I'm not denigrating it that much. And. But I think nowadays when we have this technology, which biodiversity group designed with Sony, we can have this 3d scanner that we can then take out. And for certain species that are critically endangered, that, you know, taking one adult, any individual, out of a population could be a significant impact. We can now just take a non invasive DNA swab and then take a 3d scan of it and get a. Create a digital specimen and then let it go and it can continue breeding, hopefully, and. And making more. And then we don't, we don't have any impact, but we have all the positive impact that we would need to justify a case to protect it. And so that's what we're hoping to do in, in September.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: Wow. And so how many species or land protections from specifically, like the rediscover, work, like, that side of these expeditions and stuff? How much land and or species has the biodiversity group been able to help save, bring back those kinds that you've had your hands in?
[00:33:22] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. I think our total for new species or species rediscovered is above 30. And then. Yeah. And a lot of that work was done before myself also, that was with Paul Hamilton. And it's just crazy. You go to the tropics and especially if you're looking at overlooked genera, it's not that hard to discover new things, literally. We were out with some snail biologists the other night out here in Panama, and my wife tentatively discovered a new genus of snail, like, on the first night of surveying. That's amazing. And then she gets the invite to go out to the next expedition. Not me. So I'm like laughing.
I'm the expert. No, no, she's better than me. It's fine.
So then, so, yeah, depending on what you're actually looking for, you can discover quite a few things. Before I was even like, really? I guess a professional biologist, I was just kind of a naturalist, go and do things. I had discovered several new species, but I wasn't able to describe them. That's like a whole another step, which is actually probably way more, deserves way more acknowledgement to doing all the work to actually publish.
So.
And then.
Yeah, so then the amount of land that we protected is in the hundreds of hectares that we've helped protect because it's always, like a big collective. We promise anything, any discipline. Now it's all interdisciplinary. It's massive teams that you can't just do anything on your own. So then it's like, it's hard to just count. Like, what did the biodiversity group do? It's like, well, we helped these other people, and they saved 1008. We saved it. Help these other people. But, like, we did, you know, 30 hours of work for this one and 100 hours of work for this one kind of thing. So it's hard to really guesstimate.
[00:34:58] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes total sense. But, yeah, just that concept is so cool. And. And to know that you're working with, you know, just all of these amazing organizations and rewild, I mean, talk about a stellar organization, too. So that we partnered with them, that's just amazing. Like, I. I love how collaborative conservation has gotten in, like, the past 510 years. Like, I feel like it's a whole different field, which is exciting, and, oh, I think that so much good is going to come from it.
[00:35:26] Speaker B: I think it's nice, especially from Rewild's, our collaboration with them. They've been extremely understanding of what the realities of conservation are, like, when things take way too long. It's not that they understand that we were supposed to do this expedition back in 2020 to go rediscover, but then the pandemic happened. Right, right. So then we couldn't do it. Literally, March 2020 was when you're supposed to go out, like, March 15. Oh, my God. About as worse timing as you could actually have. But then.
But then, even since then, you know, it's just been hard getting colleagues to do what they're. You know, what they've claimed they were gonna do, and so then. But then they understand that, and so it's like. And then they keep working with us to make sure this thing's gonna happen. So I just shout out to them for being very understanding of the realities of how these things work. It's not straightforward.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: That's awesome. Yes. Having realistic expectations as half the battle, I feel like, because we always get so excited and want these amazing things to happen, but in practice, it really works like that.
[00:36:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's incredible when it actually all comes together.
[00:36:33] Speaker A: Right. So you and I actually connected over the 3d scanner, and I would love to stick on this for a second.
So, tech and conservation, I feel like it's booming right now, which is fantastic. It's long overdue, but, hey, better late than never. And so I want to. How did this happen? So you. Did you reach out to Sony. Did you have this idea? Like, how did this even come to be? Because this is such a cool concept to just, like you said, to get all the data that we can, especially about critically endangered species, and not have to, you know, hurt them or take individuals out of their ecosystem or anything like that. So, yeah, how did this, how was this created?
[00:37:20] Speaker B: Yeah, collaborations. So, I mean, every time we discovered something new or rediscovered something, we, on expedition, we're in the middle of the jungle and you're quite literally, like, drawing straws, be like, okay, who, this one's really beautiful. I don't want to kill it. Who wants to kill this thing? And, you know, none of us want to see that, but we know it's necessary for certain situations. So then that's always been this little bug in my brain. Like, how do we, how do we get around this? And prior, you know, years prior to that, some, you know, somebody had, I think, described a primate species. There was only one left that, you know, you can't kill it. And there's really justification for that, but it's like, really extreme, like a lot of imperial evidence to support not just taking an actual animal to describe that. And. But then it comes to pass.
During the pandemic, I had many brainchilds, and this was one of them. And I had gotten, actually a partner, a colleague of mine, through the consulting work, heading back to the only way that I actually make money because conservation doesn't pay me at all.
So going on these projects, her husband was a photogrammetry expert, and she had said that in passing. And I remember that, I was like, wait, hold on a second. So can I talk to this, uh, this guy? I don't think he doesn't want me to name him for legal reasons within his company, but, um, great guy. And he, he was aware of Sony having this, uh, we had to call, and he was aware of Sony having this new, like, gopro esque, you know, form factor camera that was able to sync with a control box. So you'd have all these cameras and they sync at the same time, take the photographs at the same time. And so then we started talking and was like, okay, this is actually be relatively feasible. You know, it's going to cost, you know, maybe about $8,000 for all the equipment, which is a heavy bill for conservation. And so then we got the kind of the design, we fleshed out the idea, and I got in contact with Sony through the International League of Conservation Photographers, which I'm a member of. So shout out to Susan Norton for getting me in contact with them because that was extremely helpful. And that's why, like, these networks are fantastic because we all want to see other people succeed and do great things. And that's the only way to do that is through having these networks. And then had a few calls with Sony and signed the paperwork and they actually donated the equipment to us to build this, which was, again, amazingly generous. And so then the photogrammetry expert, he designed the system and then shipped it to me and I actually tested it out in Panama. We had to do a redesign because we didn't understand at the time that most photogrammetry happens when you have a pedestal that's rotating and then you are able to have some inanimate object and you take a bunch of photos of it while it's slowly rotating and then you piece it together at leisure and it's, and it's fine. That doesn't work. When you have, if anything moves within that, um, the time that you're taking those photos, then it, the programs can't figure out how to align it. Hopefully soon, you know, we'll get past that with AI or something, but so then what happens is you have a frog on a pedestal. It's going to focus on some hot point, like a light or a color and, or movement, and then it's going to fixate on that. And then while it's moving around, his head's going to constantly move. So, like, it couldn't move in the vibration of the pedestal and stuff. So it didn't really work out. So then we ended up redesigning it to have the cameras move around the animal. And that worked out a lot better. So we can swing this thing around within, like, you know, five to 10 seconds, take a whole, you know, hundreds of photos, and, and then be able to flip the animal upside down with a little bit of finesse. And we're really trying to be ethical with it and not stress the animal out and then be able to get the, so we get the top, the top view of it, and then we flip it over and get the bottom view. And then those are gonna have to be meshed, but, like, put together with. So first I have to make two separate 3d models. And then I send it to a guy that does all the, all the very specialty, like 3d rigging and everything else to make this and all the textures to make them all mesh together because the frog is in different conformations. Like the toe might be here and the one photo and one model might be another place. So that part's actually exceedingly difficult, which I can't do myself. So then it involves like other freelancers that I have to hire. And then we get this all in all, we then put it all together after many hours of post production. And then we can have these 3d models, which are really impressive for me. Like, I think they're really friggin cool. And you can put these things in, you can print them, you can 3d print them, you can paint, we sell them as painting kits for kids.
You can put them in like, have 3d model objects within VR and you can have it like, or augmented reality, and you could put it on the frog onto your hand. And currently we're working with an animator to try to get that frog to like, talk to people, like, to recognize a hand, hop into it, and then be able to talk to them through an app and like, right, so this frog that like, no one can ever really see because it's super endangered and it's only in the canopy of coastal Ecuador or something. And, and then you can actually have it just be available to millions of people at once to interact with in whatever way they want. They could stretch out its arm, they can flip it over, and scientists could do the same thing too. You can take these actual very accurate, like, morphometrics and you can actually do volumes as well. You could measure the volume of a trunk versus, like, we actually have additional metrics to be able to gauge what species is new or not, or like, compare them. You can automate this across, like, you could have like a hundred different ones and you could just have a program to like, calculate and then it just goes and spits out all the numbers that you need instead of having, because we've done this, describing a new species is pretty tedious. Like, you have to do all these tiny measurements and if we can, and then compare it, and it takes a lot of time, you have to be at the museum. So if I'm like, found the frog in Bangladesh, and now I've gone back to the states and I forgot a measurement, what happens? I have to wait on somebody else to go to. It's like a tedious process now. We can just do automated within a range of accuracy that's hopefully going to be accepted by the scientific community.
And then the sky's a limit. We can do all kinds of things with this.
[00:43:21] Speaker A: Absolutely incredible and so innovative.
So I guess now what's the next step of this? It's like, okay, so we have a proven model now. Is it just getting it out there? Is it getting more people to adopt it. Is it? Yeah. What's next?
[00:43:36] Speaker B: Right? So the. Our big thing was we finally deposited. Well, we took it out into the field, into the Rio Madrid reserve because we have a great relationship with them. And we took a bunch of scans of threatened species out there, and then we've created a bunch of them, too. So we have. We have this swath of data that we have now, and we've uploaded a few of them to morphosource, which is an online repository database which serves as a museum. So it's. We actually have deposited the first 3d digital specimens of wild animals ever done. And then that anybody. And they have a built in scale so people can go and like, measure and do all the measurements themselves and do this and be able to in it like, never. The quality of the specimen never degrades like an ethanol that you get color degradation. If somebody manhandles it too much, then it breaks and, you know, things gets lost or the ethanol leaks out. So this is like protected in perpetuity with no. No chance of denigration, which is amazing. And then. But the thing is, and I keep saying this, it's like, it's not a brag, it's a problem when I say that I'm the only one who can do this because it's so complicated and it's just like my little brain child that I haven't been able to refine enough so that I need to. The next step is really. And I think I just maybe stepped into it actually, just a few days ago with a friend down here in Panama. I need some, like a maker lab to be able to.
To 3D print some things and design. Do the Cad design for this new system that I have in my mind that's also going to. It's going to be much cheaper and much easier to use for any conservationist in the world and a researcher. So we'll give out these plans for free. We're not trying to make money on this stuff.
And hopefully, here's a little side thing I think is fun. If we can actually create all this VFX artwork from the 3d models, we can upload it to have the 3d model that serves as VFX artwork, which is used within CGI for films and tv shows and things like that. So we can actually have a database of all these things that are monopolized by conservationists that we have the only. We're the only ones able to do this and sell. So we have this whole library of real world animals scanned, like, to extreme accuracy. That then Hollywood can buy from us and support conservation that way. So it's like trying to find new ways of integrating new financial chains into conservation, which I think is super exciting if it works out.
[00:45:58] Speaker A: Yeah, that is so creative.
[00:46:01] Speaker B: Like, creative. Yeah. It's just about finding the right brain to tap into now to get everything designed so that somebody can, in Malaysia, can 3d print it all, essentially all of it on the spot. And.
And so that's. That's the dream, and we're. We're working towards it.
[00:46:18] Speaker A: Oh, gosh, I just love that. There's a lot of the red tape is starting to fall. Like, just come on. Like, that idea. Like, could you imagine just trying to bring that idea to any of, like, the super, super big nonprofits in our world or, like, the big, like, names in our world? Like, how long would have taken for that? But just since you've been able to just get to where you are with the biodiversity group and have the freedom to just, like, I have this crazy idea. We're stuck inside. It's Covid. How can we make the most impact? Oh, my gosh. Let's do 3d models. Like, that is so cool.
[00:46:54] Speaker B: I don't know. It's similar to the corporate space where if you have some leviathan like Google or Microsoft, they don't take a lot of risks anymore. They generally just gobble up start startups that are successful, but they don't take risks on their own as much. And so the same thing within conservation space, like, it's harder for maybe CI or wcs to take risks on something like this that may or may not pan out. But I can take all the risks I want because I'm not getting paid. So nobody, no donor money is at risk, and I have a very supportive, amazing board. So there's like, well, if you think it's going to work, let's do it. And then I just do all my crazy things and they end up working. So it's really played out pretty well.
[00:47:33] Speaker A: And what about your drone work? Like, is that, like, a new thing that you've started to get into as well?
[00:47:40] Speaker B: Yeah, so, I mean, I've always loved drones. We all do, especially as a photographer.
And you just get a different perspective and you can survey with it, like, ahead of you while you're in the jungle and figure out where the river is, if you're lost or whatever. But.
And then. So that. But really, it's funny because a lot of this conservation, a lot of the conservation tech is really just taking tech that is really expensive or bulky and then refining it so that it's like figuring out how to do it on the cheap. And so that, like, the 3D scanner, you know, this technology was available years before, but it was in the form of, you know, a $200,000 system that took, you know, you'd have to get two mules to take out with you. And then, you know, it's tons of risk, and it's like such a deep endeavor that you're never really going to convince anyone to let you do it. And. But if we make that a $2,000 system and then be able to take it out in a 25 liter backpack, that's when you make progress. So the tech's there, but it has to be accessible. So making. So, in essence, like, sometimes we're not creating new tech, we're just revising it to make it accessible. And that's what's happening with this drone system that I have it born out of necessity more than anything, because in Halmahara, for this Zagorum varana rediscovery that we have with rewild, it's in the canopy. So I got to be climbing a bunch of trees, and, uh, that's one really laborious. And two, we're going to be doing it on like, with minimal. We were going to be doing it with like, bare minimum safety requirements. So then, you know, if something happens, like, that's a risk to myself, and if you're, you know, you do it once or twice, whatever. But if I'm doing it, like, every day, then it becomes, like, real security situations then. And apparently the indigenous there don't like to climb trees, which is also a little, uh, bothersome. If they. If they don't want to climb trees, why should. Should I not want to live there?
[00:49:28] Speaker A: That's. Therefore they don't want to.
[00:49:30] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe there's a reason. So. So we got a drone, and I'm playing with it down here in Panama, and we're basically, we have this thing set up. It's already designed. We just have to print stuff out so that we can take camera traps on the cheap. We can take this whole system with like a drone and all the. With me, you know, you can include like, four camera traps for under $1,000. And then you can take this thing out. It's a portable drone. And then you can take it out into the canopy, bring it up to take a trap, any camera trap, or a pipe trap or whatever you want, and put it onto a branch and have it adhesive to it. And then be able to easily remove it as well. And so you can just. Instead of climbing that tree and sitting all the rigging, and also you can just literally strap to drone flat up, bam, put it on there, and then go to your next tree. So you can do, like, you know, easy ten in a day. And that really amplifies when you have two weeks to rediscover something. Or you were only there for two weeks, which is common when you're doing a PhD or something. Like, your fieldwork costs money and it's your time. So you have limited, very limited time. It's your most precious resource. If I can save myself and other people time doing these things, then you really amplify impact, because it's everything. So that's what we're hoping to get out. And again, this would be the plans that we can make available to everybody and. And just, again, try to help.
[00:50:48] Speaker A: So why are you in Panama? How'd that happen?
[00:50:50] Speaker B: Why would I not be here?
[00:50:52] Speaker A: I mean, I'm super jealous. It's more of, like, how did you get to Panama?
[00:50:57] Speaker B: Yes, for the longest time, like, so I traveled the world. I lived in St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands for a while, Caribbean. And I fell in love with the vibe of Latin America there. And we've done continued tons of work in Latin America, but I also, you know, spent a lot of time in Bangladesh. I lived in Vietnam. Spent a lot of time just all over the world and trying to find.
Trying to find a place where I. Where I'd be most happy, I guess. And the US is not that for me. You know, I have friends and I have family there, just. But the life there is not as exciting to me. It's kind of gray, and it doesn't have. There's time periods when it's really exciting, like, in the monsoon season in Tucson, but otherwise, you're kind of just, like, waiting in between these periods of, like, oh, that's really cold. I hate life.
[00:51:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Amen.
[00:51:45] Speaker B: February here in Panama, and I'm like, you know, usually shirtless, just enjoying animals, like, literally, my yard. I had this wasp mimicking beetle flying to my kitchen the other day, which I didn't ever even know existed. You know, like, so things were literally handing themselves to me and just like, whoa. Like, literally, almost every day, something flies into the kitchen. You're like, well, I've never seen you before, including bats and all kinds of stuff. But, um. So, yeah, I really. I just looked on a map and I was like, well, where? I like Latin America. What looks best and, you know, from proximity to airports and proximity to, like, amenities and scuba diving and surfing and everything else, and, like, that really narrows your range if you want all that and you're trying to be greedy. Yeah. Then there's, there's literally one place in the world that I could be, and I was here in Panama. So here we are. We've made the move down the initial move, and then we're about to put some money down some land, and we're got a long term rental. We can be here as long as we want, and life is peachy keen.
[00:52:46] Speaker A: Oh, that's just beautiful. Just. Congrats, dude. I think you're just living all of our dream and it's finally happening with everything that you've done. You definitely deserve it. And I do have to ask this question, and because I feel like a lot of people listening might be wondering as well. So you've said multiple times that through all of this incredible work you do, it doesn't actually pay you. And there is no money. There is very little money in conservation, as pretty much all of us know. I do myself firsthand experience. So how do you make money? Are you like a freelancer on the side or how do you support yourself to be able to do all of this incredible work?
[00:53:32] Speaker B: Uh, yeah, I've actually, I counted it the other, the other month, and I have eleven different side gigs, but they 1111 they all come in and like, you know, I can do anything. I could be a divemaster, I can fix cars, I could do whatever I want. But, uh, so there's always a job available, but generally it's, you know, I sell my photography, pays for some things. So, like, I'm a professional photographer. It's all sold through agents and things. So that is passive income. I can do like, financial trading, which I've learned how to do. And then also with the main thing is the consulting business. So I have my own LLC and I get hired by these contractors, I get subcontracted into these big construction projects, and I have certain permits that other people can't get. And so then it allows me to be paid a very decent amount for what we're doing. And so I can. I'd only work a section of the year. And then, you know, now I'm leveraging geographical position because, you know, I'm spending $450 a month down here on rents and, you know, so the longer I'm down here, the less I spend and.
[00:54:35] Speaker A: Right by a lot.
[00:54:37] Speaker B: So I. I don't have to work that much. I don't have to spend that much, and then that kind of really works out. So it's, it's not that easy, but it does. It all works. And also, you know, my wife works, too, as a, as a nurse and a travel nurse. So we're both able to go back at the same time, make some money, come back down and live life.
[00:54:55] Speaker A: Oh, that makes total sense. So being creative and finding creative ways, because I know that I hear this a lot and I've experienced it, too. It's just like, how can we make sure that we are just in a financially stable while doing these things? And I wanted to bring that up specifically so that people can hear that you can do it in multiple different ways that you don't necessarily have to rely on, you know, a certain company or anything like this. Like, you can make it happen. And, like, your proof of that's, that's the case. Like, you can make unbelievable impact and be the head of a amazing nonprofit and still find ways to make sure that your bills are paid. And those might not be the same way, which I think that that idea is starting to at least permeate more and more through people's brains that, like, your passion and your income don't necessarily have to be the same thing.
Understand?
[00:55:51] Speaker B: Amazing if you can align that. Yeah, but so often it's not. And I could get away with, you know, I'm sure it could convince my board to allow me to get paid a salary, but that just takes away from any money that I can use to impact others. And so it just really doesn't make sense for me to do that, and especially when I have other options. So it's like, the other thing, too, is it's all about what you, I mean, all of life is what, it's about what you want to say. You only get what you're willing to sacrifice for, but if you, you hedge and you say, okay, well, I'm going to move somewhere. Like we, you know, we bounced around from San Diego to Tucson a lot. To San Diego is crazy expensive. You know, you're paying like $3,000 a month for, for rent. And if you don't do that, that's why we're working. Right. But if we're not working, then I can't, I can't justify being there. So then we'd move down somewhere that's, you know, a 6th of the price, and then money goes a lot farther, and you can do that anywhere. In Vietnam, I worked as a, literally worked as I ran a dive shop on the island. Of Condao, and I was making $250 a month, and that was totally sufficient because we can get a tiger beer and a bowl of bowl of pho for $2 every night.
You're living within your means, and there's also life all around you. And I was diving for free, and there's ways to make it happen. And then any of your free time you can spend developing something. But there's always a way.
[00:57:13] Speaker A: Yes, when there's a will, there is a way. Always just not giving up. That's the big thing.
So I guess what's next for you? Like, you have all these crazy things. You have these expeditions, you're rediscovering stuff, you're creating new technology, you know, you're taking photographs, you're just doing all of these things. But I guess when you look at your why and what's next? Like, what are you really excited about? What's getting you up in, in the morning to keep working?
[00:57:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's, it's really, I can put some of this up in a very hippy dippy way where, you know, the amount of, like, positive energy I can output and not like an e col, it's an mc squared kind of energy, but just like a conscious energy. If I can just convert the most negative or neutral energy into, into positive energy, I can. That, that makes my life worth living. You know, that, that's the legacy. If you can get, you can put positive energy out there and have it roll into momentum for somebody else. Like, I help somebody and then they help somebody else and they be able to create something and do what theyre passionate about, then that was me making a real impact on the world and other people and other things. And so thats really all it centers around. And whatever way I can do that, the best is the way ill proceed. And so here in Panama, im able to fill my cup very easily so I can work, you know, I can work more and put out better, better material and better products. And, like, if you're, if you have negative energy, you don't really create anything. Like, it just, it just breaks things down. So, like, so as long as you can be in a positive energy environment, then it's great. And then I'm like, there's potential to protect some land down here with a group of expats or that they're interested in purchasing some land that I can manage, and they just need a nonprofit. So here I am. There's tons of other, I have ideas all the time, so I can just create things and there's like an unlimited amount of places that I can go and survey and help other organizations do what they need to do. So it's just really about finding, it's just when the opportunity comes and it comes, so, like, it's, and then it, there's been a whole thing about, you know, you kind of say yes to everything in life until you hit about 30 and then start saying no. And so, you know, like, there's a lot of opportunities I'm having to really select what I'm going to be doing and make sure it's the most impactful, but there's no shortage, so, and if anyone listening to this, too, you know, if you have any ideas, I'm very willing to talk to anybody. If you're just having trouble and want to figure out how to make your conservation life work, then, you know, I've been in a lot of places like that, so maybe I can help.
[00:59:48] Speaker A: Oh, that's beautiful. And on that, if you want to continue down that path of thought, what advice would you like to give to somebody listening right now?
[01:00:01] Speaker B: Yeah, it's kind of adding to what I've already said. It would just be, there is persistence involved. Like, it's going to, it's going to be hard, and everyone says that, but, like, I've never seen somebody, it's not say it doesn't happen, but I've never seen somebody fail that kept trying.
And it's like, it's all about what you're willing to sacrifice. And so if you know it's willing, you're going to sacrifice, you know, double the time that you think you're going to actually sacrifice for this thing. And then if you're still okay with it, then pursue it, and pursue it intelligently. But a lot of it's about network, too. You can't do it alone. So make sure you're trying to find the people that can help you in whatever way you can. So, like, I'm a member of the Explorers Club, too, and so that, and it's like a kind of a prestigious thing in New York, but there is a ton of great people involved there that you can just go and, like, within three days you have 50 new collaborations and you can make things happen. You're helping them, they're helping you. So finding ways to synergize with others is huge.
And just getting out there to conferences, to symposiums, to events, that's one big way to do it. And then just try to think outside the box because I never go where there's a bunch of other competition. I don't like competition. So if there's ten other people trying to do something, what value am I really adding? It's so small. I might be able to do it better than those ten, but by what, 5%? So like, I'm going to go do the other thing that nobody's really trying and then make that happen. So figuring out where your like, added value is and not just the like what, you're just simply replacing somebody else and you got it in a better time. I think that's a really good way to gauge opportunities.
[01:01:30] Speaker A: Oh, so good. That is so good. And how can someone get a hold of you if they're like, oh my gosh, Scott, I have this idea, or I want to just get your thoughts on something. Of course I'll have links to the in the show notes to the biodiversity group and all the things, but if someone might want to chat with you, what is the best way to do that?
[01:01:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm on all the social media channels. I guess I don't have my own tick tock, but CBG has one. But you go through that. They go through my nature stills website and make contact. Go through the TBG website and contact. It's like, it's very hard to not find a contact for me. I've made it very easy for people. So you can just add me something or private message, whatever you want, I'll find it.
[01:02:08] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, again, thanks, Scott for sitting down with me and just sharing your just unique perspective on all of this and your innovative mind and all the fantastic work that you're going to do and have done, and we'll continue doing so. Again, thank you so much. I can't wait to share your story with everybody.
[01:02:26] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for the opportunity and this, this has been great. It's been fun. Yeah. Thanks for doing what you do and being so supportive.
[01:02:34] Speaker A: Thank you for joining me on this wild adventure today. I hope you've been inspired by the incredible stories, insights and knowledge shared in this episode. To learn more about what you heard, be sure to check out the show
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