Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:00:12 Hey everyone. Welcome back to rewatch ology, where we explore conservation travels sustainability and leave it all out on the table. In this episode, I'm chatting with court will and PhD, who is an entomologist and ecotourism expert, which had about his interesting path into finding his way into entomology and photography, guiding why he chose a career over entrepreneurship and the importance of tourism for wildlife conservation. This one sure is a goodie and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. So now onto the show. All right. Well, thanks Corey, for coming on. So excited to have you on rheology today. So to start you, there are so many titles and labels that you can easily call yourself with your phenomenal resume that you have, but you're first and foremost, an entomologist. What gave you your love of bugs? Where did that come from?
Speaker 0 00:01:13 Yeah, the bug, the bug guy. Um, yeah, it's a great question. It's a great starter question. Cause it's like nothing like there's nothing. There's no like, well actually there was a very specific moment, but it's like, it's not, it's not anything like, you'd think, you know, a lot of, a lot of people that are in entomology, you know, they had like bug collections as a kid and they're just, you know, they had parents that were entomologist or they like, you know, name their first bug when they were 10 or since likes weird stuff like that. No, I just was an undecided major taking oceanography and philosophy and business and all random stuff. Um, and a bug class to, you know, get my biology credit. Um, and then they kind of, they make you choose a major, uh, at the end of your first year. And I was like, well, this is the most interesting class that I'm in.
Speaker 0 00:01:59 You know, I was learning about how honeybees communicate and about how termites form, you know, social colonies and all that. And I, I was like, if there's anything that I have to learn a lot more of, let's just have it be this and that. You know, I had no idea like what kind of career, if I didn't get with bugs, if I just didn't worry about it. Cause I knew that I could change my major a million times if I needed to, I just had to have something. And it stuck, like as I've learned more and more about this stuff, about the physiology, about how the rest of the species communicate, the diversity, the types of adaptations they have. Um, what I quickly realized is that like when you start to learn about bugs and you get really in depth where, where they're at and like the trophic pyramid is everything either eats or is eaten by insects.
Speaker 0 00:02:43 And so you get this really interesting view, this lens where you, you just learn all of biology through entomology, um, just cause you're, you're taking classes on soils and you're taking classes on mammalogy and you're taking classes on plant physiology you're taking, you know, and of course all your insect physiology stuff. And this goes, you know, from bachelor's, you know, through PhD, like you, you learn all that stuff. Um, and you just, yeah, so I mean, I, I love insects because I've learned about them, but there wasn't, it wasn't like the other way around. I just happened to stumble upon it. And I was like, man, this is the craziest stuff I should, this is fun to learn. Um, and that just snowballed and there's like eco-tourism thing. And my guys is, this is too good. This is awesome. Love it. So, yeah, that's kind of the weird wacky answer on that one.
Speaker 2 00:03:30 No, that's good. So then what were you like as a child?
Speaker 0 00:03:34 Uh, not weird at all. No, uh, I know I'm sure. Yeah, when I say I wasn't the weird bug kid, I was, I wasn't the weird bug. I'm sure I was weird. Um, as a child, Jesus ops, I wasn't the nature. I love nature. Um, I grew up in Florida, um, which has a lot of nature of course, but not, you know, certainly not in nature. Like, you'd think I'm, you know, out West in the Rockies or in the smokey mountains or in tropical countries. I mean, it was, uh, it was a lot of, uh, ocean nature, a lot of beach stuff, a lot of, um, inland Palmetto forest and pine forest and that sort of stuff. But yeah, it was always, I mean, if there's one thing that I can say, I was probably a, um, uh, like one thing that identified me, I, I, I studied a lot.
Speaker 0 00:04:17 Like I was always in school. I was always doing homework. I was like, I was always in, you know, the more kind of like difficult schools and all that. And so I, I just don't want to say it was like a nerd, but probably by like outside standards, like I just, I had to study a lot. And so, yeah, that's the funny thing, you know, when people look at me as like this expedition leader and traveling all around the world all the time and doing all sorts of fun, cool stuff, it's like, it wasn't because I grew up in a traveling family and, you know, went on Safari as AIDS. It was very much the opposite. Like I didn't have much of that at all. And then I kind of through a lot of studying and getting into like, you know, good school programs and unfortunately like getting, you know, like scholarships and stuff where I didn't have to, uh, teach or didn't have to research or didn't have to, you know, work eight part-time jobs.
Speaker 0 00:05:06 Um, I got to experiment with stuff and the big aha moment was, um, when I was sort of in my early days of entomology at the university and got to go on this internship over spring break and was down in Belize, uh, and kind of paid my way on that, um, through, you know, scholarship money and that sort of thing. And it was like, aha, this, this is totally what I want to do now. That's not the question you asked necessarily, but you know, as a kid, like, okay, well, yeah. So in short to answer your question directly, I was just like a very like academic, like school-based kid. I, I did some extracurriculars, but I was definitely never like the football player. I played some tennis. I, I like to surf a lot when I was a kid. So I, you know, it was at the beach and did all that stuff, um, grew up playing violin.
Speaker 0 00:05:59 These are all details. You probably don't want to know, but violin. Yeah. I played, probably played violin since I was three. I mean, I don't play it anymore, but yeah. I was like, I was definitely that kid played a lot of Island. Yeah. I know we're going in all sorts of tangents, but yeah. So that translated to string instruments. So I played through high school. Um, so whatever that is like 15 years, and then in college, I was like, Oh yeah, guitar is greatest guitar. And then that transition of banjo and all that fun stuff, but I just dabble these days. Anyway, your question. Yeah. So that's, that's my kid that, Oh yeah. So beliefs. Yeah. So this is like, this is what you really want to hear about is like what kind of set me on my big time course. So yeah, it was, I was in academics and I studied a lot and so I got good grades and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 0 00:06:49 But the big thing was I went on this internship to believe that I was taking entomology classes. Um, I thought tropical entomology was cool because like the bigger, the better, you know, like a bigger, badder, more colorful bugs of course. More interesting. Right. So, um, paved my way on an internship went to Billy's. Um, it was two weeks with this like very, very small tour company, but the way it overlapped with my spring break, it was like after my spring break. So I'm like, well, got to go down to Belize for spring break and my feet wet, like, like figure the whole thing out. Right. So I went down there, I was, I was super green. I'm like, like novice green, you know, I had this backpack on, I thought I was like, you know, this cool backpack or traveler with like pots and pans and like just packages of like Kraft, macaroni and cheese.
Speaker 0 00:07:36 It was just like the silliest thing. Um, I think it was like an 80 pound backpack and I just w I just like took the bull by the horns. And like, I got, you know, like the country bus and got them to drop me off at the entrance of like the jungle. And I just like hooked it in. And I just, I had these like coordinates or not really coordinated by these instructions for where this, this field camp was in the middle of cockscomb base and Jaguar reserve. Um, and I just clamped in the jungle for like a week. It was, they were like barracks, you know, like bunk beds and all that. But I had my sleeping bag and I had all my food and they had like a little propane kitchen, you know, we can boil stuff. So, but it was so funny, you know, I'm there.
Speaker 0 00:08:15 And, uh, there's like summer camps and, and the, the kids are like getting, you know, catered food from the Mayan village and they're eating like these awesome meals. And I'm like sitting there. I have no idea that this is a possibility of just eating my Mac and cheese and rice, rice and beans, and like summer sausage and, you know, somehow roughing it slash, you know, earning my stripes in the jungle. But I think, you know, the big moment came as I'm like there for like a week, which actually sounds like it felt like a very long time because there's nothing to do. And it was that moment where you realize that, like, the only thing to do is to like, look at nature and study nature and like spend hours looking at the leaf cutter ants, you know, going across the trail and like really studying, like, looking at them and making notes and just, just appreciating that.
Speaker 0 00:09:04 And I, throughout the course of the trips, but then I met up with this group of high school kids that I was supposed to be, you know, guiding as part of this, this tour, this internship. And I'm reflecting back on that week in the jungle and all the arduous onus to get there. And th the trial and error and just this funny, silly memories, but then guiding his group and teaching kids about everything I've learned, um, you know, from college, from high school, from all this stuff, it was like, that was my big aha moment that, Oh, man, like, I want to be teaching people about nature out in nature at this very like field trip pace. Um, and so I came back and, uh, talked to the chairman of my entomology department. I'm like, okay, so I've got this idea. And this was back when like, ecotourism was barely like a household word.
Speaker 0 00:09:51 I mean, it was kind of, but nothing like what was to come. And so I told him, I had this idea, I really liked entomology. I want to go to grad school, et cetera, et cetera. And he's like, huh, that's interesting. Well, I kind of, I kind of have been thinking about this idea of ecotourism too, but we have no faculty with no staff. We have no textbooks, we have nothing like that. But you know, if you want to try to try to do it, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll put you up. We'll, we'll like, figure out how to make it work. You gotta go to the president's office and get a scholarship or fellowship, whatever. But then through just iteration steady by steady I've pieced everything together. Um, and that's essentially how I got on track to study and be an ecotourism entomology. Um, so it did like, it all started with bugs, a lot of serendipity, a lot of right time, right. Place, a lot of luck. Um, but that's kind of how childhood got me to where I am. That was very convoluted answer to your question, but
Speaker 1 00:10:45 That was great. That was great. You ended exactly where I hoped you would. So, so I would love if you would have just take a second, because I know more about what you study. So could you talk about your, your undergrad and then, um, also more about what you studied for your PhD? Cause I think that those are very foundational for what you ended up doing later in your career. So if you want to talk a little bit more about those, what was the project that you and your advisors or the head of entomology department came up with and how did they come to be
Speaker 0 00:11:21 Cool? Yeah. Yeah, certainly. So, you know, when I was in undergrad and this was like towards my senior year, so I ended up graduating with just, you know, an entomology and then master's and PhD was, was in this idea of ecotourism ophthalmology. So, you know, not ever having done, it's like, Oh, well, how do we combine like this basic science of entomology with? And that's like, you know, a quote, unquote hard science with the more sociological science of ecotourism, cause th this one sort of existed. Um, but it was a lot of sociological studies. It's like a tourism department and B you know, your, your studies are like surveys of people going to state parks. Like, did you like it? Like, how much would you be willing to pay to enter this place if you had to pay? And like, that's how you measure, you know, visitor satisfaction and economics and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 0 00:12:06 Um, so how to mix the two. Um, and so we ended up, I, for my master's, um, I studied the effects of butterfly farming on, uh, habitats, uh, in Florida, in Costa Rica kind of like using your comparative sort of study. And so the idea is you have, for those that don't know, um, butterfly farms are all around the world and a lot of tropical areas, and what they do is they basically raised butterflies to then send and sell to like butterfly, uh, like five variants, like exhibits. So when you go to, um, like certain museums or certain zoos or certain like, like Disney world, I like big butterfly houses and they're all live butterflies flying, and they're in this tropical rainforest. Um, these have to be produced somewhere and most of them are produced in countries like Costa Rica and Brazil and the Philippines and Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands and Madagascar and Kenya.
Speaker 0 00:13:01 And, um, the question is, is these are great. Cool. But do they have an effect on the environment, like, like a positive or negative, like, do they do anything? And so the study was just to figure out like, okay, well, do they, do they like attract butterflies from the forest? Um, and I won't go into the details, but you put up these transects of, you know, butterfly host plants. And basically the long story short is that we, we tried to figure out would the butterflies come in from the surrounding forest lay eggs and all the host plants that are around the butterfly, um, breeding areas, but then act as like a sink for parasites and pairs of toys and predators of the environment, because they know that they're there, they're like, you know, sitting ducks, um, long story short, it didn't really have a negative impact, but it did have an impact.
Speaker 0 00:13:45 We found that butterflies did lay eggs on the environment a lot closer to the butterfly farms. Um, so that was like just a classic sort of like Lepidoptera study there. The ecotourism component was just where we were at. It wasn't like the sociological ramifications. Um, but then for my PhD, you know, obviously you got to level up a bit. And so it was a pretty in-depth, uh, set of studies and gosh, what was the title? I think it was experiments with etymological ecotourism models and the effects of ecotourism of the Monarch butterfly. And so the gist is, you know, uh, it's a mouthful and so there's kind of two components to it. There was, um, the classic hard science of, um, studying effects of ecotourism on an insect species. And, you know, I'll, I can fill you in more, if you want to know on like the effects of ecotourism, the Monarch butterflies in short, not bad, fine things are okay.
Speaker 0 00:14:42 Um, but, uh, the other part was basically experimenting with like, what is this concept of etymological? Like what role do insects fill in the eco tour model? Like, how can you involve insects into ecotourism? So obviously one of the quick ones, low hanging fruit is Monarch butterfly migration. So that's a great one. Um, the other, uh, we studied, and this is all through like case studies. And I, I actually like ran a tour company and did a bunch of tours and let all that stuff and got all the metrics on like, you know, willingness to pay or actual amounts paid and, you know, how many people would come down and I'm, how do they compare in terms of popularity and visitation? Um, so we also like paired butterfly watching with bird watching tours, and we found that like, you could actually take a bird-watching tour and convert them into butterfly Watchers, um, because of like the similarities.
Speaker 0 00:15:37 Uh, and then we did a third type that was more like a research based where we would do all the work and, you know, renting out the research station, getting the permits and getting researchers from all around the country, all around the world to go do research, um, but not have to worry about all the mumbo jumbo, like how to get there and how to, how to find their research subjects, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and so that was basically just like a big case study of running ecotourism entomology programs. Um, but then of course, you know, with that, I ran normal programs to like Kenya safaris and Madagascar trips and Galapagos. So the cool thing, and this is where it's just fun to do. It is over the course of what, seven years of a master's and PhD. Um, you know, I got those degrees, I did all the research figured out how academia works so much of grad school was just like learning how to figure out how things work, like not the science, but like, how do you get your dissertation edited and formatted? Like who do you need to see it just like working the politics of it. But then also I got to run this travel company, um, that, uh, you know, I got to guide on all seven continents, uh, you know, within my grad school days led 60 or 70 expeditions got a couple degrees out of it and sent me on this track to be kind of like an ecotourism specialist and expedition leader. It was pretty good.
Speaker 1 00:16:55 How did you balance guiding that many trips as well as getting your degrees?
Speaker 0 00:17:04 Yeah, well, so that's where, you know, I got, I got lucky and got these, uh, these fellowships that were able to pay for the schooling and, you know, tuition and all that sort of stuff. Um, and so I didn't, I didn't have to do traditional research or teaching that one usually has to do to be like a grad school program. So this fellowship just allowed me to like, kind of think creatively and just do weird wacky stuff outside the box. And fortunately my department and my major advisors and committee all really subscribed to the idea that, you know, a PhD really is a doctorate of philosophy. And yeah, it has sort of certain connotations that like, you know, you're kind of an expert in your field, but really it's like, how do you think philosophically, how do you think outside the box and how do you, how do you invent something, um, from an academic?
Speaker 0 00:17:49 So they're just like, you know, do, do things that haven't been done before, do the weird and wacky, you know, this travel program, uh, I developed became like really successful. Um, I partnered with the Florida museum of natural history and we became their defacto travel program, um, much like how I work with world wildlife fund now. And it just like turned really successful. And, you know, even amidst, like what, you know, 2008 financial crisis, we were growing, like, you know, a hundred percent a year in terms of how many trips and how many travelers and how many programs, diversity and all that. So, I mean, a big credit is that I, um, got support from the faculty support from the museum support from the university to just do weird wacky stuff, um, get in front of people and talk about travel, but then a big, the other big part is that, um, I, I didn't have to have that, you know, whatever they, you know, 13 hours or 20 hours a week of grading papers and teaching intro biology classes. Um, so that allowed me to think outside the box things more, think more philosophically and a little more inventively on, you know, how we can turn this idea into an actual degree. Uh, and it is a degree now, so, you know, it was kind of like Guinea pig ish. Um, but yeah, it's like, you can get a degree on eco-tourism entomology now.
Speaker 1 00:19:12 So where were these trips ran through the university? Like where you almost having a micro business underneath the, your university, like department, or was this a whole separate business entity that you were also running and doing an experiment for lack of?
Speaker 0 00:19:29 Yeah, so, I mean, for, by like terminology was a for-profit company, it wasn't like I didn't have a bank account within university of Florida to draw from it. That would have been a nightmare. Um, so it was, it was run as if, you know, uh, a separate entity, um, we're then selling travel to the museum, to the university, to the alumni association. Um, it, it just was, uh, you know, it was just me and my advisor basically. And, uh, so it was, it was small enough scale that we just had such an intimate relationship that, you know, when I say for profit, you know, we, we really did it, you know, from an educational standpoint, we really did it for like, uh, an experienced standpoint. We did it as like a member per for the university for the museum. Um, so no, it wasn't like a subsidiary or anything like that, but because I was also a grad student, um, we were just super close.
Speaker 1 00:20:23 Mm, okay. That makes, that makes total sense. So then how did you branch out onto the other continents? So how'd you start from going to like the Monarch migration to everywhere and where did that fit in to your bigger picture of what you were going for?
Speaker 0 00:20:40 So I always wanted to go to Madagascar and Papua New Guinea and Antarctica and Galapagos. Um, yeah, I mean, a little bit of that, um, a little bit of like, you know, market research and, you know, where are the other museum travel companies going? I'm like, Oh, they're going to, um, Kenya. Okay. Let's, let's do the Kenya trip. There's obviously demand there. Um, and then we'd run trips and we'd ask our guests, like, where have you always wanted to go? And, you know, when you're, when you're a really small outfit, there's a heck of a lot of loyalty. Um, and it's, you know, it's hard to acquire new guests because, you know, you're sort of an unknown, but if you can work with your existing pool of clients, you know, you really can branch out from there. So it was just a lot of, you know, customer fidelity basically. Um, and so we'd be on a Galapagos trip and one night at dinner, we'll be talking about Kenya and like, people like, Oh yeah, if you went to Kenya, I'd go to Kenya. And then another 20% Galapagos trip, six of them will go to Kenya and then you just get another six people from somewhere else and boom, the guy Kenny trip together.
Speaker 1 00:21:45 Okay. That's cool.
Speaker 0 00:21:47 Because I wanted to go there, check off all the boxes, but they're also logical places, you know? I mean, they're, they're not like, I mean, some of them are restorative obscure, but not, not all of them.
Speaker 1 00:22:00 So then what was your biggest takeaway from
Speaker 0 00:22:04 Running all of these?
Speaker 1 00:22:06 What was the biggest like, I mean, I know that I'm sure your dissertation and everything was pages, pages, pages, pages, pages long, but if you could give me like a summary, what was some of your biggest takeaways, especially from like the conservation travel, what did you find?
Speaker 0 00:22:26 Yeah. Uh, 593 pages to be exact. It's ridiculous. Yeah, I know. Um, yeah. So the biggest takeaway will, one of the biggest takeaways is I loved it. I want to do more of it, but really like a big profound sort of like saving the world takeaway is that, you know, it all gets distilled down into this. If you can add value to natural ecosystems, you demonstrate to local people, local stakeholders, people that may care or may not care about wildlife, that it's just economics like who, who cares if you love that butterfly, it doesn't really matter. If you love drafts, you're going to make more money. You're going to put more food on your family's table. You're going to be able to provide health care and education for your kids in a better way. And oftentimes many times better way. If you make some sacrifices, um, protect this area, um, being involved in ecotourism, or at least just, you know, not, um, aid in the deterioration of the area, um, by doing ecotourism versus whatever the next best or next worst activity might be.
Speaker 0 00:23:35 Um, and so I was like, man, so I love it because it's so simple. Um, and as much as we may not like it, the world revolves around finances. You know, you, you have to have money to be able to put food on the table, or at least you have to have land to grow crops and then put through to the table. But you know, you go to these places and, you know, had the great fortune to go to a lot of different countries and you can't just March in there and say, Hey, we really liked is pretty blue butterfly. So, you know, don't cut those trees down. I know you need to get rice for your family, but we'd prefer if you didn't like, no, that's crazy. You, you have to give them a better way. You got to get through to the table, but ecotourism is such a tangible, pretty easily adoptable way to say, we're going to get you a lot more rice buddy.
Speaker 0 00:24:18 We're going to get you, you know, education and healthcare. Like all these things will come along by, um, supporting this idea of ecotourism. And that was my big takeaway. So the more ecotourism responsible travel, the more responsibly you can do it, the better let's do more of it. And let's do it in a bigger way. And let's, and then there's like this other aspect, which was not, it was actually recognized pretty early on because of the member travel program. But the more, um, the more folks that you can get on these trips with influence whether they're an activist, whether they're a donor, whether they're part of the university of newspaper, whether the university president or museum, president, whatever, the more people like that you can get on trips, the more disproportionately positive impact you can have because they have circles that just mere storytelling will help protect the places. Um, or they might have the means to donate to the programs that are then further protecting the areas, et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah, I mean, a lot was realized by my very early travels and I just knew I, I, I just wanted to do more of it.
Speaker 1 00:25:27 That's awesome. Yeah. Thank you. How did you go about making the right connections in these countries? These are probably foreign places you've never been to before. What strategies did you take to meet the right people to bring these foreigners essentially to these really Epic places?
Speaker 0 00:25:46 Yeah. So, um, for any sort of travel industry, you definitely have to have those local connections and you have to know, you know, you can't just March into a country and do it all yourself. There are some places where you can do a little bit more like, you know, in Mexico for the monarchs. I, I did a lot of that. You know, I would hire the bus company. I would hire, I would book directly to the hotels, et cetera, et cetera. But you know, most places, if you do that, you're going to get burned or you're just, or at least you just have to provide a quality experience. So, you know, you, you work with a local in-country partner or operator that is used to working with, um, companies basically, you know, and you go in there and you fine tune it, but you rely on their expertise and their local knowledge.
Speaker 0 00:26:28 Um, so a lot of it is connections with researchers, lot of connections with my graduate school advisors. Um, a lot of it with a little bit of research online or something like that, you know, through people to people, connections, you can figure out, Oh yeah, this is the guy I used for my Kenya or, you know, Oh, these guys do really well in Costa Rica. Um, so a lot of it is just kind of word of mouth connections nowadays. You can probably do it online, but this is, um, it's not, it's not like the internet didn't exist. We're not talking about that long ago, but it wasn't. I mean, you know, every year that goes by, it exists more and more. Um, so yeah, a lot of, um, relying on my advisors, my contacts, my friends, my fellow researchers that knew something. And that was actually, you know, you ask about how to develop these other programs.
Speaker 0 00:27:16 That was a lot of it, you know, I couldn't just say, Hey, I want to start doing tours in Djibouti. You know, it's like, well, we don't know a contact there. It's like immediate guest will say, Hey, you know, I went on a trip, this other company and here's, here's the brochure. And you can kind of like, once you start reading this stuff, you figure out who they work with or, or how to go about getting it. Um, but yeah, no, no one way, but I will say you have to start somewhere. You gotta have local contexts. Hmm.
Speaker 1 00:27:45 Yeah. That makes sense. So I could just see, I mean, anybody listening to this, maybe they were wondering that, or how do you get to these places? Like what is the best strategy? And I'm sure too, as the world becomes more connected and super rural places, which is exciting. And at the same time, a little scary, depending on the development road that everyone thing takes goes down. But so why did you not keep this starting to thrive business?
Speaker 0 00:28:16 Yeah. No great, great question. And now, I mean, it was a very pivotal moment, so, um, yeah, I was, uh, nearing the end of my PhD and I, uh, I realized, okay, I could either, you know, try to take over this business, um, or start my own, or I could, uh, go out there. And, you know, I of course knew about the Nat Geo's and the, um, the not haves and the, you know, fill in the blank, what all the different companies out there that, I mean, we they're known, you can get the brochures and you see what they're doing. Like, it was just something I did for like a decade. Um, and so I didn't own this company, my major advisor did. Um, and so I would have had to, you know, buy that. Um, and so it was either that start my own or join as I just kind of putting the feelers out there.
Speaker 0 00:29:02 And I reached out to a couple of companies, not have, uh, being one of them and just cold, cold email, cold call. I don't even know if I attached to see the, um, I was like, Hey, so this is me. Like, what's, what's up? What are you guys doing? Um, and not have had been one that I had, um, looked up to for a long time and reading their catalogs and knew a lot about their company. And, uh, we made a connection and they flew me out there. And, um, I tour the office. This is back in 2013. Um, and you know, it was like, what 25 people then it was, you know, fraction, fraction of the size of it is now. Um, and the big moment, it all distilled down into this is that I saw would not have, was doing with world wildlife fund with conservation travel with the places they were going, that I had a lot of experience and a lot of love and a lot of, um, interest in expanding programs there.
Speaker 0 00:29:55 And basically I said, okay, if I did my own thing, no matter how it was, I could even, if the best case scenario not have is doing what I would like to be doing in 25 years, they're doing it today. And I was like, man, like, there's something really powerful about instantly, you know, joining the big leagues and having a bigger platform to stand on a bigger mountain, to shout from more opportunity, more capital to do weird wacky things, more ability to take that risk on a country that you would have no business trying to start tourism in, but these guys, they can do that. That's what they want to do. So that was really it, you know, it was just like, Oh my God, they're doing what I want to again, perfect world. Everything goes very well in 20 years, I'd be doing what not had is doing, you know, today back seven, eight years ago.
Speaker 0 00:30:46 And that convinced me like, all right, let's give it a shot. Let's go big. And then of course, you know, one of the big things is they offer me this. Um, I will say it was like a liaison position between world wildlife fund and that had, and it was kind of like the sweet spot where it's like a lot of what I was doing before, but a lot of opportunity for growth. And, you know, all of a sudden I was operating this like VIP sector of one of the world's largest conservation organizations for one of the world's best ecotourism companies, uh, with this non-profit this, or, you know, we're a wildlife fund that has like, you know, over a million members just in the us alone, like, man, this, this can lead to some cool things. And it has,
Speaker 1 00:31:28 You just saw greater impact your opportunity to have much greater impact immediately versus a, maybe on a longer-term scale.
Speaker 0 00:31:35 Exactly. You sacrifice the control, you sacrifice a bit of your own ability for personal vision and personal whatever. Um, for joining a team that maybe, you know, through your, through your powers combined, you can do bigger, better things. And I absolutely think it played out that way. I think that's exactly how it went
Speaker 1 00:31:57 Great and continues to go. Yeah. So what are some of the things that you do now, and that had just for anyone listening is called it's natural habitat adventures is the full name. Um, they are fantastic company. I know, used to work for them too, and he's worked really closely with court. Um, so why don't you just give some examples of some of the things that you've been able to accomplish through this role that you've now found yourself in, as you know, the director of conservation for this company, when a lot of travel companies don't even have a title like that? No, one's in there whole organization that's focused just on conservation. So what is your role and what do you do?
Speaker 0 00:32:40 Sure. Yeah. So, um, it's, you know, it's, it's evolved just like anything, you know, when, when I was hired, it's like, I don't even know if they really knew where to put me, but I kind of carved out my own hitch. And, uh, so now, you know, for many years now I've been the director of sustainability and conservation travel. And, you know, I do wear a number of other hats, but basically what that allows me to do is take a company that was already easily, one of the greenest, most sustainable travel companies out there. And, um, ensure that not only do they keep that reputation, but maybe, you know, go above and beyond. And this is where it's just, it's so fun and so inspiring to, um, you know, when you're with a successful company, you, you can take that risk, um, weird wacky things, you know, um, back in 2007, before my time, we became the world's first carbon neutral travel company.
Speaker 0 00:33:26 Um, we continue that legacy, uh, in bigger and better ways. But then, you know, sort of in, in my time, in my era, we were able to run the world's first zero waste adventure. Um, so being able to do weird wacky stuff like that, you know, it's just, it's hard, it's hard to think of being able to do that with anything less than a company, doesn't the size of the stature. Um, other than that hub, but, you know, those are very, very specific examples. It extends so much more beyond that, to day-to-day things, what we're doing in the office, what we're doing on each and every trip to be sustainable, but it boils down to basically just, you know, being the, the, the shepherd slash architect of, of sustainability and making sure our impact, um, is, is a net positive one. And that's, you know, it's one of the big critiques of travel is like, well, um, you know, aren't you having an impact in these places you go like, ah, hell yeah, we are, I mean, you can't walk out the door without having an impact with anything you do, but it's, it's critical that you have a net positive impact, you know, for whatever carbon emissions it takes to get there, even though we offset it, um, you know, whatever impact you have in bringing Western ideology into remote villages, you have to have a better impact, um, by being more sustainable.
Speaker 0 00:34:39 And, you know, you're kind of, you're, you're leading this Vanguard, so to speak where, um, if you're like the big player, the industry, and every other company that looks up to you in some way shape or form, they kind of follow along in, in, um, not necessarily in your wake, but yeah, like in your Vanguard, you know, you, you do it together, but we can kind of help lead the way. So that that's like a big part of what I do, but you know, was equally rewarding. I am an expedition leader or, you know, a guide with us. So I get to travel, you know, on about six to eight trips, sometimes even more each year, uh, in all different regions, all different places in the planet. Um, and that's super rewarding because it, it connects the office and the field. Um, for me, it's something, you know, starting as a guide and an office person that kind of keeps me connected to my interests and roles.
Speaker 0 00:35:24 Um, it helps me implement ecotourism in the field, you know, with a lot of these bigger companies, there is a disconnect, you know, you don't necessarily the office folks aren't in the field folks and vice versa. And that's just how it has to be. Um, I love whenever we can crossover as much as possible, and there's always a bit of crossover, but I feel like I'm kind of living that to, you know, make sure, make sure everything's going the way I hope it is. Uh, and, uh, being able to impart that wisdom, uh, you know, office wisdom in the field and vice versa, I think helps a lot. And then the last but not least I had, what I would say is kind of like our VIP travel program within world wildlife fund. And so with any philanthropic organization, any NGO, you, you have a donor donor, um, what's largest donor base.
Speaker 0 00:36:11 You know, it might be, you know, partly grant based, but we will offer a select set of trips each year to their biggest supporters, um, as like a, another level into the ecosystems, into their work, into understanding. And, um, not only is it getting these people more educated and aware with what's going on in the field, but, um, it's also helping to further fundraise it's, it's making them even more supportive of the mission. And so these trips will often garner, um, significant levels of support to let them start new projects that they haven't even begun yet, or support life, the life of certain projects for many more years, um, often in the many millions of dollars, which is super rewarding. So I feel like through this one position is one title and able to kind of have my hands in all facets of ecotourism. Um, partly cause I like it partly because of that, you know, it allows me to make sure the engine's running smoothly, so to speak, but yeah, it's, it's a real honor to do all that stuff and do a big level. Um, I probably wouldn't have guessed. It'd be at this point, you know, seven years ago just finishing up grad school, but I'm super happy that I am.
Speaker 1 00:37:24 Yeah. It just goes to show that you made the right decision. Cause those big decisions can sometimes be the scariest. Like I have this baby that I've pretty much grown from the ground and I've gotten quite a bit of success from it. So taking a big leap, moving to a different state, starting with a company where they don't even know where to put you. I mean, that's huge and it obviously worked out, which is great. And one of the things that I wanted to tag on from what you just said, I think one of my biggest realizations working closely with you, um, at natural habitat Avengers was that there isn't a stigma that there shouldn't be a stigma against for-profits in the conservation world. Cause I came from the nonprofit sector and there's always this, I don't know, like for-profits or the devil pretty much kind of just undertone of, you know, they, all they want to do is get money.
Speaker 1 00:38:22 That's all that's why would anybody be in conservation and call them in and have the for-profit model? And I think that was one of the biggest values being there is I think that I was able to help with you some of the biggest conservation goals ever we were able to do underneath the umbrella because the business was ran so well. And the impact was so strong that there was the, you know, financial, um, backing, like you said, to do the world's first zero waste trip to be completely carbon neutral in everything that we did. Like that's huge stuff. And you don't have to constantly ask people for money. You know, like you don't have to constantly it'd be like donors, please give me money. And just that whole fundraising aspect, it was nice to not have to rely on that stuff to make an impact in the world. So I thought that was very powerful, having been exposed to for-profits. I was like, I'm doing more for conservation working at this company that I felt like my entire career before, which I thought that was incredibly powerful for at least me.
Speaker 0 00:39:40 Yeah. There's this phrase going around, I've heard, uh, profit for purpose. Um, it's kind of, it's become a little of a buzzword or buzz phrase, but I love that. Like it's really cool because, you know, yeah. Okay, great. You know, being a nonprofit is fantastic and they do great work. Um, but yeah, it shouldn't be so polarized that like, just because you're for-profit, you can't do as much good. Uh, I mean, I think that it really just comes down to like, what, what is your kind of like operational focus? Um, and so for a lot of nonprofits, uh, the focus might be grant writing. And so, you know, they, well, obviously the focus is the work that they do, but one of the underlying focus focuses is, you know, how do you, how do you get the best grant writers or how do you find the best projects or how do you implement your projects in such a way that makes your next grant that much more likely?
Speaker 0 00:40:35 Um, and no matter what it tends to detract from the specifics of the work. Um, so, you know, for donor based organizations, you have to really focus on the donor, um, for profit based organizations, you have to really focus on the profits, but what you do behind all that is the real work. And I think, yeah, you hit the nail on the head. Is that you? You absolutely. Well, I think both really kind of need one another in a way, especially if you're going to do the most good. So, you know, if you're, if you're like an ecosystem, you know, you can't just have the carnivores, you can't just have, uh, the vegetarians, the herbivores, you, you, you kind of, you can't just have the detritivores, you can't just have the omnivores, you can't just have the birds and the canopy and the birds and the ground, like the more you can kind of get together, the more, it all works together.
Speaker 0 00:41:25 As long as each has a known predictable, consistent focus, if they flip flop all around, it's hard to predict, but you know, if your for-profits, um, you know, do a lot of good when they can, but also are able to become bigger, have a bigger voice, um, be able to do more things, be able to hire better. People, be able to give more conservation money or more money to conservation or do really interesting, um, conservation messaging or, um, yeah. What have you at a nonprofit to do their thing, and then you have these other sort of hybrids in between it's, it's, it's all about, um, you know, a heterogeneous ecosystem and business. Um, the more, the more people, more missions, more styles you have the better, it's all gonna work together. But maybe the thing, the takeaway from that is like, that's fine if they all exist, but for them to work together to build this ecosystem, they have to network, they have to come in contact with each other. They have to have those partnerships or collaborations or what have you. Um, so I think that's pretty key.
Speaker 1 00:42:30 Yeah. I love, I love all the science analogies. It just makes me happy. That was so good. I really enjoyed that. So shift a little bit, um, you are a phenomenal photographer. That is definitely one of the things that you are insanely good at is wildlife photography. So where in your story did wildlife photography come into play? Because you're a scientist, but you're really good photographer. So how did that happen?
Speaker 0 00:43:04 Yeah. Um, thank you. Uh, yeah, I just, I just like, it is really the, just, uh, my first camera was, you know, one of the very early point and shoots, um, right before that believes trip I was talking about it was, you know, saved up my, uh, my whole life savings at that point for a little three megapixel camera. Um, didn't know if I was going to like it, but I ended up really enjoying it. Like it was, it was kind of a way, um, to make me look at things I might otherwise pass up. You know, I told you I had all this time in the rain forest by myself and you know, it, wasn't the kind of kid to travel and do that sort of stuff. So I had to force, force myself to look at things differently and change the pace of my life.
Speaker 0 00:43:42 And I think photography was a really big part of that. Um, and really it just, it started with this, you know, something that would, uh, you know, our cell phones 10 years ago were way better than this camera. Like, that's just the, so I started with that, but they got a better point in shooting and a better point and shoot, and just kind of graduated from one camera to another throughout the years. And I guess what I've sort of realized is that photography will, of course photography is a great way to, um, uh, tempt people in the travel. So it was a big part of, you know, the business is a big part of getting people to go on trips. Uh, but it can be a really big force for good. Not only do you get people that may not otherwise want to sit and just, just observe nature, you get them on trips, you get them part of this ecotourism infrastructure.
Speaker 0 00:44:30 Um, but you also have a way of preserving this stuff and showcasing it and tempting more people and getting more people to, to care about these things, to give a shit about a Panda or a pangolin or a butterfly. Um, you know, there's a, there's a saying that you, you cannot save what you do not love and you cannot love what you do not know. And so I think you, you, you can get people to know stuff by being on a trip. Great, come on, let's go on a trip, but you know, not everybody's meal to go to Kenya or go to the rainforest of Borneo. So you get them to know it, maybe just a fraction, but you get them to know a little bit better by seeing it via photos or videos or social media. And I think that does play an incremental part in helping save the species cause people know a little bit better. They might love it a little bit and therefore save it a little bit. Um, just by the, the, the way that all works. But you do that a million times over when people see these photos and videos or whatever. And I think it plays a big part in the conservation of whatever you're showcasing one animal or one ecosystem.
Speaker 1 00:45:34 Nice. Talk about your podcast. You actually have a podcast about this.
Speaker 0 00:45:37 Ah, yeah. So I do, um, it's called the wild photographer podcast. Um, started it about a year ago, like last, I think, or late. I dunno, when was it like late December, early January, something like that. Maybe a little bit later. Um, and the idea is it's going to provide nature photography instruction, uh, to those interested, um, from ultra novice to advanced everything in between. Um, it might talk about, you know, whether to shoot JPEG versus raw photos or might talk about how to get a perfect sunset shot, um, or my five favorite ways to photograph elephants. You know, the idea is just like a bunch of topics and my hope, and, and obviously COVID has sort of changed this, but my hope was that people would, um, download a bunch of episodes before they take a big international international flight. And just listen to these little, you know, 20 minutes snippets of, you know, five, um, creative, uh, lesser known ways to photograph Galapagos, giant tortoises or whatever, you know, when they're on a plane and they can't watch a YouTube video, um, it's, uh, you know, with travel resumed, I think it's going to fulfill that purpose, but I think it's, it's had an equally good impact, you know, in a weird way and that people are, they're just wanting to learn.
Speaker 0 00:46:49 They're using this time to maybe, uh, immerse himself in the world of travel, even if they're not traveling. And yeah, hopefully it's a little outlet for people wanting to get a jumpstart on, you know, when they are headed over to Africa, you know, how are they going to photograph that African sunset of the Serengeti, et cetera, et cetera. So I like it and, you know, I have a little Instagram page, uh, with the wild photographer. I think it's the dot wild dot photographer. Um, and yeah, you know, it's just a great way to sort of learn by example, learn via my, you know, my own learning. I've never done this as like an educational or like I, you know, I haven't gone to school for it. It was a lot of just school of hard knocks, so to speak with learning by trial and error. Um, and yeah, it's, it's been a long fun journey and photography and eager to share it with folks that want to hear me yap about it.
Speaker 1 00:47:37 It was really fun about this time is one of the only things that we can do is just go outside in nature, go to a local park, go to anything and having a resource like your podcast is great, cause you can, you can practice. So before, you know, travel opens back up, it was just going to the world is going to open back up. We're going to figure everything out. People can go listen to your episode, whatever the tip might be, and then practice somewhere. You want to practice how to take a sunset shot. We'll go. We all have a sunset. That is something we can all take practice on of photographing we to be able to photograph elephants right now. But I mean maybe if your local zoo's open, then maybe sunset elephant's shot.
Speaker 0 00:48:23 Sure. I mean, you're totally right. I mean, the only reason I'm a good photographer is because of practice. And fortunately I get to practice in the field, which is super fun. But yeah, if you could, I mean, just the more time you put in to photography, the better you're going to be, you're going to know your camera more. You're going to know what that little dial does. You're going to be quicker to the punch when you get that Epic shot of something that you'd never expected. Um, so even if it might seem boring, um, which hopefully it's not, hopefully you can take some fun photos of you're passionate about, but yeah. Just get out there and practice, practice, practice.
Speaker 1 00:48:59 That's awesome. Maybe I'll have to have you back later on to give.
Speaker 0 00:49:04 Yeah. Yeah. I'd be happy to,
Speaker 1 00:49:07 That would be so fun. Maybe we should do a live one. We should go out in nature and actually, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:49:14 Hey, you call the shots. I'll be there. We'll get there.
Speaker 1 00:49:19 Um, next. So I recently heard, so I had a conversation with, um, Haley Hawkins recently and she works for the endangered species coalition and she brought up some pretty disturbing statistics about the Western Monarch population. I said, you are the Monarch guy. I would really love if you could kind of shed some light on what's going on with monarchs, what is going on with that particular population? And what's next? What should we know? And what should we do?
Speaker 0 00:49:54 Yeah, so monarchs, um, so in short, you know, the, the North American Monarch has an Eastern and a Western population they're, they're found worldwide. They're one of the only like cosmopolitan species of butterflies. They're not found in Africa. They're not found in Antarctica, but they're found everywhere else. Um, so they're never really going to be considered an endangered species. Um, unfortunately, uh, maybe they will, but it's by definition, they're going to be around like, it's not like they have a restricted range, but their migration may be endangered. What's that it's definitely a danger, but it could be considered a danger. Um, because there are some big risk factors that like from one year to the other could just completely cause total havoc on their, on their population. So anyway, North America has the biggest population of monarchs. They Eastern is everything East of the Rocky mountains. The Western has everything West of the Rocky mountains. That's slightly oversimplified because you get some weird stuff going on in Arizona. You don't really get migrations happening in Southern Florida. They just stay there year round. When you think of like, why anything migrates it's because it runs out of food or its conditions are not suitable for life. Um, they can deal with most of the year in those places, but let's just, over-simplified say Eastern Western, um, they're both in kind of bad condition. Um, the Western
Speaker 3 00:51:15 Doesn't get as much press cause it's,
Speaker 0 00:51:16 It's much smaller. Um, they essentially migrate to like the Monterey Bay area. Um, they roost on eucalyptus trees, which is sort of weird cause they're an introduced species to begin with. Um, and they roost in relatively small aggregations. And I, I think like at any, any given year they're in like 25 different spots and they're, they're in like the hundreds of thousands per spot. So it's super cool, but there's not a lot of like big scale international tourism. Um, even domestic tourism is not super significant. The Eastern population we're talking about in the hundreds of millions of butterflies. And at one time it was thought to be like a couple of billion. Um, and every year over the course of the North American winter, these two populations, uh, migrate again, Western goes to the sort of, uh, slightly cool, but not freezing areas of Monterey Bay.
Speaker 0 00:52:06 The big migration we all hear about it goes from the East coast of the U S or sorry, not East coast, but at all Eastern, you know, great Plains Nebraska, um, great lakes, New York, Maine Southern Canada, um, all the way down to Mexico. Um, and they roost there for about five months, the California ones only like a couple months of hibernation or, you know, Causa hibernation, but the risk factors, you know, they're kind of similar. Um, the biggest thing is just loss of habitat, you know? And what does that mean? That's a big catchall for a lot of the biodiversity crisis and a lot of just general conservation issues, habitat loss. And usually that means that we humans have mowed over where they like to live or where their food sources. Um, and what has St mode over? You know, it's like it's development, it's, it's a new house.
Speaker 0 00:52:53 It's it's agriculture, it's, um, it's, uh, pollution from a stream. It just, you know, their habitat has been lost for some reason. Um, and so California, because it's a smaller population, they have less adaptability. Like they just can't deal with it as much. And so gosh, every year, I mean, there's, there's some pretty bad numbers coming out about that population. And, you know, I, I don't follow it anywhere near as closely as the Eastern population, but I'd imagine people are pretty over it because you know, when, when you were at thousands of to begin with, and every year you, you look at like 86% declines over the course of one year to one year, and that's going to whittle down to a certain amount that it just, it doesn't, it can't handle itself. Um, the good thing about monarchs is that, you know, every female lays, uh, or at least has the ability to lay about 400 eggs over the course of her lifetime.
Speaker 0 00:53:50 So if you do the math, if most of those eggs survive, they can, they can build up pretty massively. Like they can rebound quickly. I've seen that year after year for the Eastern population, you know, you, you hear about this catastrophic loss down in Mexico, cause a freak snowstorm or because of the legal logging. Um, and then the next year they rebound or they go the other way and the big loss, but they're kind of always going up and down, but you know, there's always a point at which it's really hard to, to come back from. Um, so yeah, habitat loss is always a big concern. You've got pesticides that might drift onto their host plants. Milkweed plants is, you know, it could, um, could poison them for lack of a better word. Um, a big part of habitat loss is not having their milkweed plants as available as they once were.
Speaker 0 00:54:42 This is a big thing we see with all monarchs, but particularly the Eastern ones is that a lot of the milkweed used to grow in these big Prairie's and big fields. And even as agriculture came in, then West milkweed actually did pretty well because the farmers would transform the Prairie. Um, they essentially converted to ag fields, but then there'd be big margins, big roadways or big fallow fields, or were milkweed. This is a weed, it grows super easily, would grow and flourish and the monarchs would expand and do well. And that, that kind of leads to another semi interesting part of it is, you know, I mean, I want monarchs to survive, obviously I'm kind of fanatical about it, but we also have to realize that in the last, you know, 20,000 years or whatever, that they've kind of been around North America ever since the glaciers receded, most likely they are at a semi anomalous number, you know, like they, they may not have always been this numerous in North America.
Speaker 0 00:55:42 So it's not like we can say, Oh man, we humans were so terrible because you know, these monarchs and doing their thing for millions of years and we just come in and ruin it all. What's like, well, we don't know that, you know, um, what we do know is we love monarchs. They're they're, um, surveyed and easily the most recognizable butterfly in the U S in North America in the world. Their migration is one of the most spectacular things you'll ever see. Um, they generate a lot of income for Mexico, especially in these rural communities of central Mexico. Um, and it's not gonna take much to save them. It's just going to take some awareness. It's just going to take knowing how to do it. Right. Um, it's going to take some people that want to pay for it, whether it's the farmers or whether it's people that are creating these really interesting, like escrows and subsidies to pay farmers, to plant milkweed.
Speaker 0 00:56:34 Um, and you know, we kind of, we want to save what we love, you know, we, we want to, you know, we, we have to pay for this sort of stuff. Um, so it's less of this philosophical thing that like, uh, we, we are just, you know, the worst critters in the planet. Cause we've just decimated this thing that's been on here since earth began. No, we should save it because it's beautiful and we love it. And science has figured out a way to say that. Um, so I don't know, like it's kind of like a weird transition to end there, but I think it is important to know that we shouldn't save this stuff just because it's the right thing to do. We should save it because we all look around the room, literally metaphorically and say, yeah, this stuff is cool. Like, why would we not want to put a little bit of effort? Why would we not want to sprinkle a few milkweed seeds in the garden? Why would we not want to, you know, when, when the vote comes up or when we talk to a congressperson and say, Oh yeah, no, I think, I think you should be in supportive monarchs. Um, because they're just, there's really cool. And I think the life would, uh, kind of be a little, little shitty if they weren't around.
Speaker 2 00:57:39 Absolutely. I mean, you are the Monarch or you even have a book, right?
Speaker 0 00:57:44 That's true. Yeah. Yeah. So I've been guiding down there for close to two decades and every time and down there, I'd take a lot of photos, uh, and you know, thousands, hundreds of thousands of photos kind of documenting the last couple of decades of what the, the overwintering like the hibernation time period looks like with these almost billions, you know, these hundreds of millions of butterflies around. And so, yeah, publish his book. It's like 160 pages. It's kind of, sort of like a coffee table book, but also, um, some scientific information, but told in a, in a really friendly way, uh, you know, like have like some photos of what they're doing aggregating on the tree and we'll talk like, Oh yeah, it's this species of tree because of this. And this is how they know when to take flight and where to go and how they navigate, et cetera, et cetera. So I like it a lot and maybe, maybe others will too so far so good.
Speaker 2 00:58:34 Where is it at?
Speaker 0 00:58:36 It's on Amazon right now. So, yeah. Yeah. You know, the other reason I wrote is because I've been looking on Amazon, um, for years and, you know, there are a lot of like kids' books on the Monarch and, you know, the cute little Caterpillar like animation or, you know, cartoon books, but there's not really any, um, really cool photo books on capturing the, the real beauty and spectacle that is the Monarch migration. Um, so you'll see, there's, uh, you know, you go on Amazon and Google Monarch migration book and you probably won't see it on the first page, but if you do it with my name, I guarantee you, it's the first thing to come up. I think it's just called the, um, the Monarch migration, a journey through the Monarch butterflies, winter home. It's all about what they're doing in Mexico. Um, I could write a whole another book and what they're doing in the U us, but it's all that overwintering
Speaker 4 00:59:22 Period, which is, is truly like the most beautiful, magical part of their yearly cycle. Yeah. I definitely want to get down there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:59:33 I don't even know it was a thing, like, that's the beautiful part about just being exposed to these natural phenomenon. You're like, I didn't even know I needed to see that, but I need to see that now.
Speaker 4 00:59:45 Yeah. Every nature person's list. I mean, it is unreal. Um, but you know, gosh, do it sooner than later. I mean, I, I, I don't think we're going to lose a migration. Uh, certainly not the Mexican one, but you know, as we talk about climate change, the butterflies can only go so high in the mountain to, to avoid rising temperatures. So yeah, I mean, I would say get down there sooner than later, um, you know, I don't think we're going to lose the migration. I think it's going to be a thing that's done this, especially the Mexican migration, the, the, the California one of course, because it's smaller. Um, it could fragment more, it could be sort of dangerous or, you know, more vulnerable. Um, but nevertheless, you know, as the climate warms, um, these monarchs go to very specific mountains that they can move up and down throughout the season to buffer for seasonal temperature changes.
Speaker 4 01:00:35 And they're already at the tops of these mountains. So if it warms up too much and they had to cool down more to gain altitude and cool down, they're already at the tops, you know, there's no more mountain to go to. So climate change could play a really significant role. Um, you know, there's, there's a fragmentation and cutting of the forest for agriculture. Fortunately, that has, that was historically one of the bigger problems, but that's actually been curtailed a lot via ecotourism. So it's a really positive thing there. Um, there's lots of habitat in the U S which is very dangerous as well. You know, I, I talk about those, those milkweed species, but, you know, I think, um, yeah, I think it's going to last for a good long while, but if, as a naturalist, as a nature lover, gee definitely get down sooner than later because we can't say anything's for sure, for sure. For certain. And it's like, it just it's that spectacular. You got to go see it.
Speaker 1 01:01:26 Absolutely. And I would definitely consider you an expert in this field for many reasons,
Speaker 4 01:01:35 Trying to think of the best way to say this.
Speaker 1 01:01:38 Why do you think, or maybe from your just expertise and know-how in the field, why do you think we're not further along in conservation? Why is there still such a battle to
Speaker 4 01:01:54 Like in the big picture? Like the big picture?
Speaker 1 01:01:58 I mean, especially when you S like what, from your years in the, in the field, why are we not further along,
Speaker 4 01:02:07 Uh, I'm, I'm going to say something you're probably not expecting. I, I think that we're doing a lot better than we think. Um, I think the real reason is coming and more aware and more and more knowledgeable how bad we got. Um, I think that, you know, the, the one cool thing I'll say about conservation these days is I think that regardless of, you know, current policies or new policies or current concerns or whatever, um, I think that, uh, we can say there are more people on a planet with more ideas, better ideas than ever like just straight numbers, more people on the planet than ever before that care about the environment. More people that care a little bit more people that care deeply. I think it's, it's, it's swinging in that direction. Um, a couple of things that are bad is that we have set ourselves up in this trajectory probably for the last, well, I mean, really for the last 13,000 years, but probably mostly for the last, like a hundred, 150 years and even more so in the last 60 years, it's, you know, we had the industrial revolution, we've got increased population.
Speaker 4 01:03:16 We've had this kind of golden era in like the fifties and sixties where we just wanted to produce and have a better income and that our lives develop world and people get richer at all costs and all expenses, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and I think, you know, once those decisions have been made, if you were to like, think in a weird scifi movie, you know, if, if no other things had played out, like where would we be in a hundred years from then the deed was done once we made those decisions, like the world was going to look a certain way, but I think we, you know, we we've gotten woke to the planet. Um, we've figured things out because people, more people care, more people are getting out in nature. More people realize how fragile, how precious, how beautiful it is. And so we, we are, we're improving at a very positive rate.
Speaker 4 01:04:04 The problem is, is that we made decisions from Jerry since it might not even be alive anymore, that set us downhill. So like our, our breaks are, you know, it's hard to figure out like, are we playing the brakes? Are we going back uphill? Or we it's all metaphorical of course. But the gist is, is that I think, um, we are pretty far along. I think that it might be difficult to think we could instantly improve. Like I, when you say, like, why aren't we further along? It's like, I think because we did so much damage and we're now learning how much we've done. Um, yeah, we just didn't know it. We're learning it. And now of course you can, you can look at a lot of things like, you know, various laws or whatever there've been removed first, or, you know, how we're, we're dealing with, or not dealing with the EPA, how we're opening Arctic national wildlife refuge.
Speaker 4 01:04:57 And like, those, those are bad things. Like, we shouldn't be doing those, we should be trying to improve. Um, but I really think it's, it's stuff that's happened decades ago and, um, the world, what, what progress we've made in the last few decades, I think it's actually pretty notable, you know, w we've done some good things. Um, so that's the big, like, Whoa, didn't think he was gonna say that. Like, I, you know, I, I thought we pretty magic. Yeah. I mean, we're things are, they're not good, but like, there's a lot to be thankful for it. Like I'm reading this great book right now called fact fullness, which I recommend for anyone out there. I mean, honestly, like it should be required reading. Um, and one of the major points he makes is that, um, things can be, uh, what does he say? Things can be bad, but getting better at the same time.
Speaker 4 01:05:51 Um, and it said over-simplification, but it's like, you, you can, they might not be perfect, but they might be going the right direction. You gotta be thankful for that. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think every generation that goes by things are definitely beginning better. We just have to stall the deterioration as much as possible, because if, if we could just say, okay, all the best stuff we've ever done halts tomorrow, and like our trajectory of, of care and wisdom and, um, proactiveness and environmentalist, if that were to still go, we'd, we'd be sitting pretty in 50 years, but it's that we're still on this, like this mind cart is just descending deeper because it's a heavy cart that we put on this earth with, with a lot of feedback cycles and whatnot. Um, it, it's hard. You can't pause that so you can be getting better and also be bad at the same time.
Speaker 5 01:06:47 No, that's really good. I think that's a very insightful perspective that, and this is like a really good book,
Speaker 4 01:06:56 So good. It's actually a really good breath of fresh air. Um, it's called, um, factful minus 10 reasons why we're wrong about the world and why things are better than you think. And it's like really inspirational now. Not like sugarcoating, anything. Like, we all know people listening to this, you're probably on the same page. Like we're, we're in a bit of a triage situation. Um, but I like that, you know, if we look at the long game, we're doing a lot of stuff, right. Not enough. There's always, but you know, you can always do more. But, um, I also, you know, half the reason I'm saying this is because I think that the way to inspire and encourage people is by having hope not the other way around. I think it's very, very easy to get on my knees. And you say, yeah, we're too far along, you know, you know, go, go, just ride out this storm and go down with the ship. Like, no, no, no. It's things it's possible for things to get better.
Speaker 5 01:07:57 That's great. Thanks for that very good perspective. I love it. It's right up my alley. So for you, this is more of like a personal question, I guess. Um, what would you define as success for you and when you feel like you will have achieved it?
Speaker 4 01:08:18 Oh man. Um, so there's a small private Island into Haiti. I had my eye on, um, it's called core Topia. It doesn't exist yet. No, I'm kidding. I don't know. I mean, that guy late, that's been again, be like, you know, that's like something you grapple with. Like, that's that man? Um, I'd say I have been successful. I'd say if you rest on your laurels, then you might as well hang it up. Um, I'd say you gotta have fun and you gotta be inspired and be impassioned by what you're doing or else you're never going to be good at it. And you're never going to inspire the next generation or the people that you talk to. So you gotta have this, like this big mix of things, but yeah, I mean this idea of like ultimate success. Like I think if you, if you have the mindset that such as even achievable, you, you might not be on that path to even get there.
Speaker 4 01:09:15 You know what I mean? Like, I think the most motivated, uh, like objectively successful people are those that like never quit. Like there's just always something more to do. There's something more to learn. There's something more to explore. There's something more to, to figure out there's something there's more people to inspired. So, um, yeah. I think the only you don't want, like, yeah, that's, it's, it's a such a deep, hard question. Um, I, I think I will always be successful and I'll never be done. Um, that, that, that, that's the answer really. It's like, you know, I think, I think, yeah, I've, I've been doing it, I've done it, but like, it's never, it's not done. It's like you, um, just cause it's like, it's the hunger that gets you there on the first place that I think propels you all the way up the mountain or down the mountain, whatever metaphor you wanna use.
Speaker 5 01:10:06 Yeah. It's like one of those questions that you go on, like a 10 mile hike and you contemplate for a long time, like what is success to me? And everybody's definition is different, which I really love success isn't necessarily the dollars in your account. You know, it's a lot of different things.
Speaker 4 01:10:25 No, I would argue, I would argue that probably the biological definition of success is leaving a legacy. Um, and I have a paper, not essay paper, a blog that I wrote, um, on my website, you can read it. I think it's kind of like weird and funny. I just, I wrote it at a Truckstop before guiding, um, Kane's trip one time, but basically it's the idea that, um, you know, if you've ever read any like Richard Dawkins stuff, like selfish gene or river out of Eden, you know, you know that like, it's, you know, it's our genetics that flow like a river through time. And I think that our genes are basically telling us what to do, you know, in a weird kind of like physiological biological sort of way. But I think that, you know, what we're really trying to do, um, is live forever. I think our genes are trying to live forever through the population. I think they kind of tell us to do that. I'm probably probably going down a weird deep dark rabbit hole now.
Speaker 2 01:11:20 No, keep going. You're a scientist.
Speaker 4 01:11:23 Well, I think that, you know, we're trying to live forever. We haven't figured out to do how to do so. And so there's a couple of ways we can do do that. And I think it boils down and leaving a legacy. And that might be, you know, having kids that keeps her genes going through the population, or it might be having your name on a university football stadium that keeps your name alive forever. Um, so I think that like, if we're really trying to think about like what may be some underlying motivations for a lot of people are, it's this idea of leaving this legacy that you will never you'll live forever. You like, you'll always be relevant. You'll always be part of it. And I actually think that's a big motivation for a quest for stardom and fame. I think it's a big motivation for why people do what they do. Uh, I think it's a big motivation for social media. Everybody's trying to get their 15 minutes cause they're trying to stay relevant. They're trying to stay alive. They're trying to make a name for themselves that will last as long as possible. Um, hard to do, but anyways, so two very different answers. I think that might be like this weird underlying thing. Um, but yeah, that's where I'd go back to like, nah, don't think too much about it. Be happy, have a purpose, um, be prideful, get the job done, have fun stories that sell enjoy.
Speaker 2 01:12:39 What sort of legacy are you leaving? What's your legacy you want to leave?
Speaker 4 01:12:43 Hmm. I don't know. Maybe like inventing like a really good infomercial product. Like something like scratches your back, but also cleans your glasses. I don't know.
Speaker 2 01:12:58 Like,
Speaker 4 01:12:58 So I thought of this and like I went down this again, like when I was writing this and thinking, I still think about it. It's like, I truly believe that's the thing, but like, I don't want to think about it too much. I kind of want it to be a Nate. I kind of want to just still go through every day. And so I think if you, if you consume yourself too much with it, you know, I don't think our jeans are right. I don't think our genes really cared about our happiness necessarily. Um, so yeah, try not to listen to that instinct too much, but I, I do believe if you start to distill a lot of major decisions and a lot of the quest for power and a lot of quest to be a famous football player or be president or be, you know, the next fortune 500 CEO, I think it's using your existing skillset to try to make yourself famous, to try to leave that legacy. Um, so yeah, I'm going with like backscratcher eyeglass cleaner. I think that's a winner.
Speaker 2 01:13:55 Well, you're so innovative. I will totally invest in your back scratched glass cleaner. Oh, that's hilarious. That's great. Awesome. Yeah. And so is there any last questions
Speaker 1 01:14:12 That I ask?
Speaker 4 01:14:17 So the chickens have large talents now? Um,
Speaker 1 01:14:23 God,
Speaker 4 01:14:26 I mean, you know, that's kind of said my piece, you heard the life journey, you heard, um, my weird hippy dippy ramp on legacy. Um, you know, most of me by now,
Speaker 1 01:14:41 What is your final ask of anybody listening? What's one thing, if you could get everyone listening to do or think about what would that be?
Speaker 4 01:14:51 So kind of like my, my first answer, maybe I'll think of something better in a second, but like when, when I think of conservation, um, I think of like how to save the world and all that sort of stuff. It's like, no, this is, this will be my goal, my answer. And I don't, yeah, don't wait for the next one. This is it. This is final answer. Um, but it's two part. So do whatever you do best and do it for conservation. So, you know, if you want to be a conservation, maybe, maybe, you know, maybe you're listening to this because you want to learn how to like for conservation, hopefully not, but like if you want to be a conservation is do every, you do best. If you're a great writer, do it, do writing for great photographer. Do that. If you're a great guide, do that.
Speaker 4 01:15:35 If you're great activist, go do that, go protest, go write your congressperson. If you're a great social media poster, do compelling content on social media. Like everybody's good at something for good philanthropist. If you're a great business person that maybe has the capital to donate it, like that's great, everybody's got something they can do, but then do it and think about like, well, how do I apply this to conservation? And that's probably going to be how you individually are gonna be most successful, most powerful and do the most good for conservation is by doing something you're already really, really good at otherwise. You're, you know, like the whole idea of like, everybody should give as much money as I can like that. That's maybe not the most impactful way. Like think of like think beyond that. And then the other bigger picture thing is I think if there's one way we can all flip the switch on conservation.
Speaker 4 01:16:22 And like I said, I think, you know, there's a lot of reasons for optimism, but you know, we, we do need more is we need to create a culture of sustainability. And this is why when I hear of, you know, the whole plastic straw initiative that swept throughout the U S and the world a couple of years ago to basically get, you know, to, to straw shame and to get straws out. I love it. I think it's great. Um, I also know that plastic straws account for like 0.0, zero 3% of plastics in the world. So it is very much a drop in the bucket. Like it doesn't solve ocean's plastic problem, but it does in a way because it gets people thinking about it. And what was sort of miraculous about the initiative is that it, it hit the right points and it hit the right, uh, thought messaging and it hits something that's doable and it hits something that was interesting to do and a talent to instigate others to follow.
Speaker 4 01:17:15 And it changed the culture on something. And I think what we need to do is think about that in a broad picture is that, you know, if everybody can be thinking of conservation, a cultural sense, we're going to have bigger and better innovations all the time. If we stop thinking about conservation, it's not part of our culture. And our culture is just to, you know, burn excessive oil and gas and to mine to get more gold and copper and materials, and to constantly buy this and replace that and have bigger this and more of this, like
Speaker 1 01:17:46 It's, it's kind
Speaker 4 01:17:48 Of, it's going to be hard to reverse that. So I don't have the answer of how to create culture, sustainability, culture of conservation. But I do know there, there are places in the world that I've visited where there is that. And the best example I've found is, is Costa Rica. Costa Rica very much has a culture of conservation where like the vast, vast majority of people, like 90% think about conservation. They're always thinking about like, well, how can we less waste? How can we use less carbon? How can we do this, that, how, how can we instead they're innovating and they have these incredible mandates, incredible goals, like be a carbon neutral company, a country by a certain day. I don't, I don't know exactly when, but like that's kind of level of their thinking. And so when everybody kind of buys in this culture of conservation, you can do so much bigger things.
Speaker 4 01:18:34 Um, and it really just comes down to the basic idea of being a little bit more fluent in the conversation of conservation using a lot of like conversation conservation, where it's here. But the idea is if you can get more time to think about it, if you can talk more about it, if it becomes normal to not get a straw, it can become normal to not use a plastic sport. It can be normal to choose a slightly more efficient fuel. It can be more normal to not always buy the latest and greatest of everything. And it's like this baby step to big step to like, you know, moon landing step that we can ultimately do, but it's not going to happen unless these little incremental victories are talked about. And that's where I think, you know, the strong example of such a great example for how we really can change the culture of our world. Um, in relatively little time, it just has to be done and it takes,
Speaker 1 01:19:33 No thank you for that. That was good. Yeah. That was really good. And if anybody wants to connect with you, what's the best way for them.
Speaker 4 01:19:42 So, yes. Yeah, I'm, I'm sort of active on online and whatnot. I do have a website it's just court, waylon.com. Probably the best way to get ahold of me is to email me. Um, it's court at court, waylon.com. I'm also active on Instagram court, underscore Whalen. I'm assuming the spelling of my name will probably be somewhere within this podcast, but I'll make all the same spelling. Um, and yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure you probably going to have a way for people to reach
Speaker 0 01:20:08 Out to you and you know how to get ahold of me too. So yeah. I'd love to continue the conversation with anybody out there. Awesome. Well, this is great. Thank you so much. We'll have to do another one for sure. And go onto the next one. Absolutely looking forward to it. Well, thanks everybody for listening out there and thanks to you, Brooke, for, uh, organizing all this
Speaker 5 01:20:30 For listening to this episode of <inaudible>. If you'd like what you heard hit that subscribe button to never miss a future episode, do you have an environmental organization travel story or research that you'd like to share? Let me know <inaudible> dot com until next time friends to get it. We will. Rewild the planet.
