WEBVTT - Blue Carbon with Sanjayan 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:03.920 It is the hardest working habitat type on planet Earth. 0:00:04.040 --> 0:00:06.640 If I could be king for the day of the 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:09.160 entire planet, and there's only one thing I could do, 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:13.880 I would protect all mangroves. Globally, It's only found in 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:16.280 a very sort of a sliver of our planet. 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:19.280 Fucked. 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:27.200 Welcome to I'm fucking the future. I'm your host. Chris 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:31.520 Turney are a climate scientist from Sydney, Australia. Today, a 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:35.159 lot of people look to Silicon Valley venture capitalists and 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:38.519 the next big startup to solve the climate crisis. But 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:41.440 a lot of these solutions neglect the communities that are 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:45.000 affected most by the crisis. It doesn't have to be 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.640 that way. Actually, let me just say it should not 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:52.239 and cannot be that way, because the answers to this 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:56.320 crisis lie in our communities. That people have taken care 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:59.080 of this earth and there's a small parcel of land 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:04.200 or water on it for generations upon generations. They have 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:07.679 solutions and that's one of the reasons that our guest 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:12.160 today has been so successful. M Sanjan is an organizer, 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:17.560 conservationist and media personality whose passion for the environment was 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:20.880 instilled from an early age. Growing up in Sierra Leone. 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:26.240 He's the CEO of Conservation International, and global nonprofit that 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:30.480 does help protect more than six million square kilometers of 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:35.119 land and ocean across more than seventy countries. Today, we're 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:37.560 going to be focusing on a big part of this mission, 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:39.920 their work on the world's oceans. 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:51.320 We're fucking the future. We're a fucking the future. 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:59.400 Our oceans are a major and wildly underutilized tool in 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:03.240 solving the climate crisis, not just because they can strengthen 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:07.200 the resilience of communities, but also because the ocean is 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:11.800 a giant carbon capture machine. It draws down vast amounts 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:15.840 of carbon in the atmosphere and ultimately moderates for climate, 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:19.960 and it can do so much more. It offers the 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:24.120 opportunity to walk back from the precipice we face. M 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:29.400 Sungean is a biologist turned into national conservation superstar, and 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:33.240 because of his upbringing, he's particularly interested in using our 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:38.920 natural resources and water in particular to solve Earth's greatest challenges. 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.960 Sungan grew up as Sierra Leone in a small logging 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:47.320 and mining town surrounded by forest. 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.960 And here's the amazing thing about this place. This was 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:56.520 the place that David Attenborough got his start in television. Wow, 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:59.760 very first time you see Assinbourgh on TV, it was 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:02.480 in this not just in cyri Leone, but in this 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:04.240 community that. 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:05.160 I grew up in. 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:07.160 Good Grief, and I think it's kind. 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:08.960 Of remarkable that this tiny little town was the place 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:11.320 that he he sort of got going on television and 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:12.799 then I had the chance to do it. 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:15.560 At the time, Sierra Leone was home to some of 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:18.919 the most incredible forests in the world, so it made 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.880 sense that one of the world's top nature educators would 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:24.880 film their show there. And he wasn't the only one. 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:30.240 Gerald Double spent time there too. He's another celebrated British naturalist, 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:33.720 famous for his book My Family and Other Animals. 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:38.680 So Darrel gets to start in sirial Leone too. 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:44.360 Her first appearance on television isn't the same place. It's 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:46.080 actually kind of amazing, right. 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:49.920 It's incredible. You could imagine there's some producer there says 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:51.839 hang on, I did a job there. We could go there. 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:55.240 They used to call him, and when we were kids, 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:57.760 we used to hear about this guy that the local 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:00.000 people would call mister White. 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:03.480 In decades to figure ound. 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:06.920 Mister White was durrel o God because he was white 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:08.880 and because he had a white beard at the time. 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:13.360 So you've got mister White, David Dattenborough, and Lil Sanjan 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:17.159 all learning about nature in the same twenty mile area 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:19.479 totally covered in forest. 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:22.000 And my dad, here's an amazing thing. My dad at 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:23.839 the time was working for a logging company. 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:27.560 Before the logging industry got to Sierra Leone, more than 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:31.000 seventy percent of the country was made up of biologically 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:36.760 diverse forest, seventy percent. When European colonizes invaded the region, 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:40.800 they began exploiting these incredible forests for their timber. This 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:43.960 paved a way for a commercial logging industry to take 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:49.480 over the country. 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:51.960 So this company would go into the forest and cut 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:55.800 down one giant tree, loaded onto truck, that's how gigantic 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:58.640 these trees were, and then bring it back in. And 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:01.800 as a child, I would go in with them sometimes 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:04.559 and run up and down the log as the tree 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:08.000 once the tree fell down, and collect animals from the 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:12.679 canopy and bring them home, like chameleons and baby parrots 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:13.360 and things like that. 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:15.760 And then and you know, back then, we didn't have 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:17.839 a sense of the loss of the forest. 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:22.560 I don't really remember feeling really bad about the tree, 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:25.359 you know, because it just felt like a big frontier 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:28.760 and it felt like there was so much more Now 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:32.640 that same forest, it is one of the rarest forests 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:34.799 in the world now. 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:41.200 Heartbreakingly, less than five percent of our original forest remains today, that. 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:44.479 Upper Guineaan forest, there's only a sliver of it left. 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:50.039 It's got thirteen speeds of primates, pygmy hippos, a few elephants. 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:51.840 It's still there. 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:55.400 It's still that amazing biodiversity, but it's so much smaller 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:56.080 than it used to be. 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:59.479 Oh r, I forgive me, but we've really got to 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:11.279 discuss how terrible the global logging industry really is. Deforestation 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:15.400 makes up about fifteen percent of our global greenhouse emissions, 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:19.640 and yet this industry continues to grow. Much of a 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.800 wood that is cut down today is processed into sawn, timber, 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:27.960 pulpwood board, and wood based panels, and we as consumers 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:32.479 love process would. In the US, demand for wood based 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:35.839 panels has increased by eight hundred percent of the past 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:39.320 three decades. We simply can't get enough of it. It's 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:42.080 how we end up with fast furniture, you know, like 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:44.720 how your parents' dining room table seem to last for 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:48.320 fifty years and yours barely holds up after five. But 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:51.240 back when Sangan's family was in Sierra Leone working for 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:54.680 the logging industry, we really had no idea that the 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:58.760 commercialization of our trees would turn into fast furniture trends 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:02.640 on TikTok. But here we are. We're fifteen percent of 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:06.719 our global emissions caused by deforestation and a fast furniture 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:17.680 industry that's only getting worse. So Bat Desangean. He grew 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:20.400 up in this incredible environment where they were able to 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:24.360 save chameleons and watched David Attenberg get his start. Pret 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:26.320 you dream if for a kid is into nature, right. 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:31.400 He left Sierra Leone to study conservation biology under Michael 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.520 Soule at the University of California, Santa Cruz. 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:39.400 Michael Soule is often seen as the father of conservation biology. 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.720 He coined the word conservation biology, and he was really 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:46.280 a big figure and in really established the field. And 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:51.200 Michael at the time, I went to study cheatahs, you know, 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:54.600 like the African cat, right, That's what I really wanted 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:56.160 to study, and. 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:57.240 That would have been very cool. 0:07:57.400 --> 0:07:58.440 It would have been very cool. 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:03.280 But interestingly, very sadly, my project got canceled halfway through 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:06.080 because of some funding dispute, nothing to do with me, 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:08.280 nothing to do with the project. But I was studying 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:11.600 in Namibia, uh and there was money that was going 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:13.960 from the US to Namibia that got caught up in 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:18.680 some politics. My project got canceled halfway there, so I 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:21.040 had to quickly switch and find something because I was 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:24.080 on the student visa right so clock is sticking, you know, 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:26.840 my visa runs out, I'm getting sent back, and so 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:30.400 I ended up switching to study. You know a little 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:34.079 rat that lives underground. They're called gopherst If you ever 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:37.360 watched the movie Caddyshack, Yes, no money is off to 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:39.800 killing Gover like that's it, And that's all I knew about. 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:41.760 Go first. I've got a more important job. 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:45.680 I want you to kill every gopher on the course. 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:48.800 Check me if I'm wrong, Sandy. But if I kill 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:50.679 all the golfers, they're gonna lock me have to throw 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:51.200 away a key. 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:55.120 Go first, job, great kidnaped, Call first a little brown 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.160 furry rodents. You know my advice I actually gave me 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:00.360 you know Caddyshack and said, go watch this. 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:03.280 It'll tell you everything you know. And it's such a 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:04.319 depressing sort of story. 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:06.280 Because I was here here, I thought I was going 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:08.840 to go out there, you know, and know, live in 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.880 Africa with a land rover and my binoculars and my 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:14.600 khakis and you know, sipping a gin and tonic under 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:18.959 an efcresive, watching a spotted cat across the Serengeti. 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:19.520 And the plains of Africa. 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:24.120 And I end up instead digging in the dirt in California, 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:27.920 in the most boring part of California, which is the 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:31.080 agricultural region of California, the Central Valley. 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:33.240 But here's the amazing thing about the story, Chris. 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:35.960 You know, in doing that and being forced to do that, 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:40.720 I ended up meeting some amazing people. And I started 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:43.000 understanding that the people who lived in the Central Valley 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.320 of California had so much to tell me about the 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:49.880 land and about me, Except they weren't using words you 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:52.920 and I would use. They were using I was using 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.480 words that had to do with love. I love nature, 0:09:55.520 --> 0:09:58.440 I love the landscape, I love wildlife. They were using 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:01.800 words that had to do with value. You know, we 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:04.360 value what's going to happen the soil or fire season, 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:09.959 or the crops or when the first day of frost 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:14.679 shows up right, And it really opened my eyes that 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:19.120 the whole thing about conservation. I always thought that what 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:24.240 this field is about is how to protect nature. It 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.360 really isn't nature will take care of itself. It really 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:32.000 is about how to protect people. And when that turn 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:34.079 happened to me, it really made a lot of sense 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:36.800 because I do come from the global South and in 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:39.079 the countries that I live in and I work in 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.360 and Conservation International works in. If you want to make 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.640 conservation stick, it has to make sense for those communities 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:49.040 and those people. And that was my first glimpse notion 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:52.560 that these people who we have often seen as the 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:55.640 enemy could really be our allies. 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:59.280 We only shifted the frame through which we were talking 0:10:59.280 --> 0:10:59.959 about what we do. 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:06.280 This mentality and approach to conservation led Sangan to Conservation International. 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:11.000 Their mission is to protect communities by protecting nature. 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:18.840 You cannot get to a stable human friendly climate without 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:23.400 including nature. So not only is it an ally, but 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:28.040 ignoring it is not enough either. Without without it, you're 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:30.560 not going to get to the numbers don't add up, right, 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:32.679 And another way to put it is that even if 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:37.000 miraculously overnight all of our energy use becomes renewable instantly, 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.960 and I think we are heading in that direction, you're 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:44.839 still going to be, you know, aft because so much 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:48.319 of the carbon emissions that we get comes from our destruction. 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:49.400 Our war on nature. 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:54.400 One of the key priorities for Conservation International is preserving 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:57.720 and protecting the ocean because it has a critical role 0:11:57.760 --> 0:11:59.360 to play in carbon capture. 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:01.520 Now the shouldn't have been a bit ignored in that 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:05.559 whole equation. It turns out they're great at sequestrian carbon. 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:11.120 They're also incredibly important in buffering temperature itself. Like this 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:14.240 giant body of water is great at absorbing that heat, 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.679 and without it, we would be in a frying planet already. 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:21.960 I mean, it's amazing, amoun it's only ninety percent or something, 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:23.000 it's ninety three percent. 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:25.560 Yes, the valace amount of energy that hits this planet 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:26.760 gets absorbed by the ocean. 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.439 It's kind of mind boggling how we treat the ocean. 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:31.760 I don't think we should continue to put out fossil 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:34.480 fuel emissions. I think we need to get that to zero, 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:37.480 and get that to zero fast. But we also need 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:40.000 to do this other thing, which is protect and restore 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:40.880 nature at scale. 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:42.840 You can't do one without doing the other. 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:47.000 And you get great return on the nature side right now, 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:48.439 because frankly it's cheap. 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:53.000 Oceans are carbon sucking machines, and the seaweed didn't help 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:57.720 forest within. Oceans are spectacular at absorbing carbon. In my 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:01.200 home in Australia, I regularly swimming in the ocean on 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:04.120 the weekends, and as I swim for the sea grass, 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:08.240 I can't help but notice just how much biodiversity of 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:12.000 they hold. But behind the scenes, the water I swim 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:15.640 through and all the wildlife I admire is working over 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:19.520 time to save our planet. It's such an important part 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:23.400 of a global carbon cycle. Not to mention it might 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.880 actually be the cheapest carbon capture we have available to us. 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:31.440 I'd be willing to bet this. 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:35.000 It's probably the most carbon rich environment that you have 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:35.800 in Australia. 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:38.640 Those seagrass bet and that's very little. 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:41.360 You know, people don't really know that how important they 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:45.080 are for the world's future but also Australia's future. The 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:48.439 amazing thing about that also is that when I was there, 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:50.280 you know, I was studying I was. I was there 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:53.160 with some researchers who were looking at dogongs. Oh right 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:55.520 now that live on the coast of Australia. 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:58.319 If you haven't seen the do goong, please google. It 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:03.360 is absolutely the amazing do cele sea mammals. They're kind 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:06.920 of graceful, but Sanjin explains it far better. 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:10.640 Mythical the old sirens of the deep right. That's yes, the. 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:14.439 Mermaids legends came from the sea cow. They're very very threatened. 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:16.560 Now once upon a time in Sri Lanka you could 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:19.440 find them there. Now there's probably fifty there. Both sides 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:23.040 of Australia have dogongs. But it turns out that sea 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:27.640 grass seeds only really germinate if they go through the 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:31.920 gut of a dogong. So dougong poop basically is full 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:36.840 of seeds that are primed to germinate. If you just 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.160 take sea grass seeds and just plant them, the germination 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.560 rate is I think one fifth or one sixth the 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:45.960 rate you get when they go through the gut of 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.400 a do goong. So dogong's, it turns out, are incredibly 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:54.160 important carbon sequestration catalysts, if you will. So here's this animal, 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.840 this dozy thing called the sea cow that again could 0:14:57.840 --> 0:14:59.920 be part of the future of our planet. 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:04.200 Which brings us to the other big point of this episode. 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:08.200 Our oceans might save us. All the ocean suck up 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:11.240 twenty five percent or so of the amount of carbon 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.680 that we humans put up into the atmosphere, and that's 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:19.480 why Conservation International has made ocean conservation a key part 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:20.440 of their strategy. 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:24.840 If you don't have a healthy ocean, you are making 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:28.480 it impossible to have a healthy planet. When it comes 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:30.960 to oceans, we focus on three areas, you know. The 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:36.440 first is really creating marine protected areas. So only about 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:39.920 five percent of the oceans are actually protected at any 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.160 reasonable level, and that's far below the thirty percent or 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:46.400 so that we think we need. We are putting in 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:53.240 substantial funding to help create, better manage, and better protect marine. 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:54.560 Protected areas around the world. 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:56.760 So we want to go from five percent to ten percent, 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:59.720 which is about eighteen million square kilometers of ocean that 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:02.320 we want to add to the protected area network around 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:04.960 the world, and we're on a great pathway to doing that. 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:08.600 The second part of it is is restoration of core 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:13.840 reefs and mangroves. I would say that the third part 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:18.000 of this is fisheries. Right, So you know, three hundred 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:21.320 plus million people are directly dependent on fish in the 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:25.440 Pacific for their primary source of protein. It's incredibly important 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:28.120 to the GDP of many many nations. If we don't 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.040 find a great way to manage those fisheries resources in 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:33.760 a sustainable way, you know, the world is going to 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:36.240 be poorer. And some of these countries really just don't 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:40.680 have an alternative, right, no alteri. So, particularly in the Pacific, 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:43.360 we're very heavily involved in the tuna fisheries in the Pacific, 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:46.480 but around the world around coastal fisheries. You know, how 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:49.360 do you manage those fisheries better, How do you think 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:53.920 about aquaculture and make sure they're sustainably done, and how 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:57.080 do you make sure that you know, it's the last 0:16:57.200 --> 0:16:59.880 hunter gathering resource we have left, right, there's no other 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:02.840 There's not other thing that humans go out there into 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:07.720 nature and gather in large numbers of the old days. 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:12.800 People often forget that, don't they they're actually going out seafishing, 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:18.920 your hunting. We're still hunter gatherers scale right, It's amazing, 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:20.680 and so this is the last. 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:21.800 Thing we have to do, and you know what a 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:23.960 shame if we if we don't find a way to 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:24.480 do that right. 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:27.480 I want to go back to something Sanjan mentioned earlier, 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:34.000 mangroves and coral reefs. Now, coral reefs are greatly underprotected, 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:38.119 but we all know how valuable they are. They're biological 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:41.040 hotspots about the court of all marine life on the 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:45.560 planet living coral reefs. Plus they're crucial to local economies 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:49.520 which depend on the reefs for tourism and fishing. They 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:53.119 should be protected. But how often do you see people 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:56.720 shouting to protect our mangroves? I mean, do you even 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:58.080 know what a mangrove is. 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.960 It is the hardest working habitat type on planet Earth. 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:06.639 If I could be king for the day of the 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:09.160 entire planet, and there's only one thing I could do, 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:12.840 I would protect all mangroves globally. 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:14.960 It's only found in a very. 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:17.760 Sort of a sliver of our planet, A tiny, tiny 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:20.800 portion of our planet has mangroves in them. So they 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:24.240 are sort of an aquatic or a semi aquatic tree, 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:28.159 and they are fast growing for the most part, and 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:33.760 they grow in the boundary between salt water and land. 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:36.639 And when I was growing up, they were really seen 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:39.800 as just a terrible habitat. They're hard to get through, 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:44.280 lots of insects in them. They're basically in swamps right 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:46.240 right on the coast, and if you are if you're 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:48.200 trying to get to a coastline, if you're trying to fish, 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:50.200 if you're trying to do anything like that, you can't 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:53.439 get to the beach because of the mangroves. It's moist, 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:57.480 lots of bugs, and you can't really see the sea. 0:18:57.520 --> 0:18:59.200 You can hear it, but you can't see it from 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:03.920 lamb because you've got this big forest, this thick, intertangled 0:19:04.320 --> 0:19:10.160 network of aerial roots and tree cover, multiple species, all 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:15.160 twisted with one another, and then surrounded by water that's tidal. 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:18.280 So sometimes it's just mud and you step into it 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.520 and you're going to sink, you waste. Sometimes you have 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:22.520 to get in there with a boat. 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:27.000 Look, as someone who loves our planet, I've got to say, 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:32.280 even this is ridiculously understating how much people don't like mangroves. 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:36.359 They have this smell like stale water mixed with the 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:40.640 overpowering odes or rotten eggs. It's of a mistaken for sewage. 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:45.520 So safe to say they're not coral reefs. People don't 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:48.560 go on vacation to admire and take pictures of mangroves, 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:50.120 but they should. 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:54.600 They end up being incredibly important for humans and for nature. 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:59.160 So mangroves are obviously important because they stop sea level rise. 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:02.679 They protec coastlines from big waves. They're really good at 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:06.040 blocking waves. If you remember the big tsunami that hit 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:09.119 Asia back in I think two thousand and what is 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:11.280 it six or two thousand and four won that hit 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:16.320 Sri Lanka and Thailand and Indonesia, mangroves really did protect 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:19.320 some of that coastline and places that had mangroves were 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:23.240 protected and is that didn't lost it. They're also incredibly 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:27.840 important of fish because they're fish nurseries, and lots of 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:29.359 fish that you go out there and catch in the 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:33.080 open ocean end up spending their lives. 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:34.919 As babies sheltered in the mangroves. 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:39.320 And then they're really important for climate change because they 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:44.600 are fantastic at absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. So all 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:47.679 plants absorb carbon from the atmosphere, that's how they grow. 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:52.399 They're fantastic at doing this, it's called photosynthesis, and they're 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:56.000 just a giant carbon captive machine. Mangroves do it really fast, 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:01.120 and mangroves put all that carbon that they captured underground 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:05.040 and underwater. So what's good about mangroves is they're not 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:07.399 just capturing it in their branches and their leaves, but 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:09.880 they're really good at setting it all the way down 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:14.000 at their root systems, and that goes down six meters underwater, 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:18.040 right like under the mud. And so that mud under 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:20.119 the mangroves, if you ever dig into it, it's. 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:25.200 Dark black mud that is chock full of carbon, and. 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:28.639 It's like four to six times the amount that an 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:33.200 equivalent sort of chunk of rainforest would store. So hector 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:36.520 by hector, acre by acre, mangroves gives us the biggest 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:39.520 bang for the buck when it comes to capturing carbon, 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:41.440 and then they do all these other things as well. 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:44.200 So you know, my belief is that no mangroves should 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:45.200 ever be cut down. 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:54.400 But sadly, mangroves are still being attacked. 0:21:54.760 --> 0:21:57.440 They're still being cut down, and we should actually restore 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:00.560 mangroves to their former glory. And we have a big project, 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:03.320 a joint project with lots of other groups called the 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:07.760 Mangrove Breakthrough that is really trying to incentivize all the 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:10.520 countries of the world that have mangroves to protect them. 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:15.200 But that's not the only solution. Sangan and his teams 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:19.720 are also working with private companies to create carbon buyback 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:23.760 credits for promote for creation and protection of mangroves. 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:27.680 So we brought the first blue carbon project to market, 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:30.440 which was in Colombia in a project called Vita Manglare. 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:33.480 And in this case, one of the one of the 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:36.600 partners that came into to help us do that was Apple. 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:39.440 So you know, Apple's got a bit of a carbon footprint. 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:42.520 Now most of their footprint they're trying to reduce on 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:47.360 a track to reducing by reducing their emissions, reducing packaging, etc. 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:50.520 There's some part of the mission that is hard to abate, 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:53.360 and it's that part of that emissions that they're trying 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:55.600 to get ahead of the curve on and meet their 0:22:55.600 --> 0:22:59.720 goals sooner than they can do through industrial processes, and 0:22:59.760 --> 0:23:03.119 then doing that by protecting these high carbon ecosystems. 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:04.200 In this case, this. 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:08.240 Project, community run project on the coast of Columbia, which 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:10.040 is just this amazing mangrove. 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:13.359