Green at Google Presents Dr. Claudio Campagna & Dr. Caleb McClennen - Oceans

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>>Winnie Lam: Hello everyone. Iím Winnie Lam. Thank you so much for attending this
talk about oceans. We have two esteemed scientists here with us from the Wildlife Conservation
Society whoís gonna tell us about our oceans. Weíve got Claudio Campagna, Doctor Claudio
Campagna, and, um, Dr. Caleb McClennon both from the Wildlife Conservation Society. Dr.
Claudio Campagna is the leading scientist of the Wildlife Conservation Societyís Patagonian
Sea Program. He specializes in the biology and conservation of marine mammals. In addition
to having published five books and 60 scientific papers, heís also been the scientific advisor
for the BBC and the National Geographic Channel. Heís gonna talk to us about our oceans. And
Dr. Caleb McClennon is the Marine Conservation Director at the Wildlife Conservation Society.
He works on improving our fisheries management globally so that we can conserve marine biodiversity
worldwide. And for those of you who are here to hear about the trip to Belize, heís gonna
talk to us about that. So without further ado letís give a very warm welcome to our
guests, Dr. Claudio Campagna and Dr. Caleb McClennon.
>>Caleb McClennon: Thank you, Winnie, and thanks everyone for taking some time out of
your busy day to be here with us. So, as Winnie mentioned, weíre gonna go through a bit of
some of the most fascinating places in the worldís oceans today, some of the challenges
we face and then some stories of hope that where weíre working and other people are
working to make a significant difference in improving the health of the oceans. And we
wanna focus, specifically, on the Patagonian Sea, a place where Claudio has spent close
to 30 years of his life working to help, to help save and with remarkable progress and
I think really an inspiration to all of us that we can make a big difference out there.
And then finally Iíll close with just a short summary of this opportunity that we have to
host some volunteers in a Glover's Reef Research Station in Belize and provide you a bit more
details about that opportunity and then weíll have some time for questions. So thank you
all and itís really a pleasure to be here at Google. So, when we think about the oceans
and what drew you here or what inspires people to think about caring about our seas. Everyone
has some sort of image like this in their heads. For me this is diving, actually at
Glover's Reef in Belize with two different species, a Bottlenose and a Beak dolphin,
swam side by side next to me and just blow your mind away in terms of taking you away
from humanity and bringing you into the sea. So all of you probably, from some part of
your life, have your own image like this where youíve connected individually on a personal
level with some species in the sea. And if you havenít, it will happen and it will really
be fantastic. So thereís these moments that are inspirational, thereís also vast ocean
ecosystems that have tremendous biodiversity. This is from Bunaken Reserve in the heart
of the coral triangle where you have 600 species of coral reef, 3,000 species of reef fish.
For people who have been there and have seen it, itís like no other place on the planet.
Itís the center, the center of origin for marine biodiversity on the planet, a place
that is beyond comparison. This is in the center of Indonesia in the IndoPacific coral
triangle. So the oceans have this fantastic biodiversity, this fantastic wildlife, these
incredibly important ecosystems but as we know, the oceans are also critically important
for the livelihoods of tens of millions of people around the world. They provide critical
seafood for over a billion people on the planet. Ninety percent of fishermen living on the
planet are depending on oceans in small scale aspects like these. These are two fishermen
off the coast of Madagascar, living on one or two dollars a day, 100 percent protein
for their families is coming from the sea. So the sea is not just some fantastic aspect
of biodiversity for us to go to vacation to and see, but is an elemental part of coastal
livelihoods throughout the world. And this is really an important essence of the oceans
to also remember. So when, on the other side of fishing from the sea, thereís also as
we know, and probably people have heard far too much about, the over-fishing crisis that
we face on the planet. We have trawlers, trawling in very close to the shore line in places
that have almost no rules, taking in bycatch of marine turtles and dolphins and over harvesting
too many species without any sort of regulations. We are now importing far more seafood from
the developing world than we produce in the developed world. We are inadequately managing
our fisheries and taking them from places we have no idea with the population structure,
how much fish we could possibly take out of the ocean. So thereís a significant challenge
that is the industrial scale fisheries that are increasingly moving into resource-poor
and governance -poor places. An articulation of this is the crisis we face with shark finning
and shark fisheries today. We woke up to the whales in the early part of last century and
we started an international commitment to saving the great whales on this planet. As
a result, around the world whale populations are rebounding. In 1970s, we woke up to sea
turtles and as a result many sea turtle populations around the world are rebounding. Today, weíre
waking up to the shark finning crisis. WCS research that we had done in the last decade
indicates that between 40 and 70 million sharks are taken, a year, from our oceans. Almost
none of the shark populations are assessed, almost none of these fisheries are controlled.
This is a species crisis in the oceans of our day. As we, as was articulated two summers
ago, oil and gas extraction and is moving, has moved into the Gulf of Mexico and is now
moving off shore to a number of countries around the world. This is a National Geographic
map of oil infrastructure in the Gulf moving out to about 150 miles. This is physical infrastructure
in the ocean. When you look out in the ocean off the coast of California, you see almost
none of this physical infrastructure because thereís moratorium in oil drilling. The Gulf
of Mexico is a very different story and the waters of a lot of countries around the world
is a very different story in terms of oil exploration This is changing the way we think
of the oceans. Weíre thinking about it as a space; a space to be used and a space to
be managed in a way that we only thought of possible on land before. In some places, the
rule of law for the oceans is also incredibly challenging; such that people are using dynamite
still to fish or to collect coastal aggregate materials for construction. This is a photo
I took in the Marshall Islands, where I lived for four years working for their government,
where theyíre still using reef resources for mining materials because there is no other
resources for construction materials. So the physical use of near shore reefs is another
significant challenge we face. And then finally, as we all have heard from many different angles,
but we cannot mention the oceans without describing the situation of climate change and its impact
to the oceans. This is a reef in Aceh in Indonesia a year ago prior to, a year and a half ago,
prior to the bleaching event that bleached out 100 percent of certain species of corals,
in a site where we worked. So the white is what happens to corals when all their symbiotic
algae is expelled and if the temperatures do not decrease after a few weeks, the corals
die, and thatís what has happened in Indonesia. It happened in a lot of places around the
world when temperatures were elevated. So, like many ecosystems, the global impact on
climate change is also a considerable challenge. This all being said, there is significant
hope in the oceans like there has not been before. There is a changing mindset in people
and in countries around the world to try to find a way to better protect, better manage
your fisheries, expand protected areas out in the oceans, ensure smart growth as opposed
to unregulated growth of extractive industries and invest significantly more into scientific
research and understanding of the vast waters of our planet. Weíve invested a lot of money
and time in understanding domestic waters of the US. And now a lot of that is changing
to expand throughout the world. Just to point you out a bit of where we focus is that thereís
three centers of marine biodiversity in the planet. Basically the western edge of ocean
basins, so the western edge of the Atlantic is the Caribbean, western edge of the Indian,
the western Indian Ocean and the western edge of the Pacific Ocean, these are the hearts
of marine biodiversity. Areas that are generally very nutrient poor but have vast coral reef
resources. So these places are, in a planet that is covered 72 percent by ocean, some
of the most critical places to work to expand in protected areas and improving fisheries.
There are also some places, again, along the coast, where the greatest amount of productivity
is happening on the oceans, where 90 percent of marine life is existing in the coastal
zone and you have huge aggregations of coastal wildlife. The Congo basin coast in Central
Africa has the worldís largest population of Leatherback Sea Turtles. For folks that
have seen Leatherbacks, theyíre talking 9 feet long, these creatures that are extremely
vulnerable, the last, the largest population in the planet lives here and is doing very
well. The Bay of Bengal has the worldís largest population of Irrawaddy river dolphins and
coastal cetaceans . But the government of Bangladesh, one of
the poorest countries on the planet, just put in a protected area to protect a whole
slew of the population of river dolphins that is bigger by a factor of ten than any other
population on the planet. And in the Arctic, between Alaska and Russia, which is experiencing
incredible impacts from climate change and receding of ice, there was an effort to continue
to protect walrus populations, ice seals to manage through this change and the indigenous
communities that actually depend on these resources to stay alive. And then finally
the Patagonia Coast where Claudio and a number of people who work for him and partner with
him are protecting the largest continental population of Southern elephant seals, penguins,
albatross, in a way, in protecting and restoring that abundance in a way that is unprecedented
around the planet. So there is incredible hope and incredible demonstrated success of
places where weíre improving the health of the oceans and saving a number of species
and ecosystems. Iím just gonna close with a few slides. Some narrow slices of anecdotes
that I think are quite interesting. These are several of our Indonesian staff working
together with some fisherman in Indonesia that previously had used cyanide to fish for
the live reef fish trade; to take reef fish out and bring them to restaurants still living
like we do with lobster. And itís just a delicacy in East Asia. We worked with them
to halt the cyanide fishing in exchange to pilot some agriculture programs where they
can more sustainably produce what the market is demanding. And as a result, they started
managing their fisheries better, thereís no more cyanide on the reef and the biodiversity
and the number of fish is coming back out. And theyíre economically doing better than
they were doing when they were using cyanide in the reef. So a win win, economically for
these fishers who are living on very few amounts of dollars per day and also for the marine
resource, critical in a place like Indonesia where you have 200 million people living in
an island country that is extremely small. Thatís a photo from Belize. These are Nassau
Grouper which are critically threatened throughout the Caribbean. Most of the spawning aggregations
of Nassau Grouper have gone ecologically extinct in the Caribbean because they come together
to breed, and thatís a very easy time to fish them. In Belize, the government of Belize
over the last thirty years protected all of the spawning aggregations of Nassau Grouper
and in some places such as Glover's Reef, weíve quadrupled the spawning populations
of Nassau Grouper as a result of protecting them where theyíre spawning and also more
smartly managing the fisheries in the areas where weíre not able to protect that species
alone. So a significant bounce back of a species that we thought may go ecologically extinct
throughout the Caribbean because of the tremendous value. And this, again, is taken at Glover's
Reef, these are magnificent fish. These are some guards working in Gabon in Africa. Thereís
a country in Central Africa, as I mentioned the worldís largest population of Leatherback
Sea Turtles. The government of Gabon created, about 10 years ago created a significant network
of terrestrial protected areas to protect this terrestrial biodiversity. And just now
theyíre committing, on the same side, to create a large network of no-take marine reserves
in the waters, to protect marine species, to protect fisheries and to ensure larger
protection for the overarching marine ecosystem in a country in Central Africa which is unprecedented
for Africa, so incredible hope for a place that has been generally under prioritized.
And now we get to Claudio Campagna and some of the work on the Southern Elephant Seal
and the Patagonia Sea. I think a story youíll hear from Claudio today in understanding these
animals and the understanding of what can be done to restore oceans. Not only in the
US but around the world is really impressive and needs to be replicated in nearly every
country. And so I will leave it to him to tell that story of success and continued possibility
for expansion of caring for and protecting our oceans that is unprecedented.
>>Claudio Campagna: Well, that image actually was helping me because this is being stretched
like that so the animal was looking a little bit larger. Yet, Elephant Seals are 5 meters
long and that was a particularly big one, so it was helping me but in the right direction.
Iím going to talk about one place in the ocean, the Southwest Atlantic of the way we
call it, Patagonian Sea. You have to imagine an area the size of the Mediterranean Sea,
more or less, 1.5 million, 2 million square kilometers. Most of these waters, the ones
Iím specializing in, are part of the economic exclusive zone of Argentina. However, these
waters were very well known in the 19th century because Darwin spent most of the Voyage of
the Beagle in that area; a couple of years at least. But today the Argentines, not necessarily
understand it. Argentina is not a country that understands ocean, oceans as much as
it understands tango and beef consumption. [laughter] Thatís not a minor issue for someone
that wants to do ocean conservation that requires people to understand what the ocean means
and to put value into that. This is more or less the way the world sees the ocean. We
just see the surface of the ocean. We donít have a very good understanding of what the
ocean means. And we see the ocean very close to the coast. We understand the ocean up to
here, basically. And then we donít understand much more. This is a kind of, I wonder, but
this is a kind of idea that I would suggest most people have about the ocean. Itís like
a little bit of a combination of reality and mythology. Itís a surrealist perspective
of the ocean. And there are good reasons. If you look at some of the ocean creatures,
they're very, very appropriate to create, to promote our imagination about creatures
that do not exist. Have a look at this Southern Right Whale or at least South American sea
lion. These dolphins, mermaids, people were thinking about these animals like that, or
monsters, it was not inappropriate, they were having that understanding. Just imagine ten
thousand years ago, somebody walking around the coast of Peninsula Valdez in Argentina
seeing these kinds of scenarios. People were having that perspective about the ocean. The
perspective that combines little bit of imagination with a little bit of reality. Then the scientists
came and we changed that perspective. But we start to see the ocean in a very cold way;
satellite pictures of productivity; of ocean temperature. We were capable of understanding
where most ocean production was taking place. But we started to lose sight of that mythology,
of that particular attachment that came from the heart that caused fear but also caused
inspiration. I think that the Conservation is trying to bring together both worlds. And
this is what we have been trying to do in Argentina. My work there is on Elephant Seals,
I work on these big creatures. What I do, what I started to do was to observe the social
behavior of these animals. You have a Northern Elephant Seal very close by. I strongly suggest
you have a look at that. What we were doing most of the time is we were sitting there
on the beach watching the behavior of these animals on the coast. But then in the mid
1980s, the technology was available to us, to understand what these animals were doing
when they were going to the ocean, at sea. Let me spend a second just to, okay, what
they were doing at sea. One thing that we did immediately is to put some recorders that
were telling us about the diving behavior of Elephant Seals. And the people that were
doing that work discovered that Elephant Seals can dive up to a mile under water. And they
can spend up to two hours without coming back to the surface. They are mammals; they have
to come back to the surface to get air. And this was being discovered in the mid 1980s,
really. With the Northern Elephant seal, he is very close by research by AÒo Nuevo doing,
working on AÒo Nuevo from UC Santa Cruz. At the time that was being done, technology
also allowed us to put instruments on Elephant Seals that told us where the animals were
located in the ocean. Iím talking the early 1990s. And we discovered these animals were
not find food very close, like 5 kilometers, 10 kilometers, 100 kilometers, but very far
away; 1,000 miles, 2,000 miles off the coast. So all the sudden, we were facing a completely
new challenge. For us protection, at the time, meant to do something when the animals were
on the coast, to create protected areas to protect their reproductive sites. But Elephant
Seals were spending 80 percent of their time in the far away ocean, in the open ocean,
in the deep ocean, in the international waters, places that were not protected at all. We
scientists, devoted to conservation, do worry about these things. Cause we donít see the
ocean like most people do when they just approach the coast for a vacation and they get all
the beauty, we are sensitive to that. But, unfortunately, you have a special perspective
that looks at the ocean with the problems that the ocean has. So when Iím in Patagonia
and I see a Magellanic Penguin, of course I see the beauty of a Magellanic Penguin,
but I have seen also many, many oil Magellanic Penguins so I want to do something. When Iím
working on Elephant Seals, of course I love the social behavior they have when they fight,
they get very excited about that, but then I see all the animals that are being entangled
because they get all these garbage in the ocean, for some reason, they just swim in
and there are nets around their necks. So, as conservationists, we have to face a reality
that many people donít want. Is this what, I think thereís an expression in English,
this is a gloom and doom kind of situation. People say, ìOkay, we want to avoid that.
We want to avoid bad news.î Unfortunately, we conservationists have to deal with that
because we want to solve those problems. When we were learning what Elephant Seals were
doing in the ocean we conservationists want to protect the areas where they are. That
means to protect the ocean. Imagine that the coast of a national park on land is already
a very difficult concept. If you want to create a national park in the ocean, how do you start?
Particularly considering that most people donít even understand the ocean beyond the
knee. So we need to establish, itís a communication problem, we need to establish that cause of
in the international community, in my case, in the Argentine, and Southern Cone community.
And this is what we have been doing in the last ten years and I will be telling you a
now, a little bit of a story about what the achievements were. First we started out, as
I was telling you, on coastal issues. And we created a lot of coastal protected areas.
A few years ago, the first coastal national park was created in Argentina. That was an
achievement and that was a result of long term research being done along the entire
coast of Argentina on many species. Of publishing papers, publishing reports, giving talks,
talking to the Government, all of that together resulted in the first coastal national park
of Argentina. And thatís something to celebrate. Another thing that happened very recently
is the creation of whatís called the Interjurisdictional Park. That is a park that belongs partially
to the province, the province of Chubut and partially to the federal government, the national
parks. They got together, they speak to each other and they decided to create a protected
area along the coast of Patagonia. Thatís a very positive result, a very, very encouraging
result. And protected areas like those, there are many. There are about 40 along the coast
of Patagonia. Some of them have been created in the 1980s with the work of the pioneer
people that went there to explore. Now weíre implementing more than exploring. And itís
happening, itís taking place, itís taking momentum. Itís a great time of history for
that area of the world, now, because many of the people that weíre trying to study
these animals; Iíll go back to that. Many people who are trying to study these animals
now have some power. Let me illustrate very quickly what I have said because perhaps you
will get some better idea, itís better to take home messages if I go very, very quickly.
Yeah. So I was here and I was saying, imagine youíre walking here along the coast
>>Claudio Campagna: And all of a sudden you see a killer whale stranded trying to get
sea lions. Well, the other beauty is not just about individuals, itís about colonies. This
is what you have in a temperate system, lots of animals gathering together, very important
because they are very vulnerable, very beautiful. Look at these black browed albatrosses. They
are reproducing in an island. I mean, I just have so many things to say. This is a colony
of Elephant Seals, where I work, that well, this is the way that scientists are looking
at these animals and these are another way. I wanna show you this, this is the distribution
of biodiversity, donít pay too much attention to it, but whatís telling you is that you
donít find animals equally distributed in the ocean. There are some places that are
really much worse in terms of protection that require much more work because, either there
are many more species or some species are so unique that if you donít protect them
they are not being protected. But this is the idea that I was telling you that when
how I feel when I do conservation work. I feel that there is some threat all the time.
When I see these animals, I think about that. Itís not occurring at this place, itís not
taking place but it did occur in the past. When I see these animals, I also see this.
This is still occurring today. Okay, thatís the image of a conservationist. We feel the
weight of trying to support wildlife and actually we are quite happy to do that. One of the
issues that we conservationists in the ocean have to deal with is fisheries. Look at this
boat, this boat uses all that light to fish squid. Look at this image. This is a photograph
from a satellite. Thereís more light there than in the city Buenos Aires, almost. And
this is about a thousand miles long. We're worried about these kind of issues; entanglement,
by catch, garbage in the ocean, but we are many, trying to solve those problems. And
we are there in the field every day. One thing that we do is science, satellite tracking
animals. This is one thing that I satellite track, look at that. Left Peninsula Valdes
went to the Malvinas-Falkland Islands, round the Cape, into the South Pacific open oceans
to the Fjords of Chile and through the Magellan Channel back to Peninsula Valdes. This was
a juvenile, those are the kinds of challenges that we face if we want to protect the ocean.
We have to come up with solutions to animals that use the oceans like that. And there are
many. There is not just the Elephant Seals, thereís several species of penguins, turtles,
etcetera. Look at what the dimensions there are using in the ocean. There are over a million
of square kilometers thatís why we have to think like that. Patagoniaís not just important
because of the resident species. This is an albatross that is reproducing in New Zealand.
After reproduction it crosses the Pacific, spends some time along the coast of Chile
and then goes round to the Patagonian Sea and spends the winter there and after that
goes round the world and back to the reproductive area. We put together, integrated all this
information into an atlas that is accessible in the internet. Please have a look at this.
Itís www dot atlas dash marpatagonico dot org. Youíll see the distribution of 16 different
species. And youíll find out how they compare to each other and you can put maps there of
productivity to understand why theyíre distributed like that. I was telling you we have created
protective areas. Let me give you an example. The examples I was telling you, they are coastal
protected areas, but we are promoting open ocean protected areas, this is the new concept.
Some of these open ocean protected areas do not need to be protected all year around.
They could be temporarily protected when they are very productive. Others have to be protected
in a way that move around, are not stable, itís not like the land. In the ocean, things
move so today youíre protecting this but this is moving with the current. So in three
months, youíre protecting this area. Those are the kinds of concepts that we are trying
to establish in the scientific community but also among the stake holders that are using
those resources. One of the very much open oceans, completely open ocean protected area
that was very recently created is in this particular area called the Burdwood Bank.
This is like an island under water and the bottom of this bank is unique. There are a
lot of, what we call, endemic species, species that you just find there. And we protected
a small portion of this, but itís a beginning and itís very positive one. Iím not going
to expect that you understand this slide, of course, and itís not going to look great
in YouTube but there is one issue that I think you will understand. These are a group of
fisheries called co-management fisheries. Thereís a paper published in Science or Nature
recently, itís Nature, they did an evaluation, social scientists did, an evaluation about
what was important for these fisheries. Why these fisheries were being successful. What
made them sustainable? First variable that explained that is leadership. The leaders
of those communities were capable of negotiating procedures, methodologies, approaches that
made those fisheries sustainable. Very close to that is protected areas, protected areas
do work. Of course, you need will in the community and this is what thatís telling you. So,
in conservation like in your field. leaders are critical. Individuals make the difference.
And this is our leaders in the field in WCS, particularly in Patagonia. There are several
and we have been working there for almost half a century, 48 years, since WCS started
to have a project in Patagonia. I think that I want to leave you with that idea. There
is hope, we are achieving results, we are facing huge problems but we feel that communicating
that will, we are going to convince people that there is another way of looking at the
ocean that has not been the old one with all the myths and itís not only the ones that
scientists use. There is one that people want, that combines knowledge with the heart, and
this is what we are trying to transmit. Thank you very much and this is the webpage I was
telling you, please search it. [Applause]
>> Caleb McClennon: So probably a number of questions for Claudio that we asked to combine
it all then weíll have question, answers about 5 minutes between the two of us. So,
obviously the creation, as you saw, there are almost 50 reserves along the coast of
Argentina over those years is unprecedented in the world and really congratulatory to
Claudio and his team. Iím gonna speak briefly about this opportunity that weíve put together
and Winnie has really been working with us to identify a way how WCS, that works in 60
countries around the world with thousands of staff in all these different places could
work with Google and one idea that came up was we have a few permanent research stations.
Research is really one component of conservation, itís certainly not the entirety, but there
are some research stations that we have and some of them are ongoing research projects
in places that weíve worked at 20 years or so can use some assistance in terms of monitoring
because it takes a lot of people power as well as thinking to monitor the state of the
ecosystem. So this is an island in Belize which WCS has owned for about 20 years. We
donít do a lot of land purchases in our organization but this is on Glover's Reef Atoll which is
one of the only Atolls in the Atlantic Ocean. So a Coral Atoll is a ring island with no
center, the center has subsided away so itís only coral growth keeping it above the sea.
In order to protect this place; which is one of the most important places in the Caribbean;
which if you remember the beginning itís one of the most important places in the entirety
of the Atlantic Ocean. There needed to be a fisheries base there for patrols. And the
fisheries department has to be actively out there and regulating the fisheries. As a result
almost a third of the atoll is fully protected and the rest is extremely well managed fishery,
uncommon for the rest of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. So the fishery department has
a small base here that they use, that they use for free with us, and then we have our
research station where we have about twenty bunks. And I guess part of this is to be very
clear what type of accommodations we have there, basically twenty field bunks for staff,
Iím sorry for visiting scientists, student groups and people that come through and assist
us with our research work. So this is just a photo of the island and, of course, we do
a lot of work on all the different aspects of the, a place we monitor coral reef annually,
spiny lobsters which is the critical commercial fishery interest, conch, different, several
species of grouper, we have a long term shark monitoring program, interestingly the shark
at Glover's Reef is one of the only populations in the whole Mesoamerican Barrier Reef that
has been stable over the last 20 years, whereas the rest of the areas has started to go down.
So itís, with all this monitoring has shown and been able to inform the success of our
work but also help us adaptively manage as time goes on. So in thinking through with
Winnie as a way we might be able to work together, we have a sea turtle monitoring project that
happens annually, itís coordinated with the fisheries department, all of work in Belize
and in all the countries where we work is done in coordination with the management authority.
And so the end of April we will be going out and require and need people to help us run
some transects and help monitor the entirety of the atoll for its resident sea turtle population.
So it turns out that we came to Glovers Reef for its robust biodiversity in terms of coral
reef and the fish populations were very healthy. Some of our sea turtle researchers, similar
folks to Claudio, leaders in their field, came in and did some work and identified that
this is a critical habitat for a lot of juvenile turtles. So for the last four years weíve
been running transects on an annual basis to identify and start monitoring that population.
Certainly not for 25 years, the way Claudio has with Elephant Seals in Argentina, but
weíre just starting to determine the relative importance of the place. So itís a great
opportunity to participate itís certainly not a vacation in that we need the help and
weíre not an ecotourism outfit, weíre a research and conservation organization. So
itís for anyone that is interested in signing up or learning more about it, it is absolutely
going to be some work that youíll be doing. And we need to be clear about that otherwise
expectations will be very, very far. What weíll be structuring the day like for folks
is half the day, we only have 8 slots, so we only have the ability, though the station
can take more people, we can only actively employ 8 people to be working on this and
we donít want to have a lot of people sitting around. So one half of the day will be participating
in the transect, the line monitoring for sea turtles, the other half of the day will be
to recover or recoup, actually maybe enjoy a little bit of the island. And this is one
island on the large atolls so there is several actual tourism outfits on the other parts
of the island that we will be able to find ways for people to have some time off. It
will be 6 days that youíll be out here on the island, then if you do decide to sign
up and have some interest in this and decide you want to see more of the country of Belize,
cause thereís fantastic rain forest, jaguar reserves, that would be on your own to stay
longer and arrange as well. Our team, we have a boat, weíll take you out to the atoll,
so about 40 miles off the coast of Belize and then weíll take you back at the end as
well. So itís a really, we donít have a lot
>>Caleb McClennon: of opportunities like this, weíre not an organization that is, this is
not part of our model of conservation, itís just this happened, Winnie was great. We threw
around probably twenty different ways we might be able to work together, this talk today
was one of them, and another was this trip which Winnie has been fantastic about trying
to find a way for us to work together. So, happy to answer questions about that, questions
about what you might see in Belize and then Claudio is here all the way from Argentina
as well, so I hope there might be a few questions about the fantastic work that theyíve been
doing there. Thank you very much for your time, itís been really great to have this
opportunity, we really appreciate it. [Applause]
>>Caleb McClennon: So if you have questions if you donít mind using the microphone so
people could hear you or you could, I guess, decide you donít want to be on the microphone.
[Laughs] >>Caleb McClennon: Yes.
>>Female #1: I just want to, yeah so you guys can hear me, exactly what kind of work [inaudible]
>>Caleb McClennon: So the timing youíll be spending, because youíll be split into groups
of four, so the time youíll be spending on [inaudible], youíll be out on a boat and
swimming, so snorkeling, not scuba diving, that would bring in a whole other set of complications,
snorkeling and we do linear transects swimming for identifying any of the sea turtle groups,
uh, species that are there. So we have greens and hawksbill and sometimes several other
species that come through. But greens and hawksbill are the primary. Um, so itíd be
about, uh, from when you leave the dock, our pier here, thereíd be about 4 hours out to
the survey site that we choose for that day, cause itís a random selection of sites throughout
the Atoll; thereís some statistical, no thereís very much statistical significance because
itís been designed by our ecologists. Then youíll be swimming transects for several
hours, moving around a few times, we do catch the turtles. Youíre not required, because
it is a physically difficult thing to catch the turtles, but we do catch them and if you
do we will tag them and we will have several, one if not two, satellite tags that weíre
hoping to put on if we get the appropriately aged turtle, so afterwards you build a follow.
Thereís a website called seaturtle dot org which freely allows you to monitor turtles.
So hopefully if things all go well and weíll have one we can tag with a satellite receiver
and be able to track after the trip. Then youíll come home. So youíll just have had
breakfast, be out for up to 4 hours, come home for lunch and then the afternoon would
be yours. There is, not extremely high speed Wi-Fi, but there is some Wi-Fi. I wouldnít
expect anyone that does a lot of modeling or anything like that would be able to do
that through the internet, but you would have some communication. And that part of the day
would be a bit of a break. Weíve got a great Belizean, our whole team that youíre gonna
be working with is a Belizean team. Our team leader, Robin Coleman is a PhD ecologist from
Belize and a champion for conservation there. And a whole set of the Belizean fishery staff
will be with you and we have about five permanent staff at this station who will be serving
you food, maybe as good as we ate today at Google, I donít know, those of you that go
can tell us, but great solid Belizean food to make sure that you donít waste away when
youíre out there. Does that help?
>>Female #1: Yes.
>> Caleb McClennon: Okay. Yeah?
>>Male #1: So you mentioned that Argentina is more about salsa and beef than oceans.
[Laughter]
>>Claudio Campagna: Tango. Tango.
>>Male #1: Oh right
>>Claudio Campagna: Yeah.
>>Male #1: Um but that this new reserve had been created, in the Southern part of the
ocean, does that, do you perceive that thereís a sea change going on that the people, the
leadership are bringing more there and accelerating?
>>Claudio Campagna: Yes. Very much, the head of the National Parks of Argentina today,
Patricia Gandini is a person that understands the ocean. She has been working with WCS for
a long time, she has a PhD, do work on penguins and she has been facilitating the process
of creating, not just national parks, but many interjurisdictional areas and I think
that makes a difference. Leadership, again, she understands that. Patriciaís boss, actually,
is a minister of the tourism in Argentina and he understands protected areas, very,
very much. And I think that we have some political will there that is aligned and is very important.
Peninsula Valdes, which is one of the most beautiful places on the coast of Patagonia,
the person in charge of Peninsula Valdes, [unclear] who is a secretary of tourism, is
a conservationist and is part of an NGO that I help create with her and other WCS people.
So things are happening because the Indonesians, now, are in the right positions to make things
happen and the Argentines are very sensitive. If, the sooner they are being informed about
an issue they respond. They donít want the penguins to be killed; they donít want the
penguins to be oil they worry. So I think itís a community that historically has not
been very much trained to watch the ocean but is very easily trained.
>>Male #1: One more question. This is kind of a softball but what, beyond coming and
counting turtles, what can we as people who care about the ocean, do to affect change
around the world and save the biodiversity of the oceans.
>>Claudio Campagna: You can help the NGOs that are doing ocean conservation, no, this
is more than that, itís much more. There are many, many things that you can do. First,
youíre a consumer of ocean products, even if you donít want; you are, in some ways
or another. Be a responsible consumer. Be aware that many fisheries are not sustainable
and that many species should not be consumed. Itís very easy to find Chilean sea bass here
and you have to be aware of that. Itís very easy to find shrimp in any cocktail, you should
be careful about that because shrimp causes a very high bycatch. In some places of the
world, one pound of shrimp, one kilo of shrimp results in ten kilo of diversity that is being
thrown away because it has no commercial value. So as a consumer you could really, really
do a lot. You can also spread the word. You have seen the finning problem, shark problem.
The world does not necessarily know much about that. Youíre educated people, you know that,
but many people donít. Be sure that you talk you integrate conservation in your everyday
discourse. Youíre, you know, as Caleb was saying today [inaudible], itís a castle of;
itís an intellectual paradise that would, that is a communication paradise. Make sure
that the world knows that there is an ocean there and that the ocean requires our support.
Many people of the world believe that the ocean is an exhaustible, I mean, cannot be
used up, thatís a wrong perception, we need to change that. You could help develop technological
tools. For example, to map areas or to create, to analyze, to do spatial analysis, zoning,
so you can contribute with the technical aspects of it. You can educate your children, your
friends; thatís extremely important. You could be part of some of our expeditions and
some of our work. Get involved in really obtaining the information.
>>Caleb McClennon: I should add that on Google ocean layers, that Google has supported, Claudioís
site is one of the first participants in providing
>>Claudio Campagna: Yeah.
>> Caleb McClennon: So there has been ways that weíve worked together as well.
>>Claudio Campagna: So and today I was just coming and all of a sudden we say [inaudible].
So the community of Google is sensitive to the ocean. I was very gladly surprised. And
of course Google brain could change the world in the way we see the ocean.
>>Caleb McClennon: Any other questions? Yeah? Stay here.
>>Claudio Campagna: Oh.
>>Male #2: I was wondering how you decided when, how much of your effort to put on protecting
the deep sea versus the coastline?
>>Claudio Campagna: Most of my life I dedicated to doing work that was helpful for coastal
protection, thatís what I did. And today the WCS in Argentina is still doing that and
in the Southern Cone because we also work in Chile very much. You know, there are some
areas of Chile that are extraordinary as coastal areas. The Fjords of Chile are unique. You
donít find those places in any other place in the world. So many, many people, most people,
most of the effort that we put there is about coastal conservation still today. It is required.
A proportion of us have the courage to move away from that specific need into another
perspective for which we did not have a big market. People were understanding that the
coasts had to be protected because you see the coast. You donít see the ocean and you
donít see the depth, the deep ocean. I have been leading what is called a Sea and Sky
Project, the name is suggesting that the way I think about the ocean and the sky, I do
think about the coast, of course, but Iím trying to promote these ideas of the deep
ocean protection, around the ocean protection. For me itís most of the work that I do. For
the organization, itís a proportion of that work that we what we do. The open ocean has
many problems as you might know, one is jurisdictional. Countries have a decision on the first two
hundred miles and there they could determine whoís coming whoís leaving what is being
done. Beyond the two hundred miles itís the commons, itís everybody owns it. There are
some laws but it is very difficult to enforce whatís going on. And fisheries today are
moving into that realm. Theyíre moving into international waters. There are a group of
people, and we are part of that, alliances of organization that are trying, organizations,
that are trying to understand what can be done to protect the international waters.
And a few things are being done and a few places must be protected. For example, sea
mounds. The sea mounds are very, are places deep in the ocean that are unique because
you have a flat ocean and all of a sudden you have something like that. And that creates
particular very sensitive places where you have a biodiversity that is only there. Those
sea mounds are being fished. So we need to protect them and there is a strong effort
into trying to do that because we donít even know the species that are there. So, as an
answer is, most of the work still requires to be done on the coast. Thatís a must, but
a few of us itís sustainable if a portion of us will move into the more challenging,
more experimental phases. But those experimental phases have to be turned into, not that experimental,
but into something more tangible very soon otherwise itís very easy to destroy this
small environment like a sea mound.
>>Claudio Campagna: Did that, does it answer?
>>Male #2: Yes.
>>Caleb McClennon: Okay, any other questions? Yeah, go ahead.
>>Male #3: Uh, Claudio a question.
>>Claudio Campagna: Yeah.
>>Male #3: Is the trip restricted to Google employees or what about qualified friends?
>>Caleb McClennon: For the moment, uh, if you sign up itís restricted to Google employees
just cause currently, from what Iím understanding of demand, we have more than 8 from Google
so we like to keep it that way. But if you are signing up and would like to make a note
that if it doesnít fill up weíd like to bring someone as well we can open up that
question if itís possible.
>> Female: [Inaudible]
>>Caleb McClennon: Sheís the boss so yes, there you go.
[Laughs]
>>Caleb McClennon: I should say, cause I notice a couple people are leaving, we had you stay
til the end of the hour for questions but if itís not apparent, I think it will be
apparent that if youíd like to sign up please go to that address and I think on this email
for the work, for the talk today , you saw thereís an address to sign up and weíre
taking applications or your expressions of interest until Monday and then weíre gonna
make decisions cause I know people will need to plan their personal lives cause itís the
last week in April. So if youíre interested, please before, on the Glover's Reef trip,
please sign up and put all of your information in to that address by Monday. We have a couple
more minutes for, uh, if thereís anything Iím missing just from folks? Okay. We have
two more minutes for people and then weíll take casual questions after.
>>Claudio Campagna: Let me just say one thing more about your question about what you can
do. Letís be in touch, letís talk because thereís some things that people have to understand
about what they want to do.
>>Caleb McClennon: Yeah.
>>Claudio Campagna: And we can help guide that. So I just gave you a general understanding
but, you know, if you want to talk about that Iím very open to discuss it with you and
everybody.
>>Male #4: Is the political tension between the Argentina and the Falkland Islands proving
to be challenging or do people find ways to work around.
>>Claudio Campagna: Yes. It is. It is. The war between the UK and Argentina in 1982 was
unfortunate. It is a problem that you can analyze from many different perspectives.
Certainly the political perspective is not my place to analyze that problem. I could
speak as an individual but from a conservation perspective it is a pity that that happened
cause now all of a sudden one ocean is being seen from many different perspectives and
that does not help. Cause the ocean does not work like that. So countries have to make
decisions on a regional level and a very large level. That problem is creating some issues
some dialogue has been interrupted. And now there are some developments that are taking
place in the Islands that Argentines donít decide about and thatís causing clearly tension.
I had the hope, I mean I have it, that perhaps the conservation perspective has an umbrella
that embraces that problem and puts that into perspective. But it has to, we need time.
And yes, it has been a problem. And for us has been a challenge to think in the open
ocean considering that situation, that jurisdictional issue.
>>Caleb McClennon: Alright. Well, thank you so much everyone. Thanks to Winnie for being
our host, we really appreciate and look forward to talking to you each individually or afterwards.
And thank you from WCS to Google and look forward to working together.
[Applause]