Living Nature - More Valuable Than Dead Nature: How Seacology is Helping Island Nations & Indigenous People Economically & Ecologically

Seacology is a charitable organization headquartered in Berkeley, CA that works to preserve island ecosystems and cultures around the world, as well as conducting annual educational ecotourism trips. Founded in 1991 with the work of ethnobotanist Paul Alan Cox,  the high risk of extinction for island fauna and the decline in coral reef ecosystems drives Seacology's focus on projects in which villagers agree to help protect living nature for a specified time in return for things like new buildings, electricity, clean water, or other services - and they work with local businesses to make that happen. 

To date, Seacology has completed:

• 441 Projects
• in 70 Countries
• with 1.5 million acres protected

Plus, they helped construct new facilities and provided programs including educational materials, vital medical services, and environmental training. In addition to helping local people on islands like those in Fiji, the Philippines, and Samoa, their projects have helped protect mangrove forests, sea turtles, and one of the rarest primates in the world. Seacology also awards an annual Prize to indigenous islanders for their efforts in conservation and cultural preservation. It has won the United Nations Climate Secretariat's Momentum for Change climate action award, was nominated for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize, and was the top recipient last year of the $250K Lipman Family Prize for outstanding vision, inspiration and impact. 

During our conversation, he talks about the importance of local involvement in conservation efforts. He points out the importance of building trust with local communities, often through cultural exchanges and understanding. A key thread during our hour long conversation is the importance o

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Resilient Earth Podcast
• 1:36 Meet Duane Silverstein and Seacology
• 3:30 The Origins of Seacology's Conservation Model
• 8:15 Why Island Conservation Is Critically Important
• 15:10 Threats to Seagrass and Mangrove Ecosystems
• 22:05 Local Involvement and Trust-Building
• 29:15 Cultural Exchange and Project Success Stories
• 42:30 Government Funding Cuts and Future Challenges
• 56:30 Final Thoughts and Closing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

Welcome to the Resilient Earth Podcast, where we talk with speakers from the United States and around the world about the critical issues facing our planet and the positive actions people are taking, from the tiniest of actions to the grandest of gestures, so that we can continue to thrive and survive for generations to come. I'm Leanne Lindsey, producer and host, along with co-hosts and co-producers Scott and Tree Mercer of Mindenoma, whale and Seal Study, located on the South Mendocino and North Sonoma coasts. The music for this podcast is by Eric Alleman, an international composer, pianist and writer living in the Sea Range. Discover more of his music, animations, ballet, stage and film work at ericalamancom. You can find Resilient Earth on Spotify, apple and Amazon Podcasts, iheartradio, youtube, soundcloud and wherever you find your podcasts. Today we are speaking with Dwayne Silverstein, executive Director of SeaCology, a charitable organization headquartered in Berkeley, california.

Speaker 1: 2:00

Seacology works to preserve island ecosystems and cultures around the world, as well as conducting annual educational ecotourism trips. Island fauna and flora and the decline in coral reef ecosystems drive Seacology's focus on projects in which villagers agree to help protect terrestrial or marine habitats for a specified time in return for things they might need like new buildings, electricity, clean water or other services, and Seacology works with local businesses to make those things happen. To date, seacology has completed 441 projects in 70 countries, which has resulted in over 1.5 million acres protected. As we've discussed before, living nature is more valuable than dead nature, and Seacology is showing how this is done. At the same time, they have helped construct new facilities and provided programs including educational materials, vital medical services and environmental training. In addition to helping local people on islands like those in Fiji, the Philippines and Samoa, their projects have helped protect mangrove forests, sea turtles and one of the rarest primates in the world sea turtles and one of the rarest primates in the world. Sea College also awards an annual prize to indigenous islanders for their efforts in conservation and cultural preservation. The organization has also helped raise emergency funds following destructive tsunamis and other natural disasters. It has won the United Nations Climate Secretariat's Momentum for Change Climate Action Award. It was nominated for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize and was the top recipient last year of the $250,000 Lippman Family Prize for Outstanding Vision, inspiration and Impact.

Speaker 1: 4:28

Prior to heading psychology, duane Silverstein served for 18 years as executive director of the Goldman Fund, a San Francisco-based philanthropic foundation, where he oversaw the Goldman Environmental Prize, which takes place annually, and just happened in San Francisco again last month. Sea College operated as a volunteer-only organization until 1999, when Silverstein was brought on as its first employee. He has served more than two decades as executive director, served more than two decades as executive director and in the course of his work, silverstein has traveled to 184 islands in 74 countries. Having worked in island and marine conservation for 30 years, silverstein has authored 30 articles for newspapers and magazines such as Asian Geographic, ocean Geographic, fathoms, the Oakland Tribune and other publications. He has appeared in Scuba Diving Magazine, the Diver's Alert Network and the San Francisco Chronicle. In 2022, scuba Diving Magazine named Silverstein a recipient of its Sea Hero Award. He holds a BA degree from New York University and an MA from UC Berkeley.

Speaker 1: 5:51

During our upcoming conversation, you'll hear him talk about the importance of local involvement in conservation efforts, particularly in relation to seagrass and coral reef protection. He highlighted the need for education and practical solutions, such as eco-friendly anchoring systems for boats, to prevent damage to these ecosystems. Dewayne shares their ecotourism initiatives and responsible ecotourism practices. He also pointed out the importance of building trust with local communities, often through cultural exchanges and understanding. A key thread throughout our hour-long conversation is the importance of valuing nature for its ongoing services rather than extracting it for the short-term gain.

Speaker 1: 6:52

Just as we discussed with Ralph Chami of Blue Green Future in previous episodes, that's what our goal is here at Resilient Earth Radio to talk about the critical issues and positive actions that affect our planet and our ability to continue living on it for generations to come. I'm Leanne Lindsay, producer and host, and also I want to thank you so much for listening and supporting us. We join now the conversation in progress that we recorded this week, starting with the organization. Give us the scope of the projects that you've got going, when the organization got started, how it got started, kind of give us a feel for what Seacology is all about, and I'm again very pleased I met you at the International Ocean Film Festival, your organization, that is.

Speaker 2: 7:54

Okay, well, seacology has a very unique mission of protecting the habitats and cultures of islands worldwide, and let me start by saying how we were founded, because it describes very much what we do, and then hopefully you'll remind me to segue into why this is so important.

Speaker 2: 8:16

So many years ago let's talk about 30 years ago or so a Dr Paul Cox, who's an ethnobotanist who works with indigenous people to see if there are cures for illnesses in native plants and trees and things like that, he was studying the flora of a very remote village called Faliolupo, in what was then called Western Samoa now it's called Samoa and after he was there, living amongst the local people for a few weeks, he heard the earth moving equipment come in to start to cut down a 30,000 acre pristine rainforest.

Speaker 2: 8:56

And Paul Cox, who happens to speak about 12 or 13 languages, including many languages of the Pacific, went and asked the chiefs well, what's going on? Why is this happening? And they told him that the government of Samoa told them if they didn't build a better school the school at the time was a ramshackle hut really about to fall down that they would remove the teachers and there'd be no local education for their kids. Now, it doesn't matter what background you come from rich, poor, whatever continent, whatever color everybody wants their kids to have a good education. So they thought, and they thought, and they said how can we fund this school? They were on a barter economic system, so the per capita income annual was $100 per person, so there's no way they're going to build a school.

Speaker 2: 9:54

So Paul Cox said how about if?

Speaker 2: 9:57

we build you the school, would you then, and gave you the money to pay off the loggers, would you then turn this 30,000 acre first growth rainforest into a permanent reserve? And they said yes, of course. And there was only one problem. Paul was bluffing, there wasn't a we at the time, but psychology was then formed, sort of on the spot, and the money was raised to build a better school. And also, psychology raised the money to pay off the buy out the loggers from their contract, and this is a really hands-on conservation. So one of the chiefs and you probably know the image of Samoan chiefs, they're very burly and muscular and all that he runs out with a machete to the loggers still working there and says in Samoan to them if you don't leave right now, you'll be dust of the earth, and that's what I call effective conservation. So they ran away Very effective, yeah, very effective. And psychology then provided the money to build a school and I've since been there and the school is quite nice. I mean it's about five or six rooms, it's large and it's got all the features you'd want in a school, at least in the tropics.

Speaker 2: 11:21

Originally the villagers said that okay, they're going to make this a 50-year term for this reserve. But they just liked it so much they made it permanent. So now 30,000 acres rainforest which would have been cut down is now preserved permanently and kind of at the same time, a a few people involved with psychology said okay, this worked so well here. It seems like a great model. Why don't we do this on islands throughout the world? This being this kind of win-win thing, we'll give you a school, because that's what you want, not what we say you want, and in return you set aside this forest or this coral reef or this mangrove area, et cetera, et cetera. So that's proven to be very effective.

Speaker 2: 12:13

The island villagers where we work love it. I mean, initially the reaction is you're going to give us something. We never get something, and you know. And then, if you ask them more, what will happen with you know, with other types of conservation organizations? They will say well, you see, we can't release the money to preserve this coral reef until we're sure it's one of the most threatened coral reefs in the area. So what does that mean? Well, we'll hire a scientist at $60,000 a year to come with more than the income of any entire village there, usually to come and do a longitudinal study for the next 12 years and then we'll decide if it's worth saving. And this is unintentionally, rather insulting to the local people In our view at psychology, if and this always happens villagers say gee, my father used to fish for my great-grandfather used to fish, for you know, three hours and have more than we could deal with, and grandfather five hours and more than we can deal with, and then my father's out there seven hours a day.

Speaker 2: 13:28

It's not quite enough. I'm out there nine hours a day and it's not even close to enough. That's proof enough for us. In fact, the reality is such a high percentage of tropical well, of coral reefs or tropical forests are threatened we feel confident that that's okay. That's enough proof that we need and we cut the deal, if they would like to, with the local villagers. Now let me take the digression I said I would, because I think it's very important for your listeners. Why? Why is psychology doing this and focusing only on islands? And there are a few shocking reasons. I think your viewers and listeners will be surprised. In recorded history, all of the history of this earth, 80% of all plant and animal extinctions have taken place on islands.

Speaker 1: 14:23

I noticed that on your website it's very important to understand and who knows?

Speaker 2: 14:27

that Nobody knows that I didn't before I started at psychology. Islands make up about 5% of the world's landmass and are now home to 40% of all critically endangered species. And for these reasons, and others like it, a biologist, storrs Olson with the Smithsonian Institute, has said the extinction rate on islands is one of the swiftest and most profound biological catastrophes in the history of the earth. That's so important. If you don't mind, I'm going to quickly repeat it, storrs Olson the extinction rate on islands is one of the swiftest and most profound biological catastrophes in the history of the Earth.

Speaker 2: 15:14

Now let me round that out with an anecdote or two because I think that it makes it easier for people to relate to this. The United States has one island state, of course, hawaii. Hawaii makes up two tenths of one percent of the landmass of the US and has been home in our history to 72 percent of all extinctions in our country 72 percent.

Speaker 2: 15:40

Two tenths of one percent, 72 percent. Here's one that's even more mind-blowing, and that's Lord Howe Island, which is a smallish island in the Coral Sea off of Australia. In its history, it has been home to more bird species and subspecies extinctions. Get ready for this Then Africa, asia and Europe combined. And there's nothing special in this regard about Lord Howe Island, it's just happened to have that statistics. So then the question is, why, and why this crisis on islands?

Speaker 2: 16:16

And it's up to the 18th century, islands were, as the word implies, very isolated. There was no contact with outsiders, certainly not with Westerners or whatever. So when first contact was made, introduced species started coming to the islands. So you have two problems here. You've got species that did not need to develop any protection from, let's say, rats coming off of the ropes of a ship. And the second problem is if you have a species of bird, let's say Asia, just to pick a random continent, very likely there'll be hundreds of colonies of them spread out, thousands maybe, or at the worst case, five or six or something like that. With small islands generally, there'll be one colony of this bird X, whatever the bird is, and so the rats come up the trees and start eating the birds. Or New Zealand that they don't even fly like the Kiwis and whatever, so they're easy pickings. That's it Then, with islands. More recently, you add other things that have come from contact, such as acid rain, global warming, introduced species I mentioned, and what's perhaps the most devastating is rising seas.

Speaker 1: 17:35

I was just about to say that too, because we talked with the president of Sea Turtle Organization, brad Mayhill. I heard that interview? Yes, right, so there are their nesting grounds.

Speaker 2: 17:47

Exactly and think of what this means for islands. First of all, a lot of people I would dare say maybe the majority think of climate change. The real bad stuff is going to happen in the distant future, and that's not true.

Speaker 1: 18:02

On islands.

Speaker 2: 18:04

It's happening now and one of the first bits of evidence of that are from rising seas. There's more intrusion of water when there's a storm and there's always storms in the tropics. So again you hear just you know, I've heard this many times from talking to local islanders that you know again about not that long ago, 40, 50 years ago if a storm came it would intrude 15 or 20 feet or whatever. And, long story short, now it's intruding an eighth of a mile or whatever, and that's really bad news. And again it's happening now. This is not a future thing. It's really bad news because there's a lot of spare room on many islands. So that means when the tides are getting higher from the storms, from the surges, that they're intruding on agricultural land and we're talking saltwater coming in, which means okay, can't farm on this land for another 30 years till all the saltwater is washed out. So it is happening as we speak, sadly.

Speaker 1: 19:13

And I would imagine too, because of the rise of waste around our world, especially accumulating on islands and lower income countries, plastic being a big part of that, that would also come in with that.

Speaker 2: 19:30

It's absolutely correct. And it's you know at first. I'm now accustomed to it. But it was startling to be walking along a beach in island X, y or Z and then pick up some trash, just to you know, just to be a do-gooder. And then you look, you know, made in Canada, made responsible for who knows the exact figure, but 0.0000001% of all the carbon in the atmosphere. But they're the first to suffer the consequences. They're like the canaries in the coal mines for us, unfortunately for them. For us and unfortunately for them.

Speaker 1: 20:14

And two, when you're working with these island nations. They're facing these things, but you're helping them conserve these living resources that do help with balancing and keeping our climate steady, and that is the seagrass, the mangroves, all of these things that they've got, these trees that help to balance that climate.

Speaker 2: 20:42

You've maybe intentionally or not. You've just mentioned two of the world's ecosystems that, acre for acre, sequester more carbon than any others. Really two of the three top ones. So let's start with mangroves. Sea College has done a lot of mangrove projects and the reason is as I just said. Well, there's several reasons. One, mangroves do sequester a lot more carbon per acre than, let's say, rainforests or regular forests up in the mountains or anything.

Speaker 1: 21:12

We've been hearing that yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:13

Yeah, and perhaps even less known is seagrass, because seagrass is out of sight, out of mind. You really can't even see it generally and it feels gushy under your feet when you're walking along the beach. But they sequester even more per square hectare than mangroves and they are arguably in the running for the SADD award as the most threatened ecosystem on earth. We have lost more than 50% in the last 30 or 40 years and it's kind of out of sight, out of mind.

Speaker 2: 21:50

And with seagrass, one of the main reasons, believe it or not, is boats dropping anchors right on top of it and you kind of think in your mind OK, I've seen a boat anchor on a sailing boat or whatever, and it's four feet in length or whatever. Ok, so we're talking about a circle, four feet. No, because when the anchor is there, the current is moving the boat back and forth and so we're talking about a huge amount just from one anchor. One night, one boat. And we funded a project to regenerate some of the seagrass off of wells and there you could see the holes from satellite photos, the holes being the vacant parts of the seagrass taken out just by anchors. I mean, there are other things that are damaging seagrass as well pollution and that sort of thing. And seagrass also have a lot of other benefits, as do mangroves, besides just sequestering carbon.

Speaker 1: 22:53

It's a whole ecosystem itself.

Speaker 2: 22:55

It is. I mean in both those ecosystems juveniles hang out until they can fend for themselves and then they often go from there to coral reefs. Seagrass also keeps kind of beaches from eroding. They slow down the current. They also filter out pollution. Mangroves very important function we discovered. We knew we in the conservation world knew this. But people outside the conservation world discovered in the huge tsunami in the early 2000s in Asia that those villages or areas that had seagrass pardon me in this case mangroves had much less damage than those that did not.

Speaker 2: 23:38

It mitigates that power from the storm Right and it was quite satisfying to read amongst all the horrors I think it was the same week as that huge tsunami that the Wall Street Journal of all places saying boy, conservation have been saying this for years. They were right, because here's a photo of this and a photo of that, with and without. The difference is incredible.

Speaker 1: 24:03

Now go back to the conversation about the boats and the anchors. What is a solution for that? And also, I want to point out again that you're working with the locals there in each of these locations, so they're helping to manage right there and they're motivated to help manage the conservation.

Speaker 2: 24:23

That's exactly right. It is with the locals, it is their environment. What often happens, as I alluded to before, is the locals get no benefit from people who want to protect the reefs, and all that. And not only is that not fair, it's not going to work in the long term, because it's their reefs, it's their seagrass, it's their rainforest.

Speaker 1: 24:49

You've got to have their buy-in. You just have to have their buy-in.

Speaker 2: 24:52

You just have to have their buy-in. It's just not going to work. Have to have their buy-in. You just have to have their buy-in. It's just not going to work, even if you view that as if you don't care about the justice factor.

Speaker 2: 25:00

There are two solutions for the dropping anchors on top of seagrass or coral reefs that damages that. Oh right, one of them is there are various kinds now, thank goodness, of something that has names like eco-reefs or eco-buoys, where you can tie your boat up to them without dropping anchor. So that's probably the number one solution because it's a technical, practical solution, and so we funded a lot of projects doing that. The second one is education, and that's education not only for the local people but for charter boat companies, for their clients as well, because I think people want to do the right thing. I'm sure they do. You know, most boaters really care about the ocean and all that, after all, but they just don't realize the damage that they were doing by dropping anchor. So it's that one-two combination and generally our projects are quite local.

Speaker 2: 26:04

We've had two national level projects but one that I can't give the details yet, but in mid-June we're going to announce our third national level project and that's in a country in Europe. It's a public education campaign about the importance of seagrass, the threats to them and what you can do as a person to cut down on those. Our hope is that, besides doing good in this particular country, it's going to help raise the profile of seagrass. You had raised it with me early on in this interview. That's very rare. People just don't think of seagrass and we want that to become much more in the consciousness of the public and policymakers. And all that because it's not very sexy but it's very, very important.

Speaker 1: 26:55

Well, it's because of our conversation with Ralph Chami. Again, he was called to these islands to help them value their seagrass and then he explained why. Yeah, so we were getting educated too. So the education part is really important and it's why we do what we do, to get this word out with all these organizations that are making a positive impact and why. Why are these critical issues and what are these actions actually doing? So that's what you guys at Seacology are doing, and you do it with a small crew, which is interesting Eight, nine people there in Berkeley or wherever they are located.

Speaker 2: 27:38

Our core staff is nine people, which is a fraction of the staffs of international organizations certainly conservation organizations, but they're also supplemented by we now have 28 part-time, contract-based field representatives. These are, by and large, people who grew up on the islands, they speak the local language, they're usually of the indigenous culture, etc. And it's a very part-time gig, but people love it. Nobody ever leaves. We've had a few with us for over 20 years now, and it's so important because only through having somebody who lives there can really understand the culture. I'll just give one example of that.

Speaker 2: 28:25

We have this. It's an absolutely fantastic project in Fiji, where the local village is preserving 20,000 plus acres of a marine reserve in exchange for us providing the funding for a kindergarten. And when we were kind of negotiating, shall we say, you know, beating them or whatever we could tell that there was a level of distrust, some of it completely understandable, because a lot of indigenous islanders have been ripped off since first contact. But there was something more than that. We couldn't tell what it was, and so this is where it pays to have a field representative who speaks the language, knows the local people, knows the customs, and while we were there visiting this potential project. Many donors of Sea College and myself are scuba divers.

Speaker 2: 29:19

It's a great way to to see, yeah, and and so we were scuba diving there, and thus came the mistrust. We couldn't understand it. The island villagers couldn't believe that we had this equipment that could get us down, that they believed that part of it to within a few feet of the fish 35, 70 feet below or whatever and we wouldn't be taking them to eat them. So they just thought we were either dishonest or the world's stupidest people. You know when you think about it, that makes sense from their perspective. They didn't know more about it. So then our field representative no, no, this is just something they do. They don't take any of the fish, they just look at them and all that. And once we got over that hurdle, we sailed the deal and I visited that project last year. It's still going strong after many years, and that's encouraging.

Speaker 2: 30:15

And I have to say that the reason I got involved with psychology is because of the conservation aspect of it. After all, we are a conservation organization. But the part that moves me and often literally brings me and others to tears is the community benefit. So in this case, a kindergarten that they could never afford in a million years, even though by our standards it wasn't terribly expensive $40,000 or something like that. And they'd been trying, village after village, trying to save for this for many years and they couldn't do it. And when you see what that means to them and what a difference it makes, and then you see the warm welcome on top of that and we're singing and dancing with them and all that, it's a very emotional experience.

Speaker 1: 31:03

I would imagine and I also wanted to make clear one important point that the financial economist was explaining to us about what you're doing when you're conserving these natural resources. You're not putting a value on that seagrass or that mangrove, you're actually letting it live because our nature is extractive.

Speaker 1: 31:29

It has been in our approach to the markets has been extractive. How much is this whale worth in blubber, instead of letting it live to do other services for our planet? So that I just wanted to make very clear, because when you're conserving these living resources, you're allowing them to provide so many more services for their community, for the world.

Speaker 2: 31:54

You're absolutely right, and a classic example of that, though it might not occur to people right away, are sharks. Sharks, the value of selling a shark for food or whatever modest one-time thing. But they've now done studies, they being economists the value of keeping that shark alive, for both the environmental conservation benefits because their services are needed as apex, predators, etc. But also for ecotourism. People will pay a lot more to go and see a shark in the water, believe it or not. Then you get from extracting it and then that continues. It's not a one-time thing, that's forever, and so you're absolutely right. It's such a better way of looking at the value of nature, if we must put any kind of value of it on it, that it's valuable if you maintain it forever.

Speaker 1: 32:51

I heard Dr Sylvia Earle say that about sharks too and wanting to go see them and instead of having them extracted, she wants to go be near them and the ecotourism has really grown across the world and that's part of what Sea Turtles does and definitely part of what you guys do. Talk a bit about that.

Speaker 2: 33:13

Okay, a few things. Talk a bit about that. Okay, a few things Again. We're completely in agreement about ecotourism, with one asterisk that it's become fashionable for a lot of hotels and tourist businesses to call themselves green and echo this.

Speaker 1: 33:30

Thank you for pointing this out. Yes, I agree.

Speaker 2: 33:33

All they're doing is not washing your sheets every day, which saves them money anyway. Having said that, so people should do their homework, but there are some really great ecotourism resorts and all that, and many of our projects have been funding ecotourism efforts Several, for example, in Dominican Republic, providing kayaks to the local people and training so they could take visitors on kayak tours of the mangroves rather than cut down the mangroves for a one-time little bit of money. When done right and that's happening more and more and more these ecotourism projects are just fantastic.

Speaker 1: 34:15

They're creating ongoing revenue streams.

Speaker 2: 34:18

The keyword ongoing and streams revenue streams. Yeah, that's absolutely correct.

Speaker 1: 34:25

You're not just doing it for the benefit of your organization, you're doing it for the benefit of these communities.

Speaker 2: 34:31

And they know it. Yes, an important part of our equation is when we provide some benefit for the communities. It's what they ask for, not what we, sitting in an office in California, say, and that might sound so obvious. It's an unusual way of working, sadly. It's unusual because these people know what they want. I'll give you an example.

Speaker 2: 34:59

There's a place called Myelabit Bay in the Raja Ampat area of Indonesia. Raja Ampat has more marine biodiversity than any other place in the world. It's quite spectacular. And so this bay is 123,000 square acres and it turns out there are nine villages living along this huge bay, and so, through our field representative, we approached all nine villages. What do you want in exchange for regulating fishing in your bay? What was interesting is every village came up with a different thing. Okay, that works for us.

Speaker 2: 35:41

When we went there to open the project, two things happened, which shows the wisdom of the local people. One of them is that the village we went to, what they asked for from us was paving their walking paths, that they were not paved. And we thought and said boy, that just seems like such an odd thing. Why would anybody, if you're living that remote? Okay, it's not paved, that's not nice or whatever. Well, when we got there, they explained to us that during the long, long rainy season, when you walk in the paths that were unpaved, your feet leave depressions and that's where mosquitoes breed. And so it was a mosquito prevention thing. We would never have thought in a million years. And then they said in their comments, they being the villagers, once in a while the government gives us something, which is very nice, but you, psychology, are the first entity that has ever given us what we asked for, not what they thought we wanted. So that made me feel good, I must say Definitely.

Speaker 1: 36:55

That's great feedback.

Speaker 2: 36:57

Yeah, on the island of Bali there's a mountain called Mount Batu Koro, which is not hardcore tourist or whatever like some of the other mountains, but it is beautiful and whatever. And so there are trees there that were being very aggressively logged and there were three villages on roads that led to the summit, near the summit, where some of the logging was taking place. So we approached, through our field representative, the first village and said what would you want in exchange for prohibiting cutting down trees in your territory? And they said a community center, which is a very common request, because often in an island village the only place that isn't your house to meet would be a church, and church is not viewed as neutral territory because there'll be two or three different churches there, even in a village of 100 people. And then, on top of that this was a first and only for us they wanted a set of gamelan instruments. You may have heard gamelan music from Bali. It's very, very different.

Speaker 2: 38:04

No actually Describe it to us Indescribable. But go on a search for you and your listeners after this if you haven't heard it. I love it, but it's very different. So we provided a Gamelan set for the Gamelan Band, which is kind of expensive by their local terms, but it's part of their culture. And then what happened is they stopped logging from where they are in this road to the summit all the way up to the summit.

Speaker 2: 38:37

Then what happened and this happens occasionally with our projects these other villages heard about this and they wanted in on the action. It's a win-win for them because A the trees get saved and B they get something that they want for their village. And then the third village did that. So we made three separate deals. These were not done as one project and just by doing that we tied up the access to the summit. So that kind of stopped logging coal right there. So the trucks the logging trucks couldn't pass their village anymore because they controlled who comes in and out of the road. So that was kind of a cool and different one.

Speaker 1: 39:17

Great win on that one.

Speaker 2: 39:19

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 39:19

Let me talk about Manjuro Madagascar. Oh yes.

Speaker 2: 39:23

This is very remote even by Madagascar terms. So we struck a deal, again through our field representative, that there were 10 relics of remaining parts of forest where fruit bats congregate, the forest being cut, cut, cut. So we made a deal that we provided funding to repair and renovate I can't remember the number four or five schools that were in this together in exchange for them protecting these relics, no more cutting down of trees there. And when we went to visit and it was pretty clear that for the vast majority, if not 100%, of the villagers this was so remote that they had never seen a Westerner before. So we go there and they put on this opening celebration. They were wearing their Sunday best, clearly, clothes that they would wear to church and just as an observer.

Speaker 2: 40:23

I might say that buttons were missing and there'd be rips and this and that, but these were people without a lot of financial assets, but they really wanted to put on their best for us. And then they had a flagpole in the middle, as places might, and they ran up I don't know where they got it an American flag and they played a recording of the US national anthem. Now, I'm not a real jingoist person okay, this, you know, whatever. But the fact that they went through that kind of trouble for us, we were including myself we were all crying. We just so moved to tears to see what this meant to them.

Speaker 1: 41:04

I actually heard you talk about this in a KBFA interview from maybe a decade ago, but it just touched my heart. I was like whoa, they really went out of their way.

Speaker 2: 41:17

They really went, as villagers usually do, so here's another one or two, if I might. There's a village called Nasinga Singa in Fiji, again fairly remote. They wanted two things from us. One was and this is common request a freshwater delivery system, because without that, it's the women and it's always the women who have to go, usually with a bucket on their head or whatever you know, walk an hour or two fill up the bucket, or buckets walk back every day, every single day, or there's no fresh water to drink.

Speaker 2: 41:54

Now they don't have to do that because we put in their requested pipes and all this kind of stuff. When I say we, we financed it, we didn't the local people build it. And then they also wanted, while they were at it, they wanted their first ever, I think, well, environmentally correct toilets. They never had a flush toilet or anything remotely like it. So we went to visit and, as always happens in Fiji, big celebration, food cooking for a day in Kava, which is the ground up root of the pepper plant, which has mildly sort of narcotic, you know, effects or whatever. It's very traditional, goes back hundreds of years.

Speaker 1: 42:37

So we do that.

Speaker 2: 42:38

And then they say they want to take us on a tour, not of the freshwater delivery system but of the toilets, because they were so proud of them. I think it was three or four toilets. So we go to the first one and it was all garlanded in flowers, like you know, kind of strings of lays you know, on there. And so I was there with a, well, with a group, but a board member and I were given the honors of cutting the ribbon for the toilet and then the chief says to me, with the village, no more than nine or 10 feet away, I mean the whole village said we'd like you to do the honors of being the first to officially use this toilet. So I went in and fortunately I had a lot of water to drink that morning and I did my business and I flushed. I got this huge ovation from the village. So you just never knew.

Speaker 2: 43:31

Another quick, if I might, kind of amusing story is Contoy Island is an island off the east coast of Mexico and we were working on negotiating a deal with our field representative in which they would make they being the fishermen and they had a fisherman's syndicate union we'd say in the US they would it was a shelter for shelter exchange, we would provide the money for lobster shelters so the lobsters can hang out and multiply, and put a no-take area for lobsters in exchange for four very basic shelters where the fishermen can hang out if they get caught on the island during a big storm. And so we're there and I hadn't said a word. I'm there with my field representatives from Mexico and these rough and tumble fisher folk, and so she's explaining psychology to them, in Spanish of course, and she says you know it's win-win situations, one party gets the other and the other one gets this. They had no idea that I can speak Spanish. I hadn't said anything. After all, the head of the fishermen you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.

Speaker 2: 44:46

I'll tell you that said as a joke. Obviously he points to me and he says to the field representative okay, how about if we do an exchange of wives with this guy? After all, what you do, you change one thing for another. So, without missing a beat, I look up and said I might be willing. In Spanish, I might be willing to do that, but you got to show me a photo of your wife first. And he cracked up and helped the negotiation so much, and every five minutes for the rest of the time we were there. He'd look at me like you just give me that kind of gesture Not bad.

Speaker 1: 45:29

You really related to them on their level.

Speaker 2: 45:31

Well, that's what we try to do Right, we go to these openings.

Speaker 2: 45:36

I don't tell my group in advance, I don't want them to get nervous or whatever, but if we just let them perform for us, which they will do, they always do. We never ask for it, but his dances and this and that and the other spear dances Amazing, it is amazing. It will have too much of the tenor of a where Lord and Lady Bountiful here and you've got to thank us and all that, right. So what we just about always do is we say OK, we want to put on a performance for you, and I gather everybody around and we do the hokey pokey.

Speaker 2: 46:12

Just oh no that's it, and they absolutely love it, particularly when we get to the end, when you know you put your backside in and your backside oh, the kids are howling oh boy, that takes me back.

Speaker 1: 46:27

We, we did that a lot at our roller rink when I was a kid that's right there you go couples only right, and I remember going to early weeks when I was a kid, probably

Speaker 2: 46:40

dating myself. But there's one time, I have to be honest, that it backfired, and every other time it just it cuts through all the red tape, it makes us more co-equals in the whole thing. The one time it backfired we were in a floating island island in North Vietnam, and they do whatever performance and I said, as always, ok, now we'd like to do the Hokey Pokey. This is a children's song in the US, so we do it and they're watching and they're liking it. And the very end, when you put the back, so there's like nine of us. You know it must have been a cultural no-no, because the faces of the kids were like the faces of the movie. The producers when they're singing springtime for Hitler in Germany.

Speaker 2: 47:25

It was just like what you're doing. It's like, ah, but we're batting that 49 for 50. That was the only time it didn't work.

Speaker 1: 47:35

Well, and that also leads to a question I have too. I mean, it must happen in certain places where there is quite a bit of distrust, because people's trust has been taken advantage of. And so what were some of your challenges there and how did you resolve them?

Speaker 2: 47:56

We've run into that a lot more in our early years than now, because now we're a little better. You're established In the coconut wireless of islands, but the distrust was earned. I mean, I couldn't even begin to tell you how many times governments and this and that and the other were in cheated by Westerners. And so then if somebody comes and says to you we're going to give you something, they're like yeah, right.

Speaker 2: 48:27

Exactly. I think now it's a bit easier because even if they didn't personally know about it, we can put them in contact with. We have 430 projects in 70 countries now, so there's usually something not too far away that we could point to, but that's the only way we can get through it. Or, as I mentioned, the scuba diving example where they said, okay, they're really taking the fish and they're not telling us when they're scuba diving, just by our actions. And again, I can't underestimate the value of having field representatives, because they know not just the language but the cultural customs. If you're perceived as something, if you did something wrong in Fiji you have a kava ceremony, which is you bring the kava, they get it mixed up and you share it with the chiefs and all that. Those cultural subtleties are very, very important. I remember for one opening on Morea in French Polynesia.

Speaker 2: 49:29

Paul Cox, who is the founder who I mentioned earlier, came with us and he gave his speech in French Polynesian in Polynesian from French Polynesia. They had never heard a Westerner speak fluently in that language. They were just stunned. So it's little things like that that help you break through the distrust.

Speaker 1: 49:53

Another topic I wanted to bring up too is because of the funding getting cut so vastly here in the United States by our government and so many aid programs. I appreciate that Seacology has the ability to have its own resources to continue and continue providing services that are being cut in so many places. Continue and continue providing services that are being cut in so many places. So talk a little bit about your funding sources.

Speaker 2: 50:23

Then I've got a couple of other questions. Okay, we as a rule do not accept government funding. We had never gotten a grant from USAID. We didn't want it because initially they do great, great work but lots of paperwork, lots and lots of paperwork, and that's one of the reasons we could stay with a small staff by not getting this kind of government funding. But this year, for the first time, we had this great project in the Caribbean. So we said, and USAID practically approached us, so we said, ok, so we're just about to send the proposal, when you know what hit the fan, and it is. We know so many projects you know personally from firsthand experience that have just been cut overnight.

Speaker 1: 51:13

And also- it's horrible, it's just absolutely devastating.

Speaker 2: 51:17

That's the most important thing, that it's devastating for these countries and in the end it's probably cost saving in the long term because it cuts down disease, you know, saves the environment, et cetera, et cetera. But also it becomes doubly hard because we know people who were working for USAID, who just know people who were working for USAID who were just let go with no notice.

Speaker 1: 51:42

They're given a few months severance generally and it's a ripple effect across their entire families.

Speaker 2: 51:46

Yeah, and there are some subtleties here that the general public is not aware of. It was made to sound as if it was only the new probationary people who are being let go. Right, one of the fantasies of that. Well, there's two examples I can give why that's not exactly true. One the way USAID works. If you change into a new job or whatever, then you're on probation again. So some of these people were working their 25 years or whatever. Second thing is USAID occasionally more than occasionally attracts top talent from the private sector, and so you may have had a job for 25 years at XYZ Corporation, have started there four months, and then you're just laid off without a job. So kind of cruel as well.

Speaker 1: 52:39

Yes, and I mentioned Maria Brown earlier, the superintendent of the Greater Fair Lawns at Cordell Bank. Well, she had 20% of her top scientists cut and then there's another 20% coming. She said if they just asked me to go after and evaluate the lowest performing, I could have done that.

Speaker 2: 53:00

That's the thing that really gets my goat, because I wouldn't have the gall to argue that no, there's no waste in the federal government budget Of course something that of course there's going to be. But you go to the supervisors and you say, ok, with the the lowest performing and let's, you know, get that Standard business. That's what you do. The whole situation is quite sad. Fortunately, we, psychology have never gotten USAID or any government grants from any government.

Speaker 2: 53:30

We don't have tons of money, but the money we have is still there and we're continuing, launching about 30 new projects each year.

Speaker 1: 53:38

Now, you did get an award at the end of last year, was it that came with some money.

Speaker 2: 53:42

We've won a disproportionate amount of juried awards, and this one was the Lipman Family Prize out of the University of Pennsylvania in Wharton, and it was for outstanding creativity. Et cetera, et cetera Came with $ 250,000. Another one that comes to mind about 10 years ago I don't remember exactly when the foundation of Prince Albert II of Monaco gave us an award, unsolicited completely, of being the most creative nonprofit or NGO in the entire world, in any field, from any place. Also, we've been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize a few years ago, and on and on it goes. People seem to love the win-win thing and that we don't have a lot of fat, it's just a lean staff and we go from there.

Speaker 1: 54:36

Before joining Zecology you were with the Goldman Awards and I actually got to attend that last year, but used to work there too.

Speaker 2: 54:45

Yes, I was founding director of the Goldman Environmental Prize, meaning I worked with the Goldman family and I set up the whole thing and I still remember the meetings we had and, believe it or not, one of our biggest worries were what if we run out of great people after five or six years? And now it's, I can't remember. 34 years later, there are just so many fantastic people around the world. I have to admit I'm very proud to have found the Goldman Environmental Prize in writing Very important. On the less important thing, probably my oddest job, given what I do now, is many, many years ago I was a part-time freelance comedy writer for Joan Rivers, who's in the news.

Speaker 1: 55:28

Now that I did not know.

Speaker 2: 55:31

We don't advertise it too much.

Speaker 1: 55:34

One of my topics that I'm focused on right now. It's not only just offshore drilling, but it's also deep sea mining and the devastation that that can cause. I don't know if you at SeaCology are doing anything along those lines to try to prevent these things from happening, but I wanted to ask you that.

Speaker 2: 55:54

Well, the closest we come to that is, we've helped several countries promote and establish huge marine no-take areas and when it comes to deep sea mining, a friend who you mentioned I'm proud to call her a friend Sylvia Earle.

Speaker 2: 56:08

I totally go by her words. We have to explore before we exploit and it just doesn't make sense to go and start doing this mining when it could cause all kinds of damage. We just don't know yet. On the other hand, to be honest, it's Seacology's policy not to get involved in the internal government affairs of any island nation. We never have and we never do, and I think that works to our mutual benefits in the long run. But yeah, deep sea mining, we have to know more about it before we damage the ocean floor.

Speaker 1: 56:42

And they are aggressively pushing for leases and getting underway Any final words you'd like to say to our audience?

Speaker 2: 56:50

Think islands. Think islands. They're underrated heroes and they're underrated repositories of biodiversity. So don't just think of them as a place with a nice beach, think of the great cultures that are there and join us in helping to fight for them. And I also want to thank you for this podcast and thank you for all the work you're doing. Really appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 57:12

Duane Silverstein, thank you for joining us today. We appreciate all the work you're doing at Seekology.

Speaker 2: 57:17

Thank you so much again for having me. I really enjoyed it.

Speaker 1: 57:30

Thanks for listening to the Resilient Earth podcast, where we talk about critical issues and positive actions for our planet. Resilient Earth is produced by Planet Centric Media, a 501c3 nonprofit, and Seastorm Studios Inc, located on the rugged North Sonoma Coast of Northern California. I'm Leanne Lindsey, producer and host, along with co-hosts and co-producers Scott and Tree Mercer of Mindenoma, whale and Seal Study, located on the South Mendocino and North Sonoma Coasts. The music for this podcast is by Eric Alleman, an international composer, pianist and writer living in the Sea Ranch. Discover more of his music, animations, ballet, stage and film work at ericalemancom. You can find Resilient Earth on Spotify, apple and Amazon Podcasts, iheartradio, youtube, soundcloud and wherever you find your podcasts. Please support us by subscribing or donating to our cause.