Dr. M Sanjayan - Global Conservation scientist and thought leader, CEO of Conservation International
September 1, 2020 • 43 mins
M. Sanjayan is a global conservation scientist whose work spans genetics to wildlife migration to nature's impacts on human well-being. He has served as Conservation International's CEO since 2016.
Sanjayan joined Conservation International in 2014, overseeing its successful $1.1 billion capital campaign and its critically acclaimed brand campaign, "Nature Is Speaking," and its push into virtual-reality filmmaking.
Raised in Southeast Asia and West Africa, Sanjayan's unique background has informed his work. He has attracted widespread media coverage, from The New York Times, Outside Magazine, and CNN International.
He has hosted more than a dozen documentaries from PBS, BBC, National Geographic, Discovery, and Showtime.
He recently hosted the University of California and Vox Media's Climate Lab series, which has garnered over 20 million views.
Sanjayan holds a master's degree from the University of Oregon and a doctorate from the University of California-Santa Cruz. His peer-reviewed scientific work has been published in Science, Nature, and Conservation Biology.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Art of the Hustle is a production of I Heart Radio.
You're listening to the Art of the Hustle, the show
that breaks down how some of the world's most fascinating
people have hustled and learned their way into achieving great things.
(00:21):
I'm your host Jeff Rosenthal, co founder of Summit, and
on today's episode, I had the pleasure to interview my
dear friend, dr Im Sanjin, CEO of Conservation International. San Jan,
by my account, is one of the most important leaders
in the conservation movement. Today we discussed his amazing journey,
his unique background being raised in Southeast Asia and West Africa,
(00:42):
and his deep connection to nature and the path that
he's been on to work on the planet's behalf. We
discussed how nature and humans can live in harmony, how
Conservation and National is working on new groundbreaking programs like
irreplaceable carbon research and projects against blue carbon, and preserving
the world's oceans, ecosystem preservation in the future of the
conservation movement. Both personally and professionally. Sangen has hosted more
(01:06):
than a dozen documentaries and shows across PBS and BBC
National Geographic Discovery Showtime, and recently his Box Media Climate
Lab series hosted with the University California, guarded over twenty
million views. I'm always blown away to talk to San Juan.
I always love hearing his perspective. He is such a
beautiful human being and such an important and impactful leader.
(01:29):
So please enjoy my conversation with Dr m Sanchen. San Jan,
thank you so much for being on the podcast. Thanks
for having me. Jeff. Where where are we chatting today?
Where are you in the world. Yeah, disappointingly, I'm in Alexander, Virginia,
in my home where I've been kind of on lockdown
(01:51):
since early March. I'm surprised to hear that. I figured
they would have, you know, to see I would have
gotten you out on the road in some capacity. Yeah,
you know, I would have thought so too. But look,
our teams are working in some really sensitive communities around
the world, you know, with indigenous communities, with local People's
just one of those things that I don't want to
(02:12):
be the vector, uh, And I don't want to put
anyone at risk. So it's not so much of me
being worried about what I might get, but also me
being you know, a vector for something that I unwittingly
transmit into one of the geographers we work in that
have been maybe spared. Uh So, you know that's one thing.
The other thing is to be honest. You know, we're
(02:33):
getting a lot done. It's been actually fairly impressive how
much we've managed to accomplish in the last say four
months or so, you know, going completely on you know
virtual Well, I want to hear all about it, you know,
to introduce the listeners to you, your global conservation scientists
whose work spans from genetics to wildlife migration. You were
(02:55):
the lead scientist at the Nature Conservancy since Sien you've
been the c of Conservation International, which I'm honored to
serve on your leadership council. For me and for for
my summit partners, and for many people of of our
you know shared community. You've really been an incredible inspiration
and you know, the connecting piece for us to the environment. Well,
(03:16):
thank you so much. And I think the feeling is
mutual as well. I mean I have personally benefited hugely
from getting to know the community better in your community
and your network and the and the people that you
you know, associate with and and love and and create
as part of your community even in fact that good
community in the sense of community that itself and that
(03:38):
concept of community, which is even more important today in
a fractured world for a global organization trying to manage
something you know in this virtual space is like front
and center. Well, my pleasure. And so you were raised
in Southeast Asia and West Africa, correct, Yeah, I was
born in Sri Lanka. Left when I was about five
years old. Grew up really in in West and East Africa.
(04:00):
You were like, mom and dad, it's time for us
to go to West and East Africa. Come on, get
your stuff pretty much. I mean, I loved wildlife, and
the day I found out that we were going to
Africa like that was like unbelievable. I had my little binoculars,
you know, getting on a plane. I mean, the whole
thing was just unbelievable, magical to me. And I remember
that time not as one of sadness for my family.
(04:23):
They left the country of their birth and the entire
network and everything they had in their home with just
two suitcases, right, and all we were allowed to take
was like my mom's jewelry and five pounds British pounds,
stealing pounds. That was sewn into the lining of my
my little um Paddington their coat because we were allowed
(04:44):
to take foreign currency out of the country. That was
it and my mom my dad didn't even tell my
mom that he had done that, and like later on
sur ripped the seams apart and pulled out this this money.
But so for them, this huge tragedy, for me was
just this moment. It was like know my gateway drug. Sure,
and and do you have any memories of your first
(05:05):
like formative experiences up close and personal either in nature
with animals that spurred this career in this path for you, Yes,
But I wouldn't say it was part of path. I
mean we were just surrounded by wildlife. We had a
snake on the first day we got there, you know,
chimpanzee is quite literally in the trees around our home.
Columbus monkeys, forest, elephants. I mean, we had you know.
(05:28):
I would go and catch things and bring them home,
all kinds of things, from snakes too, you know, little
baby crocodiles, to monitor lizards, to parrots. Um with snakes
would then come and eat the parrots at night, you know,
in these in these averies that I've built outside wait wait,
how old were you when you were building averies outside? Seven?
(05:48):
Eight years old? And you know, we had really cool
parrots in West Africa, um and at that time not
that rare. And you know, one very distinct night, I
remember very large spinning corporate getting into the cake and
swallowing the parrot as it was squawking, you know, and
my dad heard this noise and said something's going on.
(06:09):
We all rushed outside and the noise to suddenly stopped
and he said it's got it, and I didn't know
what he meant. And then we shown the flashlight into
the aviary and and you know, there was this huge
snake swallowing this bird. Did you have other jobs outside
of you know, things connected to animals and flora and fauna.
I always had the love for nature, but it was
(06:31):
never going to be a job. It was always going
to be a hobby. And my parents were very keen
and very clear in saying that conservation the environment. There
was no word like conservation that hadn't been out there yet,
you know, nature being love with nature or you know
anything like that. That was not a career, that was
not a job. That was just a hobby. And I
(06:53):
could do it as a hobby, and they they fostered
that passion. They bought me books and binoculars and tried
their best to you know, you know, exposed me to
things to me in the zoo, in countries where we visit,
in the UK or wherever. But that was quite literally
the words they used were that was for white people.
And I know that you know, moved to the US
(07:16):
to study at University Oregon, where you got your BS
and biology and ecology. So I guess at that point
you realize that there could have been a career path. No,
even at that point it was it was it was
pre med or or it was genetic, so it was research.
It was that was what was going on in my head. Um,
you know, I came to the University of Oregon kind
(07:37):
of want to you know, very last minute ditch effort
to get out from where I was and and and
America always was beckoning to me. My parents weren't very
keen going there, So it was it was really it
was never a career until really grad school. Grad school
was well opened the possibility that I could actually make
a living out of this. We met and you were
(08:00):
working with the Nature Conservancy as their lead scientists. And
I think the first time I heard you speak was
at some of at Sea in two thousand eleven. Do
you recall what you talked about on that stage. I
recall parts of that talk, yes, because the part that
I remember the most, the call to action, was you
walked us so eloquently and beautifully through the natural world
(08:21):
and explained the speeding up of environmental degradation and the
practical radical approach that would be required to working with
all the different parties involved in order to achieve the
outcomes we needed. And you said something along the lines of,
how you know, the old model of like building your
company's making a bunch of money and then donating that
money to a cause was all well and good, but
(08:43):
you know, the environment might not be there for us
when we get to the other side. And I remember
leaving your your presentation with unique sense that I guess
I didn't realize unconsciously that I thought I'd be able
to buy my way out. I thought, like, Okay, well,
the oceans rise on the coast, temperatures rise in certain places.
But if I'm successful, you know, I'll move to a
move to Montana, and I'll grow grapes in the new
(09:04):
warm climate. I left that talk getting the band aid
drift off in a sense, with the realization that the
temperature rise on the planet would irrevocably change all biology.
Tell me about your your recollections, though I don't want
to just tell you about mine. No, I think that's right,
you know. I I remember being a little bit nervous
about that talk because it was kind of a big
(09:24):
one and the people who were on stage with me, Um,
you know, Branson was there, you know. I I remember
some of the figures who were speaking kind of the
same block that I was, and thinking this was a
different audience, but also an audience that I really wanted
to try and connect with because in this audience I
could see the future of the planet and interesting A
(09:45):
lot of those people who were there have continued into
that mission, and now this has become part of what
we do. But you're right, you know I I've always
thought that what we were doing should not be a niche.
It should not be a hobby. Um, it should really be,
you know, part apostle of who we are and why
what we do matters. It should be part of every company,
it should be part of every government. It should be
(10:07):
part of every community because there's about air we breathe,
the water we drink, the place we live in, the
kind of environment we want to have around us, and
the buffer we want to have around us as well.
Because if you ever needed a reason to believe that
nature has unbelievable power and impact on your lives, you know,
just look outside, Look what's happening to the planet today.
(10:30):
I want to get into the ever important work of
conservation or national and how you perceive it in this
once in a lifetime moment that we're going through. So
Contribution International is about thirty five years old, and it
was created on a very simple premise that people need nature.
That fundamentally, you know, the jobs we have, quality of
(10:50):
life we enjoy, the water we drink, etcetera. Ultimately you know,
ties back to nature and and protecting nature. You know,
own enlightened self interest is really about protecting ourselves. It
was different right from the beginning because it accepted this
idea that humans were part of nature and not separate
(11:12):
from it. I think all the other conservation organizations up
to that point that I had come into contact with,
who are doing, who were doing and are doing unbelievably
important work. Always sort of had this idea that there
are nature needs to be protected from humans, and we
are kind of separate from it, and we need to
identify those places and just sort of protect them. Right,
(11:34):
That was sort of the evolution of conservation and how
it sort of came about. But see, I right from
the beginning incorporated humans into that equation. For me, coming
from the global south, right, not coming from a western country.
That's how I saw the world. I didn't see this
strong distinction between where nature ended and human civilization began.
(11:58):
We lived in before us, very literally, and I could
understand how for communities and people's who have lost everything,
where governments completely fail, where civil war disrupts their lives,
it's nature. It's nature that is the ultimate safety net.
It's nature that still provides, and that if we could
(12:20):
only tap into that, we would then really be able
to make conservation a fundamental right or fundamental good, as
opposed to an exclusive good or an exclusive right that
you could only get to after you've dealt with all
the other things. You know, we dealt with healthcare and
defense and jobs and whatever. You Oh, now let's get
(12:40):
to conservation. That was the sort of the flip for me,
and that's what attracted me to Conservation International because it
was set up in that with that mindset. So I
came over to the organizations about six years ago and
then three years ago the founder Peter Seligman, kind of
a legendary guy. Most of these bigger organizations have long
(13:02):
lost their founders to time, but I had that opportunity,
and what I find is an amazing organization working in
about thirty countries about you know, eleven hundred team members
around the world, a phenomenal board, phenomenal council, and a
real sense of community. Still small enough to be very
(13:22):
nimble and very agile, but big enough to really exert
our muscle and unafraid a little bit, unafraid of tackling
some things. So, you know, twenty years ago, this was
the first organization to really want to work with big companies.
And you know, as Peter's also the story, some people
quit because of that. Today all Conservation Organized, to some
extent work with the corporate sector. You know, unafraid of
(13:46):
going to work in libraria. That's a tough place to work,
and especially when we started working there, which is when
Charles Taylor was running the country, right, So you know,
Conservation International will always picked on the tough challenges because
those are an import and challenges to have always seen
the world from that global self perspective, from the perspective
indigenous people's local communities, you know, how do they benefit
(14:10):
and really had humans at the center of the equation. Um,
that's what brings me in. That's what keeps me excited
every day. We'll be back with more out of the
hustle after the break. Talk to us about irreplaceable carbon. Yeah,
(14:33):
so irreplaceable carbon. It's a great word. So look, it
turns out you know that, you know, climate change is
caused by emissions of greenhouse gases common dooxide, meeting, other
things like that. It makes our planet warmer every single year,
and that trend doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
It turns out that the amount of carbon going into
(14:54):
the atmosphere really comes from two sources. The one primary
source that we all know is our use of as fuels, Right,
so we burned the stuff, it goes up into the air,
it stays around for a long time and heats our land.
The other is from nature itself. When we cut down forests,
when we destroy land, when we plow up land, when grasslands,
when we cut down mangroves, which are forests that grow
(15:15):
in the ocean, et cetera. All of that also sends
up a lot of carbon into the atmosphere. And it
turns out that if you can protect forests in particular,
but other kinds of ecosystems as well, and restore them
at scale, you could get about thirty percent of the
emissions reductions that we need to achieve in order to
(15:37):
meet the goals that we set up at the during
the Paris Climate Accord that every country except for want
ed to agreed upon. Um you can get that by protecting,
restoring and improving the management of forests. That's amazing to me.
But let me let me put it most succinctly. If
deforestation was a country, it would be the third biggest
(16:01):
emitter of greenhouse gasses. So it'd be like, you know,
the United States in China right up there at the top,
followed by deforestation. And very little money goes into combating deforestation.
Most of the money goes into tech, goes into solar
wind you know, alternate fuels, efficiencies, tesla cars, all that
(16:25):
kind of stuff. All very very good, all very useful,
incredibly essential. We absolutely have to reduce the amount of
emissions that we're putting out. We absolutely have to transition
into a zero carbon or low carbon economy. We have
to find carbon capture mechanisms. But it turns out that
we have a corbon capture mechanism right here, right ready in,
(16:45):
right now, ready to go at scale. And that's your forests.
Those are your trees. So what we did was we
mapped where these pools of irrecoverable carbon around the world.
One of the most dense sites for your recoverable carbon.
Where do you get the most carbon, you know, bang
for the buck if you can invest in certain areas
(17:08):
where you can trap large amounts of carbon, protect it
in the ground, in trees, um in mangroves, etcetera. That's
what that's what that is. And and we call it
replaceable carbon because it's carbon that you cannot you cannot
replace in a human relevant timescale. Once you lose it,
it's up there. There's no way you can make the
(17:28):
math work. So replanting and reforesting is incredibly important. We
got to do it at a much much bigger scale.
And much more efficiently, but you're going to still lose,
and it's better to protect than to replant much better.
It's also cheaper. Well in Conservation and International put out
a groundbreaking a bit of research on this concept, specifically
(17:50):
mapping these mangroves and these forests and the peat grasses.
In your opinion, do we need to rethink carbon credits?
Do we need to reconsider how think about you know
the value that we're creating for the environment. I think so,
and I think it's happening. That's the good news. So
what we have seen in the past has been a
tsunami of investment that's going into tech, into tech, into
(18:13):
clean tech, into renewables, into efficiencies. That's great. It surprised
many of us the speed of that change. I drive
a Tesla. I would have never ever imagined that in
my adult lifetime I would have the opportunity to drive
a fully electric car that functions so kind of amazing.
You can see that kind of change happening, and that
(18:34):
that wave of investment is not slowing down. It's not
slowing down. If anything, it's gathering real esteem. We need
to make sure we do the same with protecting these
irreplaceable corbon sinks. These these living pools of carbon forests,
particularly tropical forest, mangroves, peat lands you know, and and
(18:54):
other other types of ecosystems, and we need to restore
them at scale. It is happening, it's not happening fast enough,
and the science on it is needs to be dramatically upgraded.
So a lot of companies today are now understanding the
value of protecting for us and they are getting into
this UM. They're reducing their emissions through recycling, through energy efficiencies,
(19:18):
through alternate fuels, which is great, but they also realizing
that there's a gap, a gap that they need to bridge,
and they're often doing it through protecting for us or
restoring for us. We play a big role in helping
them decide where best to use their investments so that
not only can they get a big return in terms
of carbon, but very importantly that local communities, indigenous peoples
(19:42):
on whose land much of that for us exists are
the beneficiaries in an equitable way of this transfer of wealth.
Do you think that your upbringing in your background UM
gives you a unique perspective where you're sensitive to these
community ease that are otherwise overlooked often. You know, I
(20:03):
suspect so. But it's a difficult question, Jeff, because you know,
one never is that introspective about one's own background, like I.
You know, I don't sit and think, oh, I'm Asian.
That's why I really appreciate, you know, Asian food. But
that's why you do. You know, my my one year
old loves curry. Loves curry. I don't know why she
(20:25):
loves curry, but she does. Now I ascribe that to
the fact that he guess what, you know, I'm salth Asian.
But it's hard to know this whether you know I'm
more sensitive because I have this background, or it's just
the right thing to do. Um, I suspect it's a
bit of both. I spent a couple of weeks with
the Rani people in in Ecuador, in the Ecuadorian Amazon,
(20:49):
and then this is really deep in the Ecuadorian forest,
and my experience with them in particular, it was eye
opening to me. And and so certainly I understand that
why it's how us Why why was it eye opening
to you? You know, the cohesiveness of their society, the
the unbelievable sophistication of the way that they use nature
(21:13):
around them. You know, the you know, I have it
at my home. I have a blowpipe which I got
from one of them as a gift, and and all
the the very fine, um, you know, pieces of equipment
that go with it, the little arrows, the fletching, the
the I mean, the technology that surrounds it is as
(21:36):
beautiful and as carefully carefully thought through as like my iPhone.
It really is, and it's it's exquisitely built for a
particular purpose. You know. It comes with piranha teeth that
you can use to notch the arrows so that the
tip breaks when it goes into the skin of a
small monkey high up in the tree. I mean, that's
(21:58):
like someone even thinking through the details, you don't have
that appreciation for how all these cultures are, how how
exquisitely designed they are by their environment and have designed
their environment. And when you watch the rituals, when you
watch they use the tools, when you want their understanding
(22:19):
about nature, um, you get this deep sense that as guardians,
as stewards of nature, they are unsurpassed. And so for me,
from a very practical point of view as a conservationist,
my best allies should be indigenous communities and local people.
(22:40):
They're the ones living closer to the source. They're the
ones that had the most to gain and the most
to lose if nature isn't considered in the right way.
I believe it's thirteen out of the top twenty prescribed
drugs in the world, ranging from aspen to heart disease
medicine use some form of mushrooms, you know, so you
have these mushrooms that are growing my celium and all
(23:03):
of these different ecosystems in the world. That turns out
that that's what is helping us live healthier, longer lives.
The chemicals um often that we ingest are a formula
made from something that was found and one of these
at risk ecosystems. And uh, something that I did learn
inside of the CIA ecosystem actually from Peter. The way
he put it to me is that, you know, every
(23:24):
indigenous tribe has its own earth operating system that's been
built and passed down over generations, and their technologies are
no different than our technologies are no different than a
bird's nest. Right a bird learned how to make a nest,
and that's their bird technology, and the other thing that
really I appreciated and never understood is there's no it,
(23:45):
there's no subjugation of things into generalities. You know, everything
has a purpose, everything has a name, and often they
find themselves, you know, related in their own narratives, cultural narratives,
to the mountains, to the trees. They're not they're not
separate from them. Their environment is their brothers and their sisters,
which I loved. I agree, I mean, I think that's
(24:06):
exactly right. But that that realization for many of us
comes you know, sometimes late in life, sometimes never, and
I think an understanding of it probably makes us all
better humans. And it certainly makes us understand that indigenous
people's local communities, you know, people who are again living
on the front lines of nature, right within nature. You
(24:27):
know that that idea that there's no end, that everything
has a purpose, everything has a name or a description
or a or a story behind it, you know, gives
them the kind of holistic vision that that most of
us are myopic too well, And I want to transition
to your work on the oceans in blue carbon projects,
(24:50):
love for you to dive in. Yeah, so like look oceans,
I think that's one that's an area that so one
thing Jeff I just want to go back to and
just sort of mentioned the key world that we use
with irrecoverble carbon. Now, this is where natural climate solutions
that's gaining a lot of momentum, and that's what we're
pushing right, natural climate solutions, you know, solutions to climate
(25:11):
change that really come from nature. Uh so transitioning that
into blue carbon. In the oceans, Conservation International really has
a really great team and they've been working in the
oceans almost from the beginning of the organization and it's
good knowledge, it's deep knowledge. There are three areas that
we're really focused on when it comes to the oceans.
(25:33):
The first dramatically increased amount of protected areas within oceans.
The amount of oceans that are protected globally is miniscule
compared to what's on land and just miniscule overall. We
think that needs to be dramatically increased, and we, along
with a few key partners, have agreed to push for
(25:54):
eighteen million square kilometers of new protected area within the
next ten years. That will double what's effective be there,
so a huge, huge goal. We're well on our way
towards trying to make that a reality. The second is
we know we need to protect blue carbon. So it
turns out that just like forests, some ecosystems in the
ocean are really really good at protecting and and sucking
(26:17):
up and locking up carbon. One of those our coastal
forest called mangroves. There are many species of mangroves. They
grow around the world. You can see them in Florida,
for example, but the real heart of mangroves is in
Asia and in in Brazil and Colombia, in Bangladesh, in Indonesia,
in the Philippines and countries like this. And mangroves, you know,
(26:38):
acre for acre can store up to six times more
carbon than a tropical equivalent tropical forest system can. So
they are the densest um densest packaging or densest aggregation
of carbon you can find on Earth. It is incredibly
important to protect them UH. And they're great for hoastlines,
(27:00):
they keep people safe, they are nurseries for baby fish.
There are loads of other code benefits. So protecting global
mangroves UH and restoring them at scale is sort of
goal number two, and gold number three is really cleaning
up the fisheries industry, and to that extent, aquaculture industry
as well, promoting good agriculture done in the right way. Uh,
(27:21):
it's very important for people and their livelihoods around the
world and for protein. And then cleaning up fisheries. UM,
A lot of fisheries, particularly on the high Seas, is
done with slave labor or what is very close to
slave labor. It's probably the most flagrant violation of human
rights and labor. Horse It's the closest you could come
(27:43):
to essentially participating in something that's been harvested by slaves.
When you go and participate in certain kinds of fisheries
and some murky world and we need to clean it up.
And we are taking a very strong position on that
and working with some very responsible companies to really clean
up that supply chain. There's no way, god, we know,
(28:05):
you should be going to a restaurant or you should
be going to store and picking up fish and thinking
this fish could actually be coming from a ship that
is completely um except for the captain and maybe two
or three other people crewed by by indented servants or
buy slaves. Art of the hustle will be right back
after this short break. When I think about the environmental movement,
(28:35):
Historically it's been a white issue. It's been you know,
something that you know has had primarily white leadership in
the space. And it's also you know when you look
at the donor pool too, and those that have gotten
themselves are connected to it, whether it's influencers or celebrities
or you know, billionaires that could underwrite this stuff. I
found in my research for this an article on you
(28:57):
from two thousand and eight from Time Science titled changing
the White Face of the Green Movement. I wanted to
hear your thoughts on that. You know, we're in this
really unique moment with the movement for black lives. I
want to know, like, is are you seeing change? I
think that some of these companies, the Walmarts, the Unilever's,
(29:18):
the Apples, the PNG, the Starbucks of the world, for
the most part, are actually ahead of the consumer. In fact,
in some places they even slightly ahead of the environmental sector.
So ten years ago we were standing outside screaming in
and they wouldn't let us anywhere near the lobby. Five
(29:39):
years ago they invited into the lobby to or three
years ago they took us upstairs. Now we're right in
the C suite and it isn't Yes, you can say,
all right, well, isn't that a bit of greenwashing going on?
And I'm sure there's some of that, but for the
most part, at the CEO level of these companies, you
are seeing a real transform aation. You're seeing a change
(30:03):
in attitude and mentality about their brand, their role, the
long term nature of their business and what they you know,
sort of owe their consumer, consumers, their own people, their
own team, and their own grandchildren. You know, Alan Joke,
the CEO of Uni Leaver, said to me, you know,
I was walking down the beach and he said his
kid was pointing out all these things on the beach, saying, Dad,
(30:25):
you made that, Dad, you made that? And he said,
I don't want to be. I don't want to be
the CEO of branded litter. We see Doug McMillan on
stage from Walmart talk about his children and what they're
expecting of the world. It's completely real. There's nothing calculated
about that. Today. Just today, just coincidentally, you know, I
(30:46):
was on the on the on a phone call with
David tayl the CEO of PNG. You know, you look
at p and and the stands they take on social issues,
it's extraordinary. It's extraordinary. You know. He's a Midwestern company
based in Ohile, and it's run by an engineer from
North Carolina who grew up in the company and spent
I don't know, thirty years this life in the company.
(31:08):
They're a quiet brand, but they do some amazing things.
And in terms of their brand stands on things like equity,
and and and race and now on the environment. I
think in some ways they are a little bit of
ahead of the consumer. I find that really exciting. There's
certainly ahead of the government, right, They're really ahead of
(31:28):
most governments. So I I like that. No moment now,
I don't think we can let up. I need to think,
we need to accelerate. And what's happened now, let's pivot
to race and this issue that you brought up about
the brown face and the green movement or and the
Times article. If you look at that and look at
the way these companies have very quickly said what they
(31:49):
do not find acceptable anymore. They can read history. They
do not want to be on the wrong side of history.
P G. That's is a company that was I think
it was founded in heaven. They fully expect to be
here for another hundred years. You don't want to be
on the wrong side of history, and you might as
well build a company as if you're building it for
the long run. I think the most dangerous companies are
(32:12):
the young ones, the startups, the ones that want to
make a buck very fast, that still haven't had that
experience of history, that think that they're going to change
the world overnight just because guess what, they're good and
they're young, and because they're young and they're good, they're
going to do the right thing. I think history is
showing us right now that they haven't been always very
(32:34):
good and they're getting caught a little bit on the
wrong side of history. So it's a very amazing space
to be in now on the conservation side of the
environment movement. And listen, that has been a really big
hurdle to jump. I've had four job interviews four times
in my life where I have been told sometimes using
(32:57):
these exact words, sometimes in code that I don't fit. Listen,
I'll tell you a true story. I applied once to
be the head of Asia Pacific region for a big
conservation organization. After several phone calls by well meaning people,
they sort of convinced me that A. I had a
(33:18):
better job and B I didn't fit. That's pretty hard
to believe, and it's even harder to believe when you
realize that they ultimately gave the job to a great person,
but exactly exactly what you would have prayed wouldn't happen.
You know, the hardest thing about racism for me, and
(33:41):
believe me, I've had such a privileged life, with such
great parents and such great privileges that I haven't had
to deal with the stuff that a lot of people
you have to deal with. But for me, it makes
all of us slightly suspicious of the motive of others,
even if those more is a well meaning. The problem
(34:03):
is I can't give them the benefit of the doubt. Sure,
and they might not be even conscious of their biases.
You know, I'm sure that they were for the most
part well meaning if you were to give the benefit
of the doubt, But that doesn't change the systemic nature
of what has gone down for generations and will likely
(34:23):
continue to even with this great you know awakening that's
occurring right now, to the you know, constant reality for
so many people that are non white or non binary,
this is such a sensitive topic that I don't want
to let go of it without saying that I am
(34:43):
guilty of those biases at times too. You know that
in my mind there's a fit for someone who's a conservationist.
And the interesting thing is the guys that summit, guys
like you or Elliott and others, don't actually fit in
my mind right. So for me, the fit is, you know,
do you fly fish, do your bird watch? Are you
(35:04):
out there in the outdoor world? You love nature? Can you,
you know, tell the difference between you know, I don't
know an African lot in an Asian often I don't
know what it is. But there's this sort of sort
of myth in my own mind about what a conservation
is ought to look and sound like. That's even more difficult.
So I have to break those myself in order to,
(35:25):
you know, allow me to be able to see allies
in places um that I might not always see in
the truth of the matters. I could teach you to
fly fish in one day, but your life experiences, where
you were born, how you grew up. You know, the race,
the nationality, the gender, the issues that you dealt with,
(35:46):
the burdens you bore. Those are lifetime experience I could
never teach, and that's what we need to be able
to bring into our tent and so it's really important.
I think conservation as a field is the least nor
talked to this field I can possibly think of for
a field that is so keen on protecting biodiversity, most
(36:07):
of which, guess what is in Africa, Asia or Latin America.
We are incredibly poorly represented by kind of the global
cell or the tritorial you know, parts of the world,
especially in in senior senior leadership, and it's it's always
lonely when I'm there. Now, I know I benefit from
it by being the only brown guy I get to
(36:28):
be on stage. You know, you know, I get that,
I really get that. But it gets old, and it
gets old really fast. One of the things I did
want to ask you about because to your point, you
did interview for those four different positions, and this is like,
you know, your first time being the CEO of the organization.
You know, I imagine that's a transition and skill, you know,
(36:48):
being an inspirational thought leader being a scientist, which is
an entirely different field that you had to dedicate a
decade plus of your life to be good at I
imagine let alone be great at right. The theme of
the podcast often is entrepreneurial and would love to hear
you know, what are the things that surprised you? What
are the things that you know you're still learning into.
(37:10):
The thing that surprises you most is that you always
think you're coming in with a clean slate. Here's my agenda,
now go, but you don't. The minute you walk in,
you realize the plate was already full, and there's food
falling off it, and actually the plate is cracked, and
guess what here comes to suit? Your agenda quickly quickly
gets waylaid by the messiness and the reality of what
(37:34):
you actually have to deal with. That's the first thing
that you quickly realize. The second thing is time becomes
unbelievably precious and your ability to serially focus on a
variety of issues. So you you break your day up
and you you you hyper focus on one thing, that
hyper focus on now, and and and doing that fast
over multiple different things. You know, day becomes a real skill.
(37:58):
And the third thing is you have to mind. You
have to find a group of individuals or or some
other way in which you can actually let your guard down.
You know, when they say it's lonely at the top,
what they mean by that is that you have really
no one to shoot ship with. You can't you can't
sort of brainstorm with anyone without always thinking that they
(38:20):
are they're just reacting to what you're saying. And it's
it's almost impossible to do it within the organization. You
can sometimes do with a few people on the board.
You have to find that network of people that you
can actually say, hey, have this stupid idea, but what
do you think? Or being able to maybe blow off
some steam, whatever way you want to do it. Those
(38:41):
are all things that I think every entrepreneur sort figures
it out. The other thing you figure out very quickly
is that the way in which you care about every
detail about the organization is completely unique as a as
a CEO, and and really almost no one else can
see the entire organization, and we want else. He's one
slice of it. So your view is a unique view,
(39:06):
and don't expect others to be able to have that
view because they're not in that job. That's really great insight.
I've learned a tremendous amount in this interview. And we
hang out and I didn't know much of this stuff
about you or about how you how you see the
issue areas that we're discussing. As we you know, wrap up,
I want to be respectful of your time and the
(39:26):
global organization that you steward. Often we get very inspired
we hear from leaders like yourself that have organizations that
they steward. Some of us are lucky to work on
these issues on an ongoing basis in a way where
we feel like we're contributing. But when we look at
our own lives and like how do we make a
difference on a day to day basis, it can often
(39:48):
be really hard. You know, like am I going to
stop ordering Amazon Prime? Or you know, do I recycle?
Or does that make a difference? So, I mean, do
you have some suggestions for the listeners for the things
that they can do to, you know, day to day
be active as part of the movement. So, first of all,
it always makes a difference. And even these small things
(40:09):
that maybe a symbolic like do make a difference because
they play within the psyche. They play a role within
the bigger narrative with the biggest story that you have
to tell yourself and the people around you, about the
world you live in, in the community that you're trying
to build. So I I personally think that small things
do matter, uh, even if if in some ways they're symbolic.
(40:33):
But you can't stop at the small things. So you
can't stop at Hey, I'm recycling, but I'm not going
to vote. Hey, you know, guess what, I planted a
tree yesterday. So I don't need to really worry about
the environment or care about you know who I'm going
to donate to kind of have to do all of
the above. You know that in terms of your own
(40:56):
personal life, the biggest and do you use in your
life is what you eat and how you prepare it
and what you waste. So if you can optimize your
food procurement, your usage you're cooking and handling and the waste,
just optimize that piece. It's like the biggest, biggest, biggest
(41:18):
chunk of energy use in your life. So so that's one.
The second thing is the other stuff that goes around
with it, like how do you run your household? Like
do you wash your clothes in cold water, which you
should because all these diurgents actually can do it now,
or do you still use the high hot heat. Just
that one little thing can change your energy you know,
(41:39):
use in the day, you know, dramatically, right, So be
aware of those things, be aware of how you do that.
Get involved, Get involved with local politics, with what's happening
in your community, which what's happening in this country, it's
what's happening around the world, whatever scale you feel comfortable in.
(41:59):
Understand the issues, Understand who you're asking to represent you,
and make sure they understand what you care about. And
the environment needs to be at the very top of
that list because from that comes everything else. From it
comes the possibility to have a better life, right From
it comes everything. And then the third thing I would
(42:19):
say is that find an organization that resonates with you,
whether it's in your backyard, whether it's your region, or
it's a global organization like Conservation International, but there's lots
of others as well, the Nature Conservancy or wild Ie Fund,
while Conservation Society will resources into these all really great
organizations and get involved with them because in getting involved
(42:42):
with them, you will understand the issues so much better
and you will know where to push the hardest. The
best advocate for this movement is not me, but it's
your listeners. It's people who are actually most unlike me,
who are the people we actually need in this movement,
in the fight, and so my what I'm imploring all
(43:04):
of you to do is to not sit this out,
to learn to get engaged, to get involved. We will
san Thank you. I leave so inspired. I love you
really and truly, man, thank you for your service. It's
one thing to wear the robes and to live the
lifestyle and to externally identify as environmentalist. It's another thing
(43:27):
to dedicate your life to it day in and day out.
You're exceptional and just thank you again for being on
the podcast. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit
(43:53):
the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Art of the Hustle is a production of I Heart Radio.
You're listening to the Art of the Hustle, the show
that breaks down how some of the world's most fascinating
people have hustled and learned their way into achieving great things.
(00:21):
I'm your host Jeff Rosenthal, co founder of Summit, and
on today's episode, I had the pleasure to interview my
dear friend, dr Im Sanjin, CEO of Conservation International. San Jan,
by my account, is one of the most important leaders
in the conservation movement. Today we discussed his amazing journey,
his unique background being raised in Southeast Asia and West Africa,
(00:42):
and his deep connection to nature and the path that
he's been on to work on the planet's behalf. We
discussed how nature and humans can live in harmony, how
Conservation and National is working on new groundbreaking programs like
irreplaceable carbon research and projects against blue carbon, and preserving
the world's oceans, ecosystem preservation in the future of the
conservation movement. Both personally and professionally. Sangen has hosted more
(01:06):
than a dozen documentaries and shows across PBS and BBC
National Geographic Discovery Showtime, and recently his Box Media Climate
Lab series hosted with the University California, guarded over twenty
million views. I'm always blown away to talk to San Juan.
I always love hearing his perspective. He is such a
beautiful human being and such an important and impactful leader.
(01:29):
So please enjoy my conversation with Dr m Sanchen. San Jan,
thank you so much for being on the podcast. Thanks
for having me. Jeff. Where where are we chatting today?
Where are you in the world. Yeah, disappointingly, I'm in Alexander, Virginia,
in my home where I've been kind of on lockdown
(01:51):
since early March. I'm surprised to hear that. I figured
they would have, you know, to see I would have
gotten you out on the road in some capacity. Yeah,
you know, I would have thought so too. But look,
our teams are working in some really sensitive communities around
the world, you know, with indigenous communities, with local People's
just one of those things that I don't want to
(02:12):
be the vector, uh, And I don't want to put
anyone at risk. So it's not so much of me
being worried about what I might get, but also me
being you know, a vector for something that I unwittingly
transmit into one of the geographers we work in that
have been maybe spared. Uh So, you know that's one thing.
The other thing is to be honest. You know, we're
(02:33):
getting a lot done. It's been actually fairly impressive how
much we've managed to accomplish in the last say four
months or so, you know, going completely on you know
virtual Well, I want to hear all about it, you know,
to introduce the listeners to you, your global conservation scientists
whose work spans from genetics to wildlife migration. You were
(02:55):
the lead scientist at the Nature Conservancy since Sien you've
been the c of Conservation International, which I'm honored to
serve on your leadership council. For me and for for
my summit partners, and for many people of of our
you know shared community. You've really been an incredible inspiration
and you know, the connecting piece for us to the environment. Well,
(03:16):
thank you so much. And I think the feeling is
mutual as well. I mean I have personally benefited hugely
from getting to know the community better in your community
and your network and the and the people that you
you know, associate with and and love and and create
as part of your community even in fact that good
community in the sense of community that itself and that
(03:38):
concept of community, which is even more important today in
a fractured world for a global organization trying to manage
something you know in this virtual space is like front
and center. Well, my pleasure. And so you were raised
in Southeast Asia and West Africa, correct, Yeah, I was
born in Sri Lanka. Left when I was about five
years old. Grew up really in in West and East Africa.
(04:00):
You were like, mom and dad, it's time for us
to go to West and East Africa. Come on, get
your stuff pretty much. I mean, I loved wildlife, and
the day I found out that we were going to
Africa like that was like unbelievable. I had my little binoculars,
you know, getting on a plane. I mean, the whole
thing was just unbelievable, magical to me. And I remember
that time not as one of sadness for my family.
(04:23):
They left the country of their birth and the entire
network and everything they had in their home with just
two suitcases, right, and all we were allowed to take
was like my mom's jewelry and five pounds British pounds,
stealing pounds. That was sewn into the lining of my
my little um Paddington their coat because we were allowed
(04:44):
to take foreign currency out of the country. That was
it and my mom my dad didn't even tell my
mom that he had done that, and like later on
sur ripped the seams apart and pulled out this this money.
But so for them, this huge tragedy, for me was
just this moment. It was like know my gateway drug. Sure,
and and do you have any memories of your first
(05:05):
like formative experiences up close and personal either in nature
with animals that spurred this career in this path for you, Yes,
But I wouldn't say it was part of path. I
mean we were just surrounded by wildlife. We had a
snake on the first day we got there, you know,
chimpanzee is quite literally in the trees around our home.
Columbus monkeys, forest, elephants. I mean, we had you know.
(05:28):
I would go and catch things and bring them home,
all kinds of things, from snakes too, you know, little
baby crocodiles, to monitor lizards, to parrots. Um with snakes
would then come and eat the parrots at night, you know,
in these in these averies that I've built outside wait wait,
how old were you when you were building averies outside? Seven?
(05:48):
Eight years old? And you know, we had really cool
parrots in West Africa, um and at that time not
that rare. And you know, one very distinct night, I
remember very large spinning corporate getting into the cake and
swallowing the parrot as it was squawking, you know, and
my dad heard this noise and said something's going on.
(06:09):
We all rushed outside and the noise to suddenly stopped
and he said it's got it, and I didn't know
what he meant. And then we shown the flashlight into
the aviary and and you know, there was this huge
snake swallowing this bird. Did you have other jobs outside
of you know, things connected to animals and flora and fauna.
I always had the love for nature, but it was
(06:31):
never going to be a job. It was always going
to be a hobby. And my parents were very keen
and very clear in saying that conservation the environment. There
was no word like conservation that hadn't been out there yet,
you know, nature being love with nature or you know
anything like that. That was not a career, that was
not a job. That was just a hobby. And I
(06:53):
could do it as a hobby, and they they fostered
that passion. They bought me books and binoculars and tried
their best to you know, you know, exposed me to
things to me in the zoo, in countries where we visit,
in the UK or wherever. But that was quite literally
the words they used were that was for white people.
And I know that you know, moved to the US
(07:16):
to study at University Oregon, where you got your BS
and biology and ecology. So I guess at that point
you realize that there could have been a career path. No,
even at that point it was it was it was
pre med or or it was genetic, so it was research.
It was that was what was going on in my head. Um,
you know, I came to the University of Oregon kind
(07:37):
of want to you know, very last minute ditch effort
to get out from where I was and and and
America always was beckoning to me. My parents weren't very
keen going there, So it was it was really it
was never a career until really grad school. Grad school
was well opened the possibility that I could actually make
a living out of this. We met and you were
(08:00):
working with the Nature Conservancy as their lead scientists. And
I think the first time I heard you speak was
at some of at Sea in two thousand eleven. Do
you recall what you talked about on that stage. I
recall parts of that talk, yes, because the part that
I remember the most, the call to action, was you
walked us so eloquently and beautifully through the natural world
(08:21):
and explained the speeding up of environmental degradation and the
practical radical approach that would be required to working with
all the different parties involved in order to achieve the
outcomes we needed. And you said something along the lines of,
how you know, the old model of like building your
company's making a bunch of money and then donating that
money to a cause was all well and good, but
(08:43):
you know, the environment might not be there for us
when we get to the other side. And I remember
leaving your your presentation with unique sense that I guess
I didn't realize unconsciously that I thought I'd be able
to buy my way out. I thought, like, Okay, well,
the oceans rise on the coast, temperatures rise in certain places.
But if I'm successful, you know, I'll move to a
move to Montana, and I'll grow grapes in the new
(09:04):
warm climate. I left that talk getting the band aid
drift off in a sense, with the realization that the
temperature rise on the planet would irrevocably change all biology.
Tell me about your your recollections, though I don't want
to just tell you about mine. No, I think that's right,
you know. I I remember being a little bit nervous
about that talk because it was kind of a big
(09:24):
one and the people who were on stage with me, Um,
you know, Branson was there, you know. I I remember
some of the figures who were speaking kind of the
same block that I was, and thinking this was a
different audience, but also an audience that I really wanted
to try and connect with because in this audience I
could see the future of the planet and interesting A
(09:45):
lot of those people who were there have continued into
that mission, and now this has become part of what
we do. But you're right, you know I I've always
thought that what we were doing should not be a niche.
It should not be a hobby. Um, it should really be,
you know, part apostle of who we are and why
what we do matters. It should be part of every company,
it should be part of every government. It should be
(10:07):
part of every community because there's about air we breathe,
the water we drink, the place we live in, the
kind of environment we want to have around us, and
the buffer we want to have around us as well.
Because if you ever needed a reason to believe that
nature has unbelievable power and impact on your lives, you know,
just look outside, Look what's happening to the planet today.
(10:30):
I want to get into the ever important work of
conservation or national and how you perceive it in this
once in a lifetime moment that we're going through. So
Contribution International is about thirty five years old, and it
was created on a very simple premise that people need nature.
That fundamentally, you know, the jobs we have, quality of
(10:50):
life we enjoy, the water we drink, etcetera. Ultimately you know,
ties back to nature and and protecting nature. You know,
own enlightened self interest is really about protecting ourselves. It
was different right from the beginning because it accepted this
idea that humans were part of nature and not separate
(11:12):
from it. I think all the other conservation organizations up
to that point that I had come into contact with,
who are doing, who were doing and are doing unbelievably
important work. Always sort of had this idea that there
are nature needs to be protected from humans, and we
are kind of separate from it, and we need to
identify those places and just sort of protect them. Right,
(11:34):
That was sort of the evolution of conservation and how
it sort of came about. But see, I right from
the beginning incorporated humans into that equation. For me, coming
from the global south, right, not coming from a western country.
That's how I saw the world. I didn't see this
strong distinction between where nature ended and human civilization began.
(11:58):
We lived in before us, very literally, and I could
understand how for communities and people's who have lost everything,
where governments completely fail, where civil war disrupts their lives,
it's nature. It's nature that is the ultimate safety net.
It's nature that still provides, and that if we could
(12:20):
only tap into that, we would then really be able
to make conservation a fundamental right or fundamental good, as
opposed to an exclusive good or an exclusive right that
you could only get to after you've dealt with all
the other things. You know, we dealt with healthcare and
defense and jobs and whatever. You Oh, now let's get
(12:40):
to conservation. That was the sort of the flip for me,
and that's what attracted me to Conservation International because it
was set up in that with that mindset. So I
came over to the organizations about six years ago and
then three years ago the founder Peter Seligman, kind of
a legendary guy. Most of these bigger organizations have long
(13:02):
lost their founders to time, but I had that opportunity,
and what I find is an amazing organization working in
about thirty countries about you know, eleven hundred team members
around the world, a phenomenal board, phenomenal council, and a
real sense of community. Still small enough to be very
(13:22):
nimble and very agile, but big enough to really exert
our muscle and unafraid a little bit, unafraid of tackling
some things. So, you know, twenty years ago, this was
the first organization to really want to work with big companies.
And you know, as Peter's also the story, some people
quit because of that. Today all Conservation Organized, to some
extent work with the corporate sector. You know, unafraid of
(13:46):
going to work in libraria. That's a tough place to work,
and especially when we started working there, which is when
Charles Taylor was running the country, right, So you know,
Conservation International will always picked on the tough challenges because
those are an import and challenges to have always seen
the world from that global self perspective, from the perspective
indigenous people's local communities, you know, how do they benefit
(14:10):
and really had humans at the center of the equation. Um,
that's what brings me in. That's what keeps me excited
every day. We'll be back with more out of the
hustle after the break. Talk to us about irreplaceable carbon. Yeah,
(14:33):
so irreplaceable carbon. It's a great word. So look, it
turns out you know that, you know, climate change is
caused by emissions of greenhouse gases common dooxide, meeting, other
things like that. It makes our planet warmer every single year,
and that trend doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
It turns out that the amount of carbon going into
(14:54):
the atmosphere really comes from two sources. The one primary
source that we all know is our use of as fuels, Right,
so we burned the stuff, it goes up into the air,
it stays around for a long time and heats our land.
The other is from nature itself. When we cut down forests,
when we destroy land, when we plow up land, when grasslands,
when we cut down mangroves, which are forests that grow
(15:15):
in the ocean, et cetera. All of that also sends
up a lot of carbon into the atmosphere. And it
turns out that if you can protect forests in particular,
but other kinds of ecosystems as well, and restore them
at scale, you could get about thirty percent of the
emissions reductions that we need to achieve in order to
(15:37):
meet the goals that we set up at the during
the Paris Climate Accord that every country except for want
ed to agreed upon. Um you can get that by protecting,
restoring and improving the management of forests. That's amazing to me.
But let me let me put it most succinctly. If
deforestation was a country, it would be the third biggest
(16:01):
emitter of greenhouse gasses. So it'd be like, you know,
the United States in China right up there at the top,
followed by deforestation. And very little money goes into combating deforestation.
Most of the money goes into tech, goes into solar
wind you know, alternate fuels, efficiencies, tesla cars, all that
(16:25):
kind of stuff. All very very good, all very useful,
incredibly essential. We absolutely have to reduce the amount of
emissions that we're putting out. We absolutely have to transition
into a zero carbon or low carbon economy. We have
to find carbon capture mechanisms. But it turns out that
we have a corbon capture mechanism right here, right ready in,
(16:45):
right now, ready to go at scale. And that's your forests.
Those are your trees. So what we did was we
mapped where these pools of irrecoverable carbon around the world.
One of the most dense sites for your recoverable carbon.
Where do you get the most carbon, you know, bang
for the buck if you can invest in certain areas
(17:08):
where you can trap large amounts of carbon, protect it
in the ground, in trees, um in mangroves, etcetera. That's
what that's what that is. And and we call it
replaceable carbon because it's carbon that you cannot you cannot
replace in a human relevant timescale. Once you lose it,
it's up there. There's no way you can make the
(17:28):
math work. So replanting and reforesting is incredibly important. We
got to do it at a much much bigger scale.
And much more efficiently, but you're going to still lose,
and it's better to protect than to replant much better.
It's also cheaper. Well in Conservation and International put out
a groundbreaking a bit of research on this concept, specifically
(17:50):
mapping these mangroves and these forests and the peat grasses.
In your opinion, do we need to rethink carbon credits?
Do we need to reconsider how think about you know
the value that we're creating for the environment. I think so,
and I think it's happening. That's the good news. So
what we have seen in the past has been a
tsunami of investment that's going into tech, into tech, into
(18:13):
clean tech, into renewables, into efficiencies. That's great. It surprised
many of us the speed of that change. I drive
a Tesla. I would have never ever imagined that in
my adult lifetime I would have the opportunity to drive
a fully electric car that functions so kind of amazing.
You can see that kind of change happening, and that
(18:34):
that wave of investment is not slowing down. It's not
slowing down. If anything, it's gathering real esteem. We need
to make sure we do the same with protecting these
irreplaceable corbon sinks. These these living pools of carbon forests,
particularly tropical forest, mangroves, peat lands you know, and and
(18:54):
other other types of ecosystems, and we need to restore
them at scale. It is happening, it's not happening fast enough,
and the science on it is needs to be dramatically upgraded.
So a lot of companies today are now understanding the
value of protecting for us and they are getting into
this UM. They're reducing their emissions through recycling, through energy efficiencies,
(19:18):
through alternate fuels, which is great, but they also realizing
that there's a gap, a gap that they need to bridge,
and they're often doing it through protecting for us or
restoring for us. We play a big role in helping
them decide where best to use their investments so that
not only can they get a big return in terms
of carbon, but very importantly that local communities, indigenous peoples
(19:42):
on whose land much of that for us exists are
the beneficiaries in an equitable way of this transfer of wealth.
Do you think that your upbringing in your background UM
gives you a unique perspective where you're sensitive to these
community ease that are otherwise overlooked often. You know, I
(20:03):
suspect so. But it's a difficult question, Jeff, because you know,
one never is that introspective about one's own background, like I.
You know, I don't sit and think, oh, I'm Asian.
That's why I really appreciate, you know, Asian food. But
that's why you do. You know, my my one year
old loves curry. Loves curry. I don't know why she
(20:25):
loves curry, but she does. Now I ascribe that to
the fact that he guess what, you know, I'm salth Asian.
But it's hard to know this whether you know I'm
more sensitive because I have this background, or it's just
the right thing to do. Um, I suspect it's a
bit of both. I spent a couple of weeks with
the Rani people in in Ecuador, in the Ecuadorian Amazon,
(20:49):
and then this is really deep in the Ecuadorian forest,
and my experience with them in particular, it was eye
opening to me. And and so certainly I understand that
why it's how us Why why was it eye opening
to you? You know, the cohesiveness of their society, the
the unbelievable sophistication of the way that they use nature
(21:13):
around them. You know, the you know, I have it
at my home. I have a blowpipe which I got
from one of them as a gift, and and all
the the very fine, um, you know, pieces of equipment
that go with it, the little arrows, the fletching, the
the I mean, the technology that surrounds it is as
(21:36):
beautiful and as carefully carefully thought through as like my iPhone.
It really is, and it's it's exquisitely built for a
particular purpose. You know. It comes with piranha teeth that
you can use to notch the arrows so that the
tip breaks when it goes into the skin of a
small monkey high up in the tree. I mean, that's
(21:58):
like someone even thinking through the details, you don't have
that appreciation for how all these cultures are, how how
exquisitely designed they are by their environment and have designed
their environment. And when you watch the rituals, when you
watch they use the tools, when you want their understanding
(22:19):
about nature, um, you get this deep sense that as guardians,
as stewards of nature, they are unsurpassed. And so for me,
from a very practical point of view as a conservationist,
my best allies should be indigenous communities and local people.
(22:40):
They're the ones living closer to the source. They're the
ones that had the most to gain and the most
to lose if nature isn't considered in the right way.
I believe it's thirteen out of the top twenty prescribed
drugs in the world, ranging from aspen to heart disease
medicine use some form of mushrooms, you know, so you
have these mushrooms that are growing my celium and all
(23:03):
of these different ecosystems in the world. That turns out
that that's what is helping us live healthier, longer lives.
The chemicals um often that we ingest are a formula
made from something that was found and one of these
at risk ecosystems. And uh, something that I did learn
inside of the CIA ecosystem actually from Peter. The way
he put it to me is that, you know, every
(23:24):
indigenous tribe has its own earth operating system that's been
built and passed down over generations, and their technologies are
no different than our technologies are no different than a
bird's nest. Right a bird learned how to make a nest,
and that's their bird technology, and the other thing that
really I appreciated and never understood is there's no it,
(23:45):
there's no subjugation of things into generalities. You know, everything
has a purpose, everything has a name, and often they
find themselves, you know, related in their own narratives, cultural narratives,
to the mountains, to the trees. They're not they're not
separate from them. Their environment is their brothers and their sisters,
which I loved. I agree, I mean, I think that's
(24:06):
exactly right. But that that realization for many of us
comes you know, sometimes late in life, sometimes never, and
I think an understanding of it probably makes us all
better humans. And it certainly makes us understand that indigenous
people's local communities, you know, people who are again living
on the front lines of nature, right within nature. You
(24:27):
know that that idea that there's no end, that everything
has a purpose, everything has a name or a description
or a or a story behind it, you know, gives
them the kind of holistic vision that that most of
us are myopic too well, And I want to transition
to your work on the oceans in blue carbon projects,
(24:50):
love for you to dive in. Yeah, so like look oceans,
I think that's one that's an area that so one
thing Jeff I just want to go back to and
just sort of mentioned the key world that we use
with irrecoverble carbon. Now, this is where natural climate solutions
that's gaining a lot of momentum, and that's what we're
pushing right, natural climate solutions, you know, solutions to climate
(25:11):
change that really come from nature. Uh so transitioning that
into blue carbon. In the oceans, Conservation International really has
a really great team and they've been working in the
oceans almost from the beginning of the organization and it's
good knowledge, it's deep knowledge. There are three areas that
we're really focused on when it comes to the oceans.
(25:33):
The first dramatically increased amount of protected areas within oceans.
The amount of oceans that are protected globally is miniscule
compared to what's on land and just miniscule overall. We
think that needs to be dramatically increased, and we, along
with a few key partners, have agreed to push for
(25:54):
eighteen million square kilometers of new protected area within the
next ten years. That will double what's effective be there,
so a huge, huge goal. We're well on our way
towards trying to make that a reality. The second is
we know we need to protect blue carbon. So it
turns out that just like forests, some ecosystems in the
ocean are really really good at protecting and and sucking
(26:17):
up and locking up carbon. One of those our coastal
forest called mangroves. There are many species of mangroves. They
grow around the world. You can see them in Florida,
for example, but the real heart of mangroves is in
Asia and in in Brazil and Colombia, in Bangladesh, in Indonesia,
in the Philippines and countries like this. And mangroves, you know,
(26:38):
acre for acre can store up to six times more
carbon than a tropical equivalent tropical forest system can. So
they are the densest um densest packaging or densest aggregation
of carbon you can find on Earth. It is incredibly
important to protect them UH. And they're great for hoastlines,
(27:00):
they keep people safe, they are nurseries for baby fish.
There are loads of other code benefits. So protecting global
mangroves UH and restoring them at scale is sort of
goal number two, and gold number three is really cleaning
up the fisheries industry, and to that extent, aquaculture industry
as well, promoting good agriculture done in the right way. Uh,
(27:21):
it's very important for people and their livelihoods around the
world and for protein. And then cleaning up fisheries. UM,
A lot of fisheries, particularly on the high Seas, is
done with slave labor or what is very close to
slave labor. It's probably the most flagrant violation of human
rights and labor. Horse It's the closest you could come
(27:43):
to essentially participating in something that's been harvested by slaves.
When you go and participate in certain kinds of fisheries
and some murky world and we need to clean it up.
And we are taking a very strong position on that
and working with some very responsible companies to really clean
up that supply chain. There's no way, god, we know,
(28:05):
you should be going to a restaurant or you should
be going to store and picking up fish and thinking
this fish could actually be coming from a ship that
is completely um except for the captain and maybe two
or three other people crewed by by indented servants or
buy slaves. Art of the hustle will be right back
after this short break. When I think about the environmental movement,
(28:35):
Historically it's been a white issue. It's been you know,
something that you know has had primarily white leadership in
the space. And it's also you know when you look
at the donor pool too, and those that have gotten
themselves are connected to it, whether it's influencers or celebrities
or you know, billionaires that could underwrite this stuff. I
found in my research for this an article on you
(28:57):
from two thousand and eight from Time Science titled changing
the White Face of the Green Movement. I wanted to
hear your thoughts on that. You know, we're in this
really unique moment with the movement for black lives. I
want to know, like, is are you seeing change? I
think that some of these companies, the Walmarts, the Unilever's,
(29:18):
the Apples, the PNG, the Starbucks of the world, for
the most part, are actually ahead of the consumer. In fact,
in some places they even slightly ahead of the environmental sector.
So ten years ago we were standing outside screaming in
and they wouldn't let us anywhere near the lobby. Five
(29:39):
years ago they invited into the lobby to or three
years ago they took us upstairs. Now we're right in
the C suite and it isn't Yes, you can say,
all right, well, isn't that a bit of greenwashing going on?
And I'm sure there's some of that, but for the
most part, at the CEO level of these companies, you
are seeing a real transform aation. You're seeing a change
(30:03):
in attitude and mentality about their brand, their role, the
long term nature of their business and what they you know,
sort of owe their consumer, consumers, their own people, their
own team, and their own grandchildren. You know, Alan Joke,
the CEO of Uni Leaver, said to me, you know,
I was walking down the beach and he said his
kid was pointing out all these things on the beach, saying, Dad,
(30:25):
you made that, Dad, you made that? And he said,
I don't want to be. I don't want to be
the CEO of branded litter. We see Doug McMillan on
stage from Walmart talk about his children and what they're
expecting of the world. It's completely real. There's nothing calculated
about that. Today. Just today, just coincidentally, you know, I
(30:46):
was on the on the on a phone call with
David tayl the CEO of PNG. You know, you look
at p and and the stands they take on social issues,
it's extraordinary. It's extraordinary. You know. He's a Midwestern company
based in Ohile, and it's run by an engineer from
North Carolina who grew up in the company and spent
I don't know, thirty years this life in the company.
(31:08):
They're a quiet brand, but they do some amazing things.
And in terms of their brand stands on things like equity,
and and and race and now on the environment. I
think in some ways they are a little bit of
ahead of the consumer. I find that really exciting. There's
certainly ahead of the government, right, They're really ahead of
(31:28):
most governments. So I I like that. No moment now,
I don't think we can let up. I need to think,
we need to accelerate. And what's happened now, let's pivot
to race and this issue that you brought up about
the brown face and the green movement or and the
Times article. If you look at that and look at
the way these companies have very quickly said what they
(31:49):
do not find acceptable anymore. They can read history. They
do not want to be on the wrong side of history.
P G. That's is a company that was I think
it was founded in heaven. They fully expect to be
here for another hundred years. You don't want to be
on the wrong side of history, and you might as
well build a company as if you're building it for
the long run. I think the most dangerous companies are
(32:12):
the young ones, the startups, the ones that want to
make a buck very fast, that still haven't had that
experience of history, that think that they're going to change
the world overnight just because guess what, they're good and
they're young, and because they're young and they're good, they're
going to do the right thing. I think history is
showing us right now that they haven't been always very
(32:34):
good and they're getting caught a little bit on the
wrong side of history. So it's a very amazing space
to be in now on the conservation side of the
environment movement. And listen, that has been a really big
hurdle to jump. I've had four job interviews four times
in my life where I have been told sometimes using
(32:57):
these exact words, sometimes in code that I don't fit. Listen,
I'll tell you a true story. I applied once to
be the head of Asia Pacific region for a big
conservation organization. After several phone calls by well meaning people,
they sort of convinced me that A. I had a
(33:18):
better job and B I didn't fit. That's pretty hard
to believe, and it's even harder to believe when you
realize that they ultimately gave the job to a great person,
but exactly exactly what you would have prayed wouldn't happen.
You know, the hardest thing about racism for me, and
(33:41):
believe me, I've had such a privileged life, with such
great parents and such great privileges that I haven't had
to deal with the stuff that a lot of people
you have to deal with. But for me, it makes
all of us slightly suspicious of the motive of others,
even if those more is a well meaning. The problem
(34:03):
is I can't give them the benefit of the doubt. Sure,
and they might not be even conscious of their biases.
You know, I'm sure that they were for the most
part well meaning if you were to give the benefit
of the doubt, But that doesn't change the systemic nature
of what has gone down for generations and will likely
(34:23):
continue to even with this great you know awakening that's
occurring right now, to the you know, constant reality for
so many people that are non white or non binary,
this is such a sensitive topic that I don't want
to let go of it without saying that I am
(34:43):
guilty of those biases at times too. You know that
in my mind there's a fit for someone who's a conservationist.
And the interesting thing is the guys that summit, guys
like you or Elliott and others, don't actually fit in
my mind right. So for me, the fit is, you know,
do you fly fish, do your bird watch? Are you
(35:04):
out there in the outdoor world? You love nature? Can you,
you know, tell the difference between you know, I don't
know an African lot in an Asian often I don't
know what it is. But there's this sort of sort
of myth in my own mind about what a conservation
is ought to look and sound like. That's even more difficult.
So I have to break those myself in order to,
(35:25):
you know, allow me to be able to see allies
in places um that I might not always see in
the truth of the matters. I could teach you to
fly fish in one day, but your life experiences, where
you were born, how you grew up. You know, the race,
the nationality, the gender, the issues that you dealt with,
(35:46):
the burdens you bore. Those are lifetime experience I could
never teach, and that's what we need to be able
to bring into our tent and so it's really important.
I think conservation as a field is the least nor
talked to this field I can possibly think of for
a field that is so keen on protecting biodiversity, most
(36:07):
of which, guess what is in Africa, Asia or Latin America.
We are incredibly poorly represented by kind of the global
cell or the tritorial you know, parts of the world,
especially in in senior senior leadership, and it's it's always
lonely when I'm there. Now, I know I benefit from
it by being the only brown guy I get to
(36:28):
be on stage. You know, you know, I get that,
I really get that. But it gets old, and it
gets old really fast. One of the things I did
want to ask you about because to your point, you
did interview for those four different positions, and this is like,
you know, your first time being the CEO of the organization.
You know, I imagine that's a transition and skill, you know,
(36:48):
being an inspirational thought leader being a scientist, which is
an entirely different field that you had to dedicate a
decade plus of your life to be good at I
imagine let alone be great at right. The theme of
the podcast often is entrepreneurial and would love to hear
you know, what are the things that surprised you? What
are the things that you know you're still learning into.
(37:10):
The thing that surprises you most is that you always
think you're coming in with a clean slate. Here's my agenda,
now go, but you don't. The minute you walk in,
you realize the plate was already full, and there's food
falling off it, and actually the plate is cracked, and
guess what here comes to suit? Your agenda quickly quickly
gets waylaid by the messiness and the reality of what
(37:34):
you actually have to deal with. That's the first thing
that you quickly realize. The second thing is time becomes
unbelievably precious and your ability to serially focus on a
variety of issues. So you you break your day up
and you you you hyper focus on one thing, that
hyper focus on now, and and and doing that fast
over multiple different things. You know, day becomes a real skill.
(37:58):
And the third thing is you have to mind. You
have to find a group of individuals or or some
other way in which you can actually let your guard down.
You know, when they say it's lonely at the top,
what they mean by that is that you have really
no one to shoot ship with. You can't you can't
sort of brainstorm with anyone without always thinking that they
(38:20):
are they're just reacting to what you're saying. And it's
it's almost impossible to do it within the organization. You
can sometimes do with a few people on the board.
You have to find that network of people that you
can actually say, hey, have this stupid idea, but what
do you think? Or being able to maybe blow off
some steam, whatever way you want to do it. Those
(38:41):
are all things that I think every entrepreneur sort figures
it out. The other thing you figure out very quickly
is that the way in which you care about every
detail about the organization is completely unique as a as
a CEO, and and really almost no one else can
see the entire organization, and we want else. He's one
slice of it. So your view is a unique view,
(39:06):
and don't expect others to be able to have that
view because they're not in that job. That's really great insight.
I've learned a tremendous amount in this interview. And we
hang out and I didn't know much of this stuff
about you or about how you how you see the
issue areas that we're discussing. As we you know, wrap up,
I want to be respectful of your time and the
(39:26):
global organization that you steward. Often we get very inspired
we hear from leaders like yourself that have organizations that
they steward. Some of us are lucky to work on
these issues on an ongoing basis in a way where
we feel like we're contributing. But when we look at
our own lives and like how do we make a
difference on a day to day basis, it can often
(39:48):
be really hard. You know, like am I going to
stop ordering Amazon Prime? Or you know, do I recycle?
Or does that make a difference? So, I mean, do
you have some suggestions for the listeners for the things
that they can do to, you know, day to day
be active as part of the movement. So, first of all,
it always makes a difference. And even these small things
(40:09):
that maybe a symbolic like do make a difference because
they play within the psyche. They play a role within
the bigger narrative with the biggest story that you have
to tell yourself and the people around you, about the
world you live in, in the community that you're trying
to build. So I I personally think that small things
do matter, uh, even if if in some ways they're symbolic.
(40:33):
But you can't stop at the small things. So you
can't stop at Hey, I'm recycling, but I'm not going
to vote. Hey, you know, guess what, I planted a
tree yesterday. So I don't need to really worry about
the environment or care about you know who I'm going
to donate to kind of have to do all of
the above. You know that in terms of your own
(40:56):
personal life, the biggest and do you use in your
life is what you eat and how you prepare it
and what you waste. So if you can optimize your
food procurement, your usage you're cooking and handling and the waste,
just optimize that piece. It's like the biggest, biggest, biggest
(41:18):
chunk of energy use in your life. So so that's one.
The second thing is the other stuff that goes around
with it, like how do you run your household? Like
do you wash your clothes in cold water, which you
should because all these diurgents actually can do it now,
or do you still use the high hot heat. Just
that one little thing can change your energy you know,
(41:39):
use in the day, you know, dramatically, right, So be
aware of those things, be aware of how you do that.
Get involved, Get involved with local politics, with what's happening
in your community, which what's happening in this country, it's
what's happening around the world, whatever scale you feel comfortable in.
(41:59):
Understand the issues, Understand who you're asking to represent you,
and make sure they understand what you care about. And
the environment needs to be at the very top of
that list because from that comes everything else. From it
comes the possibility to have a better life, right From
it comes everything. And then the third thing I would
(42:19):
say is that find an organization that resonates with you,
whether it's in your backyard, whether it's your region, or
it's a global organization like Conservation International, but there's lots
of others as well, the Nature Conservancy or wild Ie Fund,
while Conservation Society will resources into these all really great
organizations and get involved with them because in getting involved
(42:42):
with them, you will understand the issues so much better
and you will know where to push the hardest. The
best advocate for this movement is not me, but it's
your listeners. It's people who are actually most unlike me,
who are the people we actually need in this movement,
in the fight, and so my what I'm imploring all
(43:04):
of you to do is to not sit this out,
to learn to get engaged, to get involved. We will
san Thank you. I leave so inspired. I love you
really and truly, man, thank you for your service. It's
one thing to wear the robes and to live the
lifestyle and to externally identify as environmentalist. It's another thing
(43:27):
to dedicate your life to it day in and day out.
You're exceptional and just thank you again for being on
the podcast. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit
(43:53):
the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
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