Cultivating Conservation – Details, episodes & analysis

Ethical Lens's. Navigating morality in wildlife photography and film making with Megan Hockin-Bennett, Natasha Garritty and Ryan Tidman. 

This week’s episode is a little different in format. Last week I hosted the first ever Coastal Insights. Over a year ago I had an idea. To bring science, conservation, creativity and community together. To have everyone under the one roof to present, listen, inspire and share collectively our love for this coast we call home. 

We squeezed 90 people into one of my favorite places on earth. The Whale Interpretive centre is a museum in telegraph Cove on vancouver Island.  Run by the wonderful Jim and Mary Borrowman and it houses the most incredible collection of artifacts from this coastline. Every year they welcome thousands of guests to learn from their knowledgeable team. I first visited in 2012 during my first summer on this coast and 15 years later seeing a full house sitting under the skeletons of whales was a sight to behold.

Six very different speakers shared stories, statistics, opinions but most importantly they shared their passion and the energy in the room was electric and palpable. It was an evening I will never forget and it is certainly the first of many Coastal Insights. 

I really hope sometime soon to be able to share more snippets from these speakers as I sit down with them all separately to learn more about their lives, their passions and their stories. 

But for this week I wanted to share with you my contribution to the evening. 

A few years ago now I found a instagram account called Woodland Orbit run by a local trail cam enthusiast Natasha Garritty. We finally met a few months later through mutual friends and have always kept in touch. I have been so inspired by her work and thoughtful process towards ethics that I reached out about recording an episode. Another mutual friend of ours Ryan Tidman who is a professional wildlife photography and camera operator was also someone I wanted in the conversation. His work on camera traps and his experience in blue chip natural history was something I was also interested in hearing about. 

We took a hike in a local forest where they both set some of their trail cams, set some camping chairs down, rigged up 4 camera and 4 microphones and recorded our chat. 

What was a 90 min conversation I had to edit down to a 25 minute piece for Coastal Insights. 

We really did only scratch the surface here and it feels like it is the start of a much bigger conversation which I feel is becoming more important than ever. 

What you hear now is the audio of that edited conversation. 

Gorillas are among the most recognizable of the large charismatic mammals, but climate change and poaching has brought them to the brink of extinction. Greg Cummings was the executive director of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund for seventeen years. He shares his fascinating experiences as a “wildlife Robin Hood”—raising money from the rich and famous and redistributing it to endangered gorillas and their habitats. He met and enlisted the help of celebrities such as Sigourney Weaver, Arthur C. Clark, Douglas Adams, and Leonardo DiCaprio. This thirty-year worldwide journey moves from boardrooms in Manhattan and London to mountain treks in Rwanda and Congo. Gorilla Tactics is sure to enchant readers with Greg’s unique experiences, while sharing insight into the work it takes to save a species from extinction.

Show Notes:  - https://www.munrobooks.com/item/XxL4J9tRA546NZ0RHwLBeQ

-https://bluegorillagiving.ca/

Rob Lott is a marine mammal scientist and currently works as a policy manager and orca programme lead for Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), an international charity which campaigns to see a world where every whale and dolphin is safe and free. Based in the UK, Rob works on WDC’s anti-captivity programme, addressing the issue of the live captures of cetaceans in Russia and Japan, as well as improving the welfare of captive whales and dolphins through the exploration of retirement sanctuary options. He is a keen writer and photographer and has published internationally in magazines and newspapers. His favourite places on the planet are Northern Vancouver Island, Iceland, Svalbard and South Georgia. Show Notes: - https://uk.whales.org - https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/650377 - https://belugasanctuary.sealifetrust.org/en/ - https://www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk/event/orca-watch-2023/ - https://orcalab.org/blog/a-night-at-cp-rob/

Aged 13 I picked up a book in my school library. Listening to whales by Alexandra Morton. It changed my life, It brought me to British Columbia and it brought me to Alex!  

Alexandra Morton settled in a remote area of the BC coast in 1984 to study orca vocalizations.  When impact of the industrial salmon farms flooding into the area became apparent, Morton began a 35-year effort to convince government to halt the damage by this industry.  She has published dozens of scientific papers on the impact , built the research station Salmon Coast to document the impact, filed 5 lawsuits and never lost, and then occupied the farms with First Nations for 280 days.  Nearly half salmon farms in BC have now been closed. Another round of consultations are underway on the fate of the remaining farms.  Salmon farming in BC is run by three Norwegian based companies, Greig, Mowi and Cermaq.  Morton’s recent book Not on My Watch chronicles, among other things, the coverup of impact of farm salmon pathogens on wild salmon.  Show Notes: - https://www.alexandramorton.ca - https://www.clayoquotaction.org - https://psf.ca - https://bati4salmon.ca

Dear friend and fellow film maker Sam Rose Phillips is a photographer, documentary filmmaker, and poet based in Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ Territory, what is currently known as Ucluelet, British Columbia. She focuses her lens on human-wildlife stories and their significance to coastal communities. Sam specializes in off-grid, remote storytelling from land and on the water, spending the first 5 years of her career as a one-woman film crew. She is currently directing her first feature-documentary about the nuances of coexisting with wildlife. Show Notes: - http://www.samrosephillips.com

For episode one I simply had to sit down with my best friend and biggest inspiration! Growing up in far north Queensland Shari had an interesting start to life tree planting with her mother. Now is a traditional sailor and rigger, participated in numerous Sea Shepard Society Campaigns, made a documentary about captive orca Morgan and we have spent the last 7 summers volunteering together at OrcaLab in British Columbia, Canada. 

Show Notes: 

- @shariana on instagram 

- https://www.movingimage.org.uk/events/to-liberate-a-blackfish/

- https://seashepherd.org

- Orcalab.org 

- https://www.dolphinproject.com

- https://www.freemorgan.org

- Address postcards for freedom to:

      Wolfgang Keissling 

      Av. Loro Parque,

      s/n, 38400

     Puerto de la Cruz,

     Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain

Dr Christy Hehir is an environmental psychologist with a PhD on how tourism can better aid conservation. Christy is passionate about understanding how tourists engage with the natural world and the long-term impacts tourism can have on individuals’ subsequent pro-environmental behaviour towards our planet’s sustainability. Committed to science communication, Christy was recently awarded a fellowship at the Royal Geographical Society  and currently works as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Surrey - researching the future of polar tourism. Prior to academia, Christy had 10 years’ travel industry experience across the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. Her polar adventures ignited when she travelled to Antarctica with Students on Ice, having been elected as the UK’s student representative for International Polar Year.

Show Notes:  - https://www.surrey.ac.uk/people/dr-christy-hehir -https://happywhale.com/home - 

Patrica Sims is a Director, Writer and Producer specializing in documenting threatened wildlife and is fascinated by the connection between humans and nature. From the arctic to the tropics, from the land to the sea. A true documentarian, Patricia has spent her life embedded within communities that live in close proximity with the natural world and her goal is to bring a global awareness to threats they face. She is a Fellow International of The Explorers Club, and Fellow in the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS). 

In 2012 Patrica founded World Elephant Day, A global awareness campaign that brings attention to the critical threats facing elephants. Now in its 13th year the annual World Elephant Day campaign reaches millions of individuals across the globe through events, traditional media, and social media outreach.

Her multi award winning films, For the love of dolphins, Beluga Speaking Across Time, Return to the forest and When elephants were young have been celebrated globally. The founder of production company Canazwest Pictures, A public speaker, avid freediver and lover of all things nature, Patrica loves nothing more than a walk on the beach with her dog. In 2024, she is in development on several projects including her feature documentary “Breathless” and feature documentary series “The Big Hunt”.

Show Notes:  - https://worldelephantday.org - http://www.canazwest.com/bios - https://canadiangeographic.ca/canadian-geographic-adventures/rcgs-travel-ambassadors/rcgs-ambassador-patricia-sims/

Tiare Boyes is an underwater camera operator, photographer, commercial diver and ocean plastics artist. Growing up on the coast of BC raised by a family of fishermen, her life has always revolved around the ocean; understanding how we can be good neighbors to our marine cousins, as well as sharing the incredible beauty and amazing underwater life with others in an enjoyable and educational manner drives her creativity. Her passion is being immersed in the marine world, both at work and at play and showing others the incredible world that lays just below the surface.

 Show Notes:  - https://www.tiareboyes.com - https://divermag.com/diver-interview-tiare-boyes/ - https://www.wildpacifichalibut.com/fishing-families/tiare-boyes

Host, Megan Hockin-Bennett takes a break from interviews to talk about the podcast, what it has meant for her so far and the huge ripples it's making in her life swell as others!