How Marine Conservation Works: From Community Action to Global Policy

1:00:00 Let me ask you a question. Do you know how conservation works? Where does conservation actually happen? Because the reason why I'm asking this is not to be a elitist or anything like that. I want to really know how you think conservation happens. Because in this episode, I'm going to talk to you about my experience with conservation. I am a marine biologist and science communicator that's been working in this field of marine science and freshwater science and conservation over the last 20 years, over 20 years. And I've had a podcast where I talk about conservation projects for the last 10 years. So I have a lot of experience in knowing what projects have gone where, how it was done. The reason why I'm saying this is because I did a review of the shark whisperer, a documentary on Netflix that documents Ocean Ramsey's work with sharks, as well as her so-called leading conservation work to get shark fishing banned in Hawaii.

1:00:57 She contributed to a project that was led by indigenous Hawaiians and it seemed like taking credit for a little bit more than what she did. I said that was wrong. People lashed out at me saying, "Hey, she's done more conservation work than you have in your entire life and that scientists have around the world and you should be thankful for it." And that's when I realized that some people don't really understand how conservation is done. And there are people that contribute and collaborate with others to make conservation happen and it's great. And this is not a video or a podcast to crap on influencers because they play a big role and they play an even bigger role in the future of working with conservationists and scientists to get things done.

1:01:43 But there's some caveats in there and there are some ways that conservation is done that I want people to understand. I want this audience to understand. So we're going to talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. This is a podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. I'll tell you this episode. We're going to be talking about marine conservation. How does marine conservation work? How do we protect the ocean? This is all about how you can protect the ocean. Let's talk about how it actually is protected.

1:02:24 That's the big thing we're going to talk about. Say before we do, if you want to better protect the ocean and you want to learn how to protect the ocean and get guided to protect the ocean, join our online community called the undertow. It's really easy to do so. You just sign up for an app. There's a waiting list right now as we prepare this app. It's going to be a lot of fun to be a part of it. I'm going to be a part of the community. I have two wonderful co founders who are going to be part of the committee. You are going to be a part of the community, hopefully. And our colleagues here on in the audience will be part of the community and we're going to be helping each other protect the ocean better. We're going to connect to the ocean. We're going to have events. We're going to have in person events with how virtual events we're going to talk about the ocean, no algorithms ocean, just ocean all the time.

1:03:05 All you have to do is go to speak up for blue.com forward slash join the undertow that speak up for blue.com forward slash join the undertow. The link will be in the description. All right. Let's talk about how conservation works because I want to just let it out there. I was called jealous. I was called envious. I was saying, hey, somebody told me, hey, you haven't done anything for conservation like Ocean Ramsey has. She has done more for conservation than any scientists around the world. That's what people are claiming. And this is not to bash Ocean Ramsey. I have this is not really about her. This is the response of the people that I was some of the people that were like commenting on videos and messaging me and so forth.

1:03:48 And I just said, hey, I don't know if people truly understand how conservation is done in 2025 or how it's been done in the past because I think there's a lot of people who look online and they see scientists and they see conservationists and they see influencers who are diving and out in the field with ocean animals. All the time and they're wonderful. They're wonderful videos. They're wonderful pictures. They tell great stories. It's really interesting to see they allow us to connect to the ocean in a ways that we couldn't do before the Internet and before social media, which is wonderful. It plays a huge role in storytelling for the ocean and bringing us in to conservation in a way and bring us closer to the ocean and it really developing that love for the ocean without social media.

1:04:37 We wouldn't know about certain characteristics of workers or certain characteristics of the sharks have or the different species of sharks or how there are go sharks in the world or how there are cool things that turtles do, you know, all the just different things that get videoed and the fact that manatees can hug surfboard or something like that. Who knew that this was a possibility? We found that out through social media and through people sharing videos and sharing their experiences in the ocean and that is truly valuable and there is definitely a role of social media and social media influences and content creators as I am one that will play a role in conservation in the future and even now. But I think that what happens is people see that and they say it's all they see and when somebody starts to talk about the conservation work that they're doing, which is great.

1:05:24 You know, that's all they know they talk about that conservation action and they're saying, yes, this person is actually taking part and they believe that person because they've trusted that person because they build that trust over time and they understand that person has played a significant role or a role in working on that conservation movement to have that specific conservation action, which is great. It's wonderful if they're telling the truth and this is where it becomes really complicated when it comes to influencers who are actually doing the work or who are actually trying to do the work and trying to conserve and whether they're actually doing the right work and telling the truth or they just trying to take credit, which has happened with Ocean Ramsey in the past with this Netflix documentary is reclaiming that she was part as she led the conservation movement in action to ban shark fishing in Hawaii, which is a very important thing.

1:06:16 It's not the case. It was it was indigenous led for native for native Hawaiians and it was something that was it's known, but people aren't talking about because the action was already taken and it's great that it was actually taken. But the fact that somebody takes credit for that is just not it's not good. It's not good for for conservation. It's not good for marine biology. It's not good for a lot of things that we look at when we do conservation conservation is done not in the ocean. That's part of the process. I want to go over how conservation is done. Scientists go out right and they do studies and they depict trends that are happening in the ocean. Some of these trends might be positive. Some of these trends might be negative for the specific topic that we're looking at. So say for coral reefs, a scientist decides to do some work on coral reefs. Let's just make it as simple as possible.

1:07:13 Are coral reefs healthy? Let's take an overall metric of looking at what coral reef health looks like. So we're looking at biodiverse less out like not as much algae that's overcoming the corals. The corals are fleshy. They're healthy. They're colorful and we see a lot of animals around it. So there's a big diversity metric that goes into it of this coral reef. Great. Okay. Let's just say that's how we look at things. Then scientists go out and start measuring these metrics over time. Right. And they look for differences over time. You know, so maybe at one point, say this year, there's a mass bleaching coral event, right? So all of a sudden, the corals go white. How long are the corals white? Do they recover? Are they recovering fast enough? And are they healthy when they are white when they are bleached?

1:08:00 We look at that and over time we look at the recovery and we look at how well they recover. If it happens over a bunch of years where the recovery takes a bunch of years, then they're not recovering very, very quickly. They're recovering within the same summer, the same season, they're recovering quickly. Maybe there's hope for that, that habitat. So there's a lot of different metrics, a lot of different trends that we look at to make sure that these corals are healthy. That study gets published in a journal. So the scientists write it up. They do the math, they do the metrics, they compare. Season over season over season over season for a number of years. They look at the health. They say, you know what? The health is trending downward. It's a negative trend. We need to protect this habitat locally. Say it's in the Great Barrier Reef at a specific reef. Other parts of the reef are doing better than this part of the reef. But why is this part of the reef doing? So the scientists will make conclusion inferences on what needs to be studied more to determine what other causes are causing the slow recovery as opposed to other coral reef habitats within the same area or within the same area.

1:08:58 Or near that area of what's why they're recovering faster than the others. This is all hypothetical, but you know, some truth to it, but all hypothetical. So there's studies that are done after that. There's studies that are joined during that. They write up the study, they publish the study so other scientists can see it during that time when they publish the study, it goes to different editors to review those editors review it. They critique it scientifically, critique it to make sure that the science is right and that they agree with the science. That means they agree with the statistics using the science. They agree with the statistics use, they agree with the study design. They agree with the results. They agree with the interpretation. They fully agree, but they have to say, you know what, this makes sense based on what is coming out with the results and so forth. If it gets accepted, it gets published. If it doesn't, it goes back for changes.

1:09:44 There's questions that are asked and they go through an entire process and they get it edited again and reviewed. And then say it gets accepted. It goes on to a primary journal, which goes out to other scientists. They read it, especially those who are in coral reef science. They start to read it. Conservationists will read it. They're like, oh, nonprofit organizations, stuff that are really interested in coral reef science will be like, oh my gosh, this is really interesting. I wonder what's going on. Where is the problem? Then those organizations will look at that study and maybe they already know the scientists who are involved, the primary author and so forth. And they say, hey, can we talk to you about this? Like we really want to get this out to our constituents, our followers, our audience and make sure that they know what's going on. So they maybe do an interview. They post it online. They may send it to me.

1:10:30 Like some of the sometimes people are getting sent to me. They have a really good article. I do an interview. We post that online. Organizations start to say, hey, we need to have a call to action. We need to protect these. And maybe if other cumulative effects, like there's development nearby or new technology, they're going to be able to do that. Can we move on to the the device? Everything needs to be accessible. An investigation to its currency. So also the is what we find is happening.

1:11:16 This is what the science has found. And the government will be like, "Okay, well, this is a question that the people have had. We have to investigate it, so we'll get our scientists on it. We'll collaborate together and we'll find out a solution." Maybe it has to go to policy. So if it goes to the policy department, they're like, "What do we need to do? Right now, nutrients are at this level." Or maybe it's just the best possible way, like keep nutrients as low as possible. There's not an actual specific number for companies and organizations and industries who are producing nutrients that go into the water or in that area maybe. And so they'll engage, the government will engage with those that industry. The industry's come back and they say, "Well, we don't really want to change. We think everything's fine. It's going to be really expensive to change." And then they say, "Well, nonprofit organizations in the industry and the government kind of go back and forth."

1:12:00 And they try to come to a compromise. That compromise gets put into policy. That policy gets put into play and the scientists will look at the trends as long with the government because governments have scientists as well. They will look at the trends and they will go through the whole process again and see if those trends actually take place. If that happens, the policy will change in law and this will get put into place. So that's how conservation is done. It starts off in the field. It starts off in the ocean, looking at trends. It goes to different, it goes to get published. It goes to different media and different organizations to get people involved and get people to know if they think it's necessary for people to know. Get that support for government.

1:12:41 They put pressure on the government. The government has to look at it for the most part. Sometimes governments don't look at it. So that's an issue within itself and a challenge within itself. If they start looking at it and say, "Hey, yeah, actually we should do something about this." They engage in the industry and they go forth and it just gets kind of, you know, just it goes through a loop, write a feedback loop and it continues to go like that. That's how conservation works. Conservation, the policy, the laws that get made and the negotiations that happen do not happen out on a boat in the middle of the ocean. It happens in a room. It happens in a conference room. It happens in a board room. It happens at a computer where people are doing data analysis for years and years of results or of field data that has been collected.

1:13:23 It's done in every different place. It's done by influencers who are making people aware, nonprofit organizations who are putting out the stuff, the information so that people can be, more and more people can be aware. Some people like by me who puts out to my audience, say, "Hey, you need to know about this. This is really important." There's so many different arms and aspects and branches of conservation. It happens in a number of different places. It doesn't just happen from one person. That's the key. It's not one person. It's not one organization. It's not one government. It's not one science lab. It's not one scientist. It is a team of people. It is a collaboration of people.

1:14:04 I just talked to Bardor. We just published that episode last week, couple of episodes ago. Check it out. It's a collaboration. Conservation is collaboration. It's necessary to do conservation. You can't do it alone. So going back to the comments that I was getting on my video of, you know, of critiquing the shark whisperer. One person, one video doesn't make a policy. It is a team of people who have put the work in to either come up with the science, come up with the data, come up with the feedback from the local community and local organizations who are involved daily in this type of work.

1:14:47 From to the fishing community to the industry that are involved in this type of work to the influencers and the content creators who are making more and more people aware of that work so they can take their sort of movement and bring it to the government to put more pressure to address the issue. It's a collaboration. It's not just one person. So when you hear scientists and you hear conservation conservation and say, hey, you know what, you know, when that one person said that they were the reason why this fishing band got put in place. That's not true because she played a part. Two million, two million followers on Instagram, probably more on TikTok and on YouTube and so forth.

1:15:31 She has an army of public people who are interested in conserving sharks for whatever reason. It doesn't matter if it's what she does is right or wrong. She has the attention of people and she can mobilize those people, right? If they want to be mobilized, she can say, hey, there's this new movement going on or there's this movement going on. It's led by so and so. And I want you guys to check it out because I think it's important. And if you send your support by doing such and such thing, it would really help out this movement. And it would be it would feel good to protect these sharks that I work with each and every day, whether you agree with what she does or not, which I don't. That's what she could have done. And she could have come out and said, hey, you know what, remember that movement, that policy that I wanted that we wanted to do as a team and we want to get the shark fishing band like that.

1:16:16 These indigenous Hawaiians have been trying to get banned for number of numerous years and the Senate finally listened and they finally passed it. You were helping that. I thank you. Thank you so much for protecting these sharks. We did it together. We did it as a team. Not I did a video where I hung on to a great white shark. And because of that, people saw that sharks are not monsters. So we got this shark fishing ban like done in Hawaii. That's not how you do it. That's the wrong thing. And I think people need to know that people need to know how conservation works. This is not to say that what influencers do or content creators do is useless.

1:16:58 They play a very important role in the conservation process, but it is a process is made up of a number of contributors that help get things passed, including lawmakers, including lawmakers who want to get a pass who they say, hey, you know what, this is really important. We need to get this passed. And that is what I want to get across today in so many words. There's probably a lot more than I should have. But I want I wanted people to understand that. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. You know, after you join the undertow speak up for blue dot com forward slash join the undertow. I want to hear your thoughts. Let me know in the comments below. But also let me know if you if you're listening to this on if you're listening to this on YouTube and you're listening to this on your favorite podcast app.

1:17:40 Just let me know, you know, by going to speak up for blue dot com forward slash contact. Send me an email. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I think it's really important that we have discussions on this or DME on Instagram at How to Protect the Ocean. I want to thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the True North Strong and Free. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and have a conversation.