Ships Without License Plates: The Dark Fleet Behind Fishmeal

0:00 You probably don't care about marine protected areas. If you're listening to this and you're not in the science world, and you're just going about your business like every day and you're just interested in the oceans, you probably don't really care about marine protected areas. You probably can't even name the marine protected areas in your country. And don't worry, I'm not attacking you. I can't either, because we haven't really had a lot of communication around our marine protected areas, especially knowing what they're about, what's unique about them, because people haven't talked about it a lot. It's very difficult to have these types of conversations about conservation tools and what they're about and how they help when there's an invisible boundary. You can't really put a specific animal to it or a specific habitat to it.

0:43 Some you can, but we haven't really done a good job as a marine conservation world to get you interested in marine protected areas. They take a long time to put together. They have a lot of stuff that goes into it to make them effective, and it's very difficult to get it protected and to get you interested in wanting to get them protected, and knowing about it and getting excited about it like you can about an orca or a humpback whale or a great white shark or a tuna or anything like that. Very difficult to do that. But that's what we're gonna be focusing on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I have on the podcast a very, very special guest, Dr. Judy Mann-Lang. She has 40-plus years in the conservation industry from the aquarium perspective, but also a PhD in communication and effectiveness of communication of ocean conservation.

1:29 We are gonna talk all about what makes a good campaign, what helps people really understand the ocean, and how simple or complicated do we get with people at a public aquarium or even just in general. We talk a lot after I did the interview about podcasting and the effectiveness, but it's always something that's interested me, and I think it's something that's interested in ocean conservation professionals everywhere to talk about how do we communicate more effectively. And for those of you that are listening to this and are not ocean conservation professionals, not scientists, you just wanna know more about the ocean, this is a great conversation on understanding where people are coming from and how people digest the knowledge of the ocean when they come into an aquarium, and it's probably similar to you. And I would love to know more about that.

2:11 Hit me up either on my socials or in the comments if you're listening to this on Spotify. But until then, why don't you listen to this interview I did with Judy Mann-Lang talking about communication in ocean conservation. Enjoy, and I'll talk to you after. Hey, Judy. Welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about why it's so important to communicate about marine protected areas? Am I ever, Andrew. It's so good to be with you. I've been listening to your podcast for years, and it's really exciting to be here. Well, thank you so much. I'm so happy about that. I love it when people had talk about listening to the podcast for a long time. It's really great, and thank you for listening. I do appreciate, 'cause I put out a lot of episodes, so I appreciate you putting up with the amount of episodes that I put out.

2:55 But I'm, super excited because you come highly recommended by a good, a mutual friend of ours, Dr. David Ebert, who is my co-host on Beyond Jaws. He was like, "You have to have Judy on. If you want to talk about marine protected areas, you want to talk about communication, she's the person to have on the podcast, and she's a fan." So I was like, "Of course, yeah. this makes complete sense." So looking forward to first of many, I assume, that we are going to have, and we'll have great conversations around communication around marine protected areas. It's something that I always struggle with, is how do you get people interested in marine protected areas, or just interested in the ocean? As fellow communicators, we can have that discussion today and, and talk about some of the work that you've done, especially around MPAs. There's an MPA day in South Africa, which is really cool, and, we're gonna talk all about that.

3:38 But before we do, Judy, why don't you just let us know who you are and what you do? Okay. So my passion has been the ocean and nature. So from the age of about two, I knew that I wanted to work in, marine stuff, something to do with the sea. And that continued right the way through. I did my master's degree on fish, and that was where I met Dave. We were both studying in the same place together here in Grahamstown at Rhodes. And I did my master's on age and growth in fish. So I spent two years staring down a microscope counting daily growth rings, and I realized that there must be more to life than this. I know it's important work, but it wasn't for me. And I really know that my passion is people and nature.

4:20 So I was very lucky that I got a position in education at the aquarium in Durban, and I stayed at that aquarium in Durban for 30 years. So I moved through various positions from education through to management, and then I ended my career there as what was called conservation strategist, which was really starting to focus in on how effectively can an aquarium contribute to conservation. So we had a strong research component, we had a strong education component, and then obviously aquarium. But I wanted to answer the question, so what? People visit us, but what do they really learn? And how can we more effectively connect with our visitors for conservation? So after 30 amazing years in Durban, I then moved to the Two Oceans Aquarium, and I've been there for the last five years, and now I'm working more as an independent consultant.

5:07 I live in a beautiful place in the Eastern Cape, so traveling to Durban and Cape Town has been good, but I'm ready to spend a bit more time here. And that's, yeah, that's where I am. and from what I've heard, especially from what Dave said, Durban's just a beautiful place to live and just enjoy. It's like the countryside and you get the beautiful landscapes and stuff. So I don't blame you for wanting to stay there more often, like throughout the day and not be in traffic. How long of a drive is that if you did go back and forth? So I have to fly. So I would normally do a one-hour drive and then, yeah, and then a flight. So- Okay, so it's far. Like the- Yeah, both, both places are far, yes. Okay. So this is my ignorance of how, like where things are placed in South Africa. So totally understand that. That's more than just traffic.

5:48 You got air traffic control- Mm-hmm as well in that situation. Exactly. it's an interesting thing going from, staring down a microscope, doing work there, and then going to an aquarium. A lot of times people who do that, like I know you realized that wasn't what you wanted to do and like you said, there's more to life. Did you have any, I guess, hesitation from moving out of what like people call like the natural science and to more of applying that science through education and the other things that you were doing, especially at the beginning of your career? Because I think a lot of people, including myself at times, like we go through school. we do all the things. We learn everything. Especially in academia, it's all research, research, research. How much research can you do? You start doing that research, and then you get out of it, and it's almost like there's a little bit of like a piece left.

6:33 And you're like, "Am I really doing the right thing?" So did you find any hesitation in moving towards aquarium and, I think it was education that you first started in. Was that the first role? that's an interesting question. So the move from science into education was relatively easy for me. I know that often scientists have a teeny weeny little bit of arrogance about education. Right. And it's a little sort of, "Oh, okay, well, if you're not gonna make it as a scientist, then go into education," which is such a challenge now. Mm-hmm. But it, was then. So I did about six years in education, and then I started thinking, "Oh my goodness, I'm working with kids. It's gonna take a long time for these kids to grow up and make a difference for conservation."

7:19 Right. "I need to work with the fishermen." So I moved back to science. Okay. And I spent about 18 months working on a big program that worked directly with fishermen, collecting data from fishermen, et cetera. And after 18 months working directly with fishermen, I said, "Oh my goodness, I'm going back to education," because at least I feel I can make a difference there. so I really do feel your thing about that- Yeah … science to education move. But what's really gratifying now is that I'm seeing more and more scientists come to me saying, "We need help with communication." Mm. And I'm seeing that the scientists are recognizing the value of education and the value of communication. So I'm hoping that we're moving in the right direction, and I'm hoping that in the future we will start to see more science communicators as being seen as a real profession and not as something that scientists do when they don't do science.

8:10 I hear you there. As a science communicator myself, I have definitely seen the light in terms of what a proper science communication, either campaign or dedication can do to people. Sometimes it's harder to measure than others, and we'll talk about that in just a moment. But it's interesting how you, like, you went to work with fishermen, then kinda confirmed, you're like, "No, no, hold on a second. I'm actually doing a really good thing here if I go back to education." So that work with fishermen wasn't with the aquarium. So you left the aquarium for a little bit, for a year and a half, went to work with the fishermen, and then back to the aquarium. Is that it? No, our organization has a very, at that time, the South African Association for Marine Biological Research had a strong science group called the Oceanographic Research Institute, and they had this longstanding project working with, fishermen on data collection with fishermen, catch and effort data, et cetera.

9:02 So it was within the same organization, which is how I managed- Gotcha … to stay three different jobs, but in one organization. That's incredible. That's amazing. and I'm just looking at a bit of your CV here on LinkedIn, and you pretty much did it all at the aquarium. Director of education, like scientist, director of education, director of, uShaka Sea World, and then, CEO, and then conservation strategist. Like, that's pretty incredible to move around there. Like, what made you so adaptable to do all those roles effectively, did you find? Oof. That's an interesting question for me. Summarize 30 years in one question. It's pretty simple. Yeah. I think it's I'm driven by wanting to try and make a difference for people- Mm … and for the ocean.

9:46 And in each of those different roles I could achieve that in a different way. I was very lucky after the education time to be offered the role of, uShaka SeaWorld director. And that was at the time we were just building the new uShaka SeaWorld. So it was an incredible time. It was building teams. It was working with people. It was working with animals. It was an amazing experience. I learned more about construction than I ever hoped I would ever need to know. Right. But it was an incredible opportunity. It was a great challenge. I love challenges. And then after that it was sort of like a natural progression to CEO. Mm-hmm. And then after a few years as CEO, I realized that my passion was really working with people.

10:27 And it was- Yeah … the communication side, it was the research side. And I'd also started doing my PhD part-time, and I realized I'd never finish my PhD- … because CEO role would always be more important. So I was lucky- I could see that … that I could become conservation strategist, which was really combining all of my passions in the organization. So I've been incredibly lucky with, in-- I've worked with just such amazing people who, have trusted me, and it's- Yeah it has been very, very special. So I feel incredibly lucky. What I, find interesting is a couple things here. One, when you went from CEO to conservation strategist and doing your PhD, I feel like you did a great job at fusing the PhD and the conservation strategist with the aquarium goals to really hone in on how effective.

11:12 And we'll talk about your PhD in just a sec, but I like how you were able to combine all that so that you can do it while working, and it's part of what you're trying to do. And, it's also good for the aquarium too, as you do it. It's a measurable way of measuring how effective the communication is. But I, what I love too, is you've never lost your science brain in terms of Your motivation, your question is how can I impact people? Where some people's questions might be how can I determine age and growth in rare fish or try to identify as many species as possible, or, how can I look at how predator-prey interactions happen amongst different types of predators, whether it's elasmobranchs or teleost and so forth. I think that science brain has always been there, but it's just applied more in the social science aspect in this case, but also using your science background and the aquarium to drive home the message of trying to impact people through the ocean.

12:05 I think that's amazing. Did you- consciously do that? Or was that just something that you kinda realize now as you've been working in the field for quite some time? I don't think I realized it until you mentioned it., I think I'm just naturally a curious person and I- Right … I really know that the environment needs us to get what we do right- Yeah faster. Right. So we have to question ourselves. we can't just accept that, well, we've delivered the message, it must have achieved something. And I think that I'm, continually driven by that question of how can we do it better? And that- Mm-hmm … might be when I was working on otoliths, how can we do age and growth more effectively? Or whether I'm working with marine protected areas, I'm looking at how do we more effectively work with communities?

12:50 How can we engage more effectively? So whatever it is, I'm driven by that question of, can we, we must be able to do it better. How can we do it better? That's amazing. That's incredible. But I hadn't thought of it until you mentioned it like that. I think it's great. And I've seen this, like I've had conversations with people who have gone like from science in their master's or like a graduate studies or even undergraduate studies, and they've had certain things happen. Whether they've done a project or a study, and then the effectiveness of the study wasn't what they thought it would be, or maybe it got buried, or maybe something happened, and they turned toward business to have more of an impact. Their goal was to have more of an impact on the real world and not necessarily on science.

13:33 Not to say that's like a, one's better than the other. But I feel like people wanna see more real world impact and change in the world, especially from this younger generation that's coming up. I respect that because in the way our systems are kind of set up, it's difficult to do that within the science world. We're in a publish or perish kind of way with a lot of academia, and it's not necessarily about effectiveness, it's about how many papers can you publish. When you go into the nonprofit world, it's you're always looking for funding. People seem to be, capped on how much impact they can have based on the funding that's available. And then in, the for-profit world is you're trying, to make money, you're trying to survive, you're trying to grow. And yet we're seeing some great companies have some impact, but a lot of times the major companies that are big are those who are exploiting, our natural resources than less.

14:18 So hopefully we'll see a change in the future for that. But I think it's interesting to look at how people are really focusing in on having more of an impact on the world and instead of just science. So I, I think that's wonderful. Now, going into this conservation strategist role, was this a role that had been part of the aquarium, or was this something that you saw as a CEO that was needed and doing that PhD was a good way of fusing to measure that effectiveness? I think it was the time that the organization was growing and we'd- Mm-hmm … done the big expansion into the new aquarium. That was settled. The research had been working for close on 60 years, so that was settled. Education had grown.

14:59 And it was really asking those same questions. So how do we do it better? And I think that's where my role came in, is to really synergize. Because I'd worked in all three divisions, how to synergize those three divisions in order to more effectively make conservation an outcome, as opposed- Mm-hmm … to just something that is, incidental. So focusing all of those around conservation and saying, "Okay, how do we do it more effectively and where can we have the greatest impacts? And then how do we measure it?" So it was synergizing that together. It was a lot of sort of doing what nobody else had, started to try to do and put it all into one bucket. Yeah. And then really motivate the team around conservation, because in that particular aquarium, we had everyone from a fitter and turner or an aquarist or an educator or a scientist, and all of them We asked the question: How do you contribute to conservation?

15:54 How do you help people to care for the ocean? And it was really uniting the staff around a common vision. So it was putting together a byline, which became helping people to care for the ocean. So I could ask an aquarist, "How do you help people to care for the ocean?" I could ask a scientist the same question. I could ask one of our accountants the same question, and trying to get us all to articulate around a common vision, which was really my primary role there, was to get us all to understand what our common vision was and to work towards it. I think that's amazing. It's interesting too, because You see zoos and aquariums are set up to show the world what, say in an aquarium setting, what the aquatic world is like, whether it's freshwater or marine, to visually see and connect with some of these animals, which is great.

16:44 And I feel like a lot of people think for aquarium and zoos, the viewing of the animals is the education, is that connection, and then it stops there. But what I've known in, getting to know people who work at aquariums from all levels, CEO down to the zookeepers to aquarists, that's not the case. The aquariums and zoos of today are conservation organizations different than what we normally think of them. and I think people ignore that. I had conversations with, the CEO of the Toronto Zoo here in my hometown, and when he first came on, one of the biggest things they talked about was the hidden zoo. and the previous CEO didn't like people talking about the behind the scenes, which was research and all the things that they were doing.

17:26 And so for him, he was about communication. He came in with being like, "We should talk about this. We should be, putting our scientists and our researchers, 'cause it's amazing work, we should be putting at the forefront and talking to people." Showing our zookeepers and what they do, and that they have science backgrounds, and that they actually go to Africa to participate in our partnerships with other organizations out there to really hone in and, educate themselves continually. Did you find that there were aspects in the research that you did, in the PhD, 'cause you were looking at how effective are all the things that you do at the aquarium, like everybody does, how effective and how can you can increase the impact on the ocean for the visitor? Did you find that there were things that the aquarium didn't, I guess, communicate clearly at all on aspects of what was done behind the scenes in the research?

18:16 And then not on purpose, but just wasn't done? Absolutely. That's what I often said, is that our research division, which was a team of over 30 people, so it was a strong commitment to in situ research, scientists working on coral reefs, MPAs, fisheries, management, et cetera, et cetera, invertebrates. And I just used to say it was our best-kept secret, because nobody knew it was happening. And it was only probably in the last 20 years that we actually put up a something in the aquarium that told visitors that we actually did have a research institute. It was crazy, but we weren't the only ones going through that. So definitely sharing and the visitors want to know that we're doing good work.

18:57 And I think that that was a critical thing from a social capital point of view is important. But just to go back earlier when you were talking about the world zoos and aquariums. I've been on the, World Zoo and Aquarium Association Council, WAZA, for a few years. I'm not on anymore. I've moved off now. But we actually have started a conservation goal, which is going to be really starting to drive the world's best zoos and aquariums to measuring their conservation impact. So we've spent the last two years working out how to measure the conservation impact of zoos and aquariums, and that's probably going to be launched at the conference coming up next month, which is really going to be able to make clear to everybody, both inside and outside zoos, just what their conservation impact is.

19:39 So I think that, as you said, you've seen it happening and you've seen the change, and that's manifest through the new WAZA goal, which is coming out quite soon. That's phenomenal. I love to hear that because I think it really will put zoos and aquariums at a level where people were just like, I didn't know this." I think a lot of people are gonna be saying that. When I talk to the people at the zoo, they're always worried about, "Well, you know, those animals, they never look happy," or, "They're never this." I'm like, "Did you know that they do this?" Or, "Did you know that they do this? Do you know they study welfare, like the animal welfare of each animal?" Yeah, just to talk about, I know it's off topic a little bit, but at the Toronto Zoo, they made a new habitat for the orangutans. It's an outdoor habitat.

20:20 And in that habitat, they have set up cameras all over the place, and they are recording and using machine learning and AI to study the interactions of each part of that habitat so that there's research, like post-docs that they're partnering with to say, how are they enjoying it? Do they like certain aspects? Do they not like certain aspects? Are they using one more than others? Should we put something else in? all these different changes and looking at how, quote-unquote, happy these animals are within this new enclosure. and when I tell people that, they're like, "Oh, I didn't even think they cared." The answer is like, "Of course they care." But I think zoos and aquariums have taken a big hit over the last couple of decades, especially those with marine mammal captivity, which probably for a separate episode.

21:07 When you started the research, I assume, you were probably talking to the visitors of the aquarium. Did you find that there were some misconceptions that people had about aquariums that would- surprised you or some of the staff that you had? Not so much from the work that I did for the PhD, but when I was doing the research on, our visitors' understanding of marine protected areas, that was very interesting because we were asking them what they thought about marine protected areas, how much they supported marine protected areas, et cetera. And when we asked them to name a marine protected area, they named one of the aquariums. And that helped me to realize just how different people perceive what we do.

21:51 And I think my biggest learning from my PhD is that we all see the world through our own lenses, and that our visitors are coming with such different perceptions. Many of our visitors… There's not even a word for an aquarium in many of our local languages. So now we're taking people into an aquarium, which is a concept that they have no idea of in some cases. When we had our first aquarium, people would walk into the aquarium and the kids would ask us, " where's the switch to change the channel?" So it was- They thought it was like a TV … that sort of thinking like a TV. Yeah. Or they'd ask us, how did we stop the waves?

22:32 Mm. Because now we're moving under the water. Mm-hmm. So a whole range of different views as to what an aquarium is. and it's really for me to take off my lenses and to look at the aquarium through the lens of our visitors, and often start with very simple explanations as to what an aquarium is and how it works. And I think that those were just some of the many, many lessons that we've learnt. I think that really brings it home. We have a lot of people in our audience who are scientists. First starting out sometimes, I remember, like, coming out of my undergrad. I have knowledge, beyond knowledge, probably, like, pouring out of my ears 'cause I've been bombarded with all this new information and statistics and everything like that.

23:13 And I remember talking to family and friends, and the questions they had asked, they were simple questions, which was fine, but at the time I was like, "How do you not know this?" One of the reasons why I started communication, is somebody asked me, like a family member was like, Should I be worried about this climate change thing? Like, what's going on here?" and look, that person is a paramedic, a very intelligent person in New York City, like, busy as, can be. And I realize that people have other priorities in their life, and they can't learn everything about the ocean. They have their own things going on. I think we've learned that especially as I grow up and through the pandemic, everybody has something going on in their lives, and in the environment or the ocean or the planet may not be top of mind because they all go through different things. I could just imagine South Africa with the amount of different dialects that I've learned that they have there, the amount of different communities, the history of South Africa and what people go through.

24:03 And stepping into an aquarium is a completely new experience for them. Just walking in the doors and they see all this stuff. So there's probably levels of I guess, of the concepts, like understanding the concepts of just even what an aquarium is, to what's done behind the scenes to make the ocean better, to make the planet better. So how as an aquarium do you hit every one of those levels? that's the question at hand here It's the million dollar question. So we use a lot of layering. So making sure that our interpretation, we redid all of the interpretation, and making sure that the interpretation has got the, the basics first. So very simple basics.

24:45 What are we looking at? Why are we looking at it? The really simple stuff right at the very, very beginning. Yeah. But then there are visitors who want to know more, so making sure that we've got layers in any of our interpretation. And then the same is, is having a whole range of staff on the floor who can communicate with the different visitors. Mm. So they've got good in-depth knowledge, but they also understand the people they're talking to really well. And it just comes back to that whole thing with communication of knowing your audience and making sure that your staff are skilled enough to be able to understand, okay, this is somebody where I can go into the lateral line. This is somebody where I could talk about the water that's in that fish exhibit. So I think that it's having staff that are able to really understand their audiences and know what level to, to pitch it at, because we're trying to reach a very, very diverse audience, but understanding that audience.

25:36 And that's why I always say, "Take off your glasses and look at the aquarium." When I first looked at the interpretation through my new eyes, I just realized that we had designed all the interpretation for people like me. Mm-hmm. So for people who are interested in the ocean, who know- Yeah … a little bit, and who care passionately, and that's not necessarily our audience. so how do we design the interpretation for visitors? How do we make our presentations for what the visitor wants, not for what we want? Yeah. It's almost like you're flipping the narrative so that people who are coming in, you're like, "How do I make this particular person from this background, from this area, and where they're coming from, knowing more about them, and how are they coming into the aquarium, and how they can experience this aquarium," and what you want them to leave with, a sense of just new knowledge or wonder and awe, but at different levels because you're hitting it at different levels.

26:30 I think that's incredible to just almost go back down and, like, strip it all down from the bottom to the top and start to look at the different ways to engage with people. How do you measure, like how do you evaluate whether that is successful after that's in place? So that's really what we're all grappling with now is the effectiveness, and it's across the board. So measuring things like knowledge gain is relatively simple. So doing a pre and post-survey in the aquarium in terms of knowledge is relatively simple. But I think that we're much more interested in those deeper changes. So changes in attitude, changes in behavior.

27:11 Have we inspired a different way of looking at the ocean? And there are lots of different ways of doing it, and it's becoming now much more common in research. So just one project we did was called Penguin Promises, and we asked our visitors to make a behavioral change promise to the penguins that would in some way support ocean conservation, and they had to write their promise on a postcard. So they wrote their promises on the postcard with an email address, and then they posted it just on site. We then contacted those visitors about between a year and 18 months later, and we said, "Have you kept your promise to the penguin? And if so, why or why not?"

27:51 Because we were trying to again assess that longer term impact on behavior. And the results of that were fascinating. We found that out of the visitors that responded, we had almost 40% that said they could remember what their promise was- Hmm … and they could articulate it to us. And then when we asked them why, it was fascinating to see how many of them said, "Well, because of my kids or my grandchildren, and I want to leave them a better world." Many of them said it's because of an emotional connection to the penguin. Mm-hmm. So that penguin as the icon was really important. And then there were obviously many other reasons that they'd kept their promise. But that's just one of the ways that we can start to look at our long-term impact.

28:33 So I think we've starting to move beyond… We've done lots of research where we ask visitors questions at the beginning, at the end, or we just ask them questions at the end. But I think we're starting to really explore from a behavioral perspective, are we making a difference? And I think that that's now where we're going to put more and more of our research efforts in terms of what is the change that we're able to inspire. I always say we're trying to connect to people's hearts, to their hands, and to their mind. And connecting to their mind is the one that often we can measure. How we've inspired them is more difficult, and then obviously what they do as a result of that visit and why is, I think, becoming more and more important. And it's a movement we're seeing throughout conservation because conservation has focused a lot on biology, on species, on biodiversity.

29:19 And in actual fact, if we look at most of the drivers of biodiversity loss, they're human behaviors. Mm-hmm. So conservation is really moving more into that behavior field, which is tricky in so many ways. But unless we're able to influence behavior positively for the environment with ethics and all the rest of things that need to be- Mm-hmm … taken into account, we're probably not going to achieve our conservation goals. Agreed. Agreed. A friend of mine always said, "Conservation is about managing people. The planet's gonna be fine after people leave. It's managing the people." I covered a story on my YouTube channel I did it yesterday as of recording this, and it was about how looking at a coral reef atoll in the middle of the Pacific, having gone through six months of heat stress and bleached, but then came back.

30:09 And when the researchers went to visit again, there was just all baby corals. All the corals that survived had reproduced, and they wondered like, "How do we do this? How does this happen? Why can't other places do this after this type of stress?" Like six months is a long time to be bleached. And they noticed that the ecosystem itself had top predators, had grazers, and it had this coralline algae all together to support the reproduction of the coral reefs to allow to come. The ones that survived were probably ones that were a little more tolerant to heat stress. So it's not that we didn't lose corals, but we saw like a rebound that happened that was just gone, where no restoration was done, like reef restoration was done.

30:52 And now they're taking that formula and, placing it in different places, Maui, Puerto Rico, Florida, Belize, and probably more. And this has just happened recently. And a lot of that is, when you look at the top predators, the grazers and the coralline algae, you look at these are things that get taken out by humans, whether on purpose or not on purpose. And so when we talk about managing or educating people on the human disturbance, now we're going after people's livelihoods. and in many places around the world, let's take fishing, fish and seafood are their number one protein sources. That's where they get the bulk of their protein source.

31:34 So from a communication standpoint, we could come out here and we could say, " All fishing is bad. It's taking out a lot of the things. It's not managed properly, even though there are some that are managed." But when we think about if you tell the kids, like, "Fishing is bad, don't eat fish," you can't say that 'cause now you're attacking, one of the biggest industries around the world. And now fishers who are part of the community are, work with science, they all take a step back and they don't wanna work with anybody 'cause now you're attacking their livelihood. And many other things happen around the ocean that are human disturbance, but like people depend on that as a living. How do we as communicators start to communicate the complexities of managing these types of industries and people so that they're not vilified, and we can work with them, as the aquarium does, to ensure that they can fish for generations, but we can also have those fish to help these corals and these ecosystems and the food web and, to stay the way they are?

32:33 Something that I think that all of us in science are really grappling with and is that how do we meet human need while ensuring that the environment can continue to meet that need? And when we look at sustainable seafood, I've spent a few years delving into sustainable seafood as part of a project at the V&A Waterfront, and I think my headline take home is that sustainable seafood is complicated. Yeah. So we've just really tried to work out how do we make it as simple as possible and I- Mm-hmm … can talk about that project another time. But it's really finding that balance and looking especially, often the communities that are single families that are relying on the ocean for their livelihoods are not the big problems.

33:14 We're looking at the big industrial fisheries, and those big industrial fisheries are the ones that we really need to perhaps focus on supporting the groups that are doing the good work, and then looking at the ones that are not doing such good work. And less emphasis on the small scale fishers, 'cause the small scale fishers are often the ones that are losing out because of those- Mm-hmm big industrial fisheries too in many areas. Very true. So I think that it's looking at it with an understanding that it's complicated. Yeah. We can't get away from it, but we've gotta try and simplify it if we're going to communicate it, and that's what we've tried to do with the project at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town. But then what you were describing in terms of that coral reef is looking very much like a marine protected area, which is where you actually have the entire ecosystem and the ecosystem is in balance.

34:00 Mm-hmm. We're finding some of the work that scientists at Rhodes have been doing in the Tsitsikamma Marine Protected Area, which is one of our oldest MPAs in South Africa, is that the fish in that MPA are actually more resilient and they're better able to cope with climate change. because they've been living in this protected area for so long, they're tough. , They're resilient fish. And I think that those are just some of the knock-on effects of MPAs that we haven't even been thinking about yet. But it's maintaining intact ecosystems 'cause those ecosystems are the ones that are going to be able to withstand the changes that are probably coming more and more. Absolutely. And speaking of which, I'm a big proponent of marine protected areas. Judy, I assume you're a very big proponent of marine protected areas.

34:41 We know in a lot of cases, if they're done properly, and there is a certain way of doing things, and it's unique in every single part of the world, if it's done properly, it can be effective. But it's an invisible boundary that talks about protecting fish biodiversity, is oftentimes they are out in the middle of nowhere where people don't see them. How do we get people to care about marine protected areas? that's the question we started. We started with about 2018, South Africa had 0.4% of its exclusive economic zone in marine protected areas. And their scientists are amazing scientists said to have really worked hard on mapping where we should put the next 5%, because we wanted to move from 0.4% to 5%.

35:31 So they had done well over 10 years of research. They knew where they should go. They'd done all the public consultation. They had talked to people for many, many years, oil and gas companies, the big industrial fishing companies, local communities, et cetera. And these new protected areas were sitting on the minister's desk, and they sat there, and they sat there, and they sat there. And we realized that the oil and gas people were talking to the minister and things were not looking so good for the future of our new MPAs, which hadn't even been proclaimed yet. And that was when we started saying we need to build public support for MPAs. So one of the things we did is we started with a research project at the aquarium to say, "What do our visitors know about MPAs?" And most of our visitors couldn't name one of South Africa's MPAs.

36:17 So we realized that we've got this one hand, we're saying we need to build support for MPAs, and most of our visitors are going, "MP what?" So that was almost where we moved towards MPA Day. So what happened in that particular case is in 2019, eventually through lots of support from Youth for MPAs, from our scientists actually starting to engage directly with the ministers, with people in power, they did a lot of work there. We got the new MPA. So on the 1st of August 2019, we went from 0.4% to 5% of our EEZ, which was an amazing, an achievement. But I, realized that that is where we're gonna need to build more public support.

36:59 We can't say love MPAs if people don't know what MPAs are. Mm-hmm. So that was kind of where the idea of MPA Day came from. It was looking at how do we start to generate support for these protected areas in the ocean? And it was a way of saying we've got a day for everything. So there's Ocean Day, there's Rhino Day- there's Zebra Day, there's literally a day for everything. It's hard to keep track. Hard to keep track. So I thought, what about MPA Day? So- Yeah … that was where it started, was just like, let's start this day," and that was where the whole thing came from. When I started to really look at how do we make MPA Day work, there were two things that came through.

37:39 Firstly is explaining what a marine protected area is. Mm-hmm. Because people didn't have an understanding, so there we started to look very much at nature reserves in the ocean. People in South Africa are used to game reserves in the ocean, so starting to use that moving from a familiar concept to an unfamiliar concept. And then the second thing that was so important is that we had sold MPAs on their value to the environment, so for biodiversity, for climate change- Yes … et cetera. We had never articulated the role of MPAs in supporting people. Mm. And that was a really fundamental change. In a country where we've got incredible socioeconomic challenges that we face, we need to articulate our conservation in this particular area in how it can support people.

38:27 So that's where we started to really look at how do we articulate the value of MPAs to people, not just to nature. So those were some of our, early lessons when we started to work out how do we do this MPA Day thing? Yeah. So how we got MPA Day to grow from just one little thing to where it is now is another whole story. Mm-hmm. But it was a lot in the beginning around how do we really communicate the value of marine protected areas to people and to nature? Yeah. I'm still stuck on the trying to figure out the names of the MPAs here in Canada. When you said, like, people don't know the MPAs, it's true. We don't market them as what they are. They're MPAs, but there's ways to market them of what's in them and what's defined them and why we chose this one area.

39:12 We see the big announcements, "Oh, there's a new MPA here in Canada or in South Africa or, hopefully soon in the high seas." But we have no idea what it's characterized by. We don't dive in to say, "Hey, here's an experience here of getting to know the Arctic, the sub-Arctic, All these different places that are characterized by these unique habitats that we wanna protect. Here's why we wanna protect them. Can you name them?" It's almost like it should be in geography class, like when you're in elementary school, you name the capitals and the cities and all these, but we should all know the MPAs in our area. To dive a little deeper into those campaigns to say not only about MPA Day, but again, like are you showing photographs or videos of the animals and the habitats that are within these MPAs?

39:56 It'd be really difficult in an aquarium, I'm trying to picture this as someone who walks into the aquarium with no background in science to be like, " All the stakeholders were brought together to this MPA. This is important for this," and them just being like, "Okay," like, that's great." Like how do you get them excited about a marine protected area? So one of the first things we did once we'd done our kind of baseline research is we put together a display on our new MPAs so that the visitors to the aquarium would know where they were, what they meant. And one of the most effective things in that exhibit was a map, a map with all of our coastal towns and then where the different MPAs were situated. And that we found really motivated people because they would say, "Oh, I live here-" Mm-hmm … "and this one's close to me," or, "I live here and this one's close to me." So that was what we found quite effective there.

40:47 Then just the concept of what is an MPA, we made sure that that was very, very clear and people could see that. And then some of the unusual animals also featured quite highly because many of our new MPAs were offshore protecting weird and wonderful corals and coelacanths- Mm-hmm … and things like that. So being able to showcase those weird and wonderful things that kind of drew people in, they weren't the normal things that they were used to seeing. So those are just some of the things that our research on that particular exhibit showed. But MPA Day is very much beyond the aquarium. So it might have started with us and just as an idea, but immediately once we'd sort of started like, "Let's do MPA Day," I contacted about six or eight friends and I said, "Let's do MPA Day."

41:31 And they all said, "What's MPA Day?" And I said- … "Well, I don't really know, but it's, an idea. Let's see if we can work with it." So we contacted two digital communication companies, a traditional communication company, some conservation organizations, Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town, and we just sat together and said, "Okay, well, how do we make this thing work?" Mm-hmm. And that was in 2021. We had our first MPA Day on the 1st of August 2021, and that was just a virtual tour because it was obviously in the middle of lockdown, so there wasn't much we could do- Yeah, of course … not a good time, not a good time to plan a new campaign. No. But yeah, this last year, I looked at the report and I think we had, celebrations in over 25 countries.

42:11 So- That's amazing … it's amazing to see how the idea has taken off and how it's growing. And MPA Day doesn't belong to anybody. It belongs to- Everybody … to anybody who wants to use it, and that's been exciting to see. So it had its genesis in an aquarium, but it really wasn't about an aquarium. It was about a platform to communicate MPAs to people broadly, and not just to communicate, but to build a connection to between people and their MPAs is on the one hand. And then what we're starting to see is MPA Day is starting to be used effectively as a lobbying tool, which is- Yes … is quite exciting. So- Yeah … we're starting to see how it's growing.

42:53 And one of the things I'm going to do next year is, is to start a retrospective evaluation. So what have we achieved over the last few years- Mm … to help inform where we go in the future? I feel like it's a good day for countries to announce MPAs. You know what I mean? To say, "Hey, this is the day that, Canada's going to put this," or, "South Africa is going to, designate this area as an MPA." These days actually work that way as they get more and more popular. You're looking at 25 countries, going from one single aquarium to 25 countries. Like, that's pretty effective. And I think also with that diversity of countries, you start to see the diversity of how people are presenting MPA Day.

43:33 And so did this MPA Day show up in other aquariums or in zoos, or is it nonprofit organizations that are, starting to push MPA Day within their countries? how is this growing, and is it growing through, like, the aquarium network and the zoo network? It's not growing at all in the zoo and aquarium network. Interesting. But it's growing amazingly with Mission Blue, so they have been incredible partners. Of course. Of course. So Mission Blue Hope Spots. Yeah. They've been an amazing partner, and they've really helped us to grow. So working together with the Mission Blue team has been great. We've partnered with the Protect Baltic, which looks at- Mm-hmm … MPAs in the Baltic region. So working with their team, they have been wonderful supporters, and they've really helped it to grow.

44:18 So it's been those two kind of almost anchor partners that have helped us to grow. Right. So I would say if I looked at the range of participants in MPA Day this year, it ranged from individuals through to community-based organizations, small local NGOs, non-government organizations, all the way through to, to the big organizations, the Hope Spots, people who support the Hope Spots. Mm-hmm. And then governments. We've noticed a quite a few governments starting to celebrate MPA Day as well. So- Interesting … the people are making decisions. And then even a few businesses have come on board. That's awesome. So the range of people is getting bigger and bigger.

44:59 A lot of the marine protected areas obviously themselves have come on board. Mm-hmm. So different marine protected areas have said, "We'll host a celebration in our own MPA." So the MPA managers have come on board in many areas. The MPA education staff, the community staff have come on board. The Western Indian Ocean, so some of the groups like the Western Indian Ocean Marine Protected Area Network, they came, they hosted a webinar. So yeah, and then it's a wide diversity, but it hasn't grown at all in zoos and aquariums. That's interesting. Have you tried? Like have people been contacted through your network or other networks, and they just, "This is not something that we're interested in yet"?

45:39 Yet. I say yet because it's gonna happen soon. I don't think… It's gonna happen. It is going to happen. So- … WAZA has been supportive. They've shared our MPA Day information quite extensively, so WAZA's been very supportive. I think it's just an idea that hasn't quite gelled yet with- Gotcha … with an aquarium. Right. But I, I think that, yeah, the aquariums will come on board. I've got no doubt about that. I think it's interesting too. it is a difficult thing to communicate to people as we've talked about. and there are different ways of doing it, and I think sharing those ways might help with, getting it to start to go into different aquariums. It'll probably start with one, and then you never know how others… And I do think it's interesting. The research you are doing with the aquariums and measuring effectiveness of different conservation messages Is it being shared or is it just more for the aquariums?

46:25 Is it being shared through either published papers or other means like technical papers that go out to the World Aquarium and Zoos Association? How is it being communicated, I guess is the question? A lot of it is communicated through scientific papers, so through publications. So we've got quite a nice list of publications, both from our lab right through to working with Queensland and with other researchers. So there's a nice body of information that's coming out in the literature. And then a lot of technical reports. We've got something called the International Zoo Educators Association. They share more practitioner-focused reports and articles on effectiveness of communication, so that's another tool. So there are different ways that we're sharing that information. Unfortunately, very often organizations do really good evaluation, but it's a report that is only used internally.

47:12 So I think that that is a challenge that we have is how to share those reports more widely in a way that- Mm-hmm … more people can use them and help their own work. 'Cause I find every time I read somebody else's report, I go, "What a good idea." Yeah. "I hadn't thought of that." Yeah. Right. And we need to be able to share those. People don't have access to scientific papers. Often- Of course … they're behind a paywall, et cetera. Yeah. So it's difficult to get access. So sharing infographics is another, I think, an important way to share- Yeah … information and, we should all do much more of it. I agree with that. Do you find that the challenges in that is it's just geographically siloed in terms of people aren't connecting, 'cause I feel like some aquariums are very well and zoos are very well connected with others because of networking and, like business relationships and things like that.

47:57 But do you find there's like a siloed problem, like in a lot of academics or even government, even within governments, like departments and things like that? Do you find that that's happening in that, area? I think the zoo and aquarium world is pretty well connected through conferences, through their internal journals. All the different associations have got journals. So I think that from a zoo and aquarium perspective, it's pretty well connected. I'm looking more broadly at the marine communication side. And I think- Ah, okay … that from a marine communication side is where we haven't really communicated what we're learning and- Yeah how it can help. Mm-hmm. So looking more broadly at marine communication, there are obviously the marine co-educator networks, et cetera.

48:40 So they are there, but most people are not part of those networks. So I think that- Right … that's where we trying to help marine educators around the world be more effective, I think is something that we can all contribute to. Ocean literacy is amazing and how ocean literacy is now being conceptualized. Mm-hmm. I've got incredible respect for how Canada has approached ocean literacy and how they really are using good research- Right to communicate ocean more effectively. And I think that I often look at the Canadian example as an example to use and see how we can apply that from an African perspective. So I think that we're still learning, but there are some good examples. I think that's interesting. Something that I am interested in learning more about, to find out how other countries… 'Cause you're not the first person to say that, how Canada has done such a, they seem to be a leader in ocean literacy and communication.

49:30 I do agree, I think marine communication needs to kinda come together a little bit more. I think we're starting to see more communicators come out of scientists and more communicators just come out in general in the marine world. To be honest, I think a lot of it is just, it's new. Even when I went to school Communication in marine science wasn't a thing. I remember my supervisor was like, "Be careful in terms of how you communicate, because people can manipulate what you say," because they've had bad experiences with it. I think now with digital media the way it is, this was back in 2003, so there was no Facebook, there was no podcasting, there was no YouTube or anything like that. Now there's so many ways of communicating. We're starting to see that emerge, and we're starting to see a lot more science communicators come out, and we're seeing positions like well-paid positions for science communicators.

50:14 Mmm. So I think that we're starting to grow, but I do think there definitely needs to be a little bit more of a crossover, a mixing and a networking to come together, 'cause everybody's doing their own thing. How do we come together, and make sure that we're following a number of different models? We're measuring effectiveness, all that kind of stuff. So I think this is like the beginning of a conversation of how like I can do better, how aquariums can do better, how zoos can do better, how nonprofits can do better in the marine world to say, how do we push this envelope to get more people interested? And just knowledge base. Sometimes whether it's basic or advanced knowledge and everything in between, to really care about the ocean so that we have more eyes on the ocean to say, "Hey, we're in trouble here." And it's not just negative, there's some positive things, but we need to work together to be able to do this 'cause Like sometimes people are just like, "Yeah, I just, I can't care.

51:03 So many other things that I need to do." But I'm like, " you're gonna have to care soon because it's gonna start to literally come at your feet. It's gonna be right at your toes and you're inland, so you don't want that to happen." So Judy, this has been such an amazing conversation. I'd like to leave with, like a final question. Obviously, I'd love to have you back on, invite you back on to talk more about marine conservation and communication. for people who are listening to this podcast who are not scientists, you've worked with a lot of people from very different spectrums in terms of where they are in their lives, where they live, and everything like that, and their knowledge of oceans. How does someone deal with everything that is going on, all the negative attention that the ocean's getting, climate change.

51:44 How do they help get over that anxiousness of, the world is on fire or flooding and things like that? It's something that I've grappled with, and I think all of us go through our kind of eco-depression phases and our eco-anxiety phases, and I've been through that phase myself where I felt almost like an inertia. It's like, "Oh my goodness, it's just so big. There's stuff happening around the world." And when I have those moments, I tend to say, "What can I do in my own community? So where can I make a difference at home? I might not be able to stop coral bleaching. I might not be able to stop runaway fires, but I can make a difference in my own community, and it might start with my family.

52:28 It might start with the people that I meet up at the school. It might start with where I work." So my message is, what can you do in your own community, and how can you make a little difference? Mm-hmm. Because if each of us does that little difference, talking to people, making those changes in our own behavior, ultimately we can have that bigger effect. So I often focus on what are the small wins that we can have just here locally. And that's where I put my emphasis because sometimes those big problems do become overwhelming. And then what I also often say is just get out into nature and have fun. If that's what inspires you. If talking to a group of kids inspires you, get out and do that because we've gotta keep our souls alive because this- Yeah … can be an incredibly depressing world when we see stuff we've worked towards our whole life and we go, "Oh my goodness. What's happening?"

53:20 Yeah. But it's, just getting out there and enjoying what it is that we care so deeply about so that we keep our souls alive because that's what will keep ourselves inspired and keep the people around us inspired. I completely agree. those are great words. To leave off on for this episode, I'm gonna call this a part one 'cause I'd love to have you back on, Judy, because this has been such an eye-opening experience for me as well, I'm sure as the audience members, and this is the wonderful part about hosting a podcast is I get to be a little selfish and talk about some of the stuff that I'm interested as well as what I think the audience is interested. But this is great. I think this is stuff that we need to learn more about and, for all of us, not only just science communicators but for everybody to really understand at the heart of it what we love about the ocean and what makes us more passionate about the ocean.

54:04 So thank you so much, Judy, for coming on the show, sharing your career and everything that you've learned. and again, I can't wait to have you back on to be able to, discuss more. Thank you so much, Andrew. It's been such fun. I look forward to joining you again. You bet. Wonderful. Thank you, Judy, for joining us on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. It was great to have you on. Very excited to have you back on to talk more about how we communicate ocean conservation. I think this is great for professionals, scientists, ocean conservationists, practitioners, but I also think it's great for people who are trying to understand how to understand the ocean and how to approach the ocean with all of these big questions and big issues that we're finding, overfishing, climate change, marine pollution, plastic pollution, coastal development, all the things that, are sometimes out of our control or seem out of our control and how we can communicate best.

54:55 And Judy mentions at the end of the interview that, hey, you know what? Like just learning about the ocean, talking about it to others, doing local activities, that will really help. I would love to add on joining an organization that has a lot of community activities, 'cause not only are you going for the impact of doing a beach cleanup or doing something, you are actually engaging with other people with similar values. And we need that socially as humans to engage with people where you can talk about the environment, not get attacked like sometimes, that'll happen online. For me, I like talking to people about it, through the podcast, through friends, to be really engaged with people who care about the ocean. And that I think is really important to help get over any type of eco-anxiety, whether it's climate change or ocean issues that you face.

55:35 But I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Hit me up in the comments. If you're on Spotify, there's a comment section. If you want to DM me either on LinkedIn or you can DM me on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, whatever you'd like. my social links are in the show notes. I'd love to hear more from you and more about where you're coming from in terms of learning the ocean and what you would like to learn more about, and some of the questions that are driving you nuts about the ocean and what can be done better about it, or maybe it's already being done. You just don't know, and I haven't put it on the podcast yet. I'd love to do that. So let me know how you feel about it. Thank you again to Judy. I'll put her links down to MPA Day, to all the different links that she shared with me. so you'll be able to take care of that. And don't forget to tune in for the rest of the week.

56:16 We're gonna be diving into the different aspects of, communication and the ocean for the rest of the week in my solo episodes from Tuesday to Friday. Hit that follow button if you wanna find that out. And thank you so much for joining me. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.