And to the Speak Up For Blue podcast, session 138. Hey everybody, it's Friday, it's one of my favorite days. We've got Nathan Johnson joining us today. We did it again on BLAB, but this one was just the two of us nobody showed up because it was a last minute BLAB. I'm going to try and schedule them a little bit more, frequently or a little bit more in advance. This one I scheduled like a half hour beforehand. Anyway, today we talk about a lot of different topics, just like we normally do, they're a lot of fun. We talk about a bit of a celebrity that has been in the news in the last little bit. He won an Oscar, has a little hint and said some pretty cool things about climate change and what we need to do about it. And he's actually putting his money where his mouth is. And that's what we're going to talk about today on the Speak Up For Blue podcast. Stay tuned. Welcome to the Speak Up For Blue podcast, helping you get involved in ocean conservation. And now, here's your host, Blub's football so much, I mean he really, really likes it. Andrew Lewin. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the Speak Up For Blue podcast, your voice for the ocean. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, founder of Speak Up For Blue dot com, marine ecologist and self-proclaimed oceanpreneur. And today is Friday. And that means we have Ocean Talk Friday with Nathan Johnson, where I recorded with him on blab.im, which is a new, or I guess it's relatively new in the last year, I guess. I just discovered it so it's new to me. But it's a live streaming site and it's not only a live streaming site, but you can actually interact with people, which is a really cool kind of platform where people can exchange ideas and relate to each other and have debates and share news that's not, you know, that's your own news. That's the news that you're interested in. There's a lot of different people on there, not only Nathan and I for Speak Up For Blue, but there's a lot of different science scientists out there that are doing it. And I think they're just fantastic. We'll put a couple of those different shows, links to those different shows that you can see on blab. So what's good about blab is that they hold the recordings, they give you a recording, but they also hold the recording for you so that you can go and watch previous shows. So if you go on blab and you look up Speak Up For Blue, you can actually see some of our previous recordings. I think this is our fifth time doing it, our fourth or fifth time doing it on blab. And I just think it's a really cool thing. What I'm planning on doing is scheduling these blabs a lot more in advance, hopefully the week in advance and just kind of tweeting out what we're going to be talking about and when we're going to be doing it so that more people can have time to join, make time to actually join us. We usually do it on Wednesdays at around nine o'clock Eastern. That's sort of what we shoot for. So kind of keep that in mind. And what you can do is you can come on, you can call in, you can see yourself on video and talk. Don't worry about being intimidated about what we're talking about. We're just taking regular articles off the net and talking about them. So anybody can really do this. And that's what we kind of, I want people to join this community, the Speak Up For Blue community and really interact with us, engage with us and talk with us and get those opinions out and what you, you know, what you want to see for ocean conservation and what your opinions are on, specific things, I, we both, Nathan and I both come from science backgrounds and it's always great to have somebody else out there that are not necessarily scientists that want to kind of join in and talk about their beliefs, their sort of rationales on everything. I think it just gives a great perspective for everybody else in the Speak Up For Blue community. So we have chances of having multiple people call in and interact and I think it's just a great opportunity. So with that said, let's get to today's show and talk about today's show. We had a lot of different, well, we had four articles like we normally do, but they kind of covered some different things. So the first one was about Leonardo DiCaprio. He just recently won an Oscar, made a huge speech for climate change, reduction and adaptation and so forth. And we have an article that says he's now putting his money where his mouth is and he's putting his money into a fun, a blue, I guess a blue bond fund or a blue ocean fund to the Seychelles and with a bunch of other different organizations and foundations working with the nature conservancy to help put in and implement conservation measures around the Seychelles. So we talk about that. It's pretty interesting stuff. And I think it's kind of interesting to see an actor come up and speak up as big as he did in front of millions, if not millions of people and now he's actually taking action or his foundation is taking action. I don't know if this is a million of his money. I know it's a million of his foundation's money and to be honest, I really don't care. It's the fact that he's put in a million, the foundation has put in a million dollars to aid ocean conservation and it's to aid a small state that probably wouldn't have the money to do this stuff in the first place. So we talk about that. We talk about something that they're doing there. In return to this conservation actions, the Seychelles are able to reduce some of their debt, which is kind of an interesting aspect. We talk about it. We don't, Nathan and I don't really completely understand how it's done and maybe we should get somebody on who can explain these blue bonds. However, it's kind of interesting approach to doing it. Maybe a bit of a social enterprise approach. So I think that's kind of an interesting aspect. Let's get on to the next story. The next story we cover is, scientists have come out and said, protecting not 10%, but 30% of the ocean is what we need to do to protect not only biodiversity and fisheries and everything like that, but satisfy all multiple stakeholders, avoid fisheries, populations, collapse, maximize fisheries, values and yields and ensure that there's connectivity between among MPAs. So there's a lot of things that go into this article and we talk a lot about it and we talk about how good it is to have 30%, but how realistic it is and what factors to that ability to be successful in implementing 30% coverage or 30% protection globally. So that'll be interesting to talk about and Nathan and I talk about that today. We also talk about how some reefs that have been going through reefs all around the world, we've been told that have been going through climate change impacts and bleaching events. Now there's been a discovery from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Jennifer Smith is the biologist who's on the head, I guess, the chief scientist. They've discovered that her team has discovered that remote reefs where there's surrounding islands where that's uninhabited in the South Pacific are actually doing fine in this hot infused summer that they're having in the South Pacific where I guess now it's spring or fall, I guess, for them, but it's been crazy hot, but these reefs are just plentiful. Schools of abundance of fish, sharks, stingrays, manta rays, sea turtles all over the place and these reefs are unbelievable, apparently, and they're remote, but they're saying that maybe it's the human impact that's really playing a role and climate change won't decimate. Climate change alone won't decimate these reefs that we talk about and that becomes interesting. And then what I call Nathan's article is looking at DNA of deep sea animals and how some of them have been similar, have been found to be similar between among barnacle species that are located in different hydrothermal vents. So you have one hydrothermal vent that say the distance, say it's like in New York City. Let's just say, for hypothetical purposes is in New York City and in other ones in Boston and the DNA of both of the populations in the barnacles have the similar DNA, meaning they're from the same genes, they're from the same ancestry, so they're connected. So somehow they're actually coming and they're connected together. That we talk about and we talk about how that happens and how that might happen and what questions that we can come up with to make more studies and if those studies are actually possible. So we talk all about that. We're going to put links of the articles in the show notes, which is SpeakUpForBlue.com/session138. And here is our, it is our Ocean Talk Friday with Nathan Johnson and myself. Enjoy. And I will talk to you after. Hey, Nathan. What's up? Heather, Ocean Talk Friday. How are you doing? Doing good, buddy. How are you doing? Ah, I am. Awesome. Although, it's springtime here, of course, right? Springtime, past March 21st or 20th or whatever that's supposed to be. And we have a sleet and snow right now and rain, a mixture of rain sleet, snow, it kind of goes back and forth and back and forth. So that's always, that's always fun to deal with in spring here in Canada. Yeah, it's a high 70s right here, so that's nuts. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you a lot. No, not at all. Just right now. But yeah, no, I mean, it's good. I'm looking forward to the stories that we're going to talk about. So just to give people a perspective, just a little bit of a hint of what we're going to be doing. We're going to be talking about Leonardo DiCaprio. He's kind of put his money where his mouth is. And he's donating some money to a specific project, which is kind of a cool thing to do, especially after what he did at the Oscars. We're also going to talk about marine protected areas. And there's been sort of a number that people have dealt with over time in terms of, you know, what the amount, the percentage of ocean that should be conserved around the world. It's normally been 10. Some people have been 20. It's been kind of controversial. Now they've increased that to a different number. We're going to talk about that. Now we're going to talk about coral reefs. Aren't doing so bad in some areas. This has been a really bad year for coral bleaching because of the El Nino effect. And of course, just the overall heat that we've been going through. But scientists have found some remote reefs that actually have been doing well. So that's kind of where we're going to talk about that. Then we're going to talk about your favorite kind of subject is some DNA and some bump in the fist and yeah, DNA of barnacles, I believe, in hydrothermal vents and how they are connected. So lots of good stuff to talk about today. So let's get started. Did you want to start with the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation article? Sure. So we talked about this like a couple of months ago. The small island, the Seychelles Island was talking about setting up some sort of fund managed by the state to protect its marine areas. It's an island nation. It's very heavily reliant on subsistence fishing and ecotourism. And they were setting up what were called blue bonds or what they called blue bonds, which were basically a way for investors to sort of buy into this sort of state managed conservation fund. So Leo must have heard our episode on that and decided to donate money towards that. This foundation gave a million dollars to this Seychelles Conservation Initiative through the Nature Conservancy. So he donated the money to the Nature Conservancy, which is working with the government to establish these types of projects. A bunch of other parties also were included in that, including the Weight Foundation. We talked about their Blue Halo Initiative in the past. The China Global Conservation Fund and a bunch of other private donations, all in all, it raised about $5 million. The whole blue bond system, the Seychelles is working towards transmitting over $21 million worth of debt, restructuring that so that it can be used for ocean conservation to protect pretty much the entire area around the islands. So that's really cool to see that not only is Leo donating this type of money, I think if you follow his foundation, this type of contribution in these types of environmental projects aren't anything new, something that he's been involved with for a while. But I think it's really interesting that some of these big organizations like the Nature Conservancy, like the Weight Foundation, and some of these big name celebrities like DiCaprio are actually, in a way sort of endorsing these financially governed conservation projects. Trying to tie it into national markets and finance it that way, as opposed to simply just looking for donations, trying to create a sort of sustainable thing that the Seychelles can govern on their own while also protecting these islands. The one critique I have is that, again, the same issue we had when we first talked about these blue bonds, there's not much given us to how they'll manage these and what types of areas they'll conserve and how they'll protect them because, you know, we've talked in the past, there's a big difference between just a marine protected area and like a no-take marine reserve. One is obviously preferable to the other if you're trying to increase biodiversity and abundance. You know, all it says that it's going to be based on protection, but the Nature Conservancy does have a pretty good reputation of, you know, putting the best protection in place that they can. So, you know, I think with Nature Conservancy involved in this, I think it will be a substantial level of protection. But again, I think it's kind of more news on the front of these blue bonds and we'll see how this goes in the future, but I think it's a really cool idea and it's great to see some sort of momentum going towards it. Yeah. You know, when I read the article, I think it brought me back to that conversation that we had about these blue bonds and the Seychelles. And I think it's kind of interesting that it's a pretty good partnership of the people who donated $5 million of the foundations. You got some pretty big names in there, you know, and the Nature Conservancy, who else have Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, where's the rest of them? There's a bunch of them. Right. China. Yeah. Grantham Foundation, Turnvalder Anstein, Family Charitable Fund, the Wave Foundation. Yeah. The China Global Conservation Fund, which is kind of good to see. The Oak Foundation's german, oh, it's german in the lore or a Grantham Foundation. So, there's a lot of lenders that are involved. Now, it's kind of interesting because I don't completely understand how this is going to be as worse. And maybe you can explain it a little bit more, but, you know, there's, so they donate $5 million to do the project. And in response, I guess the contribution done by the state of Seychelles, if they contribute money or contribute time, they get their debt restructured. Is that correct? Well, I don't know for sure. I haven't read too much into how exactly they have changed worked, right? I think the private donations, the Decaprio donations and the work that Nature Conservancy are doing are providing the expertise to how these areas will be managed and how they'll be protected. Right. I think the financing comes solely from the government. You know, I think basically the same as any bond works, you know, they'll issue these two investors, and then the investors will buy into it. And so when you would buy a blue bond from the Seychelles, that money would go towards the management, but you'd need some sort of upfront costs to, first of all, establish these areas and set up, I guess, the infrastructure to maintain this long-term. So I would think that's what the Nature Conservancy is helping with is actually establishing the MPAs. I don't think the five million-- Right. Yeah. So I don't think like Decaprio himself is buying a bunch of these blue bonds through his donation. I think it's just sort of getting the capital in place to have the capability to do something like that. Yeah, because they call them private lenders. So I wonder if this money will eventually be paid back, you know, as a return for the benefits that have been contributed to the Seychelles conservation. So there's, I mean, there's two ways that I can think of it. Either they invest in some, like the money goes to investing in the resources that they use, you know, so like the fishing, the protection of the fishing, and everything like that. And that money gets returned to them eventually. Or the payback is, hey, we're going to give you five million dollars as these blue bonds and you're going to do something good for your ocean, right? You're going to either do marine protected areas, you're going to do that, and the Nature Conservatives comes in and other organizations come in to help out. That's sort of what I'm thinking about. I don't know if that's right though, right? Yeah, I don't know. And I, but I like the idea, like it puts in money and you use that money. It's like an investment. You use that money to protect the ocean, right? By either putting in marine protected areas or putting in regulations. They know that they see those regulations going. They know that money is going to something good. And that's what that's their return. It's not a money return. It's sort of like a services return. Yeah, you know, that could, well, the other thing is, Seychelles has a big eco-tourism industry, a growing eco-tourism industry. So I wonder if that's something that's state run or federally run, that they're basically invested in this. So whatever. The bills are so small that a lot of it's a government run. Yeah, right. There's probably not a lot of small business or investors like that. But you're right. It could be going into that. And that's their return is to see those industry saw. Maybe there's no money return on it. Maybe that's the thing. There's no money return. And that's an interesting concept. If that's the case, that's an interesting concept for people around the world, like individuals to donate money. So imagine if somebody donates say to like some kind of ocean conservation organization and they go out and they protect something. That's the return is they actually protect. I mean, that's what a donation really is, right? You pay you pay money for a specific project to be done and it's done. This one is just more on a larger scale, right? And they're calling a blue bond. So it's like you, instead of like your normal bond would be your normal, like if you buy normal bonds in government, you're paying for that and you're getting your return eventually in monetary funds. But this one, a blue bond is you actually pay in and get some kind of conservation deal out of it. You see conservation done within that country. I could be speaking of that. I have no idea, but this makes sense to me. I don't know. I think I forget a lot of my college econ classes and finance classes, but I think it'd be really interesting to talk with someone about how these types of financial things work because that's the thing with conservation is we keep saying it can make economic sense. And I think it can in the long run, but it's not something that's easily quantifiable. So yes, by protecting a certain amount of area, you aren't making a dollar impact, but it's hard to figure out what that number is because it impacts so many different things that aren't, we don't easily put a number on. And then the other thing is like it makes economic sense in that it costs this much to protect it, but even if we could put a dollar value on it, it would be so much greater that your return is worth the investment. But your investment assumes that you're not going to drill in that area. You're not going to industrial. We lost it. You're not going to $1 worth of revenue. Hold on. You froze a little bit, so let's go back. You're not going to get something I think you were saying. Yeah. So let's say you put in $1 million to set up an MPa. And then by some way, we can say 10 years down the road, it's going to have a $10 million impact on the fisheries industry, so on the ecotourism industry, whale watching, whatever. So you could say the return is 10 to 1, but by protecting it, you're also not drilling for oil and gas. You're not bringing commercial fishing, which means let's say the oil and gas profit that you would get over 10 years is 20 million. So that opportunity cost is you're losing $21 million because you're setting up $1 million to protect it, and you're losing 20 by not doing this. So even though you're getting 10 million at the end, you're not factoring into the amount that you would have gotten if you did it some other way. If you had-- And you also have to factor in the market. Yeah, the opportunity cost. So I think it would be really interesting to see if it's-- I really do think there's a way that this type of stuff where you put in money for conservation does make economic sense even including the opportunity cost that you're missing out on. But I don't know enough about this type of thing to really say if that's the case. But that's the problem with trying to get people to invest in, is it's really hard to say, yes, this will be your return on investment. It's going to be this dollar amount. Usually, all we can do is say, it does create value down the road. But the best thing we can do is say, you're going to be doing a social good or a communal good by a consumer in this area. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's the thing. I think that's a mindset that has to be changed is when we invest in something, it doesn't always have to have a monetary return. The return on investment doesn't always have to be in money. It can be in a service or it can be in a benefit towards the environment or towards some social good. I mean, that's social, social entrepreneurship, right? That's what it is. And I think we're seeing more and more of that. And I think these blue bonds could be that way towards it. But like I said, we could be, you know, this, this could be completely wrong in terms of how we're interpreting this. But I think it's a cool idea. Oh, yeah. To be honest, I think it's a really good idea. I think you'd see a lot more investment plus, you know, the incentive for the government to do this is not only protect their, their ocean, but now they get debt restricted. I think it was a $22 million in debt. Yeah. Restructures. That's pretty significant for a small state 24. Yeah. So that's a pretty significant for, for a small state like Seychelles, right? So anyway, let's, let's move on to the next story. I think that was kind of cool. I think what I like is that, you know, Leonardo DiCaprio, I thought Oscar said we need to do something about climate change. We need to do this. He's at the Seychelles and he's putting money and his foundation is putting money towards it. It's probably not his own. Maybe it's a little bit, but he's actually, you know, driving, he's the driving force behind this foundation and it's going to the Seychelles. I find it interesting though, when I first read it, I know this sounds really maybe a little greedy, but when I first read it, I was like, why is it like such a small area? You know, why we keep protecting these small areas? Why aren't we doing this, this type of investment in larger countries? And maybe it's the smaller countries and smaller states that need the help in terms of that Monterey Fund and you get the best bang for your buck. But you know, I'm kind of wondering now with the whole climate change stocks and the emissions that we have to produce, why not put that into something else in larger developed countries that are contributing more to this stuff? I don't know though. Maybe it's because the only thing I can really think of is because those other smaller states are just, they just don't have the funds to like that to put towards these kind of projects and you probably get your best, like we said, return on investment in that kind of case. But anyway, let's move on to the next one. We're going to talk about, I'll take care of this one here that you sent us. So this article is protecting 30% of the ocean has many benefits. So normally when I was in grad school, when we were looking at the whole theoretical approach of how much of the ocean should we conserve? So how much within each country should we conserve or protect set aside for protection? How much globally should we set aside for protection? At one point it was 10% and I believe that the UN still keeps it at 10% is the common global goal. But when I was in school, my professor was like, "No, we need 20%." Like that's like, you know, the literature was pretty set on 20%. Now it's 30% and they're saying 30% because not only does it benefit, you know, just corals and other habitats, but it also benefits the sort of ecosystem services as well. Such fishing, tourism, any kind of recreational deal and then renewable energies and things like that. So now they're saying they're going with a 30% change. And what's interesting is when they looked at the studies, it says that researchers identified studies that asked how much of a particular ocean should be in MPAs to achieve a particular management goal. So they found 144 such studies which they grouped according to five different goals. So these are the five common goals of those 144 studies. So the first one was biodiversity. The second one was ensure population connectivity among MPAs. And this is under like species population, not our population. Number three was avoid fisheries and population collapse. Number four, maximize or optimize fisheries, value or yield. And number five, satisfy multiple stakeholders. That's pretty interesting. You know, to have those, those were the five common goals in a marine protected area for those 104 or four studies. So they looked at that and they said more than half the studies reported that protecting 30% or more of the area under consideration was necessary to achieve the stated management goal while 3% of the studies found that the goal would be met by protecting only 10% of the area. So the researchers tested whether the choice of a goal may any difference in the level of coverage that the study recommended. They found that the figure 30% or more held up regardless of whether the goal was to conserve ecosystems or sustained fishing. So it's kind of interesting to see that those results. To say, hey, 30% is actually what we need to do to benefit everybody. To have those five common goals, whether you're choosing one, whether you're choosing two, whether you're choosing all five, 30% is the number, considering now that only 6% of the ocean is protected. And even then you can argue, you know, the level of protection, kind of what you just mentioned in the previous, when we covered the previous articles, what is the level of protection? And there are some areas that are like, you know, the largest marine protected area that only protect sharks. You know, you can't fish for sharks. It doesn't mean you can't fish for anything else. It doesn't mean you can't dive on a reef or touch the reef doesn't mean you can't develop on the long and the coast. They're not necessarily fully protected or they don't have different management priors. They're more or less, a lot of these big ones are more or less protected for one particular item or one particular species or a couple or a group of species. So I think we need to take the 6% with a grain of salt, but we really need to say, let's get these, look at those five goals that they mentioned in those studies and say, okay, can we get all five? Can we get one? Can we get two? Can we get three in this area? And within that 30% of the global ocean area, can we represent that 30% with each goal? You know, I don't know if that would in turn become more than 30%, but almost have 30% for each goal. I think that would be kind of cool. And of course, there could be overlapping, there could be some areas that have more than one goal. So that's where you can kind of encapsulate it all. But 30% seems, it seems fair. It seems rational, realistic, though, Nathan. Yeah, judging the way things are going now, is it realistic? Well, you know, it's hard to see it happening. It's hard to see it happening in my lifetime. But that's also just because, you know, we've barely got past 2%, right? Like it was 2% up until like three, four years ago. And now... Not even. It was what was it? 1.3? I think in 2015, I guess we started getting past that 2%. So yeah, it was just a couple years ago. It has increased quite a bit, like 4% in a few months, but those were two large areas. So the radar, which is increasing is fast, but I think that's kind of misleading. And I think I err on the side of pessimism when I say that it's hard to see it happening in my lifetime. That being said, it's perfectly possible. You know, we've already talked about all the benefits that you get from protecting these areas, especially long term. I think all you really need in this type of situation is like one or two major countries to make it a main priority, like you said, not just protecting these small areas here and there, which, quite frankly, are probably being protected because it's easier. Because there's not as much activity, it's a smaller government. They're more closely tied to the ocean in that they directly see these relationships and these effects, whereas large industrial countries are certainly tied to the ocean, but we're kind of removed in that we're not subsistence fishers, so we don't recognize that as much. But I think if you get a couple, then you start basically triggering this type of focus towards protecting in large areas, there's a lot of reasons to do it. We have the capacity to do it. It's going to hurt at first, but I think people are... The reason we've seen more come up in the last couple of years is I think because people are starting to realize, hey, this is necessary. This is literally the bare minimum we can do for the ocean. So I think it is possible. I hope to see it in my lifetime. I'm not sure yet if we will. I think a lot of it depends on how it's implemented into policy over the next 10 years. With how the UN implements this into their plans, if it actually holds countries to this type of thing, if we don't start seeing like Trudeau seems to be focusing a lot on this type of thing in Canada, hopefully it's not just a flash in the pan sort of thing, hopefully his successor does the same and we start seeing that same trend in the US. So I think a lot of it depends on how things are going in the next 10 years, but if Canada really works their butt off to get a lot of their area done, I could see the US trying to maybe follow suit or other countries follow suit, and that 6% could rise pretty rapidly if that's the case. Yeah, I mean, I think the potential is there and the will is there for a lot of countries, I think globally it's difficult to say if we'll ever reach that 30% like you said in our lifetime, it really the way I've learned really depends on the regime that is in place in each country. So as an example for Canada, when before we had a conservative government for like the last 10 years, we had a liberal government that had signed on to the Kyoto Protocol, which was the climate change protocol that people, you know, that the country signed on beforehand, we, the government had stipulated that by 2012, we will have 20% of our coastline protected. That was they made that promise that mandate, I think it was in 20 or 2003, 2004, some were around there. Obviously it didn't happen because we have 1.3% protected right now. The government that was in place that took over after that essentially kibosh everything that that was made any kind of progress that was made. So for instance, on the east coast of Canada, from Newfoundland to the Bay of Fundy, almost to the Gulf, to the Gulf of Maine, that that the Canada controlled, there was a network of marine protected area areas proposed. That sat on the minister's desk, the fisheries minister's desk for 10 years. So whether that marine, that network of marine protected area configuration is still valid, I don't know, but if they put that into place or put something like that, start with that plan and go to stakeholders and do negotiations again, they might be able to say, hey, right off the bat, we've just increased it by 5%, right? They could do that or they could wait and stall and then say, oh, we're going to be late. And then by 20, I think they said 2020, when the election comes up again, because every four or five years, then who knows if they don't get in again, that plan can be scrapped or halted, right, if it's something that somebody, it's another party gets in, that doesn't believe in it. So we are really that the success of putting together a marine protected area that would establish 20 to 30% protection of a country's economic zone really depends on the policies of the political party in government right now. And I think Canada is a great example of that and it'll be interesting to see the push that this government puts into place to say, hey, let's get to it. I mean, it's a really aggressive mandate right now. It's aggressive plan. I think they want, we have 1.3 now, they want 5% by 2017, they want another 10% by 20, halfway through 2018, and then a full 20% by 2020 or 15% by 2020. That's a pretty aggressive regime, especially with the amount of protection that we want. The science base and the way our conservation plan is. So if they do get protected, it'll be very well protected. And if you think about it, Canada has the longest coastline in the world. So if you protect 20 to 30% of that, that's a good chunk. You 15% of that, you're looking at a very good chunk and that's a good, and that's just the beginning, you're only halfway there. If you think if you're going to protect 30% of the world, oceans, you're almost in every country, you almost have to protect 30% of your economic zone, give or take, right? So that'll be interesting to see if that actually happens, but I think it's completely, I don't think it's dependent on the scientists. I think the scientists can put together something. I think the stakeholder negotiations can really go well. I think it really depends on how well the government in place, the policy part, the politics part really puts together and the plan and really wants to hold true to that plan. And I guess it really the stakeholders are lobbyists. How well are you going to listen to your lobbyists, right? Well, you know, or lied by them. And that's not to say that there's not a role that scientists can play in the policy making. It's just that the amount of science that we've done on marine protected areas lags behind the amount of action we've actually taken to establish them. So, yeah, it all comes down to, it's a policy thing at this point. It's convincing the people who are in power to set these up. And scientists definitely could play a role, you know, the same way that any other lobbyists could play a role in this sort of thing, either by educating the policymakers themselves or by educating their constituents to the point where the policymakers have to listen to them. But yeah, you're certainly right. It's sort of a misconception to think that the reason we don't have more MPAs because there's a lack of research on the topic, it's certainly not the case. Yeah, no, I agree. So I think it'll be interesting. I think 30% is a good number to me. I think it makes sense. We'll see if it actually happens. And like I said, it really depends on the politics and the political will to actually get this done. And that's where groups like Pew, charitable trusts, who go around not only within the U.S., but go around and work with a lot of smaller states, Angelo Villagomez is one of those guys who went around to the small states in the South Pacific to get to help establish these protected areas, that these large shark protected areas. And that is a huge feat to go and work with them and to propose things and facilitate workshops and work with people to just get that positive vibe going. It's going to take guys like him, more people like him, guys and girls of course, more people like him, more organizations like Pew to really get involved with the government, getting good positive feedback from them and getting with a positive vibe and go in and protect these areas and make sure that they do it properly as well, not just, you know, just designate willy-nilly kind of thing, right? So anyway, let's move over to more protection, but it's kind of like these reefs are already protected. Why don't you? Well, actually, I'll do this one and then you'll do the DNA. Sounds good. That's cool. All right. So I'll just give it a brief description of what this article is. It was in the San Diego Union Tribune and it's actually interesting. I only realized it was a two page article recently. I hadn't. I didn't know. It was a two page article. Because I read it the first time. Anyway, this article is talking about how there are certain coral reefs. I mean, coral reefs, I'll give you a quick background for the audience is coral reefs have over the, you know, they've been degrading this year, especially because of the hot summer, or the hot summer, of course, in Australia, the hot temperatures in the winter over here in the Western world and just it's been, it's been hot. It's been an El Nino year and a lot of coral reefs have bleached and a lot of them are dying off because the length of heat, the length of period of heat has just been so drastic that a lot of the recovery of a lot of these corals may not happen as quickly as we expected. However, there's a team of scientists who have found something different. They found that remote reefs are thriving despite climate change. And it's a group of, I was a professor and her team at the, at Scripps Ocean, on Ocean Institute, I think it's a cult. Institute of Oceanography. That's right. Institute of Oceanography. And they've gone out and they've, they've done a lot of research and they've discovered that these, these Jennifer Smith is the person who's done it, has basically found that these corals are actually thriving. And there's a good diversity. There's fish, there's sharks, there's manorays, there's sea turtles, invertebrates, I mean, just the breath of corals that were really colorful, which means that they still have their zuantele, that means there's no bleaching. And it's just, and the difference is there's no human impact because these islands where these corals are surrounding are, are not inhabited by humans. They're just, they're just desolate. They're just, they don't have anybody there. And so there's no human impact to really put this on. And now what this says to me, Nathan, is that these reefs, reefs could be okay. Even with climate change, if we take out the direct human impacts that we see, right? The fishing, the coastal development, dredging, diving, even, because, you know, some divers don't know how to dive and they want to touch everything. You've got all those things and you take those away and you have, you give time for, you give time for these reefs to recover. This also happens, they've noticed in Australia with the Greatbury Reef where there's cyclones. Clones are very disruptive events, but they're quick. As long as they don't happen too often, the corals have a chance to recover. Even they break. That's fine. They can regrow. And they're fine. They end up being okay. It ends up being actually, they become more diverse afterwards. So you wonder if you're like, okay, you take away the human impact, which we've been saying, science has been saying for a while, you take away the human impact, or you control the human impact, then the reefs will be okay. What do you think of this, this article, or do you agree with that? Yeah, I think it's, I mean, it makes sense, right? It's like a no, it's like a, a no-guff kind of thing, right? Like, duh. Yeah, no. I mean, it's, it's, they're basically saying reefs that aren't as heavily impacted by humans tend to be better off from an ecological standpoint, which, yeah, logic makes absolute sense. I think the benefit is having this hard data to show, to back it up, you know, now we, you can't really make your argument now that, oh, with all the, you know, with the globalized economy that we have today, everywhere is impacted by humans to a significant degree, and climate change is also sort of leveling the playing field, and that it's setting every sort of ecosystem back, which, yeah, climate change isn't really good. You know, it's certainly impacting pretty much every ecosystem in a negative way, for the most part, but this data shows that even with climate change, even with El Nino, even with these global coral bleaching events, even with human influence impacting areas that are relatively uninhabited, you still have reefs that are able to survive, that aren't as detrimentally impacted by humans as areas in more heavily populated areas, at least in the Pacific, because that's all the study really looked down to the central Pacific area. So, the real strength of this is showing that humans, A, hard evidence for showing that human, direct human impact is negative for coral reefs, but B, you take the other side of that, in that if you remove a lot of these detrimental impacts, a lot of these coastal development, a lot of this water pollution, a lot of, you know, nitrogen runoff, things that are kind of associated with coastal development and coastal communities, you could have the opportunity to restore these habitats. So, you could, you know, look on it on the side of saying that, oh, all these habitats around humans are so degraded, that's really depressing, but you can also look at it and say, like, look at what it could be like, because we have, in the face of climate change in the face of a globalized society, we have reefs surrounding relatively uninhabited areas that are doing great. So, if we can at least target the major stressors, which seem to be coastal development and pollution runoff, that if we can address that, these reefs have the opportunity to bounce back in a big way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, what I've been thinking is you've got this, I've been trying to think of the other word as you were talking, but it's almost like the reefs that are near human influence are sick. They almost have this chronic disease of humans, right, of the influence of humans. And they're always working at, say, 50%, you know what I mean? They're not always, they're not fully healthy. And so, when something else comes in, like climate change, or like a big coral bleaching event, or heat for a prolonged time, you know, the zoantellae are like, we're out. This is just, this, this thing's already sick, this animal's already sick, and now it's getting worse, so we're out. This is just not good enough. Whereas these remote areas, you know, these corals are working at 100% health. So, when heat comes in, then you're sitting there and the zoantellae is like, no, we're fine. This isn't going to last too long, we're okay, because there's nothing else going on here. Everything's fine, you know? And that's sort of how I'm thinking, obviously, I'm meant to promote, promote emphasizing it, but it, that's how it seems, right? It's like that chronic continuous influence that's negatively impacting the animal, but you may not see it right away, but once something else comes in, that's, that's big, like a coral bleaching event. That's acute. That's looking for, that's an acute event where things can change really rapidly. Now you have a problem, but in these other areas where the heat is staying the same, you're not seeing those, those changes, you're not seeing that degradation. And I think that's interesting. I would love to see research done is, is the temperature the same there as the other reefs that are elsewhere that could be, that could be comparable, but the only difference is, is there around like, you know, an island that's inhabited, you know, and then look at the differences of different islands that are inhabited. I mean, you've got some islands surrounding Papua New Guinea that have people on it, but they're very, you know, they're, they're, they're living off the land. There's no electricity, there's, there's no sewage, they're living off the land. I wonder at the difference, it'd be a kind of a cool study to see uninhabited, inhabited, but with no power, no electricity, no real sort of modernization and then complete modernization and see what the differences are. And then look at how, how the reefs are doing in those areas, you know, I think that would be a great study. Yeah, I think that would give you a stronger idea of what are, what are the exact causes of this? Because that's really what we're concerned about, you know, how, how is it that these reefs are able to be so pristine, or relatively so pristine at least? And what are the drivers of the human impact that, that are causing the sort of degradation of these coastal reefs in the developed areas? So the, the sooner and the more accurately we can pinpoint what exactly it is that we can cut down on, I think those are the types of projects that we're more likely to see funded. Yeah. And I think what happens too is, you know, we make these, I mean, it's, it's easy to make the connection that coastal development will impact reefs, sedimentation will impact reefs, fishing will impact reefs, too much recreational diving or snorkeling will impact reefs where it's not meant where it's not done properly. It's easy to make that connection because it happens, however, there's really no evidence to say if you took all that out, if you took all that away, it would be fine. Because you're saying, well, there's still climate change, a lot of people are saying that climate change are just going to wipe out reefs in general by mid-century. I think the right now, the consensus is 70% of the reefs are going to be gone by mid-century this century, you know, because of climate change. I mean, that's a very, you know, that just, that just brings you down. That number just brings you down. But now, it's not what Jennifer Smith was saying in this saying that, hey, maybe it's not it. You know, maybe if we get our act together and figure this out or these remote reefs survive, and we figure this out, maybe that'll be the savior, you know, maybe it won't be as abundant as we used to see them all the time, but these reefs will be, will be okay. Now, the one thing I would do too is protect the hell out of these remote reefs, nobody's allowed on them. You know, maybe even sometimes researchers aren't even allowed on them just to make sure that they're protected because the other ones are in such danger, you know. The other thing is you, you know, you do the research and you figure out what the difference is. Now you have, you have evidence to show the government and the regulators to say, look, this is what happens when we, we take away that human influence. This is how important it is to, you know, weigh the money, like, and then, and then make a case of like how much reefs will bring in alive. Just like a lot of other places are saying, you know, we were just talking, yes, or, or Wednesday's podcast with Roy Mueller was talking about how, you know, now that they have these dive sites that are protected, you know, more people are going to dive there because it's going to be, they're going to be, it's going to be a good habitat to dive. So it's going to bring in more money. So that reef site or that, that site that's protected with glass sponge reefs and wool fields and rock fish will be worth more in the long term than it is, you know, for whatever reason, it's not protected, you know, because it's bringing in money, it's bringing in tourism. It's employing the local, you know, I guess what you call voters or voting industry to get the divers out there, local dive shops, it's going to increase that. And these divers are going to be, you know, wondering about that. So it's going to be interesting to see what happens on this, on this kind of thing. And I'd like to see that evidence be put forth in future studies. So it'll be kind of cool. So anyway, we lost, we only have you on audio. Nathan, can you still hear us? You lose my video. Okay. Cool. Yeah. We lost your video. It said poor internet signal, but that's okay. Okay. Come back. And we'll be okay. But I can still hear you on audio and it's on the podcast. Okay, if your voice, yeah, it's that that handsome voice that you have. Anyway, let's go on to, I call this your article. You know, it's the DNA markers to tell the story of the deep sea adaptation. What's this all about? It's about using genetic sequencing or gene sequencing to study the deep sea more because I mean, it's not impossible. It's very difficult to study deep sea. I mean, you can talk with any sort of researcher who makes a living out of it and they'll probably tell you it's one of the most difficult habitats, if not the most difficult habitat to study. So to sort of get around that, a lot of researchers have begun looking at, well, not only to get around, but looking at the genetic code and the genomes of animals that are inhabitants of the deep sea that have uniquely adapted to this area that has ridiculously high pressure, very cold temperatures, complete darkness, which means, you know, another thing, because there's no sunlight that reaches down there, it's one of the only ecosystems in the world that is in relying on photosynthesis. So deep sea habitats typically have chemosynthesis for primary production, which is basically a way of integrating methane or sulfur or other sort of chemicals into primary production. So what this follows, a little researcher who's looking at the genetics of a couple of different really popular fish, or not popular fish, popular organisms down in the deep sea, barnacles which are really frequent in hydrothermal vent areas. And then a couple of deep coral species, because something that you don't normally think about is the deep sea is home to about two-thirds of all known coral species. We tend to think of them as tropical re-ability things, but they're very common, very abundant in the deep sea. So you can get a really good idea of how they've adapted to these areas, what their geological history is like, how they got there, how they adapted here. And so what found was that, at least as far as barnacles go, these organisms, although they're sessile, when they're adults, they're stocked to the vent, they're not moving. They have a pretty good larval dispersal capability. So he looked at barnacles from different hydrothermal vents that were separated by up to, they say, hundreds of kilometers, they compare it on the scale from Boston to New York. And they found their genes very similar. So that means that they weren't isolated in this vent for their whole geological history. They likely dispersed between vents, whichever habitat was active at a certain time became a suitable settlement site, which means that they originated from a single area. And then they dispersed to these vents, which is really interesting for hydrothermal vents, because they're patchy. You don't normally see just a valley or a chain of hydrothermal vents, you usually just see one active one, and then you go a few miles down the sea floor and you might see another one. So it's really interesting to see the sessile organisms dispersed this way. Another thing he found was that coral living in the deep sea in different areas tend to exhibit the same genetic adaptations to the environment. So this would be a case of, they already know that these corals seem to be genetically divergent. So they're not dispersing the same way that barnacles are, but they have similar mutations. So you can say that they've exhibited some sort of convergent evolution. They've stumbled upon the same solution to the same environmental stressors or environmental conditions in different ways. So I mean, all in all, I really think these types of deep sea studies are important because we know so little about them. But genetics can show you, or can answer so many questions about the life history of an organism, the history of the species, how it got to where it is, where it dispersed from, how it tends to colonize certain areas. So I think it's really interesting to see this type of research. It's really good to see deep sea research in the news because it's not as sexy as coral reefs. It's not as sexy as marine protected areas, but it's just as important. Yeah, I mean, this is something that, I mean, we've been talking about the last few weeks. We've always come up with a deep sea news item. I don't know if it's just now with the technology that we have. There are more researchers that are in the deep sea or there's always been the same amount of researchers, just they have access to better technology these days, and there's more coverage because it's so mysterious. People are interested in it. What I think is kind of cool is it's so remote and it's so dark. You almost wonder how these animals get from one place to the other. Like you said earlier, when we discussed it, the barnacles were at a distance separated with similar DNA separated from like equivalent, what do you say, from New York to Boston? That's a pretty far distance for the deep sea considering it's like there's, you know, when you think of larval dispersal in the photoxone where light actually shines, you know, for some reason you think, oh, yeah, they know where they're going, you know, they'll get to where they're going, but it's not. They're not seeing where they're going, this larval is they're being put somewhere based on currents and there's no more proof than that than in the dark deep sea, you know, twilight zone where the currents are bringing them to a specific spot. It just feels like it's more of a phenomenon because it's in the deep sea and we don't know that much. The fact that they get dispersed through currents that low to go from one area that's equipment from New York City to Boston, it's just, that's just like, that's just amazing to me because I, you know, you never think of that, especially barnacles, right? When you look at barnacles, they're not, they're not much to look at when you look at them, they're not fish, they don't have, they don't have eyes, you know, you just, you just, you always think, I think I always go back to never realize it till I said it now where you just think that they can see where they're going, but now they can't, one, they're not on organs and they can see, but when you get to that spot, you're just like, holy cow, like it actually traveled that far and now we're seeing that they're actually connected and you're actually seeing like maybe the productivity goes from one vent to another. That's how fast that productivity travels because if you think about it, how many hydrothermal vents have we actually discovered? And we're probably missing a lot, but how many have we discovered how far apart are they? You mentioned earlier that this is where the primary productivity comes from, so it's got to feed a lot of organisms for it to survive. I know there's not a ton of organisms down there, but we haven't even discovered, you know, we haven't cracked, you know, the case of where they are, maybe we're at 1% of discovering what's in the, what's in the bottom dimension, but not productivity must travel. So the currents must be pretty strong and that prior to productivity must travel to feed the rest of that ecosystem because they're not, the animals aren't always, and I don't know this, but I can't imagine that they're always around this sort of harsh habitat, you know, because of this methane. Yeah. And that's a good point because, you know, especially for hydrothermal vents, not only are they geographically separated and sort of isolated in most situations, they're also temporally isolated because, you know, vent may only be active for like 20 years. And if, you know, if you've seen a YouTube video of hydrothermal vent, they're kind of spewing out black smoke, like sulfur and other sorts of chemicals, that's what they call active. And active hydrothermal vents are actually very productive, like right around the vent. But you know, as soon as it stops being productive, those organisms either die or have to find a new place to go. So not only, you know, do they have to sort of find their way geographically along the sea floor to these different habitats that are suitable, they have to hope that those habitats are actually active. And you know, they don't necessarily have to go all the way from one vent to another hundreds of kilometers away in one life cycle, you know, it could be sort of a stepping stone process. But that would assume that there's enough suitable habits in between to use as stepping stones. And the other really good thing, so we've talked a lot about the capability for humans to exploit the deep sea in the near future. It's capabilities as a place for oil and gas, for pharmaceutical research, you know, fisheries potentially even. So deep sea organisms, because of the environment they live in, everything is slowed down. Their metabolism, their life cycle is slowed down. They live longer than organisms that are higher up in the water column towards the photexone, which means they take longer to reproduce. So it's kind of the same situation that we have with sharks and whales that you can't, you have to wait like 10, 20 years for, you know, another generation to come about. So it takes longer to see any sorts of fruits of your labor if you're protecting these animals. And it's easier to exploit them heavily, to overfish them. And that's the same thing we're going into at the deep sea. So the more we know about these organisms, the better we can manage and protect them should any sort of human influence come into play. Yeah, I wonder if it's the same, you know, you're talking about the metabolism, I wonder if it's the same for barnacles and invertebrates that normally have shorter life cycles. You know what I mean? But I'm not sure if because, I mean, if you think about those barnacles are specialized to live in hydrothermal vents. So if you do, if what you say is true is where there might be some stepping stones of where they need to be, or they might halt their specific life stage of their life. Yeah, that would be interesting to get to that. Yeah, I think it would be interesting to look at the, of their adaptations towards there to get to another vent, or is there another vent in between that that we, that they just haven't discovered? Right. We don't know. We don't know how the, how those stepping stones go. And I don't know how you would detect that easily to map out all of the hydrothermal vents. Really? I would imagine it would be a huge mapping project. Right. Yeah. And that means you have to know everything about the bottom of the ocean, and there's just too much ocean to do that. But yeah, it's, it's, it's an interesting thing that happens and, and what we've gone like from just starting with this article, you know, about how the DNA is similar between those two and the questions that we've come up with just on our own, and we're not, we're not deep sea biologist by any means. But the questions that we've come up with our own, I mean, there's so many things that we could do as studies to say, to try and discover these things, whether they're possible or not because of technology in the way we sample, but to get like samples of, of barnacles of deep sea barnacles and say, you know, are these species similar to the, to the ones in the shallow areas? Do they have slow metabolism? Do they have a period where they halt their, their life stage of their life cycle? Do they need sulfur to survive? All that kind stuff is, are questions that I would, I would be very interested in knowing because of, of what, what's been happening here. So, and what's in between those two, those two hydrothermal vents? Is there, if there's anything, right? So, I think that's kind of an interesting aspect and even just the currents, I don't not sure if they map, if they can map the currents on the, on the bottom of the ocean, you know, to see where that, where that's going and where that's taken them as a constant? Does it change? I don't know. I mean, larval dispersal up on the, in, in the photic zone is, is challenging enough to figure out how connected, how connectivity works with larval dispersal is, is, is more of a, is, is it a whole discipline on its own? It's kind of interesting to see what happens. But anyway, lots of questions to answer, or to ask and to get answered in those kind of things. And hopefully one day somebody will, you know, if it's not somebody else, I think it'd be, I think those would become some pretty interesting studies and some pretty interesting results on that, on that sort of thing. We could turn a couple of those on, yes, the deep sea biologist. I think so, well, we have some deep sea biologist, we have Craig McLean from Deepsea News that we're friends with and Andrew David Taylor, who's, who did his PhD. I believe it was on hydrothermal. Yeah, we had them. So he may owe us. They owe us. They owe us. And how did they owe us? Because we had them on the show. All right, right. Of course, of course. Yeah. Yeah. So they owe us answers. Yeah. Yeah. So let's see if that could happen. Maybe we'll have them on the, uh, on it on a, on an OTF and it'll just be the four of us and we'll just ask deep sea. That would be cool. I would join for that. I would join for that. Yeah. Maybe we'll do that. Maybe we'll, we'll try and arrange that for an OTF. Well, that was our Ocean Talk Friday for this week. We were in to spring this week. So it's always, you know, nice to talk about new things. Some good news articles in there, not many bad news articles, which is kind of nice. And some hope, some articles of hope with the coral reef thriving and remote areas. The fact that scientists want now 30% protection of MPAs globally. That will be interesting. And an actor actually putting his mouth, or money to where his mouth is and donating money towards some really good projects in the Seychelles. So we talk a lot about some good things this week. So it's been a positive week of, of articles, which is great. And that's what we like to talk about. We like to see the positive stuff. But of course, we have to talk about the negative stuff some weeks as well. But this one was a positive week. So that's really it for Ocean Talk Friday. This is the first week of our new format and our new frequency of three days a week. Let me know how you feel about it. You can leave your comments on our podcast at SpeakUpForBlue.com/session138 on the show notes. Just hit me up on Twitter @SpeakUpForBlue, all one word. And we can have a chit chat. I like to engage people on social media and we can have a chit chat. Stay tuned. Go on Blab. I am signing with either your email or your Twitter account and look out for SpeakUpForBlue. We are going to be scheduling these, these, these shows, I guess you can call them every Wednesday at 9 p.m. and we'll be scheduling them well ahead so you can actually subscribe to it. You'll get in it. You'll get an email to remind you that Wednesdays, 9 p.m. Eastern, we're going to be, we're going to be talking Ocean Talk Friday and you can participate. So that's what we're going to be doing. So until then, I will see you later. Have a great weekend. You've been listening to SpeakUpForBlue.com/podcast. I am your host, Andrew Lewin. Happy Friday and happy conservation. Bye. (upbeat music)
