0:09

Hi and welcome to

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the Big Deep podcast . Big

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Deep is a podcast about people who have a connection

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to the ocean , people for whom

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that connection is so strong it defines

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some aspect of their life . Over

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the course of this series , we'll talk to all sorts of people

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and in each episode we'll explore

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the deeper meaning of that connection . Today

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, i speak with a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative

0:35

journalist whose work has taken him deep into

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the darker realms of what he calls the

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Outlaw Ocean . Hello

0:43

, this is your host , jason Elias . Welcome

0:49

to the Big Deep podcast . In

0:52

today's episode , i speak with New York Times Pulitzer

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Prize-winning journalist , ian Urbina

0:57

. Ian's investigative journalism

0:59

focuses on the intersection of the human

1:01

species and the lawless frontier of

1:03

the open ocean . His work

1:05

most often appears in the New York Times , but

1:07

he frequently writes for The Atlantic and The New Yorker

1:10

, culminating in his New York Times

1:12

bestseller , the Outlaw Ocean . The

1:15

people I speak with in this show most often have

1:17

a deep passion for the ocean environment and dedicate

1:19

their lives to it in some way . What

1:22

was interesting about Ian and why he reached out

1:24

was for a slightly different perspective , particularly

1:27

around how the ocean shapes human culture

1:29

and the nature of those who work and live

1:31

their lives on it , and this

1:33

can be a dark place . Most

1:35

of this takes place in international waters , starting

1:38

just 12 miles offshore , where

1:40

no country's laws are in effect and there

1:42

is no real jurisdiction protecting workers

1:44

such as fishermen or long-haul

1:46

cargo shippers , nor the world's

1:48

marine life . Ian readily admits

1:50

his work trawls hidden areas of the human experience

1:52

as he works to expose the exploitation

1:55

of both ocean workers and the environment

1:57

itself . And yet I found

1:59

Ian to be an incredibly warm person who

2:02

talked about his path to the work he does , why

2:05

the blank spaces on a map resonated with him

2:07

, and an incredible moment in the North Atlantic

2:09

when the world turned upside down .

2:12

My name is Ian Urbina , i'm a journalist

2:14

and I focus on crimes at

2:16

sea , especially human rights

2:18

, environmental and labor abuses

2:20

that occur on the ocean around the world .

2:23

You've obviously made your career focused on ocean

2:26

issues . When did you first realize

2:28

your connection to the ocean and how

2:30

did that manifest ?

2:32

I never grew up on the water in any

2:34

real way , but whenever I would encounter

2:36

a map of the world , i would always

2:39

look at the blue and the farthest

2:41

off specks in the blue and

2:43

wonder what is that place

2:46

like ? What's it like to be a teenager there

2:48

? How do you get there ? What if planes don't

2:50

come every week ? There's just lots of questions about the people

2:52

that live so remotely in that watery

2:54

desert , and that was the extent of my enamorment

2:57

with the ocean . The real exposure

2:59

came when I was doing

3:01

doctoral work at the University of Chicago

3:04

, one cold winter and I

3:06

decided to take several months off and take

3:08

a job to be a deckhand on a research

3:11

vessel anchored in Singapore . We

3:18

never left port and so I was

3:20

living on this boat and for those

3:22

three months I was spending a lot of

3:24

time with seafarers . These

3:27

were long-haul fishermen , tuna

3:29

, long-liner Indonesian deckhands

3:31

all the way up to Geraldo Rivera's super yacht

3:33

. So it was like a really mixed

3:35

bunch . I anthropologically

3:38

became entranced by those

3:41

people , almost like a diaspora

3:43

, transient tribe of people . They

3:46

had everything that a tribe has . They

3:48

had their own language , their own stories , their own hierarchy

3:50

, their own rules , their own customs , their own relationship

3:53

with time and their own crime . What

3:57

I saw in these guys deckhands

3:59

or yachtsmen or merchant marine was

4:02

this love of living

4:04

apart from everyone else , a

4:06

sort of antisocial element , a sense

4:08

of daring , but also internal

4:11

exploration of survival and possibly

4:14

long periods of quiet and going

4:17

to these extreme edges of

4:19

civilization and maybe even beyond , and

4:22

then staying there . How do they survive

4:24

and how those realms

4:27

affect their mental health and

4:29

worldview . I

4:32

always wanted to be Jane Goodall growing up

4:34

, and when I look back on why , it

4:36

wasn't her interaction with animals , it

4:39

was her exploration of these

4:41

far off worlds , and

4:43

to some degree I see the oceans as the

4:46

extreme version of that

4:48

. It is space travel on earth

4:50

. It is this realm that is

4:52

awe-inspiring and scary

4:55

and mystical and utterly different

4:57

. A friend of mine defined the word sublime

4:59

as a combination of profound

5:02

and fraught , both beautiful

5:04

and fearful . That which

5:06

is sublime holds in both balances

5:09

. My outlook

5:11

on that place is that it is truly

5:13

sublime . It's one of the most intense forms

5:16

of sublime I've encountered . That

5:18

attracted me . That space challenges you in

5:20

ways that I really respected and

5:22

that's what motivated me , once I was at the New

5:24

York Times , to write about them again .

5:27

So you were a cultural anthropologist when you went to

5:29

Singapore and then you became a journalist

5:31

later on in life . What does it you

5:33

find so interesting about exploring

5:36

those subterranean channels

5:38

that drive human society , particularly on

5:40

the ocean ? And then why

5:42

do you feel the need to share that with others ?

5:45

So when I went to grad school I was

5:47

in the history department . I was going to do what's

5:49

called intellectual history . I was super interested

5:51

in the history of ideas When

5:54

I was wanting to do my specialty

5:56

on the concept of human nature and what

5:58

makes us tick . I'd feel like the

6:00

exploration of the outlaw ocean is

6:03

anthropologically an attempt

6:05

to chronicle this

6:07

tribe of people from whom you rarely

6:09

hear in this space where few people

6:11

go . But it's also an exploration

6:14

of a deep structure to what makes us tick

6:16

and quite especially the line between

6:18

civilization and the lack of it . What

6:20

I'm exploring the darker side of this tribe

6:23

and its behaviors is to

6:25

some degree quintessential public service investigative

6:27

journalism . I want to reveal bad stuff that's

6:29

happening so it can get fixed . That's

6:31

what you do as an investigative journalist . But

6:34

I'm also trying to mine those

6:36

stories for something deeper . It's

6:38

all against this beautiful , awe-inspiring backdrop

6:40

, but most of what I focus on is not beautiful

6:43

or awe-inspiring . It's quite the underbelly

6:45

and it's really man's in humanity

6:47

demand and why he is napping up there , and

6:50

it adds up to a call for better

6:52

governance . We as animals really

6:55

need enforceables on us and

6:57

the outlaw ocean is in some ways the space where

6:59

we don't have real , true governance

7:01

.

7:02

I'm a collector and lover of antiquarian

7:04

maps and I have a number of maps in my

7:07

house from the 17th and 18th century that

7:09

show parts of the world

7:11

carved up by the colonial powers

7:13

and then blank areas on the map that

7:15

simply indicate a place where

7:17

no Western society is yet

7:19

. What's interesting , and based on what you're

7:21

saying , is that in this time where

7:23

we think everything is connected , you're actually

7:25

saying there are large parts of the world that are not , that

7:28

are still those blank places on the map , and they simply

7:30

start 12 miles offshore in the international

7:32

waters .

7:36

On those maps I mentioned in the book . It's like here

7:39

be dragons . I'm

7:42

so enamored with that . Here

7:44

be dragons on these old maps . That's

7:47

just way out there and we're not sure what's out

7:49

there . That is the emblem

7:52

of the outlaw ocean In

7:56

this moment , when we think everything

7:58

has been mapped , there are no new stories , there's no

8:00

place that no one's gone with

8:02

. Our handheld devices kind of know everything

8:05

. It's all filmed , so

8:07

not true ? All of that is not

8:09

true . Huge

8:11

swaths of the planet , millions

8:13

of people completely off radar , and

8:16

I think that's one of the things that make this reporting

8:19

really attractive to me . I

8:22

was really interested in how

8:25

the

8:27

experience of ocean

8:29

travel , especially long periods

8:32

of it , maybe even a lifetime of it , can

8:34

change a person in their core

8:36

. I

8:39

would go across the categories . It

8:42

changes your biology . There's

8:45

sea sickness and land sickness

8:47

, and land sickness is the pendulum and your

8:49

ear won't readjust when you come back on

8:51

land . And

8:53

what's interesting is a lot of people that don't let sea sick do

8:55

get land sick . The

8:58

experience of getting land sickness it's

9:00

like drunken bedspins standing up . You

9:03

feel everything's moving and it's often

9:06

called sway . Sometimes

9:08

you even start counter swaying . People

9:10

are like why are you rocking And

9:13

some people don't even ever readjust . So

9:18

it's amazing that just being in this realm

9:20

, where the physics are different , can change your

9:22

inner biology . I think

9:25

it changes your psychology And

9:27

I saw this with myself . The

9:30

stereotype of the scraggly

9:32

, grumpy fish captain is based on something

9:34

true . My

9:38

theory is that that archetype character is someone

9:40

who's been out there so long And

9:46

the out there is a self-imposed solitary confinement

9:48

. By

9:51

having spent such long periods in

9:53

places that are so quiet , so

9:55

little communication between people , their

9:58

relationship with light and sound and spaces has changed . They come back

10:01

on shore and they don't let go of their lives

10:03

. They come back on shore and they don't

10:05

adjust . When

10:08

you're at sea , everything is regimented

10:10

in a different sort of way . You

10:13

go out into this realm and you realize

10:16

you're divorced from so

10:18

many things . You

10:21

can't internet , you can't email or

10:23

text with people for long periods and

10:25

not even sure what day it is

10:27

and kind of know roughly what time

10:29

it is , and

10:32

you start having deeper

10:34

conversations in your head . There's

10:38

a part in the book where I talk about what one

10:40

guy referred to as soul whispers

10:42

In my normal

10:44

life . Here at best

10:46

I maybe have a three sentence conversation

10:49

with myself in my head . When

10:53

I'm at sea , i can be at for

10:55

two hours quietly staring off into

10:57

space , having a full on

10:59

conversation with myself . It's

11:02

beautiful but it's dangerous

11:05

. That's how

11:08

life on land is like , but these

11:11

are ways in which I do think people change

11:14

.

11:21

There's obviously something about the intersection

11:23

of the ocean , environment and

11:25

humanity that you find very appealing

11:27

and that you like exploring

11:29

what impact that environment has

11:32

on human society , human culture

11:34

, human beings themselves , but

11:36

outside , someone who has an interest in

11:38

that ? why should everyone else

11:40

care about the outlaw ocean ?

11:43

I think the cliche

11:45

but no less true answer is you know you're not going to

11:47

be able to get into the ocean has to be said at

11:50

some basic moral level

11:52

. If you think of yourself as a

11:54

human and therefore you do care about

11:56

other humans , even if they're different

11:58

color , class , nationality

12:00

and far away . If really bad

12:02

things are happening to other humans

12:04

or green life , then just on an ethical

12:07

level you probably should care . But

12:09

if that doesn't move you , then there's a sort

12:11

of self-interested , utilitarian , practical

12:13

level , which is this shit comes back to get

12:15

you . We are not disconnected and I think climate

12:18

change is really forcing a reckoning

12:20

on the planet . As disconnected as we

12:22

might think , it does catch up with you . Keep

12:24

dumping carbon in the air , it's going

12:27

to catch up with you . You keep dumping plastic

12:29

and oil in the oceans , it's going to catch up with

12:31

you . It might be mercury levels and cancer spikes

12:33

when you're eating your tuna , or

12:35

it might be destabilization

12:37

in this country because you pillage their waters and

12:40

now we're sending in Marines and one of them is your son . It's

12:42

going to catch up with you one way or another

12:44

. It's a 70 variable equation . It's

12:46

not a simple transaction but it

12:49

is real . The causality connection is

12:51

real between geopolitical stability

12:53

, food security , environmental

12:56

stability , personal health all

12:58

these things connect with the fate of the oceans

13:00

. Not to mention if the oceans

13:03

provide 50% of the air

13:05

we breathe and they filter 50%

13:07

of the air we breathe . And that doesn't work when

13:09

the oceans are dead , because the stuff

13:11

that filters it are living things in the oceans , not

13:13

just the water , and we're rapidly killing

13:15

everything in the water . We're going to have a problem

13:17

It's just breathing at some point soon . So

13:20

all of these things are borne out by

13:22

science . Now the big problem is the time

13:24

mark . We all think three months , three weeks , maybe

13:26

three years , but 13 years , 30

13:28

years . That's harder for us to fathom

13:31

and care about and one

13:33

of the key ways in which this

13:35

goes back to the ethical thing that $1.99

13:38

and Skipjack can of tuna is impossible . You

13:41

look at it and you're like wait , how could you possibly pull a fish

13:43

from the other side of the world , get it here to my shelf in seven days and

13:47

it only costs $1.99 ? How is that

13:49

possible ? It's not . There's

13:51

all these hidden costs in there , from sea slavery

13:53

to dumping , to legal fishing , to carbon pollution that

13:56

have gotten offloaded to other poor people

13:59

or all of us , or just not the corporate investors , and

14:02

that's going to catch up with us . So

14:04

you are kind of complicit , unfortunately

14:07

, in these crimes by buying the $1.99

14:09

tuna and just hoping for the best , because

14:12

you're kind of funneling money into the

14:14

system that's accelerating these problems

14:16

.

14:18

Well , it's obvious you do care about the

14:20

impact the outlaw ocean has

14:22

on us as a human species and you're doing

14:24

your part to try to mitigate that . But

14:26

is there one moment where you felt

14:28

deeply connected or removed in some

14:30

way by being out on the ocean ?

14:40

I'm looking at my map now . I

14:43

think I was somewhere out on

14:45

the north Atlantic . It

14:48

was a pretty clear night . I

14:51

was on a green peat ship This

14:54

was part of one of their campaigns and

14:56

I was just there capturing that story . I

15:00

was on the back of the ship and I was just passing time

15:03

. I

15:05

was really clear night . There

15:07

was maybe six foot swells not

15:10

black , but not crazy . I

15:13

remember just sort of pondering what a weird place

15:16

this was , and

15:19

then I started leaning into the weird . It's

15:22

not just weird , it's kind of down , right upside

15:24

down . I

15:27

started thinking about what I meant by

15:29

that . In

15:32

front of me were

15:34

these birds that

15:37

were flying

15:40

and then diving and disappearing

15:42

under the water for impossibly

15:44

long periods A good

15:46

minute under water , because

15:50

I would watch for where they would pop up and

15:52

they would be way far away . And

15:55

then they'd come flying out of the water . And

15:58

then , on the other side of

16:01

the boat , you had these fish

16:03

that were coming out of the water and they had

16:05

wings and they were flying across

16:07

the deck . These were flying fish . I

16:11

thought , okay , so you got birds

16:13

that are swimming under water And

16:16

so the fish were coming out of the water and

16:18

occupying the sky . And

16:21

then I was like , okay , well , there's an example of just

16:23

how upside down things are . And

16:26

then I was like and look at the sky . There

16:29

was an unbelievably clear night sky and

16:32

you could see shooting stars all over the place and

16:35

there were like white streaks

16:38

of chalk on a blackboard . And

16:41

then I was like , oh , that's just amazing

16:43

that you can see that many and I just stare

16:46

for 10 seconds . I'm going to see one

16:49

. And then I looked underneath the water and

16:52

I realized there was a school

16:54

of some sort of fish that was going through a cluster

16:57

of bioluminescence And

16:59

when the fish went through

17:02

that cloud they

17:05

created these blue underwater

17:07

streaks . I

17:09

remember looking and trying to see if I

17:11

could capture in the same frame

17:14

of vision the white creaks

17:16

in the sky and the blue streaks

17:19

underwater , and

17:21

I could remember

17:23

thinking I can't even tell where

17:26

the water ends and the sky begins

17:28

. And

17:31

I just thought that all

17:33

five minutes of what came into

17:35

my eyes sums

17:38

up the marvel and Alice

17:40

in Wonderland nature of this place .

17:52

Finally , we end every interview and every

17:54

episode with a single open-ended

17:56

question . we ask everyone we talk to

17:58

What does the ocean

18:00

mean to you ?

18:02

The ocean . For me is this

18:04

impossibly sprawling

18:07

, surprisingly lively

18:09

frontier .

18:15

Thanks for listening to the Big Deep podcast . Next

18:19

time on Big Deep .

18:22

To make beautiful photographs . you are a bearing

18:24

witness , and so , yes , we do have a responsibility

18:27

to share the wonder and the amazement of

18:29

underwater life , and that's

18:31

the biggest gift .

18:33

We really appreciate you being on this journey into the Big

18:35

Deep as we explore an ocean

18:37

of stories . If you like what

18:39

we're doing , please make sure to subscribe wherever

18:42

you listen to podcasts . Also

18:44

, please like and comment , because

18:46

those subscribes , likes and comments really

18:48

make a difference For

18:50

more interviews , deeper discussions with our guests

18:52

, photos and updates on anything you've heard . There's

18:55

a lot more content at our website , bigdeepcom

18:58

Plus . If you

19:00

know someone we should think we should talk to , let

19:02

us know at our Big Deep website , as we are always

19:04

looking to hear more stories from interesting people who

19:07

are deeply connected to our world's oceans

19:09

. Thanks again

19:11

for joining us .