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A D C Listen

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podcasts, radio news. Music

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and more. Good

0:30

Jesus. Please welcome to

0:32

another every new coming do

0:35

from from gotta go learned

0:37

tonight to eyewitness accounts on

0:40

the little was program of

0:42

to critical ideological battles facing

0:45

the globe. Today later in

0:47

the program will be hearing

0:50

from the dynamics are Judge

0:52

does not talking about the

0:54

economy as such but instead

0:57

we'll be hearing about his

0:59

experiences of ecotourism. To some

1:02

of the most remote corners

1:04

of the world and is

1:06

increasing our knees about his

1:09

own present them. Meanwhile in

1:11

the United States, protests are

1:13

taking place in university campuses

1:15

across the country. Against America

1:18

is ongoing support for Israel

1:20

in the war in Gaza

1:22

and hundreds of students have

1:24

been arrested. New York's Columbia

1:27

University has been at the

1:29

forefront and a Brush Shapiro.

1:32

Has been watching events unfold

1:34

outside his office window. Bridge

1:37

is of course the Executive

1:39

Director of the.set of the

1:41

Journalism and Trauma at Columbia

1:44

University Bridge. What's been happening

1:46

at Columbia over the last

1:49

couple of weeks? What?

1:52

Hasn't been happening. Think it's the

1:54

question Filaments been a kind of

1:57

astonishing turn of events. It's

2:00

really, you know, you and I usually talk

2:02

about events from a distance. Here

2:04

we really are up close and

2:06

personal. I am about

2:09

300 yards from

2:11

the encampment in front of Columbia's Butler

2:13

Library. I look out in the morning

2:15

and I see students doing their morning

2:18

yoga practice and

2:20

studying in between getting up and chanting. We're

2:23

in the middle on

2:26

this campus of a

2:28

campus crisis which in turn

2:31

has now, as you said,

2:33

spilled out around the country.

2:35

And it begins not

2:38

so much with student protest

2:40

as with authorities' reaction

2:43

to it, various authorities' reaction to

2:45

it. You know, up until

2:47

about a week ago, students

2:50

here were protesting and they had

2:52

assembled a small tent

2:54

city on one of the great

2:56

lawns on the Columbia campus

2:59

where it was, as one colleague

3:02

of mine put it, interfering with nothing

3:04

except for Frisbee. But

3:08

university leaders decided

3:12

they needed to do something about it,

3:14

in part because it was just unauthorized.

3:16

It had tents erected

3:18

on the university lawn. And

3:21

in part because Columbia has been

3:23

taking a beating in the media

3:25

like a lot of American universities

3:29

because of anti-Israel

3:32

protest, because of

3:34

anti-Zionist language

3:36

among protesters which in turn gets

3:40

spilled over into accusations of

3:42

anti-Semitism and a very messy

3:45

campus atmosphere. As

3:48

a result, the president of the

3:50

university trustees decided

3:53

to take those tents down and

3:56

brought in New York City Police Department who

3:59

arrested 100 students. students. Now, students

4:01

getting arrested happens a lot

4:03

all over the world, but here at Columbia, it

4:07

evokes a singular reaction because

4:09

one of the fundamental

4:11

events deep in the institutional memory

4:14

of this university was

4:17

the brutal arrest of more

4:19

than 700 students in 1968 after Columbia students

4:24

took over as part of the FIBN

4:26

R. Moore movement, the university's administration

4:30

building, and that has made

4:32

not having the NYPD on

4:34

campus a virtual article

4:36

of faith. The

4:38

result was that after these

4:40

hundred plus students were arrested

4:43

and suspended, hundreds

4:46

more students returned

4:49

to the Butler Library lawn, a different

4:51

part of the lawn, erected

4:53

a second set of tents. Faculty who

4:55

had stayed on the sidelines really

4:59

rose up in rebellion, not so much

5:01

on some Amagaza issue, but more on

5:03

issues of academic freedom and

5:06

having the president of

5:08

the university having called the NYPD

5:10

onto campus. And so

5:12

within 48 hours, this

5:15

campus went from a

5:17

kind of normal late spring of protest to

5:20

being in flames over,

5:23

not in literal flames, but

5:25

in profoundly emotional, profoundly

5:28

distressing, profoundly angry argument

5:31

over Gaza, the

5:33

university's investments in Israel, over

5:37

academic freedom, and in particular

5:40

over President Manoush

5:42

Afik's testimony before the

5:45

Republican led House committee that

5:48

was investigating, supposedly investigating anti-Semitism

5:50

on college campuses, the same

5:52

one that got the president

5:55

of Harvard and Penn fired

5:57

just a couple of months ago. House

6:01

Un-American activities committee kind of inquisition.

6:04

So the students want an end to

6:06

the war in Gaza. They

6:08

want America to stop selling arms to

6:11

Israel. Teach out

6:13

this other thing you said, that they're

6:15

calling for Colombia to divest any investment

6:17

in Israel. Yeah,

6:20

well, there has

6:22

been a long-standing divestment

6:24

movement on this campus, and on many

6:26

campuses in the U.S., modeled

6:28

on the South Africa divestment movement

6:31

of the 1980s. Of

6:34

course, they use language comparing Israel's

6:38

attitude toward Palestinians and

6:40

its own Arab citizens to apartheid. And

6:44

there's a call to

6:46

take the substantial endowments that

6:49

this university has and

6:52

divest them of any businesses

6:55

that facilitate military

6:58

hardware or the use

7:01

of force by the IDF in Gaza. In

7:04

addition, Colombia has a joint degree

7:06

program with Tel Aviv University and

7:08

has been planning for many years

7:10

a sort of satellite

7:12

office, a global center

7:16

in Tel Aviv, very

7:18

much like those it has in Naman and Beijing

7:20

and a number of other cities. The

7:23

students have been demanding

7:25

that those be shut down as well. All

7:28

of those have been no movement areas

7:31

for the university administration. There must

7:33

be real concerns for Jewish students

7:35

who no longer feel

7:38

safe on campus. What's

7:40

interesting about this is that the Jewish

7:42

community on this campus is actually quite

7:44

divided. On the

7:47

one hand, there are many

7:51

Jewish students who have been alarmed

7:54

at the escalation of anti-Zionist

7:57

language, which in the

7:59

Past, Their view makes them

8:02

uncomfortable and is equated

8:04

with anti semitism. But

8:06

it's also important to say

8:08

that the. Anti.

8:11

War Movement itself. The encampment

8:13

itself is filled with your

8:15

senses. a disproportionate number of

8:17

your students in that group

8:20

who some view themselves as

8:22

anti Zionist jews, some simpli

8:24

are anti War. There was

8:26

a seder in the A

8:28

camp encampment. The other nice

8:30

up there has been some

8:33

very ugly language com pearl

8:35

that drew students and add

8:37

Palestinian and Arab students and

8:39

Muslim students generally Islam. Or

8:41

phobic language, but most of

8:43

that has not actually been

8:46

on campus. Most of that

8:48

has been out on the

8:50

street. Outside the University's gates

8:52

were huge numbers of very

8:54

vituperative and very sectarian protesters

8:56

on both sides of of

8:59

the issue divide bruce Congress'

9:01

gain, putting a huge amount

9:03

of pressure on the university

9:05

presidents. I haven't done. Yes,

9:08

and it's coming from multiple directions. On the

9:11

one hand, the. Faculty here

9:13

and the students were very angry

9:15

at university President minutes Shafiq of

9:17

new we arrived in this office.

9:20

I'm just a few months ago,

9:22

but some of the universities donors,

9:25

the billionaire Robert Kraft others have

9:27

also said that they think that

9:29

students should have been dealt with

9:32

much more harshly, that the atmosphere

9:34

has become intolerable et cetera. And

9:36

then you've got Republicans in Congress

9:39

and least a phonic who has

9:41

become the sort of attacks figure.

9:44

one of the attack figures on

9:46

the Trump right and her special

9:48

committee have a halt for for

9:51

the President of the university to

9:53

resign. Actually there there are those

9:56

who say that this attack from

9:58

outside may have say. The president

10:00

should fix job. Many faculty were angry

10:02

at her and we're. Arguing

10:05

for a job, a resolution of

10:08

censure before the per university senate's

10:10

that got watered down. In light

10:12

of all these republican attacks from

10:15

the outside, it's a very complicated

10:17

time to some it's let's go

10:19

from your president to of the

10:22

part of an her certain ex

10:24

president or the supreme court has

10:27

been debating the limits of presidential

10:29

immunity. Well. This is

10:31

really crucial and it actually ties

10:34

in in some way to the

10:36

overheated atmosphere of of this campus.

10:39

You know, President

10:41

Trump facing Federal

10:43

prosecution has argued

10:46

that. He's automatically

10:48

immune for anything he did while

10:50

in office. Whether it was voter

10:52

fraud, weather is keeping classified documents,

10:54

or was. All

10:56

those federal charges that we've been

10:58

talking about for months. The supreme

11:01

court, after dragging it's feet, finally

11:03

heard arguments last week, and it

11:06

was quite striking. Listening.

11:09

To the debate how

11:11

them most of the

11:13

republican appointed conservative justices

11:15

like Samuel Alito, Clarence

11:17

Thomas et kept changing

11:19

the subject. None of

11:21

them wanted to talk

11:23

about the conduct of

11:25

which President Trump has

11:27

been accused voter fraud,

11:29

up trying to intimidate

11:31

up with the election

11:33

officials in Georgia, etc.

11:35

None of those issues.

11:37

Where the things they want to talk about

11:40

they kept say wealth president's new need to

11:42

have discretion and where we don't want to

11:44

unleash. Profit.

11:48

Each a President prosecuting their

11:50

predecessor I'm which of course

11:52

was not on the table

11:54

as Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed

11:56

out, the

11:59

swing vote in this seems to be

12:01

one of Trump's appointees, Amy Coney

12:03

Barrett, who did seem skeptical of

12:06

the president's claims. But there is a real

12:09

chance that while they, I think,

12:11

are going to reject the overall

12:14

idea of presidential immunity, they

12:16

are going to draw a

12:18

line saying that this has

12:20

to go back to the

12:22

lower courts to argue about,

12:24

well, what's private conduct versus

12:26

the conduct of his office, further

12:29

slowing down what has already

12:31

been bogged

12:33

down federal prosecution of

12:36

President Trump, meaning that it may not get to court if

12:38

it gets to court at all until Bruce,

12:41

while the wider world may feel a

12:44

lot of contempt for your Supreme Court,

12:47

Donald Trump is still having

12:49

trouble keeping quiet about

12:51

the trial, isn't he? He's

12:53

been threatened with substantial fines

12:56

for, yes, contempt of court.

12:58

Well, and this is, of course, the other trial,

13:01

the one that's going on now, the New York

13:03

fraud trial, which was not what was

13:06

an issue in the Supreme Court

13:08

hearing. And yes, of

13:10

course, he has kept denouncing

13:12

witnesses like Michael Cohen,

13:14

his former fixer, despite

13:18

and retweeting threatening language

13:20

from others, despite gag orders

13:22

from Judge Juan Mehrshan. And

13:25

Judge Mehrshan now is considering motions

13:28

from a prosecutor to hold

13:30

Trump in contempt, which would involve substantial

13:33

and perhaps escalating fines,

13:36

probably not jail, at least not yet. But

13:41

former President Trump can't

13:44

seem to control his social media

13:46

trigger finger, even though

13:48

Judge Mehrshan has issued

13:51

very firm directives

13:53

over and over again about

13:55

not questioning witnesses,

13:58

not intimidation. There's

14:03

a real sense that

14:05

this trial going on in

14:07

New York does become

14:09

a test of the ability of

14:11

the criminal justice system to

14:14

rein in a defendant

14:17

who quite literally

14:19

has genuine contempt for

14:22

the institution, who every day

14:25

gets up before microphones and talks about

14:27

what a fake prosecution it is and

14:29

all this and who seems determined to

14:32

ignore the court's guidelines. Any

14:34

other defendant, it is very

14:36

clear, would have been held in contempt

14:38

long ago. I like the way you

14:41

keep saying former president rather than future.

14:44

Bruce Shapiro, Bruce is contributing

14:46

editor with The Nation magazine

14:49

and executive director of the

14:51

Dart Center for Journalism and

14:53

Trauma at Columbia

14:55

University. Coming up,

14:58

Saki Jantas on the joys

15:00

and dilemmas of ecotourism.

15:31

Last year, my guest watched

15:33

a small bird in the wild

15:36

of Brazil, a blue-eyed

15:39

crown dove. This

15:42

beautiful and extremely rare

15:45

little animal was one of

15:47

only 13 individuals

15:50

left in the world. It

15:52

was a joyous moment for him and his

15:54

partner to see it, and

15:56

yet it was also a moment

15:58

of tragedy. He

16:01

strongly sensed he was bearing

16:03

witness to loss, the

16:05

loss of our natural world. Richard

16:07

Darce, a very good friend of

16:09

the Little Wireless Program, and he's

16:12

probably better known as the economist

16:14

who predicted the GFC. Indeed, I've

16:17

always held him personally

16:19

responsible for it. And

16:22

we've talked so many times since 2008.

16:26

He's now written a poignant and important

16:28

book about ecotourism. It's

16:32

called Wild Quests, Journeys

16:35

into Ecotourism and the Future

16:37

for Animals. Welcome back.

16:40

Nice to be with you, Philip. Tell me

16:42

about the Blue-Eyed Ground Dove. Does

16:44

it have a future? Well,

16:47

I don't think it has a future, but the

16:49

story of how we got to see the Blue-Eyed

16:52

Ground Dove is quite an astonishing one. Now,

16:55

this is a dove. It's quite

16:57

a small dove. It's about six inches

16:59

long. And ground doves are notoriously difficult

17:01

to see because they scuttle along the

17:04

ground. And they really like quails more

17:06

than they are doves. But

17:08

this dove was considered to be lost. And

17:11

nobody had seen one for much of

17:13

the 20th century until 2015. There

17:16

was this guy called Rafael Bessa,

17:19

a Brazilian environmental consultant. He

17:21

was doing some work in this part of

17:24

Minas Gerais, which is, by the way, Minas

17:26

Gerais means general minds, which gives you an

17:28

idea of what the state's like. And

17:32

he decided to take a shortcut. Suddenly

17:34

he heard a bird. And

17:37

he couldn't recognize the call of the bird. So

17:39

he got out of the car, took out his tape

17:41

recorder, and he recorded

17:43

the noise. But as soon

17:46

as he played this call, a

17:49

Blue-Eyed Ground Dove jumped out in front

17:51

of him. Now, the story

17:53

goes that Rafael Bessa lost

17:55

all control of his bodily functions at the

17:57

moment because he just couldn't believe what he

17:59

was saying. Anyway, he took a

18:01

photo and then he went and consulted with

18:04

some very famous ornithologists and they were amazed.

18:06

So the next thing we know is we

18:08

found something that everybody

18:10

thought was extinct. And

18:13

this led to a remarkable conversion

18:15

in the town of Bochumurim, which

18:18

is in the middle of nowhere. And they've got this

18:20

little lovely reserve now. And we

18:23

traveled, I think around a trip

18:25

of about a thousand kilometers to

18:27

this one town for this one

18:30

bird. And

18:33

we got there and the first afternoon was

18:35

a disaster. We sort of, and it's a

18:37

small reserve and we walked this road up

18:39

and down, up and down, up and down,

18:41

going, where the hell is this bird? Anyway,

18:43

it wasn't there. Next morning we went again,

18:46

walk up and down, up and down, up and down. By

18:49

the way, it wasn't actually just up and down. In

18:51

the middle of all of this, there's this little hummingbird

18:54

called the horned sun gem. It's

18:59

tiny. It's about two inches. But it's

19:01

just an amazing profusion of colors and we've always

19:03

wanted to see one. And the

19:05

guides all said to us, oh, you'll never see

19:07

one well. They just fly past you. Anyway, we

19:09

had seen one. It's flying past us, as they'd

19:11

said. But then suddenly as we were

19:13

walking up and down to the ground, dove, this

19:15

horned sun gem comes shooting across

19:18

and then parks itself in a bush in

19:20

front of us and

19:23

starts to preen. And he was

19:25

there for like 20 minutes preening and the

19:27

guides are looking at each other, taking photos.

19:29

They're more excited. They've never seen one as

19:31

well as this. Anyway,

19:33

by that stage, I said, oh, well, horned

19:35

sun gem, one, ground

19:38

dove, zero. Anyway,

19:40

suddenly Carlos, who was our guide,

19:42

screams. I

19:46

couldn't see anything. But anyway, suddenly we found

19:48

the blue eyed ground dove. He

19:51

popped up from somewhere and he was sitting on a

19:53

branch and then he flew across the road to a

19:55

branch and then he flew down

19:57

to a little stream, which is there. started

20:00

to drink. Now this bird

20:03

is mainly russity cinnamon colour. It's

20:05

got this amazing series

20:07

of dots on its wings and

20:10

as the name implies it's got a blue eye, it's got a bare

20:14

skin. And the excitement, I

20:16

just kind of begin to explain

20:18

to you what the excitement was like because you

20:21

know we'd spent about, probably

20:23

about eight hours with this bird. But

20:26

you know as I was looking at this

20:28

bird there's something about it which just,

20:30

it's never happened to me before. And

20:33

that was, I felt this enormous

20:36

sorrow because

20:39

there's only 13 of them left and only

20:41

four are females. Forgive me for

20:43

interrupting but how do we know that? They've

20:46

done surveys. Now the biologists are

20:48

split into two camps. They

20:51

believe that if there's this one population there might

20:53

be others but since 2015 the Brazilian ornithologists

20:57

have just scoured similar habitat.

20:59

And this bird's very specific.

21:01

It needs very clean water.

21:03

It needs a particular plant

21:05

which it used to make

21:08

nests. So the amount

21:10

of habitat that this bird would exist in

21:12

is quite small. So they've searched everything but

21:14

they can't find it. But

21:16

so this is 11 and much

21:19

as I hate to say this, I

21:23

really don't think this species can survive.

21:26

It's a tiny reserve and I

21:30

just can't begin to put into words a sorrow I

21:32

felt. And you

21:34

know to me I just

21:36

for some reason remembered the eights and

21:39

there's a phrase from something he

21:41

wrote that humans most

21:44

love what vanishes. And

21:47

it was something I can't even

21:49

begin to say. I felt sordid. I felt

21:51

sort of dirty. It's sort of like I've

21:53

been doing this stuff for years. It's like

21:55

sort of necrophiliac tourism or something like that.

21:57

It was just terrible. Well let's

21:59

dwell on that. that phrase,

22:01

necrophilia tourism. It's

22:04

been going on in your case for 30 years.

22:09

If somebody had told me years ago this is what

22:11

I'd be doing for most of my life, I just

22:13

wouldn't have believed it. In, I

22:15

think it was 1991, I've never

22:17

really been much for holidays. Anyway,

22:20

Jade and I experimented and went to Morocco

22:22

and Spain and I was all

22:24

right, but I didn't really enjoy it. So we decided to

22:27

go to Africa. We

22:29

went to Africa and we

22:31

were going to see the guerrillas in actually

22:34

what was Rwanda.

22:37

Rwanda was having one of its temporary

22:40

bloodletting, so we couldn't go there. We went to

22:42

what was then Zaire is now Congo. You can't

22:44

go there anymore with the parts of the country

22:46

we went to. We

22:48

saw guerrillas in the wild. That

22:51

changed my life. People say

22:53

lots of things change their lives,

22:55

but I think it changed mine.

22:57

Then a couple of years later,

22:59

one of Jade's friends' sons was

23:01

a travel agent. He said,

23:03

we have these two birds on

23:05

a trip to the Antarctic which

23:07

we can't sell. Do you want

23:10

to go? Jade showed me the pictures

23:12

of the ship pitching about in the South, the

23:15

great Southern Ocean, and I didn't want to

23:17

go because I'm terrified of being seasick. But

23:20

anyway, she convinced me to go and that was

23:22

just extraordinary. Strangely enough, we

23:24

had in our first two trips been

23:26

to the most iconic places people go

23:28

to. We're going to

23:30

circle back to that. You

23:32

and I have a couple of things

23:35

in common. We have a wonder for

23:38

the natural world. We both marvel in

23:40

the films of your almost

23:42

name's exception, right? But

23:45

you lose me as soon as you

23:47

start talking about economics. I've never heard

23:49

the sort of word you've said in

23:51

all our encounters, but how did

23:53

all this begin for you? I

23:56

can't really even begin to explain it

23:58

because, you know, I

24:01

never had much interest in the wild. I

24:04

was never really very interested in any of this until

24:06

I saw the gorillas and I started to do this

24:09

type of travel. And then

24:11

I started to read my old biology

24:13

books, my old zoology books, and all

24:15

of this stuff. And people now look

24:17

at me like I'm a nutter. I

24:19

mean, I'm just fascinated by it. Was

24:22

Peter Singer an influence? Look,

24:24

Peter Singer came later because when I

24:26

originally did this stuff, the joy that

24:28

I felt was just incredible. And

24:31

to be honest, it became

24:33

the center of our lives. We

24:35

worked literally to have... So

24:37

you could travel. We could travel and do

24:39

these trips and everybody would look at us

24:41

like, everybody goes to Paris, where are they

24:43

going? They're going to some god awful dump

24:45

in the middle of nowhere. But as we

24:48

started to travel, one of the key things

24:50

that came out was there was a duality

24:52

to it. Because we

24:54

thought we were doing good. We were trying

24:56

to save these animals, turning up, spending money,

24:59

supporting local communities. But

25:02

what we started to see was what was

25:04

happening to the world. And that's...

25:06

This in effect circles around

25:08

to your interest in

25:11

matters of economic because you

25:13

were participating in that

25:15

insatiable consumption, which is

25:18

destroying the planet. Indeed. And

25:21

what we saw as a sanctuary in our lives

25:23

was actually not doing anything of the things we

25:25

thought it was going to do. And that's

25:27

where Peter Singer came in, because I remember a

25:30

phrase of Peter Singer's. He wrote about

25:32

the tyranny of the human over

25:34

the non-humans. And it's such

25:36

a powerful statement. And there

25:38

was another one, another statement. I'd read

25:41

Leo Tolstoy's Haji Murad years ago. But

25:44

the other day, I remembered a statement

25:46

of his, what a cruel and destructive

25:48

creature man is. How many different living

25:50

creatures and plants he has destroyed in order

25:53

to support his own life. And

25:55

there we were doing exactly

25:57

what he had said. Can

26:02

you tell me about your

26:05

trip to the Arctic, which is about,

26:07

I think about 10 years ago, which

26:10

well, it kicks the book off. What

26:13

was the animal holy grail on

26:15

that trip? Well, everybody goes to

26:17

the Arctic to see polar bears.

26:20

But to be honest, if you go

26:22

to the Russian Far East, where we go, most people go

26:24

to Northern Europe or to Alaska to see them. We went

26:26

to the Russian Far East. But

26:28

how did you get there on the Arctic?

26:31

Oh, God, that's very complicated, but you have

26:33

two choices. You go to Moscow, which obviously

26:35

you can't do now, but you then fly

26:37

for about 12 hours to

26:40

this godforsaken town called Anadyr. And

26:42

remember, you're going to the furthest

26:45

part. It's like nine time zones away

26:47

from Moscow. But it's also where the

26:49

gulags were. There's a lot of gulags

26:51

there. In fact, we visited a couple of

26:53

them in terms of the mines where the

26:55

gulag workers were used. But

26:57

the other way you go there is you go to

26:59

Alaska and you fly from Nome. And

27:02

if Nome isn't the end of the world, it's the beginning of the

27:04

end of the world. And you sort

27:06

of fly across the Bering Strait. And

27:08

then you go through this strange sort

27:10

of kabuki theater of the Russians allowing

27:12

an American plane to land and then

27:14

allowing all these foreigners on board. So

27:17

it's a very convoluted journey. I'd like to

27:19

go back, frankly, but I can't. But there's

27:21

so much more there. There's

27:23

walruses, brown bears, foxes, and one

27:26

of my favorite birds, snowy owls

27:28

and whales everywhere. But

27:31

polar bears are the holy grail.

27:34

Absolutely. And we were really, really

27:36

lucky. And we

27:38

saw about 14 or 15 bears

27:41

at a whale carcass, which had washed up.

27:44

And polar bears are always painted as these

27:47

solitary creatures. But it's amazing to see all

27:49

of them together. And

27:51

the picking order was wonderful. The big

27:53

males got first pickings. And until they

27:56

moved away, The females or

27:58

the younger bears and the... cub

28:00

didn't come in and they would

28:02

then sort of what love covered

28:04

in blood and blubber and sit

28:06

and rest until they had digested

28:08

and come back to the moon.

28:11

You'll russian guide said something absolutely

28:13

magical and for found the animals

28:15

do not want to see you

28:17

are that's one of the people

28:19

I admire most. Nikita Nikita of

28:21

Send Your Costs. I'll tell you

28:23

about the way he introduced himself

28:25

to as he said. Polls.

28:28

Biologist. That's. All

28:30

He said. And. He's

28:33

one of the world's leading experts

28:35

on. This particular animal

28:37

and we were talking to him

28:39

one day after stroke and he

28:41

says very simply and quantities of

28:43

very restrained man he said. He

28:46

animals do not want to see

28:48

you. And suddenly dawned on

28:50

me. That. These

28:53

eight words sort of encapsulates everything

28:55

I was struggling with because clearly

28:57

nature's creatures are indifferent to humans.

28:59

They go about their lives, and

29:01

frankly, they want to be left

29:03

alone. It out because every interaction

29:05

with us. Causes. A

29:07

problem with damage habitat And you

29:10

know what I felt really guilty

29:12

about that place is that we

29:14

wanted to see the animals. He

29:16

gave us enormous joy. Excitement is

29:19

essentially gave meeting to my life.

29:21

But. It was less clear what they were going

29:23

to gain from it. Does

29:26

let's talk about

29:28

the worldly human,

29:30

insatiable desire to

29:32

travel more. Group

29:35

of people. i

29:39

guess they wanted a break

29:41

from work it provided physical

29:43

and mental rest it improve

29:45

well being to see on

29:47

i suppose a begin with

29:49

pilgrimages brazil morphs into this is

29:52

going to as the sixteenth

29:54

century absolutely and i think it's

29:56

sort of gradually went to different

29:59

processes and And it offered learning,

30:01

exploration, and more and more, it's

30:03

the desire for unusual encounters, things

30:05

that are out of the ordinary.

30:07

So people want to transcend their

30:09

lives. And to be

30:12

honest, it also provides interesting anecdotes and

30:14

dinner parties, and it becomes a marker

30:16

of your adventurous originality. But there's also

30:18

another bit to it, which I think

30:20

is the thing that worries me, it's

30:22

become a signifier of wealth. It's

30:25

very much tied up with conspicuous consumption. We'll

30:28

circle back to that. But

30:30

we're now looking at a

30:33

multi-trillion dollar business. Is that would that

30:35

be right? It's an enormous business. Last

30:37

before the pandemic is probably the best

30:40

time to take it. About two and

30:42

a half billion trips were made around

30:44

the world. That compares to something like

30:47

50,000 or so. If

30:49

you go back to the 1950s, it's

30:51

just an enormous change. And it's an

30:53

industry which runs into billions

30:55

and billions of dollars. So

30:57

here's the opportunity to get

31:00

joy from different cultures, language,

31:02

food, et cetera, but

31:05

also selfies. Look,

31:07

I think there's I have this phrase travel

31:10

and it's discontent. There's positive things about travel,

31:12

but there are discontent. And I think what

31:14

has happened to travel is has become devoid

31:16

of significance, it's become almost like a rite

31:19

of passage. I think

31:21

Dr. Samuel Johnson once said that, you know, a

31:23

person who had not traveled was conscious of

31:25

his inferiority. But I

31:28

think also what has happened is the places have changed.

31:30

The French anthropologist, I think

31:32

is Marcel. I don't know how you pronounce it.

31:34

Org, I think his name is. Yes, it's a

31:36

lovely phrase. It's called non places. He

31:38

talks about non places. This is things

31:40

like airports, hotel rooms, and most tourist

31:43

sites now are non places because we

31:45

already have a picture of what it's

31:47

like. So as you correct, it's

31:49

also the theme park culture, isn't it? Absolutely.

31:52

Another non place. Absolutely. It's quite

31:54

a New Zealand because they think they're visiting Middle Earth,

31:56

I think is the best way to describe it. And

32:00

There's also, even in our interactions with

32:02

cultures, people have these strange bucket lists.

32:05

For instance, I often hear conversations

32:08

when we're in odd locations like,

32:10

I often ask the question, why

32:13

did you come here? Oh, it

32:15

was something on our bucket list. I'm saying, well,

32:17

yeah, it's on a list, but what

32:20

is it that you're trying to get out of this

32:22

travel? Most people have no

32:24

idea. It's sort of something their peers have done,

32:26

something they've been led to believe they should do,

32:28

they do it. This

32:32

is L.A. Nell on R.N. and my guest

32:34

is such a... Dars. Dars,

32:37

you were brought up in Kel Kata

32:39

in the latter half of the last

32:41

century. I guess global

32:44

travel was not wildly,

32:48

well, not even possible. I

32:50

can honestly say that if I look back

32:52

at my life and if

32:54

somebody told me I would have had the opportunity

32:56

and the joy of traveling and seeing some of

32:58

the things I have, I would

33:01

find it like almost a fantasy,

33:03

a fairy tale, because we grew

33:05

up and travel for us was

33:07

going to visit family members

33:09

or friends nearby. That's all it

33:11

was. People

33:13

forget how privileged we are. Even

33:16

now in 2024, for 80%

33:20

of the world's population, travel for

33:22

pleasure, not a possibility. Certainly

33:25

not a possibility. I think I looked at

33:27

the numbers. It's something like, as you say,

33:29

80% of people live

33:31

out their lives within a radius

33:34

of 50 miles of 80 kilometers

33:36

of where they were born. Let's

33:39

also put that into context that

33:42

for the very few who travel, I

33:47

think there are a lot of more people

33:49

who probably deserve to travel

33:51

than the people who do travel because

33:53

travel has become almost an

33:55

expression of privilege, of wealth. As

33:58

you were saying. The you

34:00

you are also great. Stetson are.

34:04

You free covert in twenty nine

34:06

deemed they've almost two leading in

34:08

troops made for tourism haven't made

34:11

minimum has a unimaginable number of

34:13

was all lives of. Craft.

34:18

And I I have to confess

34:20

my guilt. Every time I basically

34:22

look at our footprint, I'm horrified

34:24

Though I justify it has I'm

34:26

capable? Just a being an economist,

34:28

I can justify anything I suffered

34:30

A justified on the basis that

34:33

we don't have children said we're

34:35

save the planet a big amount

34:37

of footprints or with entitled to

34:39

you Summer sent him as a

34:41

credit. Now we've been talking Ecotourism

34:43

Winded the phrase com and parlance

34:45

Isis came across. It said there's

34:47

an academic. Cause ah, Klaus Detest

34:49

has said he created the

34:52

neologism Ecotourism. It's really a

34:54

weird concept is it's almost

34:56

like the optics a defensive

34:58

who use the term. To

35:00

me it's about seeing wild

35:02

animals in true wilderness. But.

35:05

People use it for all sorts

35:07

of things are actually so somebody

35:09

who said that visiting his zoo

35:12

or animal rehabilitation center was an

35:14

example of ecotourism, and I think

35:16

it's actually interesting to reflect on

35:19

why. This. Thing whole thing

35:21

took off. I think it was

35:23

to do with to dissolution with

35:25

with traditional travel people wanted to

35:28

distinguish themselves further to something different

35:30

and there's a lovely French word

35:32

which I love is called rupture

35:34

party which basically means friend to

35:37

special catching up so that was

35:39

his anxiety of one social class

35:41

catching up With that's another say

35:43

in the you wanted to basically

35:45

distinguish yourself for at from the

35:48

bovine travel I something special. So

35:50

it took off. but this one last

35:52

piece, which I'm as guilty of as

35:54

anybody. while ice. Tourism. has

35:57

this amazing cache is what se

35:59

douglas adams called Last

36:01

Chance to See because I know

36:04

this is not going to be there forever.

36:06

So it's not keeping up with the Joneses,

36:08

it's being way ahead of them and covering

36:10

them in your dust. Well I always joke

36:13

that when you see rare birds like the

36:15

blue-eyed ground dove, the ideal

36:17

of a bird-watching person,

36:19

particularly who's a lister, would be

36:22

to see the bird being

36:24

the last bird on earth and

36:27

make sure they die soon afterwards because nobody

36:29

can actually see it. And

36:32

of course what we're discussing, the

36:34

water, perhaps the blood, is muddied

36:36

by, as you say,

36:39

visits to zoos, animal rehab centers

36:41

and of course the awful phenomenon

36:43

of trophy hunting. Indeed,

36:46

it's actually quite interesting. Trophy

36:49

hunting is not called trophy

36:51

hunting anymore, it's called bioprospecting.

36:53

I'm sorry. It's called bioprospecting.

36:56

So what happens in in parts

36:59

of Africa, they allow a number

37:02

of trophy hunts. For instance, you're allowed

37:04

to hunt polar bears. There's permits to

37:06

hunt polar bears in parts of Canada

37:08

and Alaska and you get this and

37:11

this is called bioprospecting because the money

37:14

is used for rehabilitation. So look

37:16

at the absolute contradiction in this. So

37:18

we kill an animal to save another

37:20

one, which doesn't really make any sense

37:22

to me. It doesn't make any sense

37:24

to me. I'm trying

37:26

to get my mind around that. Actually, I'm

37:28

all in favor of trophy hunting as long

37:31

as it's on even terms. So my view

37:33

has been any person who wants to kill

37:35

a large predator like a polar bear,

37:37

I'm absolutely happy as long as

37:39

they don't take guns and stuff. If they

37:41

can wrestle the animal and

37:43

defeat it, be my guest. I

37:45

have no problems with that at all. I used

37:47

to make the same point to Kerry Packer, who

37:49

was a great trophy hunter. He

37:52

liked to hunt elephants and there's

37:54

something between the Packerderm and Packer

37:56

that seem to resonate. I used

37:58

to suggest much the same thing

38:00

to him, you know, do it with

38:02

your bare hands, but he never

38:04

showed much enthusiasm for that. So

38:09

is it always toxic?

38:12

Look, I think it can do

38:14

good and it has done good.

38:16

I've seen projects which have worked

38:19

where the local communities have got

38:21

together to preserve an area and

38:23

preserve the wildlife in it, but

38:27

not many of them work. And

38:29

there's a whole host of reasons they don't work.

38:32

And part of it is that

38:34

the local communities often are

38:37

basically not the beneficiaries

38:39

of all of those conservation

38:42

measures or saving of those

38:44

environmental areas. So, yes,

38:46

it can work. And I like

38:48

to think I support every place that I

38:51

can think of which tries to

38:53

do good, but it's not easy. Does,

38:55

can you remind me, suddenly I have an

38:58

image in my mind and I remember the

39:00

whole world was nauseated by the mass

39:03

clubbing to death of seal

39:05

pups. What was that all about? Well

39:08

they used to harvest harp seals for

39:10

their coats and so forth. And

39:13

that actually is very important in the

39:15

history of conservation because Greenpeace used that

39:18

episode to galvanize action.

39:22

And indeed the conservation industry's

39:24

whole credentials were

39:26

built on two episodes. One

39:29

was Walter Cronkite had this wonderful piece

39:31

of footage which he showed and with

39:33

this very grave stern voice talked

39:36

about whale hunting, which was somewhere in

39:38

the Bering Sea. And there were

39:40

these little people from Greenpeace in a little zodiac

39:43

and a harpoon fired from

39:45

a whaling ship literally flies

39:48

past their heads on their

39:51

way towards a sperm whale

39:53

calf. And that

39:55

was probably the moment in which the

39:58

entire attitude to whaling changed. and

40:00

the other was the harp seal

40:02

clubbing. Greenpeace, led by the I

40:04

Ching-loving Robert Hunter, conceived of

40:06

these what he called mind bombs. So

40:09

he wanted to create these images, which

40:12

forced people to think about these issues. And one

40:14

of them was they landed on these ice flows

40:18

with the harp seals, and then

40:21

they stood between the sealers

40:24

and turned their backs. And there

40:26

was this amazing footage of a

40:28

ship coming through the flows towards

40:30

Hunter and the people from Greenpeace.

40:32

And these were the iconic moments

40:34

that started to change some

40:36

of our attitudes towards wildlife. Does

40:39

your, to some extent

40:41

known as an economist, and this

40:44

book isn't in your

40:46

usual goat house, please

40:48

explain. I can't.

40:54

Some years ago, Jade and I wrote a book

40:56

together called In Search of the Pangolin. It

41:00

taught me several things. This is the

41:02

most trafficked animal on Earth. Yes, it

41:04

is. It is very sad. But

41:07

we read the book because of our love of some

41:09

of this and it has some of the same themes

41:11

as Wild Quest. But I did learn something about that,

41:13

that she and I shouldn't write books together, because

41:16

I think there would have been a murder suicide if

41:18

we tried to write another book together. So

41:20

I gave up. But look, I write about things which

41:23

interests me, which I think are important. I

41:25

write because I'm compelled to. And I never

41:28

write about anything that I don't have firsthand

41:31

experience of. I will not write

41:33

about things in abstract. So, and

41:35

I was very lucky, because the book

41:37

had a very, very troubled sort of birth.

41:39

And a wonderful woman

41:41

called Julia Karlamagno at Monash University

41:43

Press somehow found the manuscript. And

41:46

she rang me one day and said, I want to publish this.

41:48

And I said, you

41:50

feeling all right? And she

41:53

said yes, and she did. So that's how it

41:55

came about. Does Bob

41:57

Brown has been on the program a bit

41:59

late? has a lot to say

42:01

about the struggles we have right

42:04

now about the notions of wilderness

42:06

versus national parks. Your

42:09

response? Oh, I think

42:11

he's absolutely right. The world was once

42:13

pockets of humans surrounded by wild

42:15

animals. Today it's pockets of wilderness

42:18

surrounded by humans. Most

42:20

wild animals now exist in what I call outdoor

42:22

zoos. And most people

42:24

now go and see animals in what I consider to

42:27

be outdoor zoos. I would prefer to go and see

42:29

them in true wilderness. I

42:31

suddenly recall that decades ago

42:34

I interviewed Attenborough and

42:36

that raises your chapter,

42:38

The Attenborough Effect. Please explain.

42:42

Well, the Attenborough Effect is about

42:44

the business of wildlife documentaries. And

42:46

as you know, natural history programs

42:48

are very, very popular and very,

42:50

very large. And

42:52

I think it's done a lot to

42:54

increase the visibility of animals. But I

42:56

also think it misrepresents wild animals and

42:58

creates very misleading narratives about

43:01

wilderness. I

43:03

remember now we had an interview

43:06

and he got quite angry with me

43:08

because I insisted that

43:10

in effect his docos put

43:13

his foot on the accelerator

43:16

and all of nature was in constant drama

43:18

and tumult when in fact most of it

43:20

is fairly quiet. Well, I always joke with

43:22

people because people say, well, what do you

43:24

do when you go looking for

43:26

birds or animals? I say, well, most of the

43:28

time we do nothing because we're sort of wandering

43:31

around because nature is stillness. Nothing

43:34

actually happens. And there are moments of

43:36

beauty and moments of action, but it's

43:38

all that. But that's my exact point

43:40

about the documentaries. These are

43:42

almost sort of epic narratives

43:45

of, you know, quests and,

43:47

you know, the rise and fall of

43:49

individuals and with all

43:51

these anthropomorphic obsessions. And

43:53

most of these films, what most people don't

43:56

seem to understand is they're contrived because

43:58

basically there's a script. and

44:01

essentially sometimes wild animals are

44:03

harassed to elicit certain behaviors.

44:05

They use tame drug-dock-aptured

44:07

beasts. I mean one of

44:09

the most famous episodes that

44:11

Attenborough filmed was two

44:14

scorpions mating in

44:16

the Mojave Desert. Now it was done

44:18

in the studio with styrofoam clouds and

44:21

stuff and Attenborough

44:23

was attacked about this and he

44:25

did in his very very proper English

44:27

way said well it would just be

44:29

impossible to do this in the wild

44:31

and it would take years and it

44:33

wouldn't be possible and he justified on

44:35

the basis of this behavior is important

44:37

and would never be seen otherwise. Naughty

44:41

naughty Attenborough. I'll tell you a very

44:43

funny story about these types

44:45

of films. There's Gorillas

44:47

in the Mist which actually did a lot

44:49

for conservation. There's a scene in it when

44:52

a gorilla, a silverback,

44:54

charges. Now

44:58

one of the people who filmed it was a guy called

45:00

Alan Roo. He's a very famous filmmaker, he's now dead and

45:04

he actually in his biography wrote about

45:06

how they went about filming this.

45:08

They originally went to Rwanda and

45:10

they were going to get one of the

45:12

Rwandan gorillas to charge. The Rwandan gorillas were

45:15

so used to human they just yawned

45:17

and rolled over and went to sleep. We're

45:19

not charging these people and Rood

45:22

writes, he was joking that they were

45:24

sitting around the gorillas that is reminiscing

45:26

about their meeting with David Attenborough rather

45:29

than wanting to charge anybody. So the

45:31

actual footage that they

45:33

used in the film was another gorilla,

45:35

it was called Mushamukka who

45:37

ironically we saw when we went to

45:39

Zaire one of the two silverback groups

45:41

we saw was Mushamukka's and we were

45:43

standing there chatting to the guide who

45:45

took us up afterwards and he

45:48

told us the real story. He

45:50

said he had to go and provoke

45:52

Mushamukka to do the charge so he

45:54

would go and upset the gorilla and the gorilla would do

45:56

a small charge and he'd go and hide behind the camera.

45:58

That's how it was for the camera. That's

46:00

actually how it happens. I suddenly

46:03

remember standing outside a gorilla cage

46:05

in Dublin of all places and

46:08

the gorilla was gathering

46:11

its poo into little

46:13

lumps which then proceeded to throw at

46:15

me. I think it was fully

46:18

entitled to do so. I'm

46:20

on the gorilla's side because why

46:22

do we want to lock up

46:25

these beautiful, intelligent, sentient

46:27

beasts in a cage and drive

46:29

them mad? You

46:32

call eco-tourism a collision of

46:35

commerce and hope. What

46:38

significance does it have for

46:40

countries with a

46:43

high biodiversity? It's

46:47

actually quite fascinating to look at the entire

46:49

animal world. There's about over

46:51

6,000 species of mammals, about 11,000 species of birds,

46:53

about 11,000 amphibians

46:56

and so on. Most people aren't

46:58

interested in most of them, they're just

47:00

interested in a few animals, primarily a

47:03

few mammals, especially predators, a few gorillas,

47:05

some birds and reptiles. What

47:07

happens is we have channeled all this

47:09

tourism into tiny parts of

47:11

the world like Africa, South

47:13

America, bits of North America, the Galapagos

47:16

Islands, and that's what it is. The

47:18

whole aim is that this is

47:20

going to benefit the local communities. The

47:23

reality, as we were talking about earlier, is

47:25

very complicated. Most of the facilities that we

47:27

go to are owned by foreign

47:30

investors and they get most of the

47:32

profits. The

47:34

local community gets bugger all that way. They get bugger

47:36

all. I mean, I once worked out, you now pay

47:38

up to $1,000 US for one hour to see the

47:40

gorillas. If

47:44

$10 from that gets to the local

47:46

village on time, you'd

47:49

be very, very fortunate. But it's even worse

47:51

than that because in the

47:54

name of creating these protected areas, they

47:57

actually move local people, for

47:59

instance in Botswana. the San people

48:01

among them, among others, have been

48:04

moved in the Central Kalahari Game

48:06

Reserve. They say it's

48:08

to protect wildlife. Across

48:10

the world, 70% of national

48:12

parks are in

48:15

actually native lands

48:17

and people have been killed or forced out. There's

48:20

very little long-term compensation

48:25

for this and causes enormous resentment. I actually

48:27

remember a guy in Argentina. He had a

48:29

private reserve which we visited and he

48:32

said, this is conservation without humans.

48:36

It's basically nature is being

48:38

prioritized over indigenous peoples.

48:42

What about remedial measures

48:45

like rewilding, reforesting?

48:48

I think they have a role,

48:51

but I think people are completely

48:53

unrealistic. Rewilding generally in the

48:55

world is held up by many,

48:57

including David Mattimer, interestingly enough, as

49:00

the way to solve the problem. Basically,

49:03

it's land which is useless, which is

49:05

actually then allowed to go back

49:07

to nature. The problem is these

49:10

are disconnected, fragmented pieces

49:13

of nature which aren't

49:15

ideal for actually wild animals.

49:18

More to the point, when you start to

49:20

reintroduce wild animals, as we've seen in Europe

49:22

with wolves or predators like

49:24

lynxes and bears, it creates enormous problems.

49:27

To give you an idea of what

49:29

has happened in Europe, the head of

49:32

the European Commission, Ursula van Luyen, is

49:35

now reviewing the ban

49:37

on wolf hunting in

49:40

Europe. Populations have grown.

49:42

They've spilt out of reserves. The

49:44

major cause, I would think, or

49:47

not me, but other people have

49:49

suggested that the European Commission

49:52

president is interested in this, is

49:54

apparently, allegedly, a wolf

49:56

killed her favorite pony. caused

50:00

a review of wolves in

50:03

Europe. But look, I

50:06

just think there's a

50:08

real contradiction to me about conservation

50:10

rather. This

50:15

is an industry which is built on

50:17

bad news because bad news for the

50:19

environment is good news for conservation causes

50:22

and NGOs. So it gives

50:24

them power as social actors and so they

50:26

work within a system that

50:28

they perversely can't actually do what they set out

50:30

to do because it would mean putting themselves out

50:32

of jobs. And

50:35

so they limp along and there's

50:37

a strange mix of naivety and

50:39

self-serving commerce. I want

50:41

you now to treat this studio as

50:43

a confessional. Do

50:45

you still go on trips to see

50:48

animals in the wild? I do.

50:50

I do. But I have

50:52

to say that the reality is

50:56

that I'm very conflicted. I've been on

50:58

some trips since the pandemic

51:03

and Aldo

51:05

Leopold was a great naturalist and he wrote

51:07

a book called A Sand County Almanac and

51:09

he had this phrase, he called it the

51:12

world of wounds. He

51:14

said environmental education requires you to do

51:16

one of two things. One

51:19

is you harden your soul and

51:22

believe that the damage that's being done is

51:25

not your responsibility, it's the cause of others. You

51:29

basically cast yourself as

51:31

a witness to

51:33

the slow death of the planet that

51:36

people refuse to acknowledge. And

51:38

to my mind, I genuinely

51:41

believe and I wrote this book for

51:44

only one purpose. I

51:46

want to bear witness

51:49

to what is going on. And

51:52

I genuinely believe what Socrates

51:54

wrote, that an unexamined life isn't

51:56

worth living. overarching

52:00

everything we're discussing is

52:03

the huge problem of

52:05

human-induced climate change. Indeed,

52:10

indeed. And look, what

52:13

really makes me worried is

52:15

that we have made

52:17

so little progress for

52:20

every step forward we make three

52:22

steps back on this issue. And

52:24

I think people don't grasp what

52:26

is so important here is

52:28

that we

52:30

are part of nature and

52:33

the laws of nature apply to us. And

52:36

nature to me is completely impassive and

52:38

indifferent. And we are

52:40

a remarkable species, don't get me wrong, but I

52:42

often think of us as Neanderthals with iPhones. But

52:48

all those qualities that we have, those

52:50

same qualities are currently on track to

52:54

lead to our extinction. And that's

52:56

how evolution rids the earth of failed

52:58

adaptations. There's nothing permanent about

53:00

us. I

53:02

am heading for professional extinction shortly,

53:04

as you know, Darce, and it'll

53:06

probably be the last time you

53:08

and I converse in the studio.

53:10

So I couldn't be more pleased

53:12

to have had you as a guest. So

53:15

did Darce, former banker, now

53:19

author of a new book

53:21

called Wild Quests, Journeys

53:23

into Ecotourism and the Future

53:25

for Animals, and it's published

53:28

by Monash University

53:30

Publishing. Thanks, Darce. It's my

53:32

pleasure to do the last words with you.

53:36

That's a lot. Glads and pods are

53:38

coming up on Late Night Live. We're

53:41

taking a look at the new

53:43

generation of weight loss drugs and

53:46

the vital importance of

53:48

water rights to

53:50

Indigenous communities. See

53:52

you later. You've

53:57

been listening to an ABC podcast.

54:00

Discover more great ABC podcasts,

54:02

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54:05

on the ABC Listen app.