Translator: Swenja Gawantka Reviewer: Denise RQ
Five years ago,
I started an organization called The Black Fish
to address the issue of illegal overfishing.
It was when I spent time sailing on the Mediterranean Sea,
and I saw more waste floating around in the ocean than wildlife
that I realized
protecting the world's oceans is the big issue of our time.
Tonight, I could start this talk by talking to you
about the huge issues we face in our oceans:
species extinction, biodiversity loss,
coastal degradation, ocean acidification,
industrial pollution, rampant overfishing,
modern slavery on board fishing vessels.
Yes, the list is huge.
But I'm not going to do this.
The usual way to talk about environmental issues such as these
to an audience like you is to confront you
with the frightening urgency of the problems.
And it's probably going to make you think, "OK, I get it.
So, what am I supposed to do about it?"
Instead, let's look
at what can be done about it and has been done about it.
There have been amazing achievements by thousands of people, organizations,
states' environmental leaders around the world.
In recent decades, we've seen a huge push towards sustainability:
wildlife trade is regulated better than ever before,
and major global treaties have been passed
concerning most of the issues we face today,
the most recent example being the Paris Climate Agreement.
Many people would say that such agreements don't go far enough,
but actually, there is an even bigger issue at stake.
There is a big obstacle that is stopping us
from truly achieving environmental protection,
and it's called enforcement.
These guys look pretty good, don't they?
But the reality is
that these two fishing inspectors are the only ones out there,
protecting an area of sea the size of Texas.
There is a serious lack of enforcement of environmental laws,
and it's making those laws only worth as much as the piece of paper
they are written on.
Let's look how, traditionally, in the environmental sector,
we have worked to create change.
It starts with the analysis.
This is where science and investigative work come in.
It's about identifying problems and understanding what's happening.
That understanding, in turn, leads to awareness,
and that awareness turns into protest and lobbying,
creating the political momentum we need to push governments to act.
When these governments act,
they enact new laws or introduce new policies,
which is the real result, right?
Well, not quite.
It should not be our objective to have good laws or good policies,
it should be our objective to have actual protection for nature.
The reason it's not happening is because those laws we write
are not properly enforced.
Let's see how this applies to our oceans.
Scientists have identified a major overfishing crisis.
Mankind has a huge appetite for seafood,
and the industry has become too efficient at catching fish.
Estimations now predict a collapse of all major fish stocks
within the next few decades.
There has been growing awareness for this issue,
growing attention; protests have erupted.
World leaders have vowed to take action.
In the EU, 200 new fishing laws and regulations have been put forward
in the last five years alone, which is awesome.
However, the problem is that out there in the field,
those fishing inspectors and coast guard officers
are understaffed and under-resourced;
they lack the ships, the aircraft, and the budgets
they need to properly enforce the law.
And it's making those laws only worth
as much as the piece of paper they are written on.
So, how bad are these things really?
How much of the fish we find on our supermarket shelves
do you think could be illegal, could it be 10%?
How about 20 or 30%?
Anyone 30, 40%?
Estimations now predict that up to half of all the fish traded through Europe
has illegal origins.
That means that every other fish can be traced back to acts of crime.
There is growing political momentum to do something about these issues.
However, the process is simply too slow.
In certain areas,
corruption is making governments ineffective.
Another aspect of the problem is the lack of money.
Especially poorer nations are struggling to police their own waters,
and even in rich nations,
national parks and protected areas are easily established on paper,
but protecting them on a daily basis poses a real challenge.
I think it's time we acknowledge
that governments cannot fix these problems alone.
The need our help.
And we have come up with a serious game plan
that does just that,
without the need to spend millions.
At The Black Fish, we started looking for the resources that would be necessary
to strengthen enforcement of environmental laws.
And we found them, right here, in front of us, readily available.
We realized that many people
are very willing to contribute to meaningful change.
The problem is that there is a huge gap between being just a passive donor
or becoming a full-time professional conservationist.
On the flip side,
there are many people with amazing talents and skills
that they can contribute to make a difference -
be it as a pilot, or as a tourist,
or perhaps as a diver, or a chef,
maybe as a businessperson, or nurse.
These people can help us increase monitoring capacity,
they can help collecting evidence to prosecute wildlife criminals.
We find that tourists are already out there in those fishing ports
where we look to investigate illegal fishing.
We find people owning sailing yachts
who we can train to identify and report on criminal activity at sea.
We've even founded a civilian air service
to mobilize private pilots
to donate their flying hours and to help give us eyes in the sky.
All this -
All this means we are very close to proving
that for only 25% of traditional enforcement budgets,
we can increase enforcement levels
up to ten times.
How?
By re-purposing people's holidays, family activities,
by simply asking people to do what they love to do,
by asking them to contribute what they feel they're good at,
and in the process,
get them to contribute in a small way to a big goal.
And remarkably, it is working.
Let me give you three concrete examples.
First, let's go to the west coast of Sweden.
This is an area where codfish reproduce,
where they lay their eggs.
For this purpose, there is an area at sea, which is entirely closed off to fishing.
Illegal fishing is suspected to take place in this area,
but the Swedish fishing inspectors don't have their own aircraft or ships;
they rely on the coast guard for this purpose.
But in turn, they are often preoccupied with other tasks.
So, right now, we've started planning with our air service,
which is called the Wildlife Air Service,
ahead for patrols to start in this area next January.
We would carry out three-hour patrol flights
every night for ten nights.
We've just worked out that in those ten nights,
we will carry out more fisheries enforcement flights
than the Swedish government does in an entire year.
Even though they have an estimated quarter of a million budget
assigned for this purpose.
Our budget: 7,500.
Let's give you another example.
Let's go to southern Italy, the island of Sicily.
Along the north coast is an area where illegal fishing is widespread;
especially where the use of so-called drift nets is a major concern.
These illegal nets which can be many miles long
catch everything in their path:
wales, dolphins, sharks, turtles.
The United Nations banned the use of these nets in 1992,
but their use continues to this day.
In this area, there are only a few fishing inspectors
who have to cover multiple ports.
What we can do is we can come in,
and at the height of the drift net fishing season,
we can cover multiple ports at the same time, day and night.
Our volunteers or "citizen inspectors", as we call them, are trained up
to go into these ports
and to monitor, identify, document, and report illegal fishing.
Because our inspectors crowdfund for their own involvement,
70% of all the costs to realize this type of monitoring
is raised by the participants themselves.
Let me give you another example of how we can do a lot with limited funds.
We've been preparing to start patrolling at sea,
in the most problematic areas, especially around the Mediterranean Sea.
Once we have a ship,
we can start tracking illegal fishing from land, air, and sea.
Traditionally, we would go to funders
and ask them for the hundreds of thousands of euros
we would need to purchase a ship.
But instead, we found Mercon, a Dutch shipbuilder.
Mercon donated the use of his skills, and we donated materials.
He is now building a steel expedition vessel for us.
It's a sailing vessel,
which means it is remarkably cheap to operate.
Regardless of how cheap it is to operate a vessel like this,
it would cost an excess of 2 million euros to build this ship.
However, we believe we found a way that by the end of this year,
we'd be able to build this ship and get it operational next year
for an estimated 50,000 euros.
How?
We approach businesses, maritime training colleges, and volunteers,
and we ask them to contribute in kind, products, time, expertise.
When people with common passions come together, a lot is possible.
But when people with common passions,
but perhaps with different disciplines, come together, nothing is impossible.
So how do we find each other?
Last year, I visited an airfield in the UK,
and there was a guy named Bob.
Bob is in his 50s, he recently went into early retirement,
and he just loves to fly.
This guy is crazy about airplanes.
So I met Bob and started talking to him, and I told him about the oceans
and how our tuna species are dying out, and that we have to take action.
And you know what?
He didn't care.
He doesn't care; he loves aviation, he doesn't care about conservation.
The next day, I was back at the airfield,
I saw Bob again and walked over to him and asked him about his aircraft.
Suddenly, his eyes lit up, and he started talking passionately
about his Cessna aircraft and recent flying he'd been doing.
Right there and then, I realized
that we had been approaching this the wrong way all along.
Bob doesn't care about the environment, he doesn't care about overfishing,
Bob cares about flying.
If we asked Bob what lies close to his heart,
if we asked him to contribute what he loves to do for a good cause,
then he's excited and ready to jump into action.
That fact -
that very simple fact that by appealing to people at their level
and asking them to contribute what they love to do
and what they're good at,
that is what will make conservation a far bigger and more powerful force
than it is today.
Similarly, we met a couple last year,
Libby and Andy, both professionals in executive jobs, busy life, careers,
but also keen to do more than just donate money.
So we gave them an opportunity to train with us,
to be trained up as citizen inspectors.
During their holiday time, two weeks a year,
they join us in our undercover investigations.
Increasingly, the photographs they take in those fishing ports
serve as criminal evidence
necessary to prosecute those breaking the law.
We have close to 100 trained citizen inspectors at the moment,
and we hope to bring this up to 150 people by the end of this year,
thereby making us the largest civilian fisheries monitoring network
in the world.
Let me make one thing very clear here:
in terms of environmental protection in general,
we are not winning.
Unless we can get proper implementation of all those hard-fought laws,
the legacy of all those who have made sacrifices
for the conservation of nature before us
will be lost.
A cliche way to finish a talk like this would be to say,
"Now it's all up to you."
You know, you can become a full-time eco-warrior
or make a donation.
Just to be clear, we're not opposed to receiving donations
(Laughter)
but it's not our primary goal.
But for a moment, let's forget about the money.
Conservation, like many other issues, is all about people.
You don't have to give up your life to fight global problems.
What makes a true difference is that you apply your skills,
that you make available the time you have available
to do what you love or what you feel you're good at.
And if you're willing to do that,
if you're willing to take that simple, yet very meaningful step,
then we, at The Black Fish, welcome you
and commit to helping you turn your personal contribution
into having an amazing impact.
Thank you.
(Applause)