Transcriber: Peter van de Ven Reviewer: Tanya Cushman
I'm excited to share with you the work I'm doing
using inspiration to drive conservation.
But before I talk about what I'm doing,
I want to share with you a little bit
about the reason why and how I came to be doing it.
I'm also going to add that every image I'm going to show you tonight
is 100% real.
So may I ask you,
What animal do you think this is?
I would wager
many in the room might respond - and it is a manta ray -
but might respond, Isn't that a giant stingray?
Like the creature that killed Steve Irwin?
But it isn't. It's a manta ray.
It has no stinger; it has no teeth.
In fact, it is completely harmless.
It's also amongst the most curious of all marine creatures.
And it's racing towards extinction right now
because of unsustainable fisheries for its meat and gills.
My challenge is to connect people with these marine creatures,
such as manta rays,
animals where they have no prior connection with,
because it is all these creatures that play such an important role
in managing the most important life-support system of our planet:
the oceans.
My journey began over two decades ago when I took up scuba diving.
Beneath the surface, I discovered a world so beautiful, so full of life
words just could not describe it.
So I taught myself photography and film making,
and I set out on a global journey
to document the ocean's most incredible spectacles
and share these with the planet.
I explored the reefs of Raja Ampat, Indonesia,
the epicenter of global marine biodiversity.
And I met my first sharks up close, without any protection,
including one the most feared predators on the planet: the tiger shark.
And I fell in love with them.
Soon I was diving on reefs teeming with sharks
and dancing with giant manta rays with wingspans exceeding 15 feet
while below me, squadrons of mobula rays danced in the distance.
I even discovered an aggregation of over 300 whale sharks
off Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula
and immersed myself in schools of sailfish of up to 200 animals
as they ripped apart sardine bait balls.
I frolicked with playful dolphins,
cruised with pilot whales
and dived into the frenzy
as a pod of orcas ripped into a family of sperm whales.
And I experienced one of the most intimate and touching experiences of my entire life
when a mother humpback whale presented her newborn calf to me.
As much as I've been captivated by these marine creatures,
I've been unable to ignore
how ruthlessly and systematically
we have been wiping these animals off the face of the earth.
Now, my belief is
once you uncover such an important truth,
you have an obligation -
no, actually, you have a duty to do something about it.
So I began a decade-long journey
to document and expose the destruction happening in the oceans.
I discovered that sharks were being targeted just for their fins.
From South America to Southeast Asia -
in fact, any country with a coastline -
fishermen were now targeting sharks primarily for their fins.
And it wasn't just lots of sharks,
it wasn't hundreds of sharks,
it wasn't thousands or tens of thousands,
but hundreds of thousands of sharks each and every single day
were being landed.
And why?
For their fins for shark fin soup.
In Taiwan, I watched as a single longliner unloaded 10,000 fins,
over 3,000 sharks' worth.
Now, when you consider that Taiwan has over 2,000 registered longliners
deploying enough line to wrap around the planet eight times -
and they're only the fourth largest shark fishing nation -
over 100 million sharks killed each and every year,
primarily for their fins.
And by the time these fins reach the consumer,
this trail of destruction's been erased,
with traders turning blood into gold.
But it wasn't just sharks.
They were now turning to manta rays and killing them for their gills.
And with the large fish disappearing from the sea,
they were turning to dolphins
and endangered sea turtles.
And despite the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling,
several nations, including Japan,
had increasingly started hunting whales again.
So I came to the realisation that if we did not move really quickly,
in my lifetime, I would witness the death of the oceans.
My imagery of this destruction has gone far and wide in global press,
with coverage in most major media outlets.
However, I have been saddened by the realisation
that despite all this incredible coverage,
the world has remained largely ignorant and even uninterested
in the destruction happening in the oceans.
And as a result,
this destruction has only continued.
And then I realised I've been talking to the 1%,
the already converted - many of the people in this room -
but I haven't been reaching the other 99% of the planet,
in whose hands the fate of the oceans rest.
My mission is not to raise awareness
but rather to inspire action and drive change.
My awakening happened in one of the most unlikely of places:
in a remote fishing community in southern Philippines.
Here, a village that had once participated
in the slaughter of whale sharks for their fins
had now befriended these gentle giants,
and they were in the infancy
of establishing an eco-tourism industry around these animals.
I documented this incredible relationship,
and I shared the story with the entire world.
What struck me
was the international response to this one image.
People were captivated by the gentle and intimate connection
between this huge shark
and this poor fisherman.
Now six months later, from Mexico,
a fun image I posted on Facebook went viral.
It occupied the front page of Yahoo News for several days
and garnered over 100 million views since then.
And I had to ask myself,
Why were people so interested
in some random dudes staring down at a whale shark?
It was a fun picture, right?
But then it came to me:
because this image, it spoke to our imaginations,
our childhood fantasies
about these giant sea creatures that lurked beneath the surface.
It connected human beings and whale sharks
in a way that the average person could identify with.
And suddenly, whale sharks were worthy of international attention,
so much so that my friend and ally Richard Branson
joined us on a special WildAid-Virgin Unite expedition
to swim with these animals
and raise global attention for the need to conserve them.
But I've come to realise
that most people are uninterested in the oceans and creatures within them.
People are caught up in their daily lives.
And after a hard day's work,
we want to relax, we want to unwind.
We don't want to be reminded of the world's problems
and especially abstract issues
such as shark finning and ocean destruction.
We're influenced by pop culture and fashion,
and we turn to mainstream media to escape.
But it is here where we must get our message.
At first subtly,
but then leading to decisive action.
So I returned to the Philippines, but this time on a mission:
to connect people with these animals in a new and profound way;
to capture real-life imagery of a mermaid dancing with these graceful giants;
to shine a global spotlight on an animal
that was disappearing because of our greed;
to tell a new story of these animals,
one where we dance with them
and where world-class base jumper Roberta Mancino leaps over their tails
just as she soars off cliffs in her wing suit.
A story of connection,
where these animals and human beings can actually co-exist,
where we appreciate them for their natural beauty.
A world where we finally rally the conviction
to conserve these gentle giants.
But awareness onto itself is not enough,
and especially for the manta ray,
we needed immediate and decisive action.
We'd finally succeeded in getting manta rays on the docket
at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
This body of 178 member nations
that meets only once every three years
is the only binding international treaty on earth
to protect endangered species.
It's the same treaty that protects rhinos, elephants and tigers.
Well, after a four-year campaign
leading up to the March 2013 CITES meeting,
we realised just two months before the meeting
we had made a critical oversight.
The world and most of these delegates had no idea what a manta ray was,
and we feared that many of them thought it was a giant stingray,
like the one that killed Steve Irwin.
So we only had two months to connect the world with manta rays
and show them to be the beautiful, gentle and vulnerable creatures they are,
but also as charismatic animals worthy of international protection.
And so we created 'Mantas Last Dance',
a story of Hannah, a wayward gypsy.
Estranged from her manta clan,
she finally returns to the ocean
only to realise she is too late:
all the mantas are gone.
So lost in despair, she lets go,
and in a dream state, she dances one last time with her mantas.
This is a sneak peek at the film.
[Mantas Last Dance]
(Music: 'If I Could Stay' by Terra Naomi)
♪ And if I could spend ♪
♪ Some of the time I'm saving ♪
♪ I can imagine your face ♪
♪ The minute you see me coming home ♪
♪ It's only a dream ♪
♪ Cos you're far away ♪
♪ And time spent on dreams could be time saved ♪
♪ And there's so many things that I don't understand ♪
♪ I'm standing in line with my open hand ♪
♪ Waiting for some explanation, something to hold onto ♪
(Music ends)
Shawn Heinrichs: Wow.
(Applause)
We released the film one week before CITES,
and within 24 hours we had over 200,000 downloads,
with features in The New York Times, Smithsonian, Wired
and media outlets around the entire planet.
We took the film to CITES,
and at a special reception for manta rays held for delegates,
we inspired them.
The following week,
mantas won by a massive 80% margin of victory.
The world had finally rallied when it mattered most
to protect manta rays.
(Applause)
I believe art is such an essential tool
in halting the destruction of these threatened species.
By connecting people with the beauty and vulnerability of these animals,
we ignite a new level of curiosity and passion for them.
Because ultimately,
it is the human connection that is central to conservation.
Without it, our efforts will ultimately falter,
but by harnessing it,
we can change the world.
Thank you.
(Applause)