Transcriber: Yasmine Wong Reviewer: Mary Beth Strawn
(Applause)
Good morning.
For more than 20 years now, I've been a contributing photographer
for National Geographic magazine.
And, I've traveled around the world
and taken pictures mainly on conservation issues.
And, I realize that what I'm doing here in the wild
is just not enough.
Through my career I have seen more and more species
head towards extinction.
More and more and more, it's just not enough.
So now I'm in the second act of my career.
I'm 50 years old; maybe I have another 20 years left.
Maybe, if I'm lucky.
What am I going to do to save species?
I went from doing this
to taking black and white backgrounds with me
and doing this.
Instead of being in the bushmeat market only,
with the drill that's going to become
supper that night for someone.
Took Black Velvet and make him immortal.
So I started doing this more and more and more.
Everywhere I can go.
Everywhere Geographic sends me.
Every continent, every state, all the time.
8 years ago, I call it "The Photo Ark".
The goal is to get animals on black and white backgrounds
and to get people to care.
That's it.
Look him in the eye.
See how
Whatever I have to do to get people to care.
What's it going to take? I don't know
So far, it hasn't worked out too well for me.
I'm seeing almost 50% of the amphibians
either at extinction now or at risk of extinction.
This one, at a lab in Ecuador.
Down to 8, 7,
5 or 4
couple.
Now you're looking at the very last one.
See, we're talking about extinction today.
I see these species right before they go extinct.
That's where I come in.
And I try to get the world to care about something
as tragic as this:
The very last Rabbs' fringe-limbed treefrog
at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.
And I'm up close, I look him in the eye and I think,
"Holy cow, I really need to tell the world about this."
"Surely they would stop driving things to extinction"
"if they knew."
Well...
not so, I'm afraid.
Here's the very last Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit.
It's extinct now.
Did anybody care?
If I can't get people to care about that,
am I going to get them
to care about this last remaining pool of water
that holds an insect,
an invertebrate, that's aquatic?
Or something without eyes, even, that we can relate to?
Freshwater mussels?
75 to 80 percent of them are in need of federal protection now.
They clean our water.
They tell us something is drastically wrong.
Or an insect that's down to a couple hundred animals.
In my hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska.
What do I have to do?
Do I have to photograph animals that are electrified in colour?
Or have a smile on their face?
Or might be deadly?
Or just are plain weird-looking?
Or anthropomorphic?
What do I have to do?
I think about this question all the time.
What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?
Every class of animal now is at risk.
We're at risk of losing half of all species
by the turn of the next century.
We know it's bad.
What to do?
Well, what I've come down to is this.
After 8 years,
I photographed nearly 3 thousand species this way.
Out of the six thousand species captive.
My goal, if I live this long,
is to get all the captive species in the world.
To get people engaged.
To get the public engaged, that's the thing.
How do we do this?
We have to make it interesting.
We have to get people off the couch.
We have to get them to care about more than the price at the pump
and what's on television!
We have to engage them
and get them to meet these animals face to face.
Most people live in cities now.
They don't live out in the country.
They're never going to have a chance to see these things
unless they get involved somehow.
And look at these animals right in the eye.
We have to make it interesting!
We have to make it... fun.
We have to get it
so that the public actually stops and thinks
about it being popular!
Popular to care about animals.
Yes indeed, we see it with social media,
we see it with trends in fashion.
We see it everyday.
People will save something
if they think other people are saving it.
They will only follow each other.
Somehow, in this discussion we're having today,
and I want to see species brought back from extinction
as much as anybody, believe me.
We must make it so that it is popular and
to be good stewards of the earth.
That is the thing. That is the rub.
How do we get there?
I don't know.
Tick tick tick.
Time is running out isn't it?
Can we do it?
Absolutely we can.
So far, most of what you've seen here
does not have to go away!
It's dying off for lack of attention!
We just need to get this on the public's radar screen.
Have we done it before?
You bet we have.
We've done it many times.
We've saved the giant panda so far.
And some of these animals that you're seeing here
got down to 20 animals or fewer.
We can do this.
Absolutely.
There's no time to lose though, is there?
No time to lose.
I often get discouraged if I'm out in the field
and I'm seeing the last of something and I think,
"Holy cow, what am I going to do?"
"How do I get people to care?"
"Is it worth it?"
Absolutely.
Margaret Mead once said so famously,
"Never doubt that a small group of concerned citizens
can change the world.
Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
Thank you.
[Applause]