-
So I've had the great privilege
-
of traveling to some incredible places,
-
photographing these distant landscapes
and remote cultures
-
all over the world.
-
I love my job.
-
But people think it's
this string of epiphanies
-
and sunrises and rainbows,
-
when in reality, it looks
more something like this.
-
(Laughter)
-
This is my office.
-
We can't afford the fanciest places
to stay at night,
-
so we tend to sleep a lot outdoors.
-
As long as we can stay dry,
-
that's a bonus.
-
We also can't afford
the fanciest restaurants.
-
So we tend to eat
whatever's on the local menu.
-
And if you're in the Ecuadorian Páramo,
-
you're going to eat
a large rodent called a cuy.
-
(Laughter)
-
But what makes our experiences
perhaps a little bit different
-
and a little more unique
than that of the average person
-
is that we have this gnawing thing
in the back of our mind
-
that even in our darkest moments,
and those times of despair,
-
we think, "Hey, there might be
an image to be made here,
-
there might be a story to be told."
-
And why is storytelling important?
-
Well, it helps us to connect with our
cultural and our natural heritage.
-
And in the Southeast,
-
there's an alarming disconnect
between the public
-
and the natural areas that allow
us to be here in the first place.
-
We're visual creatures,
-
so we use what we see
to teach us what we know.
-
Now the majority of us
aren't going to willingly go
-
way down to a swamp.
-
So how can we still expect
those same people to then advocate
-
on behalf of their protection?
-
We can't.
-
So my job, then, is to use photography
as a communication tool,
-
to help bridge the gap
between the science and the aesthetics,
-
to get people talking,
-
to get them thinking,
-
and to hopefully, ultimately,
-
get them caring.
-
I started doing this 15 years ago
right here in Gainesville,
-
right here in my backyard.
-
And I fell in love
with adventure and discovery,
-
going to explore
all these different places
-
that were just minutes
from my front doorstep.
-
There are a lot
of beautiful places to find.
-
Despite all these years that have passed,
-
I still see the world
through the eyes of a child
-
and I try to incorporate
that sense of wonderment
-
and that sense of curiosity
into my photography
-
as often as I can.
-
And we're pretty lucky
because here in the South,
-
we're still blessed
with a relatively blank canvas
-
that we can fill with the most
fanciful adventures
-
and incredible experiences.
-
It's just a matter of how far
our imagination will take us.
-
See, a lot of people
look at this and they say,
-
"Oh yeah, wow, that's a pretty tree."
-
But I don't just see a tree --
-
I look at this and I see opportunity.
-
I see an entire weekend.
-
Because when I was a kid,
these were the types of images
-
that got me off the sofa
and dared me to explore,
-
dared me to go find the woods
-
and put my head underwater
and see what we have.
-
And folks, I've been photographing
all over the world
-
and I promise you,
-
what we have here in the South,
-
what we have in the Sunshine State,
-
rivals anything else that I've seen.
-
But yet our tourism industry is busy
promoting all the wrong things.
-
Before most kids are 12,
they'll have been to Disney World
-
more times than they've been in a canoe
-
or camping under a starry sky.
-
And I have nothing against Disney
or Mickey; I used to go there, too.
-
But they're missing out on those
fundamental connections
-
that create a real sense
of pride and ownership
-
for the place that they call home.
-
And this is compounded by the issue
that the landscapes
-
that define our natural heritage
-
and fuel our aquifer
for our drinking water
-
have been deemed as scary
and dangerous and spooky.
-
When our ancestors first came here,
-
they warned, "Stay out
of these areas, they're haunted.
-
They're full of evil spirits and ghosts."
-
I don't know where
they came up with that idea.
-
But it's actually led
to a very real disconnect,
-
a very real negative mentality
-
that has kept the public
disinterested, silent,
-
and ultimately, our environment at risk.
-
We're a state that's surrounded
and defined by water,
-
and yet for centuries,
-
swamps and wetlands have been regarded
-
as these obstacles to overcome.
-
And so we've treated them
as these second-class ecosystems,
-
because they have
very little monetary value
-
and of course, they're known
to harbor alligators and snakes --
-
which, I'll admit, these aren't
the most cuddly of ambassadors.
-
(Laughter)
-
So it became assumed, then,
that the only good swamp
-
was a drained swamp.
-
And in fact,
-
draining a swamp to make way
for agriculture and development
-
was considered the very essence
of conservation not too long ago.
-
But now we're backpedaling,
-
because the more we come to learn
about these sodden landscapes,
-
the more secrets we're starting to unlock
-
about interspecies relationships
-
and the connectivity of habitats,
watersheds and flyways.
-
Take this bird, for example:
-
this is the prothonotary warbler.
-
I love this bird because
it's a swamp bird,
-
through and through, a swamp bird.
-
They nest and they mate and they breed
in these old-growth swamps
-
in these flooded forests.
-
And so after the spring,
after they raise their young,
-
they then fly thousand of miles
over the Gulf of Mexico
-
into Central and South America.
-
And then after the winter,
-
the spring rolls around
and they come back.
-
They fly thousands of miles
over the Gulf of Mexico.
-
And where do they go? Where do they land?
-
Right back in the same tree.
-
That's nuts.
-
This is a bird the size
of a tennis ball --
-
I mean, that's crazy!
-
I used a GPS to get here today,
-
and this is my hometown.
-
(Laughter)
-
It's crazy.
-
So what happens, then, when this bird
flies over the Gulf of Mexico
-
into Central America for the winter
-
and then the spring rolls around
and it flies back,
-
and it comes back to this:
-
a freshly sodded golf course?
-
This is a narrative that's
all too commonly unraveling
-
here in this state.
-
And this is a natural process
that's occurred for thousands of years
-
and we're just now learning about it.
-
So you can imagine all else we have
to learn about these landscapes
-
if we just preserve them first.
-
Now despite all this rich life
that abounds in these swamps,
-
they still have a bad name.
-
Many people feel uncomfortable
with the idea of wading
-
into Florida's blackwater.
-
I can understand that.
-
But what I loved about growing up
in the Sunshine State
-
is that for so many of us,
-
we live with this latent
but very palpable fear
-
that when we put our toes into the water,
-
there might be something much more ancient
-
and much more adapted than we are.
-
Knowing that you're not top dog
is a welcomed discomfort, I think.
-
How often in this modern
and urban and digital age
-
do you actually get the chance
to feel vulnerable,
-
or consider that the world may not
have been made for just us?
-
So for the last decade,
-
I began seeking out these areas
where the concrete yields to forest
-
and the pines turn to cypress,
-
and I viewed all these
mosquitoes and reptiles,
-
all these discomforts,
-
as affirmations that I'd found
true wilderness,
-
and I embrace them wholly.
-
Now as a conservation photographer
obsessed with blackwater,
-
it's only fitting that I'd
eventually end up
-
in the most famous swamp of all:
-
The Everglades.
-
Growing up here in North Central Florida,
-
it always had these enchanted names,
-
places like Loxahatchee and Fakahatchee,
-
Corkscrew, Big Cypress.
-
I started what turned
into a five-year project
-
to hopefully reintroduce
the Everglades in a new light,
-
in a more inspired light.
-
But I knew this would be a tall order,
because here you have an area
-
that's roughly a third the size
the state of Florida, it's huge.
-
And when I say Everglades,
-
most people are like,
"Oh, yeah, the national park."
-
But the Everglades is not just a park;
it's an entire watershed,
-
starting with the Kissimmee
chain of lakes in the north,
-
and then as the rains
would fall in the summer,
-
these downpours would flow
into Lake Okeechobee,
-
and Lake Okeechobee would fill up
and it would overflow its banks
-
and spill southward, ever slowly,
with the topography,
-
and get into the river of grass,
the Sawgrass Prairies,
-
before meting into the cypress slews,
-
until going further south
into the mangrove swamps,
-
and then finally -- finally --
reaching Florida Bay,
-
the emerald gem of the Everglades,
-
the great estuary,
-
the 850 square-mile estuary.
-
So sure, the national park
is the southern end of this system,
-
but all the things that make it unique
are these inputs that come in,
-
the fresh water that starts
100 miles north.
-
So no manner of these political
or invisible boundaries
-
protect the park from polluted water
or insufficient water.
-
And unfortunately, that's precisely
what we've done.
-
Over the last 60 years,
-
we have drained, we have dammed,
we have dredged the Everglades
-
to where now only one third of the water
that used to reach the bay
-
now reaches the bay today.
-
So this story is not all sunshine
and rainbows, unfortunately.
-
For better or for worse,
-
the story of the Everglades
is intrinsically tied
-
to the peaks and the valleys
of mankind's relationship
-
with the natural world.
-
But I'll show you
these beautiful pictures,
-
because it gets you on board.
-
And while I have your attention,
I can tell you the real story.
-
It's that we're taking this,
-
and we're trading it for this,
-
at an alarming rate.
-
And what's lost on so many people
-
is the sheer scale
of which we're discussing.
-
Because the Everglades is not just
responsible for the drinking water
-
for 7 million Floridians;
-
today it also provides
the agricultural fields
-
for the year-round tomatoes and oranges
-
for over 300 million Americans.
-
And it's that same seasonal pulse
of water in the summer
-
that built the river of grass
6,000 years ago.
-
Ironically, today, it's also responsible
for the over half a million acres
-
of the endless river of sugarcane.
-
These are the same fields
that are responsible
-
for dumping exceedingly high levels
of fertilizers into the watershed,
-
forever changing the system.
-
But in order for you to not just
understand how this system works,
-
but to also get personally
connected to it,
-
I decided to break the story down
into several different narratives.
-
And I wanted that story to start
in Lake Okeechobee,
-
the beating heart of the Everglade system.
-
And to do that, I picked an ambassador,
-
an iconic species.
-
This is the Everglade snail kite.
-
It's a great bird,
-
and they used to nest in the thousands,
-
thousands in the northern Everglades.
-
And then they've gone down
to about 400 nesting pairs today.
-
And why is that?
-
Well, it's because they eat
one source of food, an apple snail,
-
about the size of a ping-pong ball,
an aquatic gastropod.
-
So as we started damming up
the Everglades,
-
as we started diking Lake Okeechobee
and draining the wetlands,
-
we lost the habitat for the snail.
-
And thus, the population
of the kites declined.
-
And so, I wanted a photo that would
not only communicate this relationship
-
between wetland, snail and bird,
-
but I also wanted a photo
that would communicate
-
how incredible this relationship was,
-
and how very important it is
that they've come to depend on each other,
-
this healthy wetland and this bird.
-
And to do that, I brainstormed this idea.
-
I started sketching
out these plans to make a photo,
-
and I sent it to the wildlife biologist
down in Okeechobee --
-
this is an endangered bird,
so it takes special permission to do.
-
So I built this submerged platform
-
that would hold snails
just right under the water.
-
And I spent months planning
this crazy idea.
-
And I took this platform
down to Lake Okeechobee
-
and I spent over a week in the water,
-
wading waist-deep,
9-hour shifts from dawn until dusk,
-
to get one image that I thought
might communicate this.
-
And here's the day that it finally worked:
-
[Video: (Mac Stone narrating)
After setting up the platform,
-
I look off and I see a kite
coming over the cattails.
-
And I see him scanning and searching.
-
And he gets right over the trap,
-
and I see that he's seen it.
-
And he beelines,
he goes straight for the trap.
-
And in that moment,
all those months of planning, waiting,
-
all the sunburn, mosquito bites --
-
suddenly, they're all worth it.
-
(Mac Stone in film) Oh my gosh,
I can't believe it!]
-
You can believe how excited I was
when that happened.
-
But what the idea was,
-
is that for someone
who's never seen this bird
-
and has no reason to care about it,
-
these photos, these new perspectives,
-
will help shed a little new light
on just one species
-
that makes this watershed
so incredible, so valuable, so important.
-
Now, I know I can't come
here to Gainesville
-
and talk to you about animals
in the Everglades
-
without talking about gators.
-
I love gators, I grew up loving gators.
-
My parents always said I had
an unhealthy relationship with gators.
-
But what I like about them is,
-
they're like the freshwater
equivalent of sharks.
-
They're feared, they're hated,
-
and they are tragically misunderstood.
-
Because these are a unique species,
they're not just apex predators.
-
In the Everglades,
-
they are the very architects
of the Everglades,
-
because as the water drops
down in the winter
-
during the dry season,
-
they start excavating these holes
called gator holes.
-
And they do this because
as the water drops down,
-
they'll be able to stay wet
and they'll be able to forage.
-
And now this isn't just affecting them,
-
other animals also depend
on this relationship,
-
so they become a keystone species as well.
-
So how do you make an apex predator,
an ancient reptile,
-
at once look like it dominates the system,
-
but at the same time, look vulnerable?
-
Well, you wade into a pit
of about 120 of them,
-
then you hope that you've made
the right decision.
-
(Laughter)
-
I still have all my fingers, it's cool.
-
But I understand, I know
I'm not going to rally you guys,
-
I'm not going to rally the troops to
"Save the Everglades for the gators!"
-
It won't happen because
they're so ubiquitous,
-
we see them now,
-
they're one of the great conservation
success stories of the US.
-
But there is one species in the Everglades
that no matter who you are,
-
you can't help but love, too,
and that's the roseate spoonbill.
-
These birds are great, but they've had
a really tough time in the Everglades,
-
because they started out with thousands
of nesting pairs in Florida Bay,
-
and at the turn of the 20th century,
-
they got down to two -- two nesting pairs.
-
And why?
-
That's because women thought
they looked better on their hats
-
then they did flying in the sky.
-
Then we banned the plume trade,
-
and their numbers started rebounding.
-
And as their numbers started rebounding,
-
scientists began to pay attention,
-
they started studying these birds.
-
And what they found out is that
-
these birds' behavior
is intrinsically tied
-
to the annual draw-down
cycle of water in the Everglades,
-
the thing that defines
the Everglades watershed.
-
What they found out is that
-
these birds started nesting in the winter
as the water drew down,
-
because they're tactile feeders,
so they have to touch whatever they eat.
-
And so they wait for these
concentrated pools of fish
-
to be able to feed enough
to feed their young.
-
So these birds became the very icon
of the Everglades --
-
an indicator species
of the overall health of the system.
-
And just as their numbers were rebounding
in the mid-20th century --
-
shooting up to 900, 1,000, 1,100, 1,200 --
-
just as that started happening, we started
draining the southern Everglades.
-
And we stopped two-thirds
of that water from moving south.
-
And it had drastic consequences.
-
And just as those numbers
started reaching their peak,
-
unfortunately, today,
the real spoonbill story,
-
the real photo of what it looks like
is more something like this.
-
And we're down to less than 70
nesting pairs in Florida Bay today,
-
because we've disrupted
the system so much.
-
So all these different organizations
are shouting, they're screaming,
-
"The Everglades is fragile! It's fragile!"
-
It is not.
-
It is resilient.
-
Because despite all we've taken,
despite all we've done and we've drained
-
and we've dammed and we've dredged it,
-
pieces of it are still here,
waiting to be put back together.
-
And this is what I've loved
about South Florida,
-
that in one place, you have
this unstoppable force of mankind
-
meeting the immovable object
of tropical nature.
-
And it's at this new frontier
that we are forced with a new appraisal.
-
What is wilderness worth?
-
What is the value of biodiversity
or our drinking water?
-
And fortunately, after decades of debate,
-
we're finally starting to act
on those questions.
-
We're slowly undertaking these projects
-
to bring more freshwater back to the bay.
-
But it's up to us as citizens,
as residents, as stewards
-
to hold our elected officials
to their promises.
-
What can you do to help?
-
It's so easy.
-
Just get outside, get out there.
-
Take your friends out, take your kids out,
-
take your family out.
-
Hire a fishing guide.
-
Show the state that protecting wilderness
-
not only makes ecological sense,
but economic sense as well.
-
It's a lot of fun, just do it --
put your feet in the water.
-
The swamp will change you, I promise.
-
Over the years, we've been so generous
-
with these other landscapes
around the country,
-
cloaking them with this American pride,
-
places that we now consider to define us:
-
Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone.
-
And we use these parks
and these natural areas
-
as beacons and as cultural compasses.
-
And sadly, the Everglades is very commonly
-
left out of that conversation.
-
But I believe it's every bit
as iconic and emblematic
-
of who we are as a country
-
as any of these other wildernesses.
-
It's just a different kind of wild.
-
But I'm encouraged,
-
because maybe we're finally
starting to come around,
-
because what was once deemed
this swampy wasteland,
-
today is a World Heritage site.
-
It's a wetland
of international importance.
-
And we've come a long way
in the last 60 years.
-
And as the world's largest and most
ambitious wetland restoration project,
-
the international spotlight
is on us in the Sunshine State.
-
Because if we can heal this system,
-
it's going to become an icon
for wetland restoration
-
all over the world.
-
But it's up to us to decide which legacy
we want to attach our flag to.
-
They say that the Everglades
is our greatest test.
-
If we pass it, we get to keep the planet.
-
I love that quote,
-
because it's a challenge, it's a prod.
-
Can we do it? Will we do it?
-
We have to, we must.
-
But the Everglades is not just a test.
-
It's also a gift,
-
and ultimately, our responsibility.
-
Thank you.
-
(Applause)