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OK, I would like to introduce all of you
beautiful, curious-minded people
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to my favorite animal in the world.
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This is the Peter Pan
of the amphibian world.
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It's an axolotl.
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It's a type of salamander,
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but it never fully grows up
and climbs out of the water
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like other salamanders do.
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And this little guy has
X-Man-style powers, right?
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So if it loses any limb,
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it can just completely regenerate.
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It's amazing.
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And, I mean, look at it --
it's got a face with a permanent smile.
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(Laughter)
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It's framed by feathery gills.
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It's just ... how could you not love that?
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This particular type of axolotl,
a very close relative,
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is known as an achoque.
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It is equally as cute,
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and it lives in just one place
in a lake in the north of Mexico.
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It's called Lake Pátzcuaro,
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and as you can see,
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it is stunningly beautiful.
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But unfortunately, it's been so overfished
and so badly polluted
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that the achoque is dying out altogether.
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And this is something that's a scenario
that's playing out all over the world.
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We're living through an extinction crisis,
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and species are particularly vulnerable
when they're evolutionarily tailored
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to just one little niche
or maybe one lake.
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But this is TED, right?
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So this is where I give you
the big idea, the big solution.
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So how do you save one special
weird species from going extinct?
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Well, the answer, at least my answer,
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isn't a grand technological intervention.
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It's actually really simple.
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It's that you find people
who know all about this animal
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and you ask them and you listen to them,
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and you work with them,
if they're up for that.
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So I want to tell you about
how I've seen that in science,
-
and in conservation in particular,
-
if scientists don't team up
with local people
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who have really valuable knowledge
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but a practical wisdom that's not going
to be published in any academic journal,
-
they can really miss the point.
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Scientists and science as an enterprise
can fall at the first hurdle
-
if it rushes in knowing
that it's the experts that know best.
-
But when scientists shake off
those academic constraints
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and really look to people
who have a totally different
-
but really important perspective
on what they're trying to do,
-
it can genuinely save the world,
-
one wonderfully weird amphibian at a time.
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So, in the case of the achoque,
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these are the people
you need on your team.
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(Laughter)
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These are the Sisters
of the Immaculate Health.
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They are nuns who have a convent
in Pátzcuaro, they live in Pátzcuaro,
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and they have a shared history
with the achoque.
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And it is so mind-bogglingly wonderful
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that it drew me all the way there
to make an audio documentary about them,
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and I even have the unflattering selfie
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to prove it.
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There is a room at the center
of their convent, though,
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that looks like this.
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It's very strange.
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It's lined with all these tanks
full of fresh water
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and hundreds of achoques.
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And that's because this creature,
because of its regenerative abilities,
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it's believed has healing powers
if you consume it.
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So the sisters actually make and sell
a medicine using achoques.
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I bought a bottle of it.
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So this is it.
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It tastes a bit like honey,
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but the sisters reckon it is good
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for all kinds of particularly
respiratory ailments.
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So I just want you to have a listen,
if you will, to a clip of Sister Ofelia.
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(Audio) Sister Ofelia (speaks in Spanish)
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(Audio) (Interpreter voice-over)
Our convent was founded by Dominican nuns
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here in Pátzcuaro in 1747.
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Sometime after that,
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our sisters started to make
the achoque syrup.
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We didn't discover
the properties of the achoque.
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That was the original people
from around here, since ancient times.
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But we then started to make
the syrup, too.
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The locals knew that,
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and they came to offer us the animals.
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(Audio) Victoria Gill: I see.
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So the achoques are
part of making that syrup.
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What does the syrup treat,
and what is it for?
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(Audio) SO: (speaks in Spanish)
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(Audio) (Interpreter voice-over)
It's good for coughs, asthma,
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bronchitis, the lungs and back pain.
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(Audio) VG: And so you've
harnessed that power
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in a syrup, in a medicine.
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Can you tell me how it's made?
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You're shaking your head
and smiling. (Laughter)
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VG: Yeah, they're not up for sharing
the centuries-old secret recipe.
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(Laughter)
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But the decline in the achoque
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actually nearly put a halt
to that medicine production altogether,
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which is why the sisters started this.
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It's the world's first achoque farm.
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All they wanted was a healthy,
sustainable population
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so that they could continue
to make that medicine,
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but what they created at the same time
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was a captive breeding program
for a critically endangered species.
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And fast forward a few years,
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and these scientists
that you can see in this picture
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from Chester Zoo
all the way over the in UK,
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not far from where I live,
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and from Michoacana University
in Morelia in Mexico
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have persuaded the sisters --
it took years of careful diplomacy --
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to join them in a research partnership.
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So the nuns show the biologists
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how you rear perfectly healthy,
very robust Pátzcuaro achoques,
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and the scientists have put
some of their funding
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into tanks, filters and pumps
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into this strange, incongruous,
but amazing room.
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This is the kind of partnership
that can save a species.
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But I don't think I see
enough of this sort of thing,
-
and I have been ludicrously
lucky in my job.
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I've traveled to loads of places
and just basically followed around
-
brilliant people who are trying
to use science to answer big questions
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and solve problems.
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I've hung out with scientists
who have solved the mystery
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of the origin of the menopause
by tracking killer whales
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off the north Pacific coast.
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And I've followed around scientists
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who've planted cameras
in Antarctic penguin colonies,
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because they were looking to capture
the impacts of climate change
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as it happens.
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But it's this team
that really stuck with me,
-
that really showed me the impact
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that these delicate but really
important relationships can have.
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And I think the reason
that it stuck with me as well
-
is because it's not common.
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And one of the reasons it's not common
-
is because our traditional approach
-
of the hierarchical system
of academic achievement
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doesn't exactly encourage
the type of humility
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where scientists will look
to nonscientists
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and really ask for their input.
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In fact, I think we have
a bit of a tradition,
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especially in the West,
-
of a kind of academically blinkered hubris
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that has kept science historically
an enterprise for the elite.
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And I think although that's moved on,
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it continues to be
its downfall on occasion.
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So here's my example from history
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and my takedown of a scientific hero.
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Sir Ernest Shackleton
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and his Trans-Antarctic Expedition
more than a century ago,
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the celebrated ill-fated adventure.
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On his way there,
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Shackleton just didn't listen
to the whalers in South Georgia.
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They knew that region, and they told him
you won't get through the ice this year.
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It's too widespread, it's too far north,
it's too dangerous.
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And look what happened.
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I mean, granted, that great adventure,
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that story of heroic leadership
that we still tell,
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where he saved
every single one of his men,
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we wouldn't be telling that story
if he'd just hightailed it for home
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and taken their advice.
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But it cost him his ship,
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I would imagine quite a lot
of cold injuries among the team,
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a good few cases of PTSD,
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and Mrs. Chippy,
the ship's cat, had to be shot
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because the team couldn't afford
any extra food as they fought to survive.
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Now, that was all a very long time ago,
-
but as I've prepared for this talk,
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I've revisited some of the stories
that I have covered,
-
where these really unusual collaborations
made a real positive difference.
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So I spoke to former poachers
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whose knowledge of where
they used to hunt illegally
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is now really important
in conservation projects
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in those same places.
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And I spoke to an amazing artist
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whose own experience
of mental health struggles
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has actually paved the way for him
to take a role in designing and creating
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a new, really innovative and beautiful
mental health ward in a hospital.
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Most recently, I worked here,
in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone,
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with a team of scientists
that have been working there for decades.
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One of their experiments
growing crops in that area
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has now turned into this.
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It's Chernobyl's first vodka.
-
(Laughter)
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It's pretty good, too! I've tasted it.
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And this is actually,
although it looks like a niche product,
-
it's set to be the first consumer product
to come out of the exclusion zone
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since the nuclear accident.
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And that's actually the result
of years of conversation
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with local communities who still live
on the periphery of that abandoned land
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and want to know when they can
and if they can safely grow food
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and build businesses and rebuild
their communities and their lives.
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This was a product of humility,
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of listening,
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and I saw that in spades
when I visited Pátzcuaro.
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So I watched as a decades-experienced
conservation biologist
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called Gerardo Garcia
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listened and watched super carefully
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as a nun in a full habit
and wimple and latex gloves
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showed him how, if you tap
an achoque on the head really gently,
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it'll open its mouth so you can quickly
get a DNA swab with a Q-tip.
-
(Laughter)
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When scientists team up with,
look to, and defer to people
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who have a really valuable perspective
on what they're trying to do
-
but a totally different outlook,
-
something really special can happen.
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Now, there is a truly global
and a very, very ambitious example of this
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called the International Panel
on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
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Now, that is not a snappy title,
but stick with me.
-
This organization includes
more than 130 countries,
-
and it's aiming to do nothing less
than assess the state of the natural world
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across our entire planet.
-
So it recently published
this global assessment
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on the state of nature,
-
and that could be the foundation
for an international agreement
-
where all of those nations could sign up
to finally take action
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to tackle the biodiversity crisis
that's happening on planet Earth
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right now.
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Now, I know from trying to communicate,
trying to report on reports like this,
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on assessments like this
for a broad audience,
-
that these big international groups
can seem so high-level
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as to be kind of
out of reach and nebulous,
-
but there's a group of human beings
at the center of them,
-
the report's authors,
-
who have this formidable task
of bringing together
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all of that biological
and ecological information
-
that paints a clear and accurate picture
-
of the state of the natural world.
-
And 10 years before this panel
even set out to do that,
-
to put that assessment together,
-
they created what's called
a "cultural concept framework."
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This is essentially
a cultural concept translation dictionary
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for all of the different ways
that we talk about the natural world.
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So it formally recognizes, for example,
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that "Mother Earth" and "nature"
means the same thing.
-
And what that means is that
Indigenous and local knowledge
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can be brought into the same document
-
and given the weight
and merit that it deserves
-
in that assessment of what state
our natural environment is in.
-
And that is absolutely critical,
-
because an Inuit hunter might never
publish in an academic journal,
-
but I'll bet you she knows more about
the changes to her home Arctic community
-
because of climate change
-
than a scientist who spent many years
going to and from that region
-
taking measurements.
-
And collectively, Indigenous people
are the caretakers
-
of an estimated 25 percent
of the entire global land surface,
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including some of the most biodiverse
places on the planet.
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So imagine how much we're missing
-
if we don't cross
those cultural boundaries
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or at least try to
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when we're trying to figure out
how the world works
-
and how to protect it.
-
Every single research proposal
is a new opportunity to do exactly that.
-
So what if, every time
a research project was proposed,
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it had to include a suggestion
of a person or a group of people --
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local farmers, Indigenous
community leaders, nuns --
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that researchers wanted
to bring into the fold,
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invite into their team, and listen to?
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I just want to let
Sister Ofelia give her view
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of why she is so particularly
driven and dedicated
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to the survival of the achoque.
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(Audio) VG: Sister Ofelia, do you think
that saving this species from extinction,
-
is that part of your work for God?
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(Audio) SO: (speaks in Spanish)
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(Audio) (Interpreter voice-over)
It's the responsibility
-
of every human being
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not to harm those who live around us.
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That's all living things.
-
We're all created not only just to survive
but to be happy and to make others happy.
-
All of us here are providing happiness
by protecting this animal,
-
and we're also making Him happy.
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(Audio) (Nuns singing)
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VG: I feel like I should sort of slink off
and let the nuns sing me out,
-
because it sounds so lovely.
-
But did you hear that?
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"We're providing happiness."
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Now, that's not a protocol
you'd ever see outlined
-
in any formal research project proposal --
-
(Laughter)
-
but it's the impetus behind what's become
the most successful breeding program
-
in the world
-
of an animal that was on the very
brink of being wiped out.
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And isn't that just wonderful?
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Thank you.
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(Applause)