Hope Is A Verb - Christine Figgener- The ocean explorer

Episode Date: August 15, 2023

Meet Christine Figgener, a marine biologist who sparked a global movement against single-use plastic when her YouTube video of a turtle having a straw removed from its nose went viral in 2015.   In this conversation, Christine shares her journey from growing up in an industrial town in Germany to running conservation programs in Costa Rica, where she first fell in love with leatherback turtles over 17 years ago. Reflecting on the eight years since her video “accidentally” fuelled a global debate over ocean pollution, Christine talks us through transition from scientist to storyteller and activist, and what it takes to save a species on the brink of extinction and in the face of climate change.    Find Out More:  Website:  https://www.seaturtlebiologist.com/ Instagram: @seaturtlebiologist "My Life with Sea Turtles : A Marine Biologist's Quest to Protect One of the Most Ancient Animals on Earth" will be released on May 21, 2024 by Greystone Books This episode of Hope Is A Verb was hosted by Angus Hervey, cofounder of Future Crunch and Amy Davoren-Rose, creative director.  The soundtrack for this podcast is "Rain" composed and performed by ⁠⁠El Rey Miel ⁠⁠from their upcoming album "Sea the Sky." Audio Sweetening by Anthony Badolato- ⁠⁠Ai3 Audio and Voice⁠⁠. We would like to acknowledge that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadigal, Wurundjeri and Woi Warring People. These conversations are inspired by our charity partners and our Humankind Project that celebrates the people who are stitching our world back together. You can contact us at: [e-mail] Transcripts will be available on our website soon. 

Hi, welcome to Hope is a Verb, a podcast from Future Crunch that explores what it takes to change the world through conversations with the people that are making it happen. I'm Amy. I'm Gus, and these are the unknown heroes who are mending our planet, stitching together a better future, and showing us the best of what it is to be human. And quite honestly, I think it was more than anything the turtles that made me stay. Seeing a leatherback turtle nesting, it does something to you. I mean, if you've ever seen it, you know what I'm talking about. If not, I can only highly encourage that

you try to see a leatherback nesting, especially because we do not have that many left. What happens when you spark a global movement almost by accident? you spark a global movement almost by accident. In 2015, marine biologist Christine Figner filmed a video of a colleague removing a plastic straw from a sea turtle's nose and uploaded it to YouTube. As a scientist, she was accustomed to documenting her research, but it was impossible for her to predict what came next. Christine's video went viral with over 100 million views. It showed people the real impact that plastic waste has on our oceans and marine life and eight years on there's a wave of legislation banning single-use plastics all around the world. Today Christine runs a conservation organization on the beaches of Costa Rica, the same place where she started her work as a student 17 years ago.

Combining her roles of scientist, activist, and storyteller, Christine's continuing her mission to protect sea turtles, and she's using all of the tools of social media to spread her message. Christine, welcome to Hope is a Verb. It's fantastic to have you here. Yeah, thank you very much for having me. I wonder if we could start with a simple question. Is there a story anywhere in the world that you're aware of right now that's given you hope? Well, I hate to say it, but unfortunately, in recent weeks, there hasn't really been any. But I would say that is also the nature of how news reports.

There's not much good news reporting on good news. So I don't take that as an indication that everything is bad. I wonder then if there's something in your immediate environment or in your daily work that's giving you hope or bringing you joy? Yeah, I think that is an easier question. in your daily work that's giving you hope or bringing you joy? Yeah, I think that is an easier question. Just today in the morning, I came across some freshly hatching leatherback baby turtles that just were on their way to the ocean.

That is pretty much the fruits of my labour. That is always nice and exciting. And then, of course, our environmental outreach efforts. So we had a big group of school children here about two days ago, and it was just so heartwarming to see of how exciting kids still are about nature, about protecting nature and protecting our sea turtles. So that is giving me hope for sure. I wonder if you could just give us a little bit of a sense

of kind of the size of the project and also how long it's been running for. Yeah, so this project here particularly is a nesting beach project that actually started in the 80s, managed by a different organization back in the days. And that is where I started out as a sea turtle biologist 17 years

ago. Unfortunately, though, that project ceased to exist in 2010. And nobody did anything on this beach for about 10 years. And then when the pandemic hits, and we happened to have bought a house here in the adjacent village in 2012, We kind of decided, you know what, pandemic, we just kind of move into our house for the first time. And while we were here, of course, we saw that sea turtles are still nesting here. Nobody's doing anything. And we decided to revive that project.

We have about 10 people working for us from the village. And we are a tiny village. It's about 150 people working for us from the village. And we are a tiny village, it's about 150 people. And we're also getting students every year to help us out during the nesting season from March, where the leatherbacks are starting to nest until the end of October. We are walking the beach every night from 7pm to about 4.m. in the morning to encounter nesting females. So we have a beach of about 10 kilometers that we're covering and a bunch of smaller beaches that are only a few hundred meters long. And the reason why we're doing that is that we have a lot of problems here with erosion, which has gotten increasingly worse over the years. So we have lost about 60 meters of beach horizontally, land inwards in the past 15 years.

And of course, that is a direct result of climate change and rising sea levels. So it's not going to get better anytime soon, unfortunately. And the second big problem that we have here is that we have still people that go and go harvest the eggs that are laid on the beach from the females. That is a result of rural areas, small towns, and not a lot of jobs, not a lot of opportunity to do something else. So our project, besides relocating those nests, trying to keep them out of harm's way from the ocean and also from poachers, is also trying to create jobs here in this village. So the guys that are patrolling the beach are getting paid. Then the lady that's taking care of our student interns, of course, is receiving money for that. There are tourist guides that go on turtle tours that are making money.

There's little convenience stores that make money when there's people coming in to see turtles. So we're trying to pretty much create business around turtles, which does not involve killing the turtle or eating the eggs. There are so many layers to your work and so many things that we want to dive into. The thing that really interests me is that Costa Rica is now your home, but you grew up in Germany. So where did your love of the ocean come from? I'm not only from Germany, I was literally growing up in a very industrial area and super landlocked. But I did have the good fortune, I guess, that my parents are not mountain people, but ocean people.

And so most of our vacations were going towards some ocean. And my very first vacation ever actually was going to Greece, to the Mediterranean Sea. And I, well, I blame the Mediterranean Sea for making me fall in love with the ocean. And also my dad that, you know, wanted me to explore instead of being afraid. And then from there, yeah, I think I just was also loving water. So I liked swimming, you know,

I like to do water sports, snorkeling, surfing, sailing. And I think that was just kind of a holistic way of appreciating the ocean with all its inhabitants and all the fun stuff you can do with it as well. I read a beautiful line from you where you said that even in kindergarten, you wanted to be an ocean explorer. So when you look back on your childhood, was there a moment that you can look at now and go, yes, that was when the seed was planted for the work I do now? I cannot exactly call out the moment. Even that incident of me talking in kindergarten about it was actually told to me by a good friend of mine that went to kindergarten with me. And she came to visit me in Costa Rica

and she said, you know what? You're like the only person I know that already knew in kindergarten what she wanted to become. So I do not actively recalling running around and actually telling people that. So I just know from people that I must have done it because they do remember that. I also always felt a certain responsibility, I guess, towards our environment. I cannot pinpoint that either. I just know it was there, maybe instilled by my parents as well. I just remember that when I was about 11 or 12, I was already collecting signatures against whaling and educating people about like how horrible that is. Yeah, I think there was a lot of different things happening or present in my life that led to being who I am

today. So you now call Costa Rica home. Can you tell us a little about your journey of how you ended up there? Yeah. So Costa Rica, I mean, I've reflected on it actually recently, and I was a little bit shocked that most of my adult life I've actually spent in Costa Rica, which is crazy to think about. So I came to Costa Rica in very young years. I was barely 23 when I came here for the first time. I always knew I did not want to stay in Germany. I always knew that I wanted to live abroad, but I didn't have an exact place in mind. I think for me, it was more this idea of adventure and exploring, thinking about the big explorers back a few hundred years ago, Alexander von Humboldt and all of those people that were traveling the world and describing,

discovering all these amazing things about our planet. And so when I started my master's, I was actually made aware of an internship opportunity in Costa Rica with leatherback turtles in the very same project in the very same beach that I'm now living and working at as well. And quite honestly, I think it was more than anything, the turtles that made me stay. Seeing a leatherback turtle nesting, it does something to you. I mean, if you've ever seen it, you know what I'm talking about. If not, I can only highly encourage that you try to see a leatherback nesting, especially because we do not have that many left. So there might be a chance you will not be able to in future anymore. Can you remember your first encounter with a sea turtle? Yes. My very first sea turtle encounter was actually not even in the wild. So there were sea turtles in captivity

in Germany in the Agua Zoo in Düsseldorf. That was actually where I saw my very first sea turtle. And I have to admit, sea turtles were not really too much on my radar back in the days. I was deeply in love with humpback whales. That was the whole reason of why I wanted to become a marine biologist. I wanted to study the songs of humpback whales. That was really one of my goals. My first wild sea turtle, I saw for the first time underwater in Egypt when I was an undergrad still. It was amazing. It was magical, but it wasn't yet somehow changing the idea of what I wanted to do with my degree. And it wasn't until in Costa Rica, I really saw my very first nesting leatherback. That was really the magic moment where I just fell in love with sea turtles and especially leatherback turtles.

Having the knowledge about how ancient they actually are, you know, how long they have been on our planet already. I mean, leatherbacks have been on our planet for more than 90 million years. So they have survived the extinction of the dinosaurs. But right now they are at the brink of extinction. And that is all thanks to us humans. And as a representative of that species, I think I felt incredibly guilty as well. And so I decided that it is also partially in my hands to prevent that from happening. In 2015, you were researching Olivered sea turtles when you noticed a turtle with something encrusted in its nose. We know you've told this story a thousand times, but we'd love for you to share it before any of our listeners who haven't

heard the story yeah in 2015 i was actually in the middle of my phd so for my dissertation i did actually not study leatherbacks but studied olive ridleys which are the smallest of all sea turtle species which do this incredible nesting behavior where literally thousands of females all come onto the beach at the same time to lay their eggs. And there's a lot of questions still surrounding that. So we were on a boat capturing some turtles when we had this one particular male in the boat. And a colleague of mine was on the boat as well that was mainly interested in the critters that live on turtles. And so he decided to collect that critter stuck in its nose or what we thought was a critter stuck in its nose as well. And I decided, hey, this is kind of an unusual position of a critter to live in.

I will just film this. And well, eight minutes later, we had pulled out a plastic straw from a sea turtle's nose, which gave us a lot of pause in that moment already. We, of course, as researchers and researchers of sea turtles, we are very much aware of that plastic is and has been a problem for sea turtles for quite a while already. The first records of sea turtles having eaten plastic date back to the 1960s, 1970s. But of course, eating plastic is one thing and then having a piece of plastic stuck in such an uncomfortable position was definitely something new.

stuck in such an uncomfortable position was definitely something new. But it showed very clearly what just one single plastic item can cause, what kind of torture, what kind of pain, what kind of suffering. And I think we couldn't shake off also this incredible feeling of guilt. Because I think there is very few people on this planet that could say, well, I've never used a plastic straw in my entire life. All of this taken together, it was just, okay, we definitely need to make this video available to the public to just show what we've seen. What we did not expect in any shape or form was that it would go as viral as it did. People nowadays say,

oh, you were so lucky. And I was like, I don't know if I was lucky. I don't think that turtle felt very lucky with this thing stuck in its nose. I am just glad that from this very torturous act of having it stuck and then having it removed, a lot of good has come. I think this is really the bottom line. I think it was eight minutes of suffering, but it definitely changed a lot in the minds of people. There was just a budding awareness of the issue of plastic pollution in our oceans. And I think nowadays every child knows that plastic is bad for the environment and I think a lot of people associate it with especially sea turtles kind of the poster child of ocean

plastic pollution. So this video obviously was a pivotal moment in the anti-plastic movement but I'm guessing for you personally it was pretty pivotal as well. Can you tell us what kind of impact it's had on the direction of your actual work? Has anything changed in those eight years for you personally? Yeah, I've gotten that question also quite a few times. And you know, the funny part is in the very beginning, I didn't see a lot of difference. I was still a PhD student. I was still doing the same things and nothing really had changed for me personally, if that made sense outwardly. But I guess what inwardly changed was that I think at first I was more what I would call an accidental storyteller. I stumbled across that turtle. And I think also for my drive as a

scientist, I wanted to record it, keep it in memory, document what we were seeing. But with this video, all of a sudden, I also really understood the power of storytelling itself, but also the power of social media, which I hadn't been super active on. I really started to being a little bit more purposeful about using it as a tool for my work and getting the message out. The other thing that definitely changed was that from being a scientist that is mainly describing things, I definitely became an activist as well, right? So that meant I didn't feel comfortable anymore with just describing what I'm seeing and not voicing an opinion. Because we're all humans, right? We do feel things.

It was really not enough for me anymore to just publish in some prestigious scientific journals. I mean, there's this called impact factor of journals where, you know, scientists rank the journals of how many citations the articles have. But it's not real world impact. It is an impact within the scientific community. It's almost like a currency. It gives you a stamp as a scientist, how great of a scientist you are. But it's all within this like little bubble. I mean, my video was watched

over 110 million times. So tell me what had more impact in the end. That is really what gave me a lot of pause. And I said, okay, do I want to impress my colleague scientists, or do I want to make a change in this world? Picking up on this point, you're obviously able to do better protection. You've kind of broadened your scope. And that video has gone on to make a huge change as well. There's been a spate of plastic straw bans throughout the world in the last eight years.

And those have translated into wider awareness and plastic bans in other forms. But of course, there's still a lot that needs to get done. Can you tell us what does still need to get done and where you think the biggest impact might come? I think the biggest impact is really the collective impact of that everybody needs to do their part. If we want to change the outcome of climate change, if we want to stop plastic pollution in its tracks pretty much, and that means we have to stop using as much plastic as we do. I'm not going to do that single-handedly. I'm not going to protect the world's sea turtles single-handedly. This is a

community of people. And actually, it is the human race as a whole. And more than anything, the countries in the global north that are also unproportionately using a lot more resources than the rest of the world, we need to do our part. And I think the time is up for us to be just bystanders, right? So it's not like you're saying, okay, I'm doing something, I'm doing nothing. Well, I'm not doing either or and I'm not part of the problem. That's not how you're saying, okay, I'm doing something, I'm doing nothing. Well, I'm not doing either or, and I'm not part of the problem. That's not how it is anymore.

I think you're either doing something and you're helping the matter, or you're actually part of the problem. It's not about being perfect. We have had so many activists, I think, that set really high standards of zero waste and zero emissions and what else. This is not realistic, but there is this African saying, it's like when a lot of small people in small villages do a lot of tiny things, that will change the world.

This idea of small changes from many people on a small scale all adding up to something, it reminds me of maybe something that's been discredited, which is saving the world is kind of our personal responsibility. This is a message that has been told to us from multinational corporations or fossil fuel companies. In fact, I think there's evidence saying that they were the ones who actually funded the marketing campaigns

around things like the carbon footprint. So is there something that people can do beyond just taking care of their personal carbon footprint or reducing plastic use? Is there an action that people can take that goes a step further? Well, when I say that everybody needs to decide of where they're standing and doing their part, I'm not just talking about before your own emission. I'm also talking about you need to watch out who you're voting for. Do you do diligence as a citizen

living in a hopefully democratic country? Please vote for politicians and vote for parties that are, for example, not climate change deniers, that actually do have a solid program in order to get corporations, producers of plastic into the responsibility.

Don't let them get away with that anymore. I think this is also part of this, like do your part. I mean, this is such an easy act to cast your vote. There are so many people that don't even go to vote anymore. When you think about this whole idea of like think global, act local, there are so many things that you can do in your own community. Talk to people about things because, you know, a lot of times I've noticed it's not that people are evil and they don't do things or do things because they do it with bad intentions. A lot of times it's ignorance. I think a lot can be done from peer pressure.

I mean, that happened in Germany. We don't sell plastic bags in grocery stores ever since I'm a kid, pretty much. So that's almost 30, 40 years ago. And I remember that people gave people in line to pay for the groceries the stink eye if they were buying plastic bags. I think we need to get to that point. stink eye if they were buying plastic bags. I think we need to get to that point. And I also think that people should not forget the type of power they have as a consumer. We do live in a capitalistic world. And if we stop buying certain things, the producers will adjust because they do want to sell things. So if we stopped buying sodas in plastic bottles, believe me, they will stop producing that. They will stop or they will change because obviously they want to sell their product.

There's entire football stadiums in the US, for example, universities, state-owned universities that have contracts with one soda company. If they would say, you know what, we're not supporting this anymore because you are not giving us the choices that we want. What do you think? What kind of an impact would that have? An incredible impact. One thing that I really, really loved was being in Germany in May and seeing that a lot of cities, a lot of restaurants do not buy from those big soda companies that I don't want to name the names right now. That they kind of go with small brands that fill in glass bottles instead of plastic. And I think that those things do have an impact. We should not underestimate our power as a consumer.

How do you combine your work today as an activist with your role as a scientist. Do you see them as two separate strands or simply all part of the one project? Yeah, I think this is still a question I ponder. One very limited thing I have is time, right? I only have a limited time on this planet. I only have a limited amount of hours in my day. I definitely have been stretched very thin at once, close to a burnout because it's just, I haven't had actually a vacation in probably more than 10 years. It's always somehow work related if I go somewhere. But I sometimes wonder, I'm being

tucked away in the jungle, dedicating a lot of time to just one project, if that is really the way to go, or if I should actually kind of try to do more of my science communication and that way reach literally an international crowd of people that are able to do something. And I don't have the answer. So I'm doing both right now, which is sometimes a little bit too much, I have to admit. And yeah, I think I have to make a decision at one point of where I'm going to be more heading towards. I mean, the other aspect, of course, I will not lie, is that I'm getting older and being out on the beach every night is becoming increasingly more difficult. So, you know, it's not as easy as when I was 23 years old. And there is a new generation,

of course, that is eager to be out there and do what I've been doing for the past 17 years. So I think maybe my place is really more where there's more impact, right? Where I can reach more people. What do you still love most about your work? Well, what I love most about my work is that I do love the hands-on aspect. I do love that I have the incredible fortune

to live in these incredible places. It's just nature paradises, literally. That I'm able to observe over and over again the miracle of the cycle of life. Having the mother turtles that come onto the beach, having just reached sexual maturity, The mother turtles that come onto the beach, having just reached sexual maturity, you know, literally up to 35 years after they have first crawled into the sea, laying their own eggs, having their own babies hatch and crawl into the sea, being the next generation that hopefully will sustain our populations for the future. That is incredible.

Being surrounded by people that believe in the same things that I do, that work towards the same goal, that motivate me to keep on doing what I'm doing, that pull me out of pretty dark spots, that is giving me hope as well. The people that do form the community that fight with me, the good fight. I'm not by myself. We are many all over the world. Where can people find out more about you, the work that you're doing? And most importantly, where can our listeners help support your work? Yeah, so a good summary of my work can be found on my personal website.

That is seachertlebiologist.com. That's literally all my research work my science communication my conservation work there's also ways of how you can support right there you can directly donate to the non-profit in costa rica and yeah in general social media i'm pretty active on instagram if you want to follow along the work i, if you want to accompany me on some of my morning walks, I usually post some stories about it. It's also Sea Turtle Biologist. So that's usually where you can get a good insight into my work.

My book will be published next year in May in English. So right now it's only out in German. It's called My Life with Sea Turtles by Greystone Books. This has been such an interesting conversation and it's gone into so many different areas. But to bring it all together, we would love to ask you a question that we ask all our guests. And that is, what does the word hope mean to you? Yeah, I think there is the saying in German, it translates to hope dies last. So the idea is really that, you know, if all else fails and if there's not much else left, hope is literally the last thing you need to hold on to. Because if you don't have hope anymore, you have already given up,

right? That's kind of the bottom line. So as long as I'm breathing, I have to have hope. And that is, I think, what it means to me. Just in case you were wondering, Christine came across the same turtle from her video a few years later thanks to a tag they put on his flipper. Her team was out conducting research and found a mating couple. And when she got home, she checked the number in her database and confirmed one of the turtles was her turtle. It just goes to show the power of combining one animal's story with one person's commitment to help change the world. If you want to find out more about Christine's work, you can check out our show notes for links to donate or to check out her book and follow her progress. We are proud to

have supported Christine as one of our charity partners and would like to thank our paying subscribers for making this possible. We donate a third of our subscription fees to under the radar charities that are helping people and the planet. If you're interested in becoming a subscriber, you can find out more at futurecrunch.com. We would like to acknowledge that this podcast is recorded in Australia on the lands of the Gadigal, Wurundjeri and Woiwurrung people. There are a lot of podcasts out there. It means a lot to us that you chose this one.

If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to support Hope as a Verb, please subscribe and leave a review. And if you want to reach out directly, send us an email at hope at futurecrunch.com.au. Thanks for listening.