Robin's Nest from American Humane - A Life for the Wild: Alejandro Grajal’s Journey in Conservation

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

In the season finale of Robin’s Nest, Dr. Robin Ganzert sits down with Alejandro Grajal, a global conservation leader and Kiessling Prize finalist with over 35 years of experience. Alejandro shares his journey in biodiversity conservation, from creating millions of hectares of protected land to transforming zoos and aquariums into modern conservation powerhouses. This inspiring conversation highlights his proudest achievements, the evolving role of zoos, and why his work matters now more than ever—a powerful close to the season.

Welcome to Robin's Nest. Many of us feel a deep bond with animals, from the pets we cherish at home to the endangered species in nature. Join us for lively, informative conversations where together we will build a more humane world. I'm so excited to have Dr. Alejandro Grahal in the studio. Dr. Grahal is a distinguished leader in conservation science

and zoo management. As the president and CEO of Woodland Park Zoo, Dr. Grahal has been at the forefront of integrating wildlife conservation with education and community engagement. We'll explore his groundbreaking work in transforming zoos into agents of global conservation and the vital role they play in saving endangered species.

I'm so glad to have in Robin's Nest today Dr. Alejandro Grajal. He's one of my heroes in the space of conservation. There's very few people who walk this earth who can say that they were involved in protecting, get this, 10 million acres. Did I get that right? Yes. Ten million acres protected under his vision and his leadership and engagement. I mean, talk about a legacy.

And we haven't even talked about tree kangaroos and other precious creatures on the face of the earth. Alejandro, it's so great to have you here. And you're here celebrating because you're a Kiesling Prize finalist in this year's awards and certainly one of the huge leaders and change agents in the space of conservation. I'm so proud to know you.

So glad to be here, Robin. And it's always been a great partnership, a great friendship. So glad to be part of this selected group. Oh, well my goodness gracious. Well, you certainly are so deserving. And what I so enjoy is being in Robin's Nest today will allow you to have an opportunity to inspire the next generation and inspire people today who want to have a life with meaning and impact. And so when I look at someone who has meaning and impact, the

definition is you. If I had to look it up in the dictionary. Can you go back with me a little bit and tell me how did you go about protecting such a large swath of land and being instrumental in those efforts? I know it's always collaboration, but please tell me about your involvement with that. Well, you know, it's a little unfair to take credit for all of that, of course. It's always a huge team effort. There's always the perfect kind of political timing to make these things happen. I'm now old enough to be kind of what I think was right in the wave of the creation of the second wave of protected areas that happened during the late 80s to the early 2000s with the creation of

the World Parks Congress, the creation of the Society for Conservation Biology, the creation of the Global Biodiversity Convention, and those were instrumental in the mid-90s to the 2000s to the creation of a number of these reserves. And luckily for me, a kid from Venezuela ended up associated with the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York and then later with the National Audubon Society, that we were riding that wave. And there was the political opportunity to create really, really large reserves. I mean, so the volume and the acreage of those reserves really made a huge difference. And in a sense I'm thinking that you know I didn't do it all. I was probably part of teams that

were pushing and shoving and cajoling people to make these things happen and that's that's how things happen as teams. Yes absolutely as teams, particularly in the space of conservation. I love what you just said. We were at a wave of political will. Yes. So we talk politics all the time now in our country, a lot of political conversations.

Do you see any hope for political will to do this again for protected lands? We hope. There's the 30 by 30 push right now, which always is nice to have a good coined phrase that encapsulates the idea. Yes. It's difficult. It's getting more and more difficult. There's more people in the world.

There's more need for agricultural land. there's more need for agricultural land, there's more need for urban development, but it's still doable. Yes. It really, when I talk about political will, is political courage. Yes. To make that happen.

None of these parts, you know, for three and a half million hectares in Bolivia to half a million acres in Papua New Guinea, these are not rich countries. These are countries that are going through political turmoil at that time. There's never a good time. It's like having kids or getting married.

If you think it too much, there's never a good time. You really have to go for it. Very, very true. That is the political courage that we really need to conserve biodiversity. I love that you said it's political courage. You mentioned 30 by 30, that plan. I bet our listeners in Robin's Nest

may not be aware of what the 30 by 30 initiative is. Can you explain? So the idea is that now we have a system of protected areas, both marine and terrestrial and coastal around the world. But the push is that we need 30% of the land of the planet protected by 2030. And that is, of course, is a global figure. Each country has to look for their own individual goals and metrics.

It's a lofty goal. Some of these countries don't have more than 10% or 12% protected, so jumping to 30% will be a major jump. Even for the U.S. with all the money and all the resources jump. Even for the U.S. with all the money and all the resources that the richest nation in the world has, it's a very ambitious goal. But we never achieved non-ambitious goals. I mean, really, that's a way to move forward. And that's the idea of 2030 moving 30% of the planet into protected areas. Particularly with the threat of changing landscapes and climate, we really need the flexibility to make sure that animals, plants, and systems

can move across continents and across oceans. Otherwise, postage stamp protected areas are not going to be the future. That's right. That's right. You know, your work has been stunning. I love the fact that you said you were at the right time. Moral courage, political will, these are lessons that apply today, especially for young conservationists to look to understand. I think the next wave is also involving technology and biosciences. Wouldn't you agree? Yes. There's so much possibility. I'm always on the look for new things. Artificial intelligence, of course, is going to be the biggest one. Tracking

biodiversity, tracking progress in protected habitats, tracking human behavior, tracking political will, actually unearthing data from rivers of data that are flowing right now is going to be one of the most interesting parts. It's also one of the biggest threats biggest threats to conservation. Fake news and political polarization are sped up by artificial intelligence. But what we're looking at from the biological point of view, from the conservation point of view, is fascinating. The idea of having now artificial intelligence to tools, machine learning that allows us to monitor wildlife and protected areas and monitor human behavior, track genetic markers across

continents, track fisheries and origins of fishes and migration routes for whales or birds is something that, you know, when I was studying biology, that was a matter of science fiction. And the fact that they're putting radios now on robins and tracking them across migration continents, and the fact that they can track movements of whales with sound microphones underwater and all that is put together by computer screen sifted, and the data comes out as real information is fascinating. I think it's we're in the edge of a new era. Edge of a new era. So it's a great opportunity.

It's also great chaos as we figure out all of that as well. It's a disruptive time for the space of conservation. And isn't it a disruptive time as well? Because if we're really talking about saving species from extinction, aren't we at that tipping point? We're almost running out of time. Well, to be in this profession, to be a conservationist, you have to always look at the half glass full. To be a conservationist, you have to always look at the half-glass full. Thank you. Because one of the biggest threats that we're facing right now is what I call eco-pessimism or eco-hysteria.

These ideas that we're too late, that there's nothing we can do, that we're doomed. And if something has being intrinsic to human nature, is that we never give up as humans. We've never given up even from the Stone Age to today. You know, you look at the human origins. The first thing they did is that they set foot and wanted to wander the world. Yes. And there's no room in conservation for pessimism. There's no room for despair. Yes, we've had some failures and there's still some are coming. There's of course the giant shift of systems of carbon systems, nitrogen systems, sea water, temperature systems that are happening to the planet. But the worst thing we can do is just sit down and cry about it. Yes.

It paralyzes us. Yes. And there's no action. No. No action at all. We need in this profession to alert to the threats, but at the same time, all my social research has shown that there's an intrinsic human characteristic about looking for hope on possibilities. We see that every day, and this is our role.

We're not just animal trackers. We're mostly human behavior trackers. Well, now, isn't that a great distinction? Not animal trackers, but mostly human behavior trackers. Gosh, it's a great quote. Thank you for that. It really does give some reflection. We will think of that eco-pessimism, or whatever you say it, we will think about that in different ways now and think about the moral courage

It took to get us here to begin with and the stories of hope are tremendous You have stories of hope with tree kangaroos Yes So can you share with us a little bit about your work with you've done so many incredible field studies and things like this I want to get into that now because I love it, but tree kangaroos. I think everyone's going ah Yes, well, I have to say I'm lucky. I mean in this case it's been mostly the work of one of my colleagues and one of my co-workers, Lisa Daybeck, that has dedicated 25 years of conservation in Papua New Guinea. And I was lucky enough to visit this part of the

world. I have to say I travel pretty much around the world. I've never been to a place like the highlands of Papua New Guinea. It's literally another place. Almost half of the plants and 3 quarters of the animals are endemic, can only be found in that peninsula, the Huon Peninsula, where we were working. And this is a country that has probably one of the least developed road systems in the world. It probably has the most pristine primary forests in the world.

Oh my. And also endemic. And Woodland Park Zoo that I work with has been working with tree kangaroos for over 25 years. This is a spectacular animal. It looks like a plush toy if you look at it. And it's amazing that tree kangaroos happen. What happened, Papua New Guinea got separated from Asia before the time of mammals. So there were only marsupials left in Australia and Papua New Guinea.

So, but there's a niche for tree creatures that eat leaves and fruit. In most of the world in the tropics those are monkeys. In Papua New Guinea and Australia those are tree kangaroos which are literally marsupial monkeys out there. Wow. And they're an incredible sight, a country that talks speaks close to 400 languages, a country that 400 languages. Yes, it's one of the most ethnically, culturally, and biodiversity rich countries in the world. And the fact that it just gained independence in 1975 means that you kind of take a leap

in time and in geography and culture to go to these places. It was one of those amazing adventures, you know, trains, planes, and automobiles, and boats, and hiking, and all that, until we got almost to 3,000 meters in the tree. But to look at tree kangaroos in their own cloud rainforest was an experience I would never forget. Oh my goodness. That just gives me goosebumps when I think about those visuals. Wow. Wow. And you've done a lot of work to help protect them. Yeah. In a sense, the idea here is that this

has been a project that has been featured by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Most of Papua New Guinea is not owned by either private hands or the state. I think 80% or 85 percent of the country is in tribal lands. So the traditional model of creating protected areas where you have the government gazette an area or a private consortium declare an area doesn't work there. Papua New Guinea has been called the

graveyard of conservation organizations because it's so hard. So hard. So thanks to the work of Dr. Lisa Daybeck, she's been managing how to create a conservation area from the ground up, from the needs of the community. And these are communities that live in incredibly isolated places. It takes four or five days helicopter rides to get to these places.

And for almost 10 years, they worked in the needs of the people and how to meet the needs of the people while achieving conservation. And the fact that it was a community-driven protected area was not only kind of a pioneering idea for a country that didn't have protected areas, but now it's serving as a model for other protected areas in the country where communities can actually organize, create, and gazette their own areas, and they are empowered by their own communities, by their own assemblages. So it's a model, it's happening in many other countries of the world, and I think in contrast to what we did

perhaps in the 20th century with Teddy Roosevelt creating Yellowstone and things like that, this is what I think the model model of the future where communities will aggregate their needs and their ideas and their passion and make conservation happen. That's why I always say that conservation is local. Yes. All conservation is local and you're just highlighting that and it's really empowering the communities to make the change happen to save their own communities from this biodiversity crisis that we're facing.

Yes, and in this case, the role of a conservationist from outside is mostly as a catalyzer, as a helper. In this case, you have 14 tribes, many of them speak in different languages. Some of them were not that friendly with each other. Yes. But our role was to find a common ground, a common model, and be patient. Understand that they have to work out through all the process. But in the end, it's a sustainable plan because the communities have decided it and now it's theirs. Yes. And they have to protect it and they have to make it work. Yes.

And now our role is to catalyze to provide economic opportunities. So for example, we're buying the coffee out of the highlands and selling it in Seattle and shipping all the money back to cooperatives that we helped create it. So they invest in education and invest in health because all communities, whether it's here in Washington or in Papua New Guinea, they want education. They want a livelihood. They want a better life for their children. And of course they want to preserve their land. Yes, absolutely. For future generations. That's brilliant. It was fascinating because they couldn't understand that those tree kangaroos that were there, that's so extraordinary, didn't live everywhere in the world. They thought that we all had tree kangaroos.

I wish we did. Yes. I really wish we did. We could all use a tree kangaroo, especially some of our days are longer days for sure. You know, I love that story. I love the fact that you're talking, giving the highlights of the communities having action. Let's talk about your own hometown community with the Woodland Park Zoo and such incredible work that you do based out of there. Tell us what's going on at the Woodland Park Zoo.

Well, there's many zoos, modern zoos, and we're based in Seattle. So it's a fantastic place. It's one of the most beautiful zoos in the world, I would say, if I'm allowed to. Of course you are. You should. Yes, it's a beautiful part of the world. Most people, surprisingly, in Seattle don't realize that they live in one of the largest rainforests in the world, which is the Cascadia rainforest that goes from Northern California to Southern Alaska. It's a fantastic setup, right by the sea, by the Pacific Ocean with a blessed climate. Woodland Park Zoo, we are advancing very strongly right now, which has been kind of my career

passion, understanding the roots of human behavior and particularly of human behavior change for conservation. We're bringing now the learnings from conservation psychology, from economics and behavioral economics. There's been a lot of theoretical development in the last decade or decade and a half, and very few people are actually putting that to practice. What we're doing is we have a zoo that has almost 1.4 million people coming through the gates with a following that is probably two, three times bigger on social media.

And how can we amplify? The idea of conservation is not a spectator sport, it's a participant sport. The idea that everybody can make conservation a choice in their everyday life is what we're really experimenting with it. And now the understanding that that happens through social and emotional connections. That people use empathy and passion and care to make decisions and

that those decisions are sustainable when they're supported by a social friendly enterprise. Whether it's social media or the actual friends or family. And the idea of practicing those roots, those theoretical basements, and turning them into reality and practice at a zoo, at a modern zoo, I think is a fantastic choice. But it's also a most exciting career, because this is what the Rio calling, not only what we're doing in the field in Papua New Guinea, but the idea that we are empowering 1.4 million people to make small decisions every day in their lives and monitoring that change and looking how it happens. That is a fascinating, passionate career track.

And I have a fantastic team that helps me do that. You know, you get to the point where you are the CEO, where all you do is kind of inspire or move a little bit, and then I have a fantastic team that makes all that happen. Well, led by a fantastic leader, I do love the fact that you're taking these catalysts for changes, you're measuring them,

and that will allow, I think, more modern animal embassies, modern zoos, to adopt some of the ways that you're doing. But you mentioned something that was fascinating. You have 1.4 million visitors, more than double that through social channels. We don't know where those social channels are all from, so your impact is an X factor. Yes. An X factor for people to make those small changes or maybe monumental changes that support a sustainable planet and one that can actually promote biodiversity. Yes and imagine that. I

mean zoos around the world probably have a visitation, modern zoos have a visitation somewhere we need to measure that, but somewhere between 700 million or a billion every year. See, that right there is unbelievable. And they're passing through zoos, and they're using their emotions. They're having fun,

they're enjoying the time, and at the same time they're understanding what's happening to the world and what they can do. And for us to measure is important because for many times, for quite a while time, there's been a wish that this was happening. And what we're doing is actually we're measuring to know that this is actually happening. And one of my biggest kind of instigations in the zoo world, both in the accredited zoos and aquariums in North America and around the world, is to convince zoo directors that they're impactful, that they really have to work for conservation. Yes. And what they're doing is effective.

Yes. Sometimes there's kind of a combination of pessimism or at least incredulity that this is not happening. Yes. Well, it is happening. I can tell you. We got the data to show it. I think that's wonderful.

I love that. I love that progress. And it's so inspirational. And you always are said or always have told, get what you measure. So if you're looking and you're measuring it and you're looking for that connection that change, that change for sustainability and in communities that are feeling that emotional connection it's wonderful because again all conservation is local. Yes and beautiful. Yeah.

Well, you are certainly so progressive and so visionary in this space. That's why you're a finalist for the Kiesling Prize, your incredible work. Tell me, what's next on your agenda? What's in the future for you? Well, there's really so much to do. Right now, for example, the multiplying or scaling up of these achievements is one of

the biggest challenges. Measuring is not easy. Actually measuring social behavior and behavior change is probably one of the hardest parts. And developing the tools, the data sets, and the teams of people that nurture each other is important. We have a wildlife network for empathy for animals. We understand that empathy and the idea of feeling for other animals and other creatures and other humans. It's funny, because now in the political challenging environment that we live, empathy is mentioned many times. But it's something that we as humans do all the time.

So for me, the big, big next challenge is make sure that zoos, particularly relevant, modern, innovative zoos, drive that behavior change, because this is the big kind of sleeping giant of conservation. Yes. It's not so much, I mean, there's going to be political opportunity to create protected areas here and there, the 20, the 30 by 30 idea, but really I can tell you, if zoos wake up and really drive these conservation change, it's going to be a tsunami of conservation that's going to happen. And I don't lose my optimism,

and that's why I don't know what's coming in the near future, but I think that this is a goal for anybody that is in this field. I think it's a clarion call for action. You've just sat on the table here today in Robin's Nest. I love it. And you're right. I can't wait, by the way, for the future to be that tsunami of conservation efforts that are so successful, where we're looking at changing the planet

from the biodiversity crisis to a celebration of our richness in biodiversity and the world that we all dream of. They will always be upset, you know, upset. There's several species that are on the brink. There's always bad political times, good political times. First of all, we cannot give give up and I think the future is our tool, is our possibility. Yes, future is our possibility and we can't give up. What incredible words to kind of close out this segment of Robin's Nest.

Visionary, one of my heroes in the space of conservation. You can see why by listening and joining us in Robins Nest today. Alejandro, thank you so very much. A pleasure to have you here with us today and most importantly know that we're right here to be your partners and help to continue to keep the good fight on. So thank you so much. Thank you so much, Robin. Thank you for tuning into Robins Nest. We want to hear what you think. Please make sure to review the podcast on your podcast platform. Watch for upcoming episodes that will include new and exciting discussions. If you love animals, you'll

love this season of Robin's Nest. Music