Robin's Nest from American Humane - Dr. Jon Paul Rodriguez, Rain Forest Conservationist

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

In this episode of Robin's Nest, Robin talks with Dr. Jon Paul Rodriguez who Chairs the IUCN Species Survival Commission, is a Professor at the Center for Ecology of the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Investigations, and is a founder, past Board Member, and President of Provita. An expert in conservation and rainforest ecology, Dr. Rodriguez talks with Robin about the important work being done to conserve some of the most amazing places on earth.

Welcome to Robin's Nest. So many of us have a deep connection with the animals around us and want to protect them from the pets in our homes to endangered species in the wild. That's why I joined American Humane. As one of the oldest and most effective animal protection groups, we help billions of animals around the world. Join us as we explore how we can build a more humane world together. Hello and welcome to Robin's Nest. I'm Dr. Robin Ganzert and this is the official podcast of American Humane and Global Humane, the nation's first and most experienced humane organization focused on the humane treatment of animals all over the world. From certifying zoos to being the first boots on the ground in crises and

rescues helping to ensure that animals are safe in the filming of movies on sets globally and that 1 billion animals and farms are treated humanely and our military veteran and military dog programs. There's so much to talk about with American Humane's power to touch lives and keep animals safe. But today we're talking to Dr. John Paul Rodriguez on the importance of conservation. We want to hear what you think after you've listened. Please make sure to review the podcast on your podcast platform. I am so excited to introduce you to our guest today, Dr. John Paul Rodriguez. He currently chairs the IUCN Species Survival Commission, is professor at the Center for Ecology at the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Investigations,

and continues to be active in ProVita as the organization's president. Welcome to Robin's Nest. Pleasure to be here with you. John Paul, you are a legend in the space of conservation and I'm so proud to know you and I really got to know you through our mutual friend Wolfgang Kiesling. In fact, you were recently recognized last year as the inaugural recipient for the Wolfgang Kiesling Prize, International Prize for Species Conservation. What did that prize mean to you? Well, you know, all the work that we do is teamwork, is work of many people working together.

And a lot of the motivation and the support for our group comes from being known, so getting our initiative out there so that people can recognize our achievements and our successes, but also having the resources to do so. And this prize allowed us to do both things. On the one hand, the visibility of the project was much larger, we got lots of communication, lots of coverage, the Venezuelan organizations and government and others like it when you get recognized internationally because it means that the work that you do is visible and relevant globally. And then the resources, of course, go straight into the projects and help us support our team.

You know, you talk about there's no I in team. And you certainly talk about that this award with your many other awards and accolades are due to the fact that these people your colleagues are doing this great work and you just happen to be their voice really John Paul you're the voice for so many animals and so many species that are on the brink of survival the brink of extinction really i think it's like a war on the wild what do you think about that concept yeah well i think that that one something that i have learned from working with all these people is that conservation works we know how to do conservation i mean there are lots of examples hundreds of examples of species that have been on the brink of extinction and have been brought back through carefully planned, considered, designed, evidence-based conservation

interventions. So, you know, if you estimate how much money we spend on saving species and compare it to how much money is spent on destroying nature, we actually do a pretty good job because there's many orders of magnitude less. And so my crusade is to mobilize even more people so that a greater quantity and quality of efforts get out there so that we continue to reverse this trend and improve the status of more and more species. I love the word. You use powerful words, which I think inspire people. The word crusade.

You're really on a crusade. We talk about a war on the wild. Those are powerful words that we're using when we talk about the extinction crisis. You are serving as chair of the Species Survival Commission. Can you tell us what is the Species Survival Commission? What's the mission there and what are you doing as chair? Sure. So the Species Survival Commission is a network of experts. We have about 10,000 scientists around the world, volunteer, I must say, people who volunteer their time to the SSC in virtually every country in the world. And their job is to produce information that is useful for conserving species. So it's information that is useful for conserving species.

So it's information that goes into the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species on the one hand so that they are the brain trust behind the Red List. Information that is taken by the big conventions like the Convention of Biological Diversity, CITES, Convention of Migratory Species. They all use the knowledge generated by their network to guide their decisions. And you know when I ask a chair of the SSC, we have you know subgroups and each of them has a chair, when I ask them you know why do you join the SSC? Why are you here? Why do you spend so much time? And they say well you know we know how to do a red list assessment, we know how to do reassessments, we know the

value of that, we'll continue doing it. But we want to be remembered for being the ones that saved'll continue doing it but we want to be remembered for being the ones that save the species we don't want to be remembered for being the ones that document their demise and i think that's a really key for me it was a loud message that i heard at the beginning of my of my term and thought you know that's what we have to do we have to refocus our energy so it's not only on the on the science but it's also in the action energy so it's not only on the on the science but it's also in the action that's powerful you just said that basically this incredible group these volunteers these 10,000 people around the world people don't even realize that I think when we're in our backyards thinking about saving the butterflies in our backyards and doing our home hometown home home backyard projects

that there are 10, 000 scientists that are working to save species through the species survival commission and that it's flipping it from documenting their demise to actually doing something to save them powerful very important what you just said about about your backyard yes i love my backyard tell me about what you just said about your backyard. Yes, I love my backyard. Tell me about what you're doing in yours. Well, but I think the really key, one thing that we have to remember as conservationists is that, you know, you always hear this discussion, what proportion of earth should we set aside for wild species, you know, 30%, 50%?

Depends on who you ask. There are different schemes out there. The CBD, the Convention of Allergic Diversity, has committed to 30 by 30, so 30% of all terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems protected by 2030. But I always think we should be thinking of 100%. And 100% means to me, in your backyard, it might not be the wild, it might not be a remote area in a tropical forest, but it's certainly valuable to biodiversity, not only because you're providing habitat for wild species,

but also because you're becoming closer to those wild species by having them in your backyard. And both are important contributions, one for the greater good and one for the personal good, making you a more informed and more educated, more sensitive person. So I think, you know, cities, hedges and agricultural areas, all of these are habitats are wild places that we have to make sure that are there for all species so i think about that too i'm so glad we're talking

about our own because a lot of people say i can't be a conservationist i don't have the ability to go spend my months in africa i don't have the funds to be able to travel to Bolivia. I can't do it. I can't buy hectares and rewild a farm for the Lear's Macaw. So how can I do it? And you're right. It's everyone on earth can be a conservationist by simple and easy things. And I think that's a powerful message that you just shared. You empowered eight billion people on earth by just what you just said. I hope so, that sounds great.

It does, doesn't it? Well, gosh, even if it got four billion people, that'd be more than we have today just doing something. I know my own backyard, we have dolphins. We have a beautiful estuary in Florida that is just, we get to get up every morning and see dolphins swimming, and I want them still to be there for grandchildren and great-grandchildren so i feel a personal obligation to do more in my own backyard

it's wonderful but if my children living in dc their balcony can have beautiful bushes that can actually invite birds and pollinators and all as well. Yeah, pollinators is a great thing. In the city where I live in Caracas, in Venezuela, it's very common to see blue and yellow macaws flying in the sky. And they have habituated to people feeding them. So my balcony, when they pass by, you know, you raise a fruit and they come and land in the building and then you have twelve macaws, a meter long each just there eating out of your hand. And then they go away.

When they're finished, they just go and continue on to the rest. So those things are available, those opportunities out there. And people, citizens value them. People like them and enjoy that interaction with nature. I always talk about it. It's people, animals, and the world we all share. That interrelated web of life is so important. And you're really on the cutting edge.

I do love how you've turned it again. The SSC is really devoted to building them back from the brink. I want to talk a little bit with you because you're a voice for this war against extinction. Tell me, what is the sixth mass extinction? Explain to those visiting us today in robin's nest right don't you love our podcast as robin's nest you're in the nest not quite with those big macaws i'm not sure if they would fit into our studio today they'll make a lot of noise they would but tell me a little bit about what is the sixth mass extinction and why is it an urgent

call for change yeah well so the vast majority of species that live on earth but let me put it another way a very small proportion of the all the species that have lived on earth live on earth now so about one percent of all species that have existed on the planet in millions of years are now that means that the majority of species have gone extinct and they've gone extinct. And they've gone extinct over millions of years through natural processes. We call those background extinction rates. And those background extinction rates are not constant.

There have been periods where more have happened and then periods where fewer have happened. And prior to the present, there were five of these mass extinction events recorded in the geological record and other natural ways to document the past. And those all had causes. One very famous one, a big meteorite that fell in the Yucatan Peninsula and drove extinct many species. The current extinction crisis, so when you look at the background extinction rates, you come up with a number. You know, on average so many species go extinct per century. If you look at the current extinction rates, they're anywhere between 10 and 10,000 times

larger than these background extinction rates. So using that evidence, we say we're going through a sixth mass extinction event, which is comparable in size to this geological past, but we know that the cause is human activity. So in the past were natural processes like meteorites and other natural phenomena, but this time we know it's our activities mainly since the industrial revolution, mid-1700s, 1800s, and in those very few years we've reached a much faster rate of change of biodiversity than ever recorded in history, because those mass extinction events in the past happened over millions of years, or at least hundreds of thousands of years. So it's a very different time scale, and the impact is much

bigger. So we think about that, those were time periods like this, and now we're in a time period like this, 200 years. And the peak is equally large. And I'm sure a lot over the past 100 years. At the same time, I think about the population growth in 50 years, where we're now 8 billion people on the planet. That has to tax natural resources, limit natural habitats, provide for human and animal conflict. All of these things are causing the death of species. The population question is an interesting one because not just

the number of people is also the impact they have so when you look at the impact you have to look at the number of people at their affluence or their capacity to influence the environment and combine those two things together so you might have parts of the world that are very populated but also the impact. I mean for example take the case of India which is a country as populated as a country can be and yet you know there are tigers and lions, tigers and elephants and rhinos that require vast amounts of land coexisting with people, the cost of that conflict is shared between humans and animals.

It's not that when one human is in trouble, all the animals get killed. Like in other parts of the world, the balance is much more. So it's interesting to see that it's not just number of people, it's other things as well that we have to consider. So I'm less concerned with the population growth itself than with how people use that growing affluence and consuming power for nature or against.

I think that's what the key really is. So when we think about this time, we think about the challenges of the sixth mass extinction, you sit in a very prominent role globally as the chair of the SSC. I'm sure you have an opportunity to speak to lots of policymakers around the world, the government officials who are subject to public pressure, scrutiny, challenges of where their funding sources come from. Good old-fashioned politics. So what do you say when you meet a politician? We're here in D.C. today, so you might see one tonight.

What would you say to a policymaker about the challenges of biodiversity and the sixth mass extinction? What would you say as the voice of the animals? Well, I say two things. One of them is what I already mentioned a few minutes ago, is that it doesn't take much to reverse the decline of a species. I mean, like I mentioned, the resources spent destroying nature, many others amount to higher than the resources spent on saving nature. So just increasing that amount we spend on saving nature and how much we invest can make a huge difference.

That's one thing. And the other thing I say is that nature bounces back. You know, nature has the capacity. If we give it a chance, and there are many examples of, you know, Chernobyl and people walk out and then nature comes in. And there are tons of examples like that all over the world. There's a lot, a big movement of restoring biodiversity in islands that were overrun by invasive species like rats and others. And once you are able to control those invasives, nature comes back. So

I think that for me, that is key. You know, we need to shift effort a little bit towards giving nature a chance and then she will come back. You know, we have a beautiful animal sanctuary in Florida and we've removed the invasive species and already we see nature bounding back. It's beautiful. In just a matter of weeks, we've seen new sprouts. It's just exquisite. And it's all invisible to some extent because it happens at night. It happens with little creatures moving around that you don't detect.

And it's really remarkable. Okay. Do you have a favorite conservation project that touched your heart? Well, I've been involved for many years with a yellow-shouldered parrot conservation in Venezuela. Like I said before, my work is less about focusing on a particular theme but rather supporting other things that go on around me. But that's a project that I have been involved in from the beginning. And one thing that, you know, we have tripled the population of parrots in 20 years. But today, this year, I got a chance to go visit during the breeding season a few months ago. And I just realized, I hadn't realized that before,

we were standing there in the middle of maybe 20 or 30 nests distributed over a little valley. And there were so many parrots everywhere. And they were very relaxed. They were getting very close to us. They were just like there. And they realized that we've been working in that same location for 30 years, 25 years. And they just got used to us. And they're not that friendly like they will jump on you,

but you're surrounded, surrounded by hundreds of parrots just flying around, stopping here, stopping here. We had for the first time a nest with seven fledglings, seven eggs that became seven fledglings and seven birds fledged. We never had so many birds. So to see how they were relaxed in our present, they didn't see us as adversaries, as enemies, as poachers, but they saw us as their allies. That's how I interpreted it, at least in my anthropocentric view. But anyway, it felt like

that. It felt like they were looking at us as friends. And that really was absolutely fantastic. It had never really clicked in that way in my head. But then it did. It did. And you saw 25, 30 years of work right in front of you. Right in front of me, making a difference and realizing that we both learn. We learn how to prevent poaching, we learn how to improve their breeding, and then they learn to coexist with us too.

I always say conservation is not for the faint of heart, and you have to have the long-term game in mind too. Absolutely. Plan B, Plan C, Plan D, always ready to go. That's beautiful. So, you know, we've worked together on a film before. We worked on the first Escape from Extinction, which was really talking about the importance of zoos and aquariums funding great conservation projects in the wild and helping to uh to be an impact for good and now you are featured in our second documentary film called escape from extinction 2 and there we take deep dive into rewilding projects around the globe tell us what does rewilding mean to you? Yeah, what rewilding means to me is to let nature be nature. So it's remove the pressures that we

put. There are many ways to do rewilding. Some of them are very hands-on and you bring all the missing bits, the missing species, the predators and put them in. Another approach is to just remove the pressures and let nature recover. Both of them work in different ways. Some are better in some ecosystems than others, but ultimately what you're really facilitating is the natural processes to act in their own dimension, their own capacity. And that's really fascinating to me. And we've seen how the introduction, the famous cases here in the US with wolves in Yellowstone and other examples, once you bring in a missing link, the whole system shifts to a new state. And that to me is just

marvelous to be able to see and to experience, to contribute to, and to bring back some of these spaces that were completely transformed into a state that is more welcoming to all the components and all the species that coexist there. Yes. Beautifully said, as always. And I think about rewilding, I think it's not just about the keystone species. It's all those others that come back in. Yeah.

We've done a little bit of restoring of this dry forest in Margarita Island where the parrots live. And, you know, we plant trees, we plant native trees, but that's not the best part. The best part is, you know, four or five years later when you start looking at the bases of the trees, all the trees that we didn't plant that are growing there that came by themselves, came with the wind, came dispersed seeds from a bird or some cacti that we have no idea how they arrived but they arrive as well. So just to see that we provide the matrix for all of these species to return is, it's

really spectacular. Clearly you devote your life to wild animals and wild creatures and saving entire species from extinction but I have to ask you do you have any personal pets in your life yes I have two dogs both dogs are rescued I mean from the street if you want the first one she's 14 now she's a kind of a golden retriever mix but she's really has more of a foxy face long snout and pointy ears very hairy very furry and then we have a second dog which is a golden retriever that was from the street last year we just got him he was about four years old probably probably abandoned in Venezuela because of the

economic crisis a few years ago people either left the country and abandoned the pets or couldn't afford to keep them and just took them to the street. And we think that he probably was one of those abandoned dogs, but the really amazing thing, both of them are very, I mean, you would have asked me, you know, 10 years ago, you're going to have two dogs that sleep in your bed,

that, you know, they shed hair all over the house and they scratch your wooden floor. And I would have said, never, never, you know they shed hair all over the house and they scratch your wooden floor and I said never never you know they come and they come on the bed and they go they have their own beds their beds all over the house for them so they they're perfectly happy you are a dog dad now so welcome welcome to our our world at robin's nest with dog and cat dads and moms here that's for sure that's wonderful well kind of as we wrap up today you are uh inspiring the next generation of conservationists with your work i know you mentioned you have a couple more years left as chair of the Species Survival Commission. You're looking to really put that on great footing for the next generation of leadership. What would you say to someone tuning in today being

part of Robin's Nest about serving in the space of conservation? Well, I would say that we all can make a difference. It's overwhelming to see the world and see some of the big challenges and the big drivers of extinction are possibly beyond the reach of an individual's capacity to act. But it is the combined effort of all of us that really makes a difference. I really believe in constantly sharing your message. I think that the power of politics, of voting, of being active in that space are very important. Of making the politicians and the leaders of the world understand your concerns and your interests.

Very important to demonstrate success. very important to demonstrate success, you know, find... Nobody likes to support, and I mean this in the best possible terms, but nobody supports losers, you want to support winners. And so for us to be conservationists and presenting a message that we're losing is just, is a killer. It's not a way to motivate people. We have to highlight many examples where we're winning and to keep doing that. So for me, you know, do not give up, realize that as individuals we have power and we can make a difference. I love that, so everyone can make a difference. Everyone can make a difference. That's wonderful. We can start in our own

backyard. In our own backyard with pollinators. With pollinators, I love it. Thank you so much John Paul Rodriguez for being in Robin's Nest today. Thank you, Robin. Always a pleasure.