The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens - Gerardo Ceballos: "Will the Ongoing Population Extinctions Lead to a 6th Mass Extinction?"

Episode Date: June 29, 2022

On this episode, we meet with ecologist and conservationist Dr. Gerardo Ceballos. Ceballos discusses animal populations, the sixth mass extinction, his new project, Creatures United, and how we can better care about and protect Earth's remaining biodiversity. About Gerardo Ceballos: Dr. Gerardo Ceballos is an ecologist and conservationist very well-known for his theoretical and empirical work on animal ecology and conservation. He is particularly recognized by his influential work on global patterns of distribution of diversity, endemism, and extinction risk in vertebrates. Ceballos was the first scientist to publish the distribution of a complete group of organisms (mammals). He is also well – known for his contribution to understanding the magnitude and impacts of the sixth mass extinction; he has shown that vertebrate species that became extinct in the last century would have taken more than 10 thousand years under the "normal" extinction rate. For Show Notes and Transcript visit: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/25-gerardo-ceballos

You're listening to The Great Simplification with Nate Higgins. That's me. On this show, we try to explore and simplify what's happening with energy, the economy, the environment, and our society. Together with scientists, experts, and leaders, this show is about understanding the bird's-eye view of how everything fits together, where we go from here and what we can do about it as a society and as individuals. Herardo Sabios is a well-known ecologist and conservationist working on animal population ecology. He is world-renowned for his influential work on global patterns of distribution of diversity and extinction risk invertebrates. Herardo and I have a wide-ranging discussion about animal populations, the sixth mass extinction,

his new project called Creatures United, and how we can better care about. and protect Earth's remaining biodiversity. This conversation got kind of intense at times. Well, because the subject matter is so important, what's happening is so tragic and is so little regarded in our national discourse. I hope you listen and learn from my conversation with Professor Herardo Sabios, and perhaps it will change how you think about the natural world in some small way. Okay, my friend, we have a lot to talk about.

You have written numerous books and are a very heavily cited ecologist. Your books range from mammals of Mexico to the annihilation of nature. And we're going to talk a lot about this. But first I would ask you, how did you first get interested personally in studying animals and animal populations? Well, as far as I know, my parents say that since I was very, very little, I used to say that I was going to study animals. I didn't know that it was a biology. But then when I was like 12, 13 years old, I got a book. They were like tiny books.

And I got one. It's called The Last Schema. And it was the story of the Schema Curlew, who was the most abundant species on the planet. And it was a novel written in 1954 and basically talks about the last two Curleys, who will refrain from Patagonia in Argentina to the Arctic. And one was killed, the female, and the male continued, the flight, it was one of the longest migrations in the planet. And he spent the whole summer singing for females and nobody shows up. And I got full of anxiety thinking that I could go to the streets in my city and another city, another city without finding another human being.

And at that point, I decided that what I wanted to do is to save species from extinction. And then at high school, one of my teachers taught me that it was ecology and so on. But basically, that was the origin of my interest and extinction and animals and so on. So you started with your heart and then your head followed. That's exactly right. And I think I'm still a lot of what I do is from my heart. And then I just frame it in terms of the science to be able to make it available to everybody. Okay, so Herardo, today, how many species exist on Earth other than humans and how do we know this?

Well, that's a very interesting question. We know so far that around 2 million species has been described since 1758 when Linneo created system for classifying animals and plants and organisms on the planet. But what is very, very interesting is that the estimates, the current estimates of how many species are in the planet ranged from 50 million to several billions. But just we take the most conservative thing that we estimate that there are around 50 million species of plants, animals, and microorganisms in the planet. And we have described only 2 million. That means that most, most of all the biodiversity in the planet,

is a noun to science. And this is not surprising though then that every year more than 18,000 species are scientifically described. And in terms of mammals, there are not only rodent or small animals that include big animals like whales. Last year, two new whales were found in the waters of the US and Mexico. And since 2000, more than 80 species of monkeys has been described. described. In 2017, a whole new species of orangutan was found in Sumatra. So the wealth of the biodiversity in the planet is really unbelievable. It's amazing. And what is unfortunate is most of the species are known to us. It almost feels paradoxical that soon after discovering some of these species,

they might go extinct, you know, in some of these cases. In many cases, For instance, one of the most interesting stories is that the stellar sea cow, it was described 27 years after it was found in the 1700s in the Bering Islands. And it was found actually by the Veyt's Vering expedition to Alaska and this area in Russia. And they collected. And after it became extinct, it was described. And there are species like the Saola that is the last. largest 100 kilogram, 250-pound animal, antelope-like animal who was described in Vietnam, in 2006, something like that. And it is most likely extinct now.

So many of those species are at the brink of extinction when they are discovered by science. So I don't think you can definitively answer this, but the number of species alive today, as a conservation biologist, how would you estimate that versus 10,000 years ago or even longer ago than that. The same, more or less? Well, the most important part of this is like right now, we have the highest number of species in the last 700 million years in the planet. We are in the pinnacle of species diversity. And this is well established because we know how many species has been accumulated.

And remember that evolution is a trade-off. between extinction and speciation. And basically, during normal times, there are more species evolving than species becoming extinct. And we know now that there are more species than in the last 700 million years. We also know now that, unfortunately, in the last 10,000 years, we have lost a great deal of species,

but also population and also of individuals of those species. We don't know exactly. exactly how many, because if we don't know how many there are, how can we know how many they have become extinct, but we have good grasp for what has happened in the last, let's say, 100 years in terms of what we have lost. Well, I know most people in the United States, we have this fascination with dinosaurs and Tyrannosaurus Rex and Brontosaurus, and they lived 70 million years ago. And most people don't realize that North America was a veritable

serengeti, like 20,000 years ago, where we had five species of giant cats and beavers the size of a Volkswagen and, you know, woolly mammoths and like unbelievable biodiversity, not that long ago. Well, I mean, this is what we know the Pleistocene extinction. In the Pleistocene is the last two million years. In the late Pleistocene, let's say, 18,000, 20,000, 30,000 years ago, a lot of the species big species become extinct in the planet. And this is a combination of a couple of things.

Changes in the climate, in the planet. Remember then in the maximum glacial, 18,000 years ago, there were around three kilometers of ice on Kansas, just to give us an idea how different was the planet. But at that time, when humans start to disperse from Africa, they start to exterminate some of the largest species. there were still some mammoths alive,

something like 4,000 years ago, in some of the islands in Alaska and in the region. So in the last few thousand years, humans, we were able to exterminate most of the larger animals, like mammoths, mastodons, and so on, many of them directly, and many of them, because we destroyed the prey of the large carnivores,

as those carnivores eventually succumb to the lack of food, to the changes in the climate and to human exploitation. Fast forward to today, how many roughly vertebrate animals with a backbone, how many vertebrate species are there on the planet? Well, vertebrates, we mean by vertebrates, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes are basically around 40,000, 45,000 species in the planet. Out of 50 million or so? Out of the 2 million species that we know, around 45,000,

thousands are vertebrates. Okay. And many, many more are still undescribed, but we don't really know how many will be at the end accounted for. Just let me tell you that if we maintain the pace

of describing a species like we have been doing since 1758, they will take a few thousand years to complete the description of all these species. So it is impossible that we will know how many species and what are all species in the planet.

That right there, what you just stated is one of my greatest wishes of all time, that 2,000 years from now we are still cataloging Earth species. That will be wonderful because if in 2000 years or 3,000 years, we will still be cataloging a species, it will be great for two reasons. One, we will still be here. Humans. Humanity will be still in the planet. And second, it will mean that our activities, it didn't impact so much.

the planet. So many of those species will be alive at that time. Well, we're going to get into the factors that influence that. But first, let me just ask you a personal question. Do you have a favorite animal or a favorite vertebrate? Well, yes, I work with the jaguars and bison and many animals. But I think perhaps my most prefer animal are flying squirrels. We have those here in Wisconsin. Yes, I know. And we have them here in Mexico. I discovered them in central Mexico. many years ago. And they are so unique, so beautiful that I become really in love with flying squirrels. Most people think I prefer jaguar, something like that. I love them, but I really like flying squirrels. You're at some property in your hometown there in Mexico, right? Is there nature and wildlife there,

or are you in a big city? I live in a city. It's a big city, but around the city, there is still a lot of forest. And I have a ranch close by that is basically your... in the middle of forest, and we have a lot of wildlife there. Do you have a wildlife camera where you go and see what ran by in the night? I have a couple here, and I love it. Definitely. That's one of my passion. One of my passion is to photograph wildlife, and I travel with my family,

and I have forced them to go with me to Africa, Asia, to so many places, to take photographs of animals. Yeah, I've been really fortunate to go to Africa several times. I would have to say my favorite animal is the Cape Hunts. hunting dog and I've seen three packs of them live in my life on three different trips. So I love wild animals. You're very lucky. Yeah, I know I'm lucky.

I mean, my story just briefly, my parents moved around a lot when I was a kid and my mom always took me to zoos when we were in cities and I would sit in the front seat of the car and scan the horizon for animals even when I was three years old. So whatever it is, that's what motivated me. I think it occurs and it says a blessing. Yeah, well, I mean, at the end of the day, Herardo, that's what's sacred to me is the animals that we share the planet with. And I question how our culture is stressed with economic and poverty and political things. Could we ever have a cultural consciousness where we recognize the species that we have, we have.

the species that we haven't even described yet and were changing their ecosystems, could that ever be like primary in people's heads? I know it is in yours and many of the people that we have as friends, but could that ever be a cultural calling? I don't know. I definitely don't know. I see some good signs that were going in the right direction, but I see so many bad signs that were really in a bad direction just in Mexico.

right now, the Mexican president is investing a lot in fossil fuels. I mean, who is his right man who will be investing in fossil fuels? And he was mocking the other day, the U.S., because somebody in the U.S. that said that they were investing in electric cars. And he said, oh, come on, why do you invest in electric cars? And this is the president of the one of Mexico, which is like the 11 economy of the planet, you know? Let me tell you that people ask me a lot of time, why I don't.

If I am interested in people in saving other peoples and so on, and of course I am. But to be honest, I mean, my major quest in life is to save as many species of plants and animals from extinction. I know that if we managed to infect other people with this idea, this species are our companions. This species has been with us since our first ancestors three million years ago start to walk through evolution towards what we are now. And those companions, those species, plants, animals who have been with us along this journey, it was worth destroying, it's what we're killing, it was worth directly or indirectly destroying

with our activities. And for me, that really makes me wonder, if we don't have any sensibility, understand that what hope we have for humanity, if we don't even know how to treat those species who has been working with us. Do you think it's more that we don't care or that we don't know or some combination? Well, definitely it's a combination of that we don't care because we don't know, but sometimes we know and we don't care because the society, we have been moving to that idea that to having wealth to accumulate things and so on

is better than anything else. And most of the young people here in Mexico throughout the world are feeling that there are failure if they don't have a house or two houses or three houses and a car, when they are 20, 22, 23 years old, many of them, I mean, I see so many young people who don't have grown so detached from nature, from understanding the value, the beauty of all this manifestation of life. I wonder if we ever want to change. And I have seen that this has become even worse with the advance of a technology with cell phones and tablets and so on, I mean, most of these children never go out to play. And it really makes me wonder if we're going to win this battle with all the

technology and all these stimulus, taking the people, children, young adults and adults, away from what really matters in terms of the environment. Because you can get the same neurochemicals from a phone that you could, from going on a bird watching trip in the forests, even though it's a total false representation of it, you can get the same stimulation from games and pictures of animals where it's a lot of effort to go into the woods. And so our brains can be hijacked by technology

when the real thing is just out there. It definitely is being hijacked, and you are right, that our brains, the same regions of the brain, that are stimulated by alcohol, by drugs, or by pleasure of different kind of things, or by entertainment, are being moved by these video games and so on. But let me tell you, when I was young, when we were kids, we didn't have to go out far away. We will go out outside in the garden and play there with dirt and with stone rocks.

And, I mean, I understand that sometimes it may take a lot of effort to go out away. But I don't know, when you were kids, we just go out anywhere, sometimes to the forest and sometimes to our gardens, sometimes even to the streets. And we have a wonderful time having the same kind of stimulation than they have now with this fake stimulation with their cell phones and so on. We were blessed, Herardo. We were blessed with that. When I grew up, when I was in grade school, fourth, fifth, sixth grade, I would come home. from school every day, get my dog, and we would go into the foothills of the Sisku Mountains in Southern Oregon. And I would just explore for three hours till dinner time, looking at trees and

finding salamanders. Every day, that's what I did. Looking at deer and other things, I always, I knew there was a small, small, small chance there would be a mountain lion out there. And that's like what made it really exciting. There was a movie called Citizen Kane where Rosebud was his sled that he longed for his childhood. That sort of experience in the natural world kind of carefree is my rosebud. And that's perhaps why we're friends and we're having this conversation. It is so interesting because when I was a junior level, we lived close to Toluca, this city is called Toluca and I was very deep, but at that time it was small. And just next to my house, there was a lake. And I will spend, I will go home, have a lunch,

Mexico lunch, I went two, three in the afternoon, and then go to this place, and until my parents will have to come to look at for me at 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock at night when it was really dark, because it was so addictive that I will spend day and day and day looking for Salaman, just like you said, snakes and raccoons and bats and so on. Those was the years that really formed as a naturalist. I wrote my first paper that obviously was kind of a really bad in the sense, but it was like a natural history paper on the natural history of the water snakes on that lake. Because I will remember and I will write down what were they doing in the spring and the summer and the winter and some. Sometimes I will see what they were feeding on, who were spraying upon them and so on.

And I managed to write something like a 10-page thing that I saw. It was my first paper. My parents used to laugh and say, this is so weird. my kids are so weird, but they were very supportive. And as you say, we are incredibly lucky that we have that. And this is what I tried to give to my children. They were able to go. And let me tell you, this is a story.

We used to go to Africa and those places. And I used to say, okay, we go to Disneyland and then we go to the Everglades. So we go to this place in Europe and then we go to Africa. And then one day, my 16-year-olds, until he was becoming a teenager, he said, where are we going this year to college? And I explained the places we were going to Africa. And I said, do I have to go? And I said, no, you don't have to.

And I left him. And we left. And then three years or four years afterward, he said, when are we going to Africa? And I said, why? He said, because I'm dying for Africa. It was amazing. I mean, he managed to understand the value, the beauty of all of this,

you know, after passing his teenage years. And they love, they don't do science. And they don't, well, they do, one of them is a scientist, mathematician, the lady, and the other is in finance. But both of them really love nature. And both of them really are balanced on understanding the value of having this education. Well, building on that, and I want to make sure I have a lot of questions for you about your research and your prognosis.

But is it possible that we growing up in affluent countries are privileged to, about the environment like we do, and that most recent generations and many places on the earth today are just concerned with making a living and how they're going to feed their families this weekend, and they don't see the environment from a bird's eye view the way that you and I are discussing it. So is environmental concern the way that you and I see it? Is that a privilege of this fossil fuel bonanza period that we're going through? Well, it is a privilege. but it's not a privilege only of the people who is more affluent. I work a lot with people, local people here in Mexico.

Sometimes they are the owners of large track of forests, tropical forests in southern Mexico. And what I found is incredible. They obviously are not rich at all. They really sometimes have difficult times to feed. And most of the time when we go there and help them to find ways so they can protect their forests while making some money or by protecting it, It is incredible how much love, how much pride, how much attachment they have to nature. So, I mean, we have people, for instance, calling me, say, okay, we have two cows and they were killed by a jaguar.

And I said, I'm so sorry. And I said, what do you want to do? I said, well, we don't want to kill the jaguar. Is there any way you can help us to pay a little bit of something for those animals that we can recover a little bit of our losses? and I said, you don't want to kill the jaguar. Say, no, no, we don't want to kill the jaguar. We basically are invading their land. And this is a story.

It happens time after time after time. What we are looking at the planet is the people poor or richer or in between who has the possibilities to enjoy nature for whatever reason. In some cases, it's because they live next door to nature, although they don't have a lot of money. And sometimes people more affluent with us who can maybe live, far away from nature, but we can go rather often because we have the means. So this takes me to the point that it's not determined if you are going to care for nature or not, if you have a lot

of money or not. Do you think that we have some sort of evolutionary relationship with nature and affinity like E.O. Wilson referred to it as biophilia? Is there something that is irrespective of our current modern consumer culture that is ingrained with us, our relationship to nature? What do you think about that? I think definitely we have some grain this relationship with nature, with animals. And it can be, for instance, most of the, I mean, when small children are afraid to darkness. And I think this is a manifestation of a recent past, where you were not afraid of darkness, you will go crawl out of the house and you will be eaten by a hyena or by, by a snake or whatever.

And the same sea, I mean, most of the people that I know, even if they have lived in the city, once you take them to a park or what you take them to a forest, I would say probably 99% of them, they will enjoy it, and they will feel so quiet, so calm. So definitely we have evolved in nature, and the forests, the lakes, the animals, the plants, wild plants and animals,

are part of our revolution. and many, many human beings are still part of that. I mean, I don't know of the 8 billion people, but I don't know, maybe 2, 3 billion, but probably more are still in close contact to nature. On the one hand, on the other hand, being bombarded by these ideas that having wealth is what it counts, it's causing a lot of problems. But if we think that we have this link, that's something that we need to exploit towards trying to get conscience at the global scale for saving the biodiversity.

Well, like you, I'm a scientist and I have a scientific mind, so I can't explain what I'm about to tell you. But my first time in Africa, I went with my dad. He was on a hunting trip, and I just went when I was 21 years old to take pictures. And I felt this affinity like I was coming home or something like that. It was like this primal feeling of connectedness. the first, you know, a couple days in Botswana at that time. It was a really odd sensation, but I just so loved it. I will never forget it. That's very interesting because my kids and us, when they were the first time in Africa,

we were crossing the Serengeti and we spent like 15 days there. And I remember, I don't know which one of them said one afternoon, wow, this is so beautiful. It feels like home. I mean, exactly in the same feeling that you described. He was sitting down on the deep looking at the horizon as he feels like home. It's our home. It's where we come from. Yeah.

Definitely there is that affinity. Okay. So with that entree, let's get into your work, sir. You recently wrote, co-wrote a paper underestimating the challenges of avoiding a ghastly future, which cataloged a lot of risks to. biodiversity species, ecosystems. Could you just give us an overview of your general findings, either in that paper or generally, you know, what percent of natural ecosystems have been lost in the last 50 years, animals, et cetera? Well, I think one of the most important contributions

I have done in science has been to try to understand what is the magnitude of extinction crisis. And I was fortunate to go to Stanford to do a sabbatical and meet Paul Erlich. And talking to him, I developed these ideas. And I wrote the first paper on Extinctions, Species Extinction in Mexico in 1992, something like that, when there was the first president in Mexico who was very neoliberal. And at that time, I thought I wrote that being so neoliberal could be really good. we will take care of the important thing of the environment, but also could be the tipping point to make humanity in really bad shape.

And then I went to Stanford and I got exposed to so many people and so many ideas. And then one of the first questions that I wanted to answer is, at that time, many people would think that extinction was bad, but it was part of evolution. Let's remember the evolution work with extinctions and speciation, and that's the basic, one of the basis processes of religion. Working there, first of all, I was one day listening to Port Eurley talking about population's extinction, and it occurred to me that that was one of the critical points. We were not understanding the magnitude of extinction because we were looking at the species that become extinct.

It's like if you go and see the problem of a big pandemic like they were having now, just counting the people who died. Obviously, this is just the final end and a tiny part of the whole problem. So at that time, I wrote a paper with Porrelich on what we called, we evaluated for the first time what was the extinction, the magnitude of population extinction in a whole group in the planet, in this case mammals.

We were able to gather a database with the distributions of species in the 1900 and the current distribution. That was around 2000. And what we saw is a brutal, literally a brutal destruction of populations of many species. The range was like a very big range, 100% was contracted to 20, 50%. So the range contraction obviously implicate the losing the populations. That was the first time I could see that the magnitude of what we were doing to the planet

biodiversity in terms of the extinction was really big. So you're saying that if you just count the extinctions like the Dodo bird or the Tasmanian tiger, that you're actually underestimating the magnitude because there's a difference between population extinction and species extinction. Definitely. That's definitely very important. Let me give you an example. If we have jaguars in Mexico, it doesn't matter if they become extinct here. If there are jaguars in Brazil, in terms of the role and function they play in ecosystems and in the provision of environmental services, that is all the benefit we get from nature. So, disappearance of populations are basically like extinctions, called extinction.

Is that what's called an ecological extinction? Yeah, it's an ecological extinction. It is similar. Ecological extinction is when you have a species, you know, in an area, let's say, first of all population extinction, all species are made up by several populations. And when the species become extinct, we had lost all the populations. But those populations at the local and regional levels, you know, are so important when you lose them, you lose the value and it's like it was a whole extinction. Can you give an example of one of those species and that that happened?

Just as I said, the elephants, you see the distribution of the elephants. They were just at the beginning of this century, almost one million elephants. 20 years ago. 30 years ago, they were 1 million. And now there are 250,000 elephants. In the whole world. In the whole world, in whole Africa. So if you see the map of the distribution, you will see an area, most of Africa.

will be covered while the distribution of elephants. Now you will see just dots, dots in the continent. Small populations dispersed throughout the continent. So it means that we have lost elephants in most of Africa. And by losing them, we have lost the role where they do. And there are many roles that the elephants have. And clearly give you two examples. On the one hand, for instance, they disperse a lot of plants that they eat

and then maintain the savannah because they destroyed trees. to eat the bark. So the savannas, when you lose the elephants, are invade by scrofts and trees, and eventually you lose the savannah and you lose the grasslands with so many animals. So the elephants are critical to maintain the savanna. But recently, other scientists have shown that when you lose the elephants and other angulates and other species of larger mammals that feed on plants, the grasses grow much larger. And on those grasses, the populations of many rodents exploit, become very abundant, and those rodents has many diseases that affect humans.

So by losing the elephants, you're losing the composition of the plants, and then this is causing a massive increase of rodents, and those rodents transmit diseases to humans, to domestic animals, and to wildlife. So who will think that the elephants, the present, of the elephant will be linked to the presence and the abundance of rodents in Africa. A conservation biologist might think that, but you're right. We don't normally think in terms of systems. There is that story. I don't know how true it is about the elk and the wolves

and the ecosystems in the Yellowstone, similar sort of thing. It's very similar. And it's basically correct. So in the case of the elephants, just to highlight that, what are the main reasons that we've gone from a million down to 250,000 in the last 25 years? Well, basically, it's poaching. And we are losing habitat. They're losing habitat more, as more humans, as there are more human population. We need more food. So more habitat of the elephant is being destroyed to plant crops.

But basically, the main problem is we're still killing elephants for their ivory. Just to give you an idea, 15 years ago, an elephant was being killed every 15 minutes, an elephant was illegally killed. Even now, an elephant is being killed every 40 minutes illegally to take their tusks to the markets, especially in China. And what is really incredibly surprising is that the tasks are useless. They use them for ornamental and for some crafts. But we're killing the elephants because this huge appetite for ivory. And now the mafias in China and in Africa and Mexico, everywhere in the U.S., the mafias dealing with the trade of animals

and in this specific case of African elephants have more power, more money, more guns than the guards and many times that the local governments. It's a real, real bad problem. Matt, another guest, I don't know if you know paleobiologist Peter Ward, but he told me that there's some alternatives to ivory and now all of a sudden deep coral reefs are being unearthed because they're taking giant clams as a replacement for ivory that there's a big demand for giant clams because they're starting to change the demand away from ivory a little bit. I don't know the details of the story.

Well, the problem is who needs ivory? I mean, we can live without ivory. Well, who needs three houses? Exactly. I mean, the pandemic is related to the trade of animals in China and civilization. The pangolins. The pangolins, the bats. If you put the wet market in Google, you will see horrendous photographs and videos of the

way the domestic and what. wild animals are in cages in these markets in very unsanitary conditions. So it's very easy from the wild animal, a disease, jump to a domestic animal, so to humans. So to be honest, it is the time, it is now the right time to stop, to try to stop the legal trade of animals. Although, saying it's easy, but the legal trade of wildlife and plants, it is so big that is in terms of money, it's almost as big as the drugs, the drug trade. Well, it's akin to changing GDP as our cultural goal. Do we change the taxes and the rules,

or do we change people's aspirations? In other words, do you devote all your money to anti-poaching people with rifles and night goggles and things like that? Or do you change the cultural demand for ivory and pangolin and all that other crazy stuff. I mean, which is the answer? Well, I think the answer is simple in the sense that it's impossible to have just one answer. The answer is we need to have all of this. We need to have right now gogels and people fighting to save the wildlife. And we need to try to change corporations and countries and the GDP.

In other words, this. This is a complex issue of a complex society, of a complex humanity. So what I'm saying is like there is not simple answers, but the more answers and the more solutions we have, I think the easy will be eventually to reach a society. That for me is very easy. The new society coming from COVID and coming from this massive destruction that were happening, have to have two simple elements. It should be socially more just and it will be sustainable. If you think it sounds so simple, obviously it conveys the complexity of this moment of humanity,

but who will in his right mind not think that having less poor people and having more equitably, more equal, being more just with the poorest? will be good. And who wouldn't be thinking that protecting more forests and protecting more animals and having more, better, less pollution and so on, will be in better shape? It wasn't that long ago that black humans were treated and considered subhuman. It wasn't that long ago that women didn't have rights and couldn't vote. Is it possible that our culture will recognize what we're doing and extend some of these recognitions to other species, especially conscious self-aware species like dolphins and bonobos and things like that?

I mean, culturally, do you think that's possible? Oh, definitely is possible. It is very, very possible. As you say, in the 1970, we have the minority revolution, the racial revolution, the women revolution, we have the sexual revolution, We have the non-traditional sex preference revolution, and it happens, and it happened incredibly quickly. I tried to think, like, in the 70s or the late 1900s, in the late 1900s, the whole planet suddenly has all these new paradigms that would change completely the way we were Marxisms with Marx and we have evolution with Darwin. we have psychological changes with Freud and we have blinded the geology and song. You can, it took many years to catch up. Now, with the technology that we have, with the spread of the social network and the instant

distribution of information, I think we have a great, great opportunity if we can use those resources with these new ideas. And I see many philosophers, many scientists, many politicians. a lot of an important group of people talking about the right things. So I don't know if we will have enough time before we collapse as a civilization because the damage we have done to the planet like climate change, species, extinction, toxicification and so on. But what I think, I'm probably, I may be wrong,

but what I think is what we're experiencing right now is one of those times in the history of humanity where many things start to change and suddenly they will change enough and they will change us to the right direction. I hope you're right about that, obviously. Let me ask you this question. You know, David Attenborough is very popular and famous for his narration of wildlife-centered shows,

Planet Earth, and some of these shows are so stunningly beautiful. I grew up, I used to watch religiously Marlon Perkins and the Mutual of Omaha's Wilder. kingdom. And it was like a rite of passage for my family. We would watch it. I think Sunday nights I would just so look forward to it. I can't watch those shows anymore, Herardo. I can't watch planet Earth. And every once in a while, like I live on a farm here and I walk out in nature every day and I have to do it for my mental health. But sometimes I look at the nature and I'm just struck by this dual lightning bolts.

Part of it is just the awe and the beauty and the wonder of nature. But it's a bittersweet feeling because I also glimpse fast forward ahead at what's going to happen the next century to the nature. And I feel this overwhelming sadness. And so as much as I care about these things and talking to scientists like you and getting the word out, at sometimes it's too painful to. to be directly in it. Do you know what I mean? You must know what I mean. Well, yeah, I am kind of weird in that sense because I have been working with extinction

and we changed the paradigm and we were the first to show that the species we lost in 100 years we have been lost in 10,000 or more years in normal times. And I have been able to be, like I said, like the chronicles of death in where we say how many species are becoming extinct and so on and the population extinctions. And we call one of our terms, we call it the biological annihilation, because when I was at a school, at a high school, extinction was still selective, larger animal or very restricted range animals and so on. But now it's a biological annihilation because basically small or big, largely distributed

or small distributed beneficial or non-beneficial and so on. kind of characteristics that you may have, all of those species are becoming extinct because of us. In other words, the characteristics that will make more species, more prone to extinction has been wiped out by the massive assault that we have in nature. So we call it biological annihilation. And I get sad and I get sometimes get really down, but I really think that I have this ability and I'm glad I have it because the more I feel, the same. heat, the more I push harder, too harder, too harder to try to change the whole thing.

Yeah, I totally agree. And that's what I'm dedicating my time on this planet to doing. And the biological annihilation of our planet's species, let's be honest, yes, it's, it's reaching a crescendo level, but it's been happening for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Every human alive in the last 500 years has witnessed part of this or it's happened during their time. So since you and I have been on the planet in the late 60s, what percentage of wild animals have been lost since around 1970? This is exactly what is mind-blowing. Since the 1970s, we have lost around 80% of all the animals. What? 80% of all the animals that we used to be in this planet are being lost since 1970.

So not the species, but the numbers of animals. Not the species, the individuals, the individuals animals, 80% of individual animals has been lost. Individuals who were part of populations and population who were part of species. Some of these species have become extinct, some are the brink of the species. Some of those species are still more or less abundant, and some of those species are abundant. But in general, all of those have lost so many individuals. Just to give you other examples, in the 19... In the 2000s, 2000-something, they published a really well-researched paper where it shows that

at that time, only 2% of the large fishes on the planets remain compared to 1960s. 2% of the charts, 2% of the tuna, 2% of any of the big fishes that were still present in the ocean. We have wiped out at that time 98% of the large fishes in the planet. And another example is not only the big animals and the vertebrates and so on. And this example are rather good and amazing, good scientists from Argentina. He used to live in Mexico, his name was Rappaport. His last name was Rappaport. And Rappaport, one day, he wrote a really nice book in Spanish,

where he mentioned that the changes they were making in the planet, you could see them while driving your car. And it's that example that when you used to drive your car, there will be so many insects, they splash and your windscreen, you know. And now you can drive for edges, having just one or two. I remember when I was not so long ago, I was still like 20 years old. In Mexico, the gas station, you will stop, and there will be one guy coming to clean up, you know, your windscreen,

and also the radiator, because. because the radiator, which have so many animals stuck by, that the car wouldn't cool down properly, the engine, and anyway. So they clean up the radiator, and they clean up the region. And there was a person specifically doing that as part of the service of the gas station. That is gone because the insects are gone. So I had another one of my guests is Daniel Pauley, who came up with the scientific concept of shifting baselines,

which is that we can remember 50 years ago what the windshields were full of insects, but we can't look at really yesterday or the day before yesterday. Every day kind of blends into the next day. So we assume that what's happening is normal because it's happening so slowly on a day-to-day basis. But on a decade-to-decade basis, it's tragic. But this is also part of our culture. It's part of our evolution. Remember that until very recently, we didn't have to worry about what we're going to happen in three months or one year. We didn't have ways to store food. So we were worried about what's going to happen next, the following day. And if you were in a cave, living in a cave, and suddenly you will see smoke in the horizon,

you will have to pack up your stuff because, you know, the other tribe or other group will come in and you will have to run. So basically, we are very well developed. I mean, we have very well evolved to perceive things at the normal, at every day. Oh, it's going to rain. But our brain hasn't had the capability to understand this long-term, small changes on the one hand. But also remember that until 1970-something, when we saw the first photograph of the planet on this massive boy, black boy, we understood it was the first time that we could see what the whole planet it is. So now for us, it is kind of easy to try to imagine what the word it is. But in terms of our evolution, this kind of understanding of what's going in the planet and that we're changing the whole planet is incredibly new.

So it is incredibly difficult for us to try to first understand and then to grasp the consequences of what we are doing here in my garden in Mexico, how this is affecting the rest. It is not that because we're stupid is simply a mixture of cultural and biological factors. I'm realizing, Herardo, that I could probably talk to you for four hours and not cover half of what I want to ask you. So let's just cover as much as we can because I have so many questions for you. Let's drill down on what you just said earlier. You said that elephants, the problem was the number of humans were encroaching on their habitat and poaching. But what about insects?

What has caused the drop in insects from the people at the gas station clearing them out of your radiator? windshield to today. Well, let's put it in a larger framework if you want to. I see humans, and your guests have talked about this, is population, the growth of human population, consumption, technology, and so on, has caused major environmental problems. And those problems that are global, when I grew up and was studying biology, there was only one global environmental problem.

It was relation of its own liar that fortunately we were able to solve. But then, climate change, pollution, toxicification, invasive species, emerging and emerging diseases, over exploitation, habitat encroachment, habitat destruction, over killing, and so on. All these massive impacts of our activities, both directly and indirectly, is what is causing the destruction of plants, animals, and microorganisms. In terms of the insects, there are several theories, and I think, that what is happening, it changes regionally. In some regions it's pesticides, in other regions it's more climate change and so on. But what is clear is that this is happening. So for instance, in many places, the massive use of pesticides, like in central US, have destroyed so many species. And for instance, just recently we heard that the monarch butterfly was declining. And

after several studies and so on, they found different reasons for the decline. But one of them was the use of herbicides to kill a plant, this invasive plants in crops, and one of these plants is the food plant for the butterflies. So we kill the plants, not because we want to kill those plants, because it's just a part of the plant that you will kill if you want to have your crop free of herbs. But those particular plants are the unique food for the most. monarch butterflies. And when this was done at a continental scale, then the population collapses. Aside from that, we have in Mexico, the places where they are, where basically

we're talking about no more than maybe 200 acres where those million butterflies come every year. Just imagine how fragile is the area that these 200 acres dispersed in a few million other acres can be easily wiped out by fires, by illegal login, and by clean. climate change. So insects are good examples to talk about how different factors, human factors, are causing the destruction of species in different scales in different parts of the planet. For elephants, hunting could be really bad for other species like prey dogs in Mexico is poisoning them because they compete with cattle and so on. It just says an aside, how many jaguars are there left in the world and how many are in Mexico,

roughly? Well, roughly, for the jaguar is the most abundant of the six larger cuts, fortunately. There are still around 60,000 jaguars left. But 60,000 is just a fraction of the 150,000 that estimated that they were at the beginning of the 1900s or more. In Mexico, let me tell you, this is one of the things that give me a lot of hopes. In Mexico, I organize a group is called the Alliance for Jaguar Conservation in 2005. And we are something like 60 people from like 30, 40 different institutions. And scientists and lawyers and so on, very different people. And in 2010, between 2008 and 2010, we did the first national jaguar census in any country.

So we designed a way to census the jaguars in Mexico. and we come out with 4,000 javours. And 4,000 jahua was very good because at that time, we thought that there were 1,000 javas, no more in Mexico. So 4,000 jahua was a good news. But then we repeat the census in 2019 and bingo. Because we have been working so hard

with the government and the local communities and so on, the population grew up to 4,800 in only around 10 years. now we're going to do the next year the same, the third jaguar census. But so in general, we still have 60, 70,000 jaguards in the whole continent. And in Mexico, we have around 5,000. And those are good news. So if a species is really decimated in the population, you mentioned large predatory fish are at 2%.

I'm sure there's some mammals that have that level or worse. But there's still a viable population. Is there a level where they get to where the genetic diversity is so small that if they interbreed with each other, there are problems? So even though there's enough animals to breed, there's that problem. I think I read something that that's happening with Cheetahs to some extent. That's a very good question. What you read about Cheetahs, it was the idea in the 1990s or something. But our understanding of genetics has become so good.

good that fortunately there is not a single rule. For instance, the Bakita is this purpose found in Mexico, only in the Gulf of Mexico. There are probably 10 to 12. And there was a new recent study showing that this 10 to 12 have enough variability if they recovered to live properly. And there are some cases like the marine elephants who at one point there were 100 only left. And now there are more than 300,000. What, the elephant? How do you call the marine elephant? Oh, the manatee.

No, no, the elephant seal. How do you call this? Yeah, elephant seal. Okay. So it's like the elephant seal. At what point, there were only 100 left, protected in Mexico. This is a really interesting story. In 1920, a Mexican president declared Mexico a heaven for marine animals.

And that saved the great whale, saved elephant seal, save a lot of marine mammals. But anyway, the elephant seal, there were only 100. Now there are more than 300,000. Those are the ones who goes to the coast of California and in the Anyo Nuevo Reserve. This is the only one, two colonies.

Now they go to the continent. Most of the time they go to island because they were free of predators. But anyway, there are 300 animals and they have no much variability, but with the variability they have, they are doing fine. As a rule, we say that 500 animals is very critical. If you have less than 500 animals of any species,

you are reaching the point where genetics and demographic factors and other factors are putting you in really big problem, although, as I mentioned, there is a lot of variability on that. And we just published a paper in 2020, where we look at, we call this species who are at the brink of extinction. And this is coming back to what you mentioned on functional extinction. We call them zombies because those species are living dead. They are still alive. But if you have 500 individuals, 100 individuals divided in several populations, basically the ecological role that you have,

that you used to play is gone, but also you're facing so many demographic, genetic population problems that you almost zoom to extinction unless there is an intervention by humans. So this is a factoid that I know well, and I think more people are becoming aware of it, but you know it cold. If you compare the approximately 8 billion humans and all of our livestock are cows and pigs and goats and sheep. How does that compare to the number of wild animals on the planet? Well, that's a very good question. There have been some papers published that when I read it, it just made me really, really almost faint because they have estimated that when you took all the vertebrates of the planet, you know, mammals, birds, reptiles,

amphibians and you compare them to domestic animals, is 30% of the biomass of the planet is made up by the 8 billion human beings, 36%. 4% is made up by all the thousands of species of vertebrates. And the rest are domestic animals, mostly cattle and poultry. So just imagine only 4% of the total biomass of the planet is made up by wild animals. And the rest, the 96% is made up by humans and the domestic animals. So we have been able to displace them.

We occupied most of the land, and we have been able to take off the energy that those species use. This is why it's not surprising that we have lost 80% of all the individual animals since 1970, because we basically are occupying the land and we are using the energy that you used to use. And if you look at the birds, it's even more dramatic. If you look at the 11,000 species of birds and the domestic poultry,

70% of all the biomass is made up by domestic animals. And 30% is made up by the 11,000 wild species of birds. So it's not surprising then that we have lost 80% of all the individual animals in 1970 because we're coping their land and we are coping the energy they use. So 70% of the weight of all the birds on the planet is two species, chickens and turkeys and the other 11,000 comprised the other 30%. Exactly. That's exactly. So I was fortunate to do an Earthwatch expedition in Ecuador. Ecuador is not much bigger than Minnesota and Wisconsin where I live.

But they have, if I recall, 2,000 masomenos species of birds. And the entire continental United States only has 800. So this tiny country, there are 2,000 species of birds, including 250 species of hummingbirds. And in the United States, we only have eight. That's amazing. Yes, some of these places are amazing. So you were talking about the 60 minutes and so on. Well, I'll get back to that.

Yeah. But I just wanted to say one other the thing, we consume 70 billion chickens and turkeys per year. And then they're not all alive at one time because it's only 10 or 11 weeks old when they, because they breed them to get so fat that they can't walk and they harvest them early. It's overwhelming. It's overwhelming, yeah. Especially, it's overwhelming, especially when we understand and it's now much more widely, you know, that this is taking a trajectory that unless we change it, it will cause the collapse of civilization. And it's going to cause the collapse of civilization, not by the end of the century, not in

2001. It will cause the collapse of civilization in the next 50 to 20 years. Or if you are optimistic, 30 years. I mean, what we're talking here, the good news is the window of opportunity. there is still a window for opportunity, but it's rapidly closing. And we don't have decades to put the work together. We have very, very few years. And that's why it becomes rather difficult for people to grasp.

And this is why, I think, so many people prefer not to think about it and get distracted with something else. Why did you say that we're going to have a collapse of civilization, possibly in the next 15 to 20 years, for what reason? Because most of the studies in terms of species extinction on climate change, on pollution and so on, is getting us to a tipping point where pandemics like COVID, like loss of ecosystem services and so on, are becoming so big. And the rate of change is much, much faster than we anticipated.

So this is on top of oil depletion and economic. overshoot and finance and all that agricultural problems. Exactly. This is a site, we can have a collapse similar, a collapse related to economic issues or to political issues or to social issues. Talking about the environmental issues, there is the probability that in the next few decades, there will be a collapse of civilization. But when people say this, the people say, Gerardo, that sounds like ridiculous.

us. Just think about it. We have now a pandemic that has put us basically on our needs. And it wasn't the worst virus and the worst emerging disease that we have faced in the last 50 years. Ebolics much worse. The malvolous virus is worse. The lacha fever is worse. Anyway, right now, there are more than 2 billion people who don't have cleaning water. There are almost 2 billion or more than 2 billion people who don't have enough to eat next day or next in the next few weeks. There are 100 or 150 million ecological refugees, environmental refugees. So if you go to Kinsasha or so many of these places and you see the conditions that millions and millions of people are living right now, this is collapse. I mean, this is the definition of collapse. Well, if you're an elephant or an insect,

you've also undergone collapse. Exactly. So obviously, all this is, species who are being driven to extinction by your activity are part of this collapse. That's a very important point to you mention. We are looking at the collapse of the natural systems that are essential for human survival. The animals that are disappearing are part of this collapse. The plants that are disappearing are part of this collapse. The massive losses of ecosystems are part of this collapse. And then the reflection of what I say of these problems on billions of people already, for me, this is already that we are entering in the collapse that just will become massive and global.

We don't do something in the next few decades. But what I'm trying to say is we cannot predict exactly when, but to say that it will be at the end. end of the century is probably responsible in the sense that it giving us a false sense of security because it's still 80 years. So I want to come back to this, but I had a thought while we were talking about chickens. I think there's a paradox in the human brain. I have chickens, only for the eggs and for the companionship. I have 17 chickens, and I love going out and sitting with them. and every night there's two of them are rooster Floyd and blanch this hand that I stroke before I shut them in at night and I go and they're my friends and they're so interesting.

They're dinosaurs. Yeah, balance, I guess. And yet, I eat chicken. I don't eat pork at all and I rarely eat beef, but I do eat chicken. So I'm just processing this in my brain talking about the 70 billion chickens that humanity consumes. I consume some of those chickens. And yet, I love my chickens and I don't eat them. So what's going on there?

And why are these two things happening in my brain? And what does that suggest for greater consciousness? I don't know. I'll just ask you. Well, I don't know. But what I know is basically excess on behaviors. I mean, it is perfectly right. I think it could be perfectly balanced if we eat a meat,

once a month or once every month, but when you eat every day meat, or when you, as you we say, the excess on what we do is what it caused the problem. I mean, if I have a house, if I have a car, that's fine. If, for instance, I have to travel a lot and use planes, and I don't feel remorse because I know I'm causing pollution, but I think it is much more important that I travel to, say, jaguars and big chunks of habitat and then to stay in my home without flying. So basically the balance is that. I mean, we have to balance our act. And what you're doing with your chickens and eating chicken, basically I'm sure you are balancing that. You're not eating. Well, it's it's what I

teach my students. And we wrote in our book that the time now isn't to minimize your impact and be a smaller part of one eight billionth of the of the planet. It's to match. It's to match. maximize your impact and do whatever you have to do and have a good moral, ethical, environmental hygiene and make good decisions. But try to be impactful at larger scales like you're doing with your work. That's exactly what I was trying to say. That's exactly what. For instance, if I stay home, I will reduce my impact, but I won't have any big impact.

Exactly. We're having, in Mexico, there is a project right now that is called the Maya train, is a project pushed by the government. And this government has been the most anti-environment ever in Mexico since I was at high school. And regardless of that, I helped the project, once was approved, part of the project, I held them to design in such a way that we created wildlife passes. Because the project was, we will be done.

First of all, it was done and followed the law. So you may say philosophically, I don't like trains, or you may say politically hate this government, I don't like the train. But if it was done properly with the law, that's the right, they have the right to do it. And a train has much less impact than more highways and cars and sun. Anyway, we work with them, and we create the largest project on the planet with wildlife passes. In 700 kilometers, we managed to put 300 wildlife passes, massive thing, you know. And then they changed the director, and with a new one, it's really bad guy.

It's really bad. It's messing this up. So we're not working anymore with them. But I didn't close up my work for saving the forest in the Yucatan Peninsula. This is happening. So I go there often, and we design a project where we are benefiting, I don't know, probably 20,000 families. And we're saving right now almost 700,000 acres directly. by paying ecosystem services to the owners of the forest.

And these are the ones I tell you that they are so proud. And when they have a little money, they are, that they have enough to live. They will be the first to defend their forests. And not only that, it occurred to me, how can we create a series of protected areas that we end up, we will end up with three million acres protected with the local people with the help or without the help of the government?

So this is exactly what you say. While I have to work with the government and everybody was, I mean, the people close to, in favor of the government say that I was in favor of the train. The people against the train say that I was betraying nature and all kinds of things. If I was guided by science and what was right, we did a really great impact. But as you say, this has to be guided by ethics and in terms when you're assigned it by the scientific knowledge that will help. helpful to minimize the impact of those projects and maximize what we can say. Excellent. I'm going to ask you more about your work in a minute, but I have a core question that I wanted to get to on this conversation, Herrardo. What is a mass extinction and is a

sixth mass extinction now inevitable? Well, in the last 700 million years, we have a good fossil record to be able to see three things in the history of biodiversity of life on Earth. One is that the balance between extinction and expaciation has been positive, so we have more species now than ever, as I say before. This is the first thing. Second, we have seen in this fossil record that there has been five times, which suddenly the extinction rates become much, much higher than the speciation rates. causing the loss of most plants and animals the planet.

And that's not a population extinction. That's the species itself goes extinct. That's a species. I mean, this massive loss of a species, 70% of all the species in the planet or more are become extinct. And then we know that it has caused by a catastrophe, natural catastrophe, like the meteorite that impacted the planet 66 million years ago.

So we call them mass extinction. 10. A mass extinction has three characteristics. One is geologically speaking really fast, hundreds of thousands or a few million years. Second, it is a wipeout, 70% or more of all the plants and animals in the planet. And third, it was caused by a natural catastrophe. When we started to do our studies on extinction, that was exactly what I wanted to see. If the rate of extinction that we're looking at now was similar to the rate of extinction in the last few million years or normal extinction or it was elevated. Fortunately for us, you know, we saw that Tony Barnoski, a colleague of mine from Berkeley, they published a paper where they gather data

from thousands and thousands and thousands of fossils and fossil mammals and they managed to determine that in the last few million years, the normal extinction rate, was basically you will expect one extinction for every 5,000 species in a century. In other words, you have, in those million years, you will pick up a century, and at that century you have 10,000 species, you will expect two extinctions. If you have 40,000 species, you will expect eight extinction. If you have only 5,000 species, you will expect one extinction. So that was...

The background rate. That was the background rate. The background or normal rate, exactly. But for all, it was like gold, because basically we have something to compare what's going on. So we look at what's happening in the last 500 years in terms of extinctions of vertebrates, and then what's happening in the last 100 years, we're expecting things to be bad, but not as bad as we found it. As I say, we find that the species lost in the last 100 years, we have lost in 10,000 years or more.

So when we published this paper, it was published in Science Advances, we thought that we would get a lot of criticism. And surprisingly, it wasn't. Actually, people did agree. And one of the criticisms that we have, it wasn't a criticism, but say, well, this is happening in vertebrates, and it's correct.

It seems to be everything seems to be fine. But it's not happening in other groups. And then, after our paper was published, there started to be papers published in other invertebrates, you know, invertebrate plants and even microorganists. And now it's clearly been shown that we have entered the C.Max extinction. And you say that it's inevitable. It is probably inevitable if we really put our act together and we slow down the loss of populations

and the loss of species and we can restore a lot of the populations and the species who are on the brink of extinction. But this has to be at a global scale and it has to be, it's impossible to be, it's impossible to be, be done by actively protecting the places. It has to be done reducing the use of carbon and fossil fuels, basically reducing the magnitude of the human enterprise, so we can reduce pollution, toxification, habitat destruction, over killing, and so on. So as far as the inevitability of a sixth mass extinction, and I know this will, you'll have to give me a speculative answer on this because no one knows, but what percentage of the risk of an actual mass extinction? And what was the exact definition, like 70%, or is there a threshold to be called a mass extinction? Yes. Well, I mean, this is kind of a

standard, but yes, 70% of all the species has to become extinct. Okay. And do you think that the biggest risk of that happening is climate change, or is it 10 things all? together? Or is climate change the real granddaddy of that risk? No. I think species extinction is as bad as climate change, but it hasn't been understood. I mean, just by itself, we take out climate change and we continue with the problems of habitat destruction, over killing, diseases and so on. Pesticides or besides all the pesticides, herbicides, we will face a six-mass extinction. if, unfortunately, on top of us, we put climate change, that will mean that we will affect many more species, much more rapidly, and there will be synergic and additive impacts, effects among all these issues.

So this is why it's so complicated, so complex, and so overwhelming, because it basically involves all the human enterprise. Okay, here's a tough question, Harardo. do you think a collapse of human civilization would be good for animal and other species' populations? Some people think definitely so, and others I've talked to think absolutely not. What do you think? Well, I would say in a different way. First of all, what we have learned from all the mass extinction is that life has recovered. Completely different ways, things, completely different species.

There are no more dinosaur. there are no more trilobite, there are no, but life to recover. But it took 15 to 20 to more million years. So in other words, I feel somehow a little bit less stress when I think that unless there is a nuclear holocaust or something like that, life will prevail. Okay. Now, if a collapse of civilization is good or bad,

it could be tremendously bad in the sense, and it could be tremendously bad, and it could speed up the extinction crisis. Just imagine that suddenly there is not enough food in the U.S. and people have gone. What will happen with the wildlife? They will go and kill deer or kill whatever to feed, and they will happen throughout the world. If you are in a place in Africa and suddenly there is no more food, and you will go and kill the last elephant with no problem. So in that sense could be really, really bad. Yeah, and in the sense if there's 100 plus nuclear missiles and then there's nuclear winter and there's no photosynthetic productivity in the oceans, I mean, there's all kinds of scenarios

like that, which is I'm trying to work on what I refer to as a bend, not break scenario. And I don't know exactly how that looks. Clearly, the sooner that we stop emitting carbon, the better certain populations will be of organisms in the ocean for one thing. But yeah, it's a heavy question to even think about. So what are, you do some work on endangered species. Maybe talk a little bit about some of your biggest challenges and biggest successes on your own work. Yeah. Well, what we do in my lab is basically, basically.

science and we do basic science and really powerful science. But this is different from many labs in the planet, is that we, scientific labs, is that we do a lot of conservation in situ. So we go and work to save species, but also to save habitats, ecosystems. We have created almost 2% of the Mexico landmass is protected because of work that we have been proposed to the government in these new areas as national parks or biosphere reserves and so on. And the other part is like we work with endangered species. For instance, we reintroduced bison's in Mexico, working with our colleagues. We created a reserve in other Mexico in the U.S. border, and this is what we call, it's

called Hanno's Reserve, and in that we reintroduce bison, we are protecting the black fruit as Ferret, and the Mexican government has reintroduced the wolf. And in southern Mexico, we work with jaguar, we work with tapirs, monkeys, and so on, trying to save them. Are you connected with a lot of grassroots eco teams around the world that are working on issues because of your center node nature in this topic? With some, not with many, but some, yes, because we're so unique in the sense that we do science and we also do this work. So we're not as well connected in that sense with other groups.

Simply we don't have enough time to do it, you know. But yes, we are part of some networks. And then the other thing we do, so we propose and protect areas as nature reserves. We work with endangered species. But we also do what we call public policy. We propose the first endangered species act in Mexico that now protects 3,000 species. And we proposed also we helped to create the National Commission on protected areas and so on. We create the first program for recovery of the prairie dogs and jaguars. So we go and then we do a lot of outreach. We do a lot of work working with the local governments or local people and schools and so on

trying to talk about these issues, but also talking many times about the successes that we have. have got a lot of success and although it is small for the magnitude of problem in Mexico or in the planet, those successes are very important to talk about because gives off to people and guidance. Well, we just, we need orders of magnitude more people working or at least devoting some time and resources and effort and passion towards this issue. What are some ways that people listening to this program who care about other species in the natural? world can make an impact globally or especially in their local ecosystems to help other creatures make it through the coming bottlenecks of this century?

Well, first of all, if they are listening to this program, to your podcast, they are already doing something that is good. They are getting good information. I would say that anything that can reduce our impact locally at home, for instance, if we are more affluent and we can buy better soaps or vetted foods or use less plastic and some, that's all good. If you go into the Internet that put 50 ways to help the environment, you will find literally hundreds of pages that will guide you on what you can do. But for instance, never buy wildlife as pets, never eat wildlife for food, try to reduce your impact or from eating.

For instance, I like meat and I eat the meat every, I probably once. every two weeks or something like that. And before I used to eat it two, three days a week. And nothing changes. Actually, probably my health is a bit better in some senses. But I haven't lost my pleasure of sometimes eating meat. I just have to be more responsible how to eat it. We buy things here at home, local things.

People, for instance, every Wednesday the guy come and sell us their fruits and vegetables that they go from here. And in the ranch that we have, we do exactly the same. We grow a lot of our own legions and fruits and so on. The other thing is to get involved locally and regionally. For instance, it's very important at this point. The people that you vote for has to have the right ideas in terms of protecting the environment,

in terms of putting the proper laws and the proper norms to reduce over-impact. And the other part, It is incredibly easier now to become, if you're interested, for instance, in saving species, to become volunteer or to donate funds or to do something to help the species that you are interested. Basically, what I say, because there are no recipes, there are so many ways to do it. Basically, what we have to do is to become actors, stuff being expectators, really. And now with the social media and with the Internet, we can do.

internet, we can really become actors in a big way, locally, regionally and globally. I think they're my sense, and of course it could be my network, and so I'm biased, is a lot of people understand this, a lot of people care about it. But the barrier to entry is so high that they don't know what to do. They want to do something. And I think sometimes you know my work about the superorganism and the energy hungry entity. that humanity on mass has created. It's hard to fight that.

But I think there are watersheds and communities and ecosystems around the world where people listening to this show live. And you can get a start right there. It's just how do you get started? I wish there was some international network with a how-to guide on protecting your local creatures and ecosystems. Does that exist? What do you recommend on that?

Well, it does exist and there are, as I said, in the internet, in YouTube and so on, there are many ways, many examples where you can do. But probably, I mean, get closer to people like me or you or to people or some of the Enkios who are doing a good work. It is hard, but it's not impossible. And the examples are now replicating. But you just give me a good idea that maybe it will be good to have like a, like a, A clearing house. A clearing house for that.

And let me tell you something. I have been working with a new project. We call it first stop extinction. And I would call it Creatures United. That if it works and everything seems to be working, going in the right direction, it will be basically that. It will be a massive movement. We'll try to get the idea of a species extinction to 2 billion people in the next five years.

specifically what is the problem, what is magnitude, what I can do, and then to direct the effort to basically four things, what needs to, I mean, projects who are already working, saving species and ecosystems, then a database who already been built where you can click in your neighborhood and see what are the species and what the species are in danger. And basically, and the third part that will be developed is we will be kind of the cleaning house, you say, okay,

I am in Quahaca, Mexico. I like to find out what are the groups who are working in different species. And you can click it, and it will give you all the groups working there, and then you can go and search and decide which one you want to support. Creatures United. Creatures United. And the idea, it is very ambitious, is to help, say, 100 million hectares, one million species, and to reach probably between 3 billion people in the next 10 years.

And not only would that help those species and ecosystems, but it also gives a sense of the sacred to those humans working on those things that we're lacking in our lives right now. That's exactly right. And it also will give, it will be like a solid ground to avoid many of the dangers of possible collapse. It's very ambitious. It's going, it's coming along well. It has to be ambitious. So let me know if I can help you with. that Herado. I will, and we will launch on November, and just to give you an idea, the idea is that we call it Creatures United because these are animals dressed like humans and it will say, for instance, hey, you, I am the white elephant, the white rhino, I'm becoming extinct,

I need your help. I'm talking on the name of all this endangered species, we need you help, please help us, something like that. And then it will be show in the, we want it to be for two days. be on the walls of the United Nations. You know that at night they put their colors or flags sometimes. We want to put the creatures there showing how many they are and where they are and why are they becoming extinct.

Good luck with that. I sense that people already feel that this is happening and it's too painful to go there. So it has to be coupled with direct action steps and people can immediately do. otherwise it's too sad and overwhelming, I think. But you're right. I mean, here you can donate to projects who are already working and saving species. You can participate in our project. It will tell you what kind of thing you can do, for instance, what product you can buy

reducing your impact. It will tell you what is the problem of trade, wildlife trade, and why can you do to avoid it and so on. I think that's really important. I also do think we need people to find each other in communities. in Topeka, Kansas, in Redwig, Minnesota, and Toluca, Mexico, that find each other and actually try to restore the ecology and protect the species in their own watershed within five miles of their house and to have a toolkit for that. And I don't know how possible that is.

I think about it. I read that somebody said that we need $400 billion to invest in conservation and it will be enough to tip up the point. $400 billion a year is nothing in a tree. million dollar economy. And what I say is just like if you have $1,000 in your pocket and they say, oh, sir, I'm sorry, you have to spend $4.00. Otherwise, you're going to die. We get it immediately. You know what I'm saying?

Well, it's, I mean, that's why I'm so impressed and thankful for people like you and Daniel Pauley and Peter Ward and others who are, because there's not a lot of funding to learn about all the other species that are, we're sharing the. planet with. So thank you. I have some questions that are a little personal that I asked to all my guests if you don't mind. So Herato, you were an animal researcher, expert, but you're also a college professor. So what do you tell your students after hearing about species extinction and future risk? Do you have any recommendations specifically for young humans listening to this show who are becoming aware of the economic, environmental risks and challenges we face? Well, what I say,

first of all, that there is still time, and there is still, we have a lot of responsibility, but also it's a great time of opportunity. So I say to them that the most open mind they are and the better prepare, academically prepared they are, less focus on one thing and more broad their knowledge, they will be better. What I tell my students and the people that I take my classes is that they have to spend time understanding the market, understanding what are the places where people will need, the society will need, specialized people, and that they have to think how to put their heart and their passion towards those places so they can have a decent job to do that. And I put myself as an example when I was studying the ecology. The economy,

the world wasn't even understood. And probably I was one of the first, probably 20 ecologists in the country, maybe less. I mean, and here I am. I'm well off and I'm happy and I do what I wanted to do. At that time, everybody would say, what I do? Gerardo, you're in Delhi, whether you study a lawyer or an accountant or something with money, and then you'll be this as your hobby. And my father was very good.

And he said, send him to help, do what you want. I need to do. You took the right path, my friend. My thanks. So what do you care most about in the world, Herado? To be honest, I care most species that are becoming extinct. I'm obsessed to save the species. I mean, obviously my family first, but aside from my family, the most important thing for me

is what I do, trying to save things from extinction and make, in terms of my science, the kind nothing I haven't done to be aware and really understand the magnitude of all the problems and then to expose them to as many people as I can, saving species, saving habitat. It gives me so much, so much happiness. For instance, recently we signed the deal that we're saving these 700,000 acres of forests. Just incredibly, I'm very happy for the people who own that land, but I'm happy for the species who will be saved there. That's excellent. What are you most concerned about of all the things we've talked about in the coming decade or so in our world? Main concern is we don't do the changes that we need to do quickly enough so we can really stop the problem and avoid a collapse of civilization.

And this is both personally, I'm already enough that I have lived a plentiful life. But I'm worried about my children. I mean, they're only 30 years old. And if things go bad, they will be. younger than I when they will feel the heat of the whole problem. So that's my main concern. And my main concern, sometimes I wonder, I mean, have we been so, I feel like we have failing humanity,

the people like me who are working on this, and we haven't been able to turn the tide, you know? So I know this is not, it will be very suburb or very bad to think that we can have the power to change it. But sometimes I feel worried that we haven't been able to have a better impact, a much higher impact, to change the tide. I feel it every day, Herardo, that we're not doing enough, but we're trying, and we have to keep trying. So in contrast to that, what are you most hopeful for in the coming decade or so?

I'm very hopeful because I'm seeing changes, great changes. I see that there is so many people interested in what I do, what I do or in the environment and corporations, governments, a TV series talking about this. I think I'm hopeful, and at least in my mind, I imagine that we are, as I say, like in the 70s with all these revolutions, the minority, the women, the revolution, or in the late 1900s with evolution, geology, psychology, economics, and so on.

That really shape up the following decade, and for many decades we're perfectly fine. I mean, we really live in a better war from sometimes in the 60s and 70s, and then we lose the track. I agree with everything you just said, except for the revolution in psychology and economics, perhaps I might disagree with that. But we'll do that in another call. It was a revolution. It doesn't mean that it was the proper revolution, but it changed things. Yeah.

No, you're right about that. So if you were benevolent dictator and there was no personal recourse to your decision, What one thing would you do to improve the human and planetary futures? Well, if I could do it, I will probably get the experts and find out ways how to reduce our appetite for fossil fuel and then take the decisions to curb it. On that note, do you have any other closing thoughts, advice, or wisdom for our listeners? This has been a wide-ranging, very deep personal conversation, and I thank you. Do you have any other closing thoughts? Well, what I would say is that I have devoted my life to work with animals to save species and so on.

And I feel very grateful. And I'm very hopeful. I'm very hopeful that we together, we will be able to turn the tide. And as I say before, fortunately, the window is still open. It's rapidly closing the still open. And I don't want to, believe it or not, and I'm optimistic, I really think that, we keep working hard and we may change the fate of humanity and the fate of biodiversity. Thank you so much for this conversation and for your lifetime of work on these issues.

And I hope to see you again soon, my friend. Thank you very much. It was being wonderful. If you enjoyed or learned from this episode of The Great Simplification, please subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform and visit the Great Simplification. for more information on future releases.