Transcripts For CSPAN2 Wild Things Wild Places 20161120

Women would not likely be more violent than a white person in fact, white People Killed are more likely to have been armed than any black person which speaks to the idea to black people are viewed more sinister or violent than white people . And does that seep into the use of fetal force . Are look we are continuing to let get back so thanks for the call. Miami book fair continues. We have our book tv bags and bus and were going up to the miamidade campus and hear from author and actress jane alexander. Her new book is called wild things, wild places adventurous tales of wild life and conservation on earth. This is book tv in miamidade. Miami. As many of you know the book fair has many sponsors and were truly grateful to all the sponsors who each year provide the necessary support to make sure this wonderful event takes place and it takes place at the caliber that it does. This year with the knight foundation. Many more sponsors that were truly appreciative of. We also acknowledge that Miamidade College has convened this book fair for over three decades and has brought this to our community yes you can applaud. Thank you. [applause]. It takes hundreds of students and faculty and staff they come together every year around here their time and again to make this happen. Thank you to Miamidade College. I want to acknowledge again and again the friends of Miami Book Fair in your support would you wave so we can see you. Thank you so much for your collaboration and support for those of you who are not friends and would like to join that circle and enjoy many of the benefits that our friends enjoy. Place yesterday so that we can get you involved. Today again we are starting the street fair and it will continue until tomorrow so i hope that you will stay with us until then. Please silence your cell phone i say that every time. Thank you very much. At this time i would like to introduce and bring to the podium. She is a Communications Director for the ibm society. Good afternoon. This is actually the best weekend in south florida. I know theres another event in two weeks but this is a real one. So i am the Communications Director for the tropical audubon society. We service the voice of conservation because as ms. Alexander says there is no claimant be. Will know more than anyone else what is happening with the global rise. We here to help you have the information that you need to be on top of the issues at hand and the make your own decisions as to how you are going to address those things that are really real for us right now. Im excited about the latest book wild things, wild places. She dedicates to the protections of the earth and all of the miraculous things living in it. Im excited because between stories of river rafting in adventures and magical snow white as moments she can access not only with that spirit of american conservation we seem to have lost but with the hope and sense of optimism that she feels and i agree with her are intrinsic to the conservationist spirit. I would like to welcome her finally and in miami speak i would like to say i am literally super excited to introduce jane alexander. [applause]. Think you. Thank you to tropical audubon for tweeting so much about this event and all of the great things that donovan does when i was about seven or eight i became absolutely fixated on flying me fine. I have seen my backyard birds. I grew up in a suburb called brookline massachusetts just outside of boston. And i have my mother who was a girl from nova scotia started to name the backyard birds for me and a very early age. They are the birds you know as well. Mockingbirds, robbins starlings. I began to look at them and say oh my gosh thats what i want to do. How lucky to be able to fly across the landscapes and see everything. When i was about ten i took my balloon tire bike down a little embankment. I have this idea have this idea that maybe i could catch one i went right towards offense they went up and one got caught in the wire and i got it. I held onto it and i turned over on its back and i spread its wings and i looked at it very carefully examining the structure i put the wing gently back. I thought that is the most magical thing in the world. At puberty i traded in birds for boys for the birds and the bees i traded in the magic of the Natural World for the magical part of theater. I do get back to birds for 20 years as my career in film developed. When i got back to my husband tonight by this time have four boys between us early marriages and we moved to the country as these boys are getting bigger and i have never lived in the country north of new york and Putnam County new york. I never lived in a Country Place for a year. We ended up living there 34 years. But in the first two years it was a perfectly beautiful place with a brook running down and little teeny lady lily pond. There was a lot of wildlife. What i he discovered in those years is at the birds that were coming back in the springtime where the same birds that have been there the year before and then it dawned on me i said zero my gosh we are the interlopers. These are species whether its birds or the river otters are the trout in the brook they have predated us by perhaps linea and i said zero my gosh ive got to understand that this is their home and we have to coexist and so i began to realize that pesticides are besides all of the things that threatened their lives was i can work for me and certainly for the health of them. That was the first transition for me in my thinking the second one came a few years later when my husband and i went to belize which is a wonderful country not far from here we were hiking in the pint forest of belize and going down a ravine when the overwhelming stench of a large animal hit our nostrils and i thought i hope this isnt a big jaguar that we are cornering. So i said lets just do this. I do not want to risk it i said lets just backtrack. And then i started to write a screenplay about a womans zoologist who tracks jaguars in belize. In the course of doing research on this project i contacted a new friend at the bronx zoo and said he said where did you get the idea. I literally hopped on the plane the next day and met alan who was 30 years old at the time. He has since become the large cat expert in the world. Allen was intrigued enough by what i have to say in my interest in creating a screenplay that he invited me back to his study site in the basin and we tracked them together for five days alan i ended up becoming best friends. We ended up traveling to many places in the world together with his wife and with my husband we went to nepal we went to india when he was studying the big cats. It was the former burma. Many other places. Thirtyfive years later i finally saw my first jaguar which was a thrill. But getting to know alan was really a lesson for me. I first met him as a 30yearold scientist he was doing pierce science and a lot of people a lot of the work he was doing now every single field biologist i met is doing conservation. Of the species in the habitat where they live. It is a really difficult job because you have to involve the whole community i want to read one passage to you about alans time in thailand because thailand has had very good protections of animals on the books for decades and yet the corruption is so ingrained in the culture of thailand from the person that goes out to poaching the animals right up to the top levels of government its only second to china in trade and body parts. Of animals. Allen was studying the clouded leopard in china for over two years he never once saw a life clouded leopard. He saw a number of dead once you had been poached. You cannot go out with field biologist today and not understand the crisis that animals are facing in the world. So i would like to read you a little bit from the time that we visited him in thailand my husband and i in the 1990s. One evening the new chief of the sanctuary joined us he was a senior wildlife officer in the forestry department. His dedication to wildlife was well known and if anyone could put an end to the rampant poaching it with him. The level of violence have escalated during alans time. It was now an all out war between the poachers into the poorest guards. Resulting in the death of two of the guards. Everyone in camp carried a weapon for their own safety while animals continue to be killed at an alarming rate. The workers estimated that as many as 60 poachers were in the sanctuary regularly. They were tribal people mostly they killed for food and anything else that could bring in money. But they were also police and soldiers who killed for the trade and body parts most of the catch was illegal and he knew it. He was a decent, honest intelligent man with a passion for the wildlife of his country. In the First Six Months on the job he rested more poachers than have ever been arrested before working in the field alongside his forest guard. He introduced many new Research Projects in a situation and he proposed it as a World Heritage site. But the same people in four forestry who had urged him to take the job where the ones playing a double game the one to give him no support for his efforts they threatened to kill him and he began wearing a bulletproof vest. His anger increase and depression spilled over into the spare. On december 1 he put a bullet through his head. There were many eco martyrs like him in the world today. They put themselves on the front line for the preservation of wild things and wild places in the paint with their lives. They get jailed or killed or like him they took their own lives. In despair at the entrenchment of construction that defeats them. Despair is easy to field in the wildlife wars. Dead animals animals that have been of the serrated for their tusks or gallbladders. They lie in mobile witness to our communal failure as human beings if all people have enough to eat if we consumers were not so greedy if we celebrated the glorious variety of all living things and understood how interconnected we all were if, if, f. The contrast that is thailand that allows the snake to be skinned alive and of the monk to look into the tigers eyes is a deep hearted boot is him and what it means to be human. They describe the dichotomy of liquidity in his palm. Please call me by my true names. He was moved by the true story of a little girl who drowned herself after being raped by sc pirate. Look deeply i arrived in every second to be a bond on the Spring Branch to be a tiny bird with wangs still fragile learning to sing in my new nest. To be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, two be a jewel hiding itself in the stone. I am the child in uganda all skin and bones my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And i am the Arms Merchant selling Deadly Weapons to uganda. Im the 12yearold girl refugee on a small boat who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by sc pirate and i am the pirate my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. Please call me by my true names so i can wake up and so the door of my heart can be left open the door of compassion. See make his death was not in vain. Nor forgotten. Nor did allens work go unnoticed. The Younger Generation in thailand began to take matters into their own hands and bring the government to account for the death of the forest the lands in the animal which rightly belong to all thai people. He was their hero. His picture carried in their hearts in on placards the royal family was moved by his death and murder and allowed a statute to be placed in the park the only statue erected in thailand other than those of the royal family and religious figures. Corrupt officials were replaced and regulations in the parks began to be enforced. Conservation organizations around the world helped the young activists create 51 new National Parks and wildlife sanctuaries between 1990 in 2000. And 2000. Bringing the total protected area to 60 of thailands land mass. The sanctuary is the last stronghold of the chinese tiger in thailand except for a few on the borders of bur and cambodia. It has been expanded in the year after the death it was designated a World Heritage site. The martyrdom was unexpected but it did happen. I am now travel the past 35 years to make entries in the world and with field biologist and that is what my book is about. It is about alan rabinowitz. And as i say his trajectory to become a wildlife conservationist for the big cats of the world. The second part of the book is called wildlife woman. I would like to tell you another story of the good news because there is a lot of good news. Despite the bad news. That has been going on and is ongoing. The threats to animals today across the globe our number one habitat loss and is usually due to development of land into the forest. The lands are probably top of the list. For the habitat. But the other thing that still ranks right up there as it always has his exploitation of animals. Not only commerce for food which has to happen to some degree certainly people have to be fed. The trade and body parts which illegal trafficking ranks fifth in the world for International Legal commerce. And hunting and pollution pesticides, pollution of waterways the pollution of food sources. The herbicide. These are ongoing issues. The issue of Climate Change which is can you change going to change the habitats of many creatures across the world. Im also experiencing as well in my home. We will continue to have it be a problem as well dropped. Weve all seen drought in the west coast of the United States and canada. And other places in the world. Neither can a kick in and are going to or can it begin in the next 20 years to decrease the habitat of all kinds of creatures. There well ultimately be some migrations away from the coast line. With all of this bad news we are the most extraordinary apex predator on the planet. We have a brain like no other. And the remarkable thing im so glad that im living in this time is the position of this cataclysmic event of extreme weather on our planet earth. With the rise of technology. In technology is actually going to be our friend and change the equation here. It is can help us grow better crops in smaller areas so we dont have to take over the habitat of the wild creatures. The poachers that are in the forest. They are now having their cameras on them. And they can tell us where they are. They can also tell us where the herd developments are. The same thing will happen in the oceans. We will be developing more and more because we need to feed the world. So im feeling really hopeful about what can be done what we really need as the well of the people. And thats where you come in. But before i make my pitch to you i want to tell you one more story about a perfectly adorable creature called kangaroo. I made a trip with most importantly it has you as a petitioner. Also along for the trip was lisa. Dot back basis herself in the Woodland Park zoo in seattle and she has a transect where she is studied not just the tree kangaroo but some of the birds of paradise. We went to this cloud forest that was about 8,000 feet up. They had radio collared four years or more before they are finding where it was. We went into this incredibly dense forest floor and in a rain forest everything is really wet and slippery. They spotted her about 40 feet up in the canopy the little guy that have been out of the pouch for about ten months. And was still a dependent on his mom. Shes about this big. And looks like a paddington bear. With a big long curve clause. That she could climb on the trees. A young man about 15 went up this. Its not like watching a hawaiian native going get coconuts. He could not get his arms around the tree. It was like spiderman going up the street. When yet about 10 feet he started to bang on the tree trunk to get her to jump. She just went up further. When up to 60 feet and there was a little law there. We watched as she started to munch the most beautiful pink orchids. Kind of the ideal disney creature. The joey jumped. 60 feet. It came down and land did on the spongy floor and the guys ran to get him and it was the gentlest most adorable little thing. I was lucky enough to witness this very rare animal in the rain forest and lisa in order to keep that enema from being a distinct had a visit all 40 villages that surround the habitat. Letting one area be a sanctuary for the tree kangaroo in which men cannot go in and hunt they are given solar lanterns. Their given education and their giving Health Benefits and clinics. And then they can hunt the tree kangaroo because its very nutritious and they do need the protein. They can see it outside the protected area. These are the kinds of Success Stories because it makes sense. They still got it to eat in certain times of year. They get all the benefits they needed. There is a tradeoff there. You cannot have conservation today without community. And where does community begin begins at home. So this is what i like to say and how i would like to involve you in this effort. There are literally thousands and thousands of scientists around the world doing this heavy lifting educating people about the rare animal that they live in. They didnt know there was no other tree kangaroo of that kind in the area. They didnt know they have only a species of hummingbird in the agricultural area that i visited. They educate them about the rare animal into they give them means to sustain the animal and they help the village sustain themselves economically with benefits like health and welfare. These are winwin situations. Where do you come in . If you could just pick three organizations which you have that for. Maybe its an animal may be maybe had to think a while. Almost all of them certainly all the large animals are in trouble. But lets talk about sea turtles. Pick an animal pick a place. A place that you like to see preserved. The first one make it local in your miami area. The second one make it a larger area maybe the United States. Or north america. And the third global. When i was a girl there were only a handful of wildlife organizations the sierra club Audubon Nature conservancy. Now there are thousands. A little boy in the audience recently said i happen to know that there is an organization in costa rica. You can go online and you can look up the urchins and you will come back with an organization. Most importantly it has you as a petitioner. I want to tell you those petitions that you signed make an enormous difference. He could really make a case for it. Its not a big ask of you. And should be a lot of fun. Hundreds and hundreds of orphaned elements. We have to stop the poaching of elephants. As a total winwin. Its a great Christmas Present by the way. They can give some simeon elephant. My elephant some to give it to me. This is what i ask of you at this time. They just think about joining in these organizations and understanding that they really do a great job and you are supporting the scientists were doing the work right there. And youre protecting the animals. The rest of them. We will change the world. Thank you. I will open it up for questions. [applause]. I would love to take if you questions if you have any. Thank you very much. I am a lifelong resident of miami and i was born two days after Everglades National park became a national park. Im concerned about the Sea Level Rise and Climate Change. I am protecting the everglades everglades. Mi area. Everywhere. Everybodys feeling it. To my mind it doesnt seem to matter if we call it Climate Change or something else. There are extreme weather that can be unrelated to Climate Change. There simply isnt enough for science and a time that we lived with it. So when there is climate deniers i like to bring up my favorite cartoon. He is standing there. What if its all a big hoax and we make the world a better place for nothing. So what we need to do is roll up our sleeves and really get to implementing it. I have to keep moving. As i said i live in the coast of nova scotia and ive been documenting the rising tide. Pretty soon my house which is only 20 feet above the water might grandchildren and i can have that house anymore. They are working around the world for best practices to mitigate these rising tides and they have Different Solutions every single place because of the current. I can talk to that in the everglades but you can join the people who are working on these issues and you can usually find those online if you dont have them here. Thank you. See make your performances are always so effective and obviously you do a lot of analysis about your characters. I wanted to ask just two questions. With Eleanor Roosevelt what were your feelings of her relationship with her children and secondly with your performance of the old lady what did you think of the essence of that character. It was an enormous treat. I was lucky that they kept postponing this miniseries. That really dates both of us. She was a very active woman and she cared very much. But she also cared very much about the things she was involved with. She was probably closest to anna. And one of the younger ones. She was not close to elliott. Elliott had some problems with his mother and his father i think there was basically a pretty good relationship. They were in the public eye the whole time. I did meet several of the children when they were still alive. They seemed like really remarkable people. With regard to the visit she goes to the big city and she becomes a madam probably of a brothel. And then she comes back to get even with a lover and now theyre both older people she comes back to get even with him by paying the town off. By saying if you kill him i will give each one of you money. So the sign that they had signed onto the steel is they start wearing yellow shoes. Its really a story about fascism. Ultimately she gets her way. The whole town subscribes and hes killed. I have to tell you it was more fun to play that woman. Thanks for the questions. Im so happy to hear you today. I belong to a group miami pine rock Land Coalition we had one and a half percent of the pineland left in this whole area. Outside of the everglades. There is a plot near the miami zoo if you havent been. A worldclass. In the commissioner the business want to put up a walmart next to the zoo. I know a lot of you dont know about it i see faces here that do. If you want to look locally i suggest going to work on facebook and fighting it. They have endangered plants and critters. One of them has just been put on the endangered list. So i really encourage people to be involved in that locally. It meets on thursday, the third thursday of the month at the audubon house. I think you for what youre doing and giving voice to what is so important to all of us. It really is important to support your local habitat. Ive been hearing this all across the country. Ive been on the road since october 1. Invariably a similar story has come up in every single locale i had been in where there is a beautiful area of habitat not always for an endangered species which by the way there can have a hard time with that one. If its truly under the u. S. Endangered species list. People having a fight for development there are some things in the world that had to be kept secret. Its a beautiful habitat that has trout running in that stream. We just dont have enough. Only seven is locked up into protective land. We really need to move that needle up for wild things and wild places to be able to exist. I dont know how many of you read it last year on climate. But it was a beautiful document you know we are so interconnected into the web of life is so complex we have to go on faith that the lowliest creatures of the earth are there for a reason because were all interconnected. And we need to save these things. We need to be careful about what we take away. Every time we try to pick out something by itself we find it is hitched to Everything Else in the universe. Its too complex for us to understand. Were not there yet. The oceans alone 95 of the oceans are unknown to us. Now we have the tools we can begin to understand what is there. But think about that some things are offlimits. Its an honor to be with you here. I had been a fan of your since i was a little girl. I am always struck by your grace. Thank you so much for being with us today. My question is youve had congressional experiences. You mentioned how to get through to someone that refuses to acknowledge science. As to how we can possibly bend that said senators ear. Do you have any advice on how to really make a difference because we do care but i think were all stuck in this Twilight Zone im not been able to communicate very obvious changes i did have congressional government experience fighting for the arts during those nea years where they wanted to do that. I met many people in congress it was very difficult to get any point across. What i always try to find a Common Ground. And with this issue the environment is Common Ground it is our home. Its all of our homes. We want to do the best practices we want to sustain the things that we need to live off of it we also had to the hardest thing i think will be in the next few years is can be seen listen, dont kill these creatures. We dont know enough yet. I think some of them have to be sacred and offlimits. Does that mean we should all be vegetarians know