so the story of my talk today or the
theme I should say is changing the world
by challenging herself and I hope by the
end of this talk you’ll understand why
so last year I embarked on an eco
expedition to Sulawesi Indonesia and
personally I love to travel I’m always
seeking new experiences and I loved
immersing myself in different cultures
but this trip in particular was probably
for me one that will go down as one of
the most memorable of my life and today
I’d like to share with you why Sulawesi
it’s an interestingly shaped Indonesian
island just east of Borneo and it’s
surrounded by very deep seas which means
that even during the ice ages when the
world’s sea levels were much lower
Sulawesi remained an island and it never
connected to other land masses
consequently what that means is that
animal migration was rendered impossible
what that means over time is that for
centuries the species of life on
Sulawesi have come to evolve
independently and uniquely and
scientifically we call that being
endemic and as a result that also makes
sudo a sea an absolutely perfect place
for ecological exploration so the trip I
was on was divided into two sections one
week in the jungle and one week at a
marine site first in the jungle there
myself and the rest of the expedition
members stayed at a campsite which was a
muddy four-hour Trek away from
civilization there were no roads no
electricity no signal no running taps
and no toilets and that was probably the
hardest part for me
everyone at the campsite which is about
40 people we all pooped into one big
trench and after a week there was no
longer a trench there I was immersed
into the wild which is something not
many of us urban dwellers ever get to do
there I became a research assistant I
worked with a bunch of other passionate
and knowledgeable scientists who are
extremely well educated in their
respective fields on-site we had a
herpetologist someone who studies
reptiles and amphibians we had a bat
scientist butterfly scientist bird
specialist and more this is what I was
missing a slide well there it is this is
what our schedule looked like every day
and you can’t quite see very clearly but
what this is is basically a list of all
the events that we went on so every day
we would go out into the jungle and we
collect data and we’d survey the
habitats we collected data about bad
populations butterfly populations bird
populations here are a few photos that I
took every day we received these
lectures about the local environment and
ecosystem of Sulawesi we learned how to
estimate distances we memorized the bird
calls of different species and we also
learned how to track megafauna like wild
cows and pigs at the top right corner
you actually see a footprint of a wild
pig that we were tracking in the middle
of the Sulawesi jungle after one week of
being in the jungle our next destination
was the marine site there are those of
us who never had scuba diving experience
we worked for our open water diving
certification and those of us who did
have diving experience we got our
advanced diving suits and like in the
jungle there we also received lectures
about the local coral reef ecosystem and
marine system of Sulawesi we learned how
to conduct transactions of fish
invertebrates and benthos which is the
seabed and then we went out onto the
corals to actually collect data and
these are some of the cool photos that
we took underwater in some of our times
however despite all the magnificent
creatures that we saw and the beautiful
healthy environment that I was fortunate
enough to be in there was a serious and
quite frankly tragic undertone because I
knew the reason I was there was to help
preserve the health of a deteriorating
ecosystem and I’m sure we all know the
story of climate change and human
impacts soil degradation air pollution
water pollution habitat fragmentation
surface albedo decrease these are just a
few the list goes on let me give you a
few numbers on average the world’s
glaciers have been but have bend by
about 10 meters since 1980 and since the
Industrial Revolution ocean acidity
levels have increased by 30 percent I
could stand here and continue to recite
statistics but this trip allowed me to
experience the impacts of human
environmental implications on a
significantly more personal level and
I’d like to share with you that instead
what you’re seeing here are turtle eggs
at a fish market in Indonesia and that
should be grim news because turtles in
general are very endangered species the
fact that we saw turtle eggs at a local
fish market in Indonesia suggests that
we as humans are hunting the root of
their turtle population so at the same
time we’re also hunting the turtle
themselves which makes me wonder how can
the population of turtles bounce back
when we’re cutting them off at the root
here’s another slightly darker photo and
at first you might think there’s shark
fins they’re actually manta ray fins
another severely threatened species
seeing these incredibly beautiful and
elegant species which I swam alongside
with in the water butchered like that on
line on land angered me very deeply but
at the same time I’m also glad to have
witnessed it because now I have seen the
roots of animal endangerment for myself
and I can tell the story from a personal
viewpoint on the bright side of things
there is a plethora of ways through
which you can help combat this issue
awareness the first step if no one
understands the issue
no one will solve the issue and what I’m
doing today is trying to precisely raise
awareness
the next is involvement action if every
human being all seven billion five
hundred million of us contributed even
slightly to this cause we’d be seeing
immensely better results and there seems
to be this preconception that something
of such a large scale as global warming
requires an equally large campaign or
project to combat it I don’t think that
is necessarily the case in fact I think
the key to combating and even reversing
climate change lies within the
individual each and every one of us so
what can you do how can you start well
you can start today you can start by
reusing plastic bags when you’re buying
groceries not using straws when you
don’t need to saving that five minutes
in the car by taking a walk reducing
your meat intake boycotting products
that contain palm oil these are just a
few small actions amongst a plethora of
other ways but the point is for us to
become aware of the environmental
effects of these small actions saving
that five minutes in the car do that
every day for about a year and you’ll
save gallons of oil reduce your meat
consumption one kilogram of beef is
estimated to consume about 15,000 liters
of water save say 10 kilograms of beef a
year and you would have saved one
hundred and fifty thousand liters of
water now imagine if every human being
all seven billion and 500 million people
did just that you could be a part of it
and now you might be thinking well what
can an individual do your actions might
feel insignificant and yes that’s true
but that’s the exact mentality that
prevents action and that’s the exact
mentality that prevents progress because
if everybody thinks that way no one will
act so it starts with you and then with
the people around you you can’t change
the world without changing yourself
first so I mentioned near the beginning
of this talk that this trip will
probably go down as one of the most
memorable of my life and it relates to
this notion of thrusting yourself into
unfamiliar and uncomfortable
environments for me and barking on this
trip was doing just that
there are so many reasons for why this
trip was so special for me and that
involves the place that I went to the
people I met the things I learned rather
than comfort traveling I camped in the
middle of a jungle so remote had I’d
been bitten by a venomous snake I would
not get to civilization soon enough to
receive antidotes I was fortunate to
dive at a reef that is still healthy
where I swam alongside beautiful
creatures that I only see photos of in
the classroom I formed a camaraderie
with my other expedition members and
formed friendships I met passionate
scientists who all carry equally
interesting stories about their
adventures to other remote parts of the
world and these passionate these
scientists are some of the most
passionate people that I’ve ever met and
you could tell just by the way they were
interacting with wildlife and their
surroundings that they really loved what
they were doing and I admired that a lot
and finally I learned so much I learned
about all the ways our planet is dying I
was motivated to take action I was
angered by the lack of respect of those
who choose to neglect our environment
and perhaps it’s not as much content as
a biology textbook for example but I
learned in such a way that cannot be
replicated in a classroom by actually
being out there in the world I was
feeling hearing seeing and smelling what
I was learning about so I think what
made this trip so special for me was
that it was wildly different and thus
unfamiliar and as human beings we tend
to fear the unfamiliar and there are
good evolutionary reasons for that it’s
easy to be satisfied with what we have
and therefore stay in what we call our
comfort zones but do you plan on staying
there forever I sure don’t and I hope
you don’t as well because I truly
believe that the best stories aren’t
written inside a room but rather outside
it were crazy unexpected things happen
to make a story all the more exciting so
on our last day at the marine site
before our long journey back to Hong
Kong I was speaking with the head
scientist there and he told me every day
about 200 species of life go extinct
which is 1,000 times the rate it should
be since the start of this talk one
species has
gone extinct so that day I made him a
promise I promised him that I would play
a role in educating and motivating the
next and quite possibly the last
generation of human beings that can
still save the environment and that is
what I hope to have ultimately
accomplished today I hope you now
understand that small individual scale
action is still action and collectively
we can alter humanity’s current course
at the same time I hope to have inspired
you to challenge yourself and put
yourself in uncomfortable and unfamiliar
environments with the two together
you’re bound to make positive change for
both yourself and your world so I’d like
to leave you with a challenge I
challenge you to thrust yourself into
uncomfortable environments I challenge
you to throw yourself out there seek
discomfort seek adrenalin and seek
adventure in the process you will under
grow personal growth and hopefully also
play a part in preserving the health of
our beautiful natural world thank you
you
theme I should say is changing the world
by challenging herself and I hope by the
end of this talk you’ll understand why
so last year I embarked on an eco
expedition to Sulawesi Indonesia and
personally I love to travel I’m always
seeking new experiences and I loved
immersing myself in different cultures
but this trip in particular was probably
for me one that will go down as one of
the most memorable of my life and today
I’d like to share with you why Sulawesi
it’s an interestingly shaped Indonesian
island just east of Borneo and it’s
surrounded by very deep seas which means
that even during the ice ages when the
world’s sea levels were much lower
Sulawesi remained an island and it never
connected to other land masses
consequently what that means is that
animal migration was rendered impossible
what that means over time is that for
centuries the species of life on
Sulawesi have come to evolve
independently and uniquely and
scientifically we call that being
endemic and as a result that also makes
sudo a sea an absolutely perfect place
for ecological exploration so the trip I
was on was divided into two sections one
week in the jungle and one week at a
marine site first in the jungle there
myself and the rest of the expedition
members stayed at a campsite which was a
muddy four-hour Trek away from
civilization there were no roads no
electricity no signal no running taps
and no toilets and that was probably the
hardest part for me
everyone at the campsite which is about
40 people we all pooped into one big
trench and after a week there was no
longer a trench there I was immersed
into the wild which is something not
many of us urban dwellers ever get to do
there I became a research assistant I
worked with a bunch of other passionate
and knowledgeable scientists who are
extremely well educated in their
respective fields on-site we had a
herpetologist someone who studies
reptiles and amphibians we had a bat
scientist butterfly scientist bird
specialist and more this is what I was
missing a slide well there it is this is
what our schedule looked like every day
and you can’t quite see very clearly but
what this is is basically a list of all
the events that we went on so every day
we would go out into the jungle and we
collect data and we’d survey the
habitats we collected data about bad
populations butterfly populations bird
populations here are a few photos that I
took every day we received these
lectures about the local environment and
ecosystem of Sulawesi we learned how to
estimate distances we memorized the bird
calls of different species and we also
learned how to track megafauna like wild
cows and pigs at the top right corner
you actually see a footprint of a wild
pig that we were tracking in the middle
of the Sulawesi jungle after one week of
being in the jungle our next destination
was the marine site there are those of
us who never had scuba diving experience
we worked for our open water diving
certification and those of us who did
have diving experience we got our
advanced diving suits and like in the
jungle there we also received lectures
about the local coral reef ecosystem and
marine system of Sulawesi we learned how
to conduct transactions of fish
invertebrates and benthos which is the
seabed and then we went out onto the
corals to actually collect data and
these are some of the cool photos that
we took underwater in some of our times
however despite all the magnificent
creatures that we saw and the beautiful
healthy environment that I was fortunate
enough to be in there was a serious and
quite frankly tragic undertone because I
knew the reason I was there was to help
preserve the health of a deteriorating
ecosystem and I’m sure we all know the
story of climate change and human
impacts soil degradation air pollution
water pollution habitat fragmentation
surface albedo decrease these are just a
few the list goes on let me give you a
few numbers on average the world’s
glaciers have been but have bend by
about 10 meters since 1980 and since the
Industrial Revolution ocean acidity
levels have increased by 30 percent I
could stand here and continue to recite
statistics but this trip allowed me to
experience the impacts of human
environmental implications on a
significantly more personal level and
I’d like to share with you that instead
what you’re seeing here are turtle eggs
at a fish market in Indonesia and that
should be grim news because turtles in
general are very endangered species the
fact that we saw turtle eggs at a local
fish market in Indonesia suggests that
we as humans are hunting the root of
their turtle population so at the same
time we’re also hunting the turtle
themselves which makes me wonder how can
the population of turtles bounce back
when we’re cutting them off at the root
here’s another slightly darker photo and
at first you might think there’s shark
fins they’re actually manta ray fins
another severely threatened species
seeing these incredibly beautiful and
elegant species which I swam alongside
with in the water butchered like that on
line on land angered me very deeply but
at the same time I’m also glad to have
witnessed it because now I have seen the
roots of animal endangerment for myself
and I can tell the story from a personal
viewpoint on the bright side of things
there is a plethora of ways through
which you can help combat this issue
awareness the first step if no one
understands the issue
no one will solve the issue and what I’m
doing today is trying to precisely raise
awareness
the next is involvement action if every
human being all seven billion five
hundred million of us contributed even
slightly to this cause we’d be seeing
immensely better results and there seems
to be this preconception that something
of such a large scale as global warming
requires an equally large campaign or
project to combat it I don’t think that
is necessarily the case in fact I think
the key to combating and even reversing
climate change lies within the
individual each and every one of us so
what can you do how can you start well
you can start today you can start by
reusing plastic bags when you’re buying
groceries not using straws when you
don’t need to saving that five minutes
in the car by taking a walk reducing
your meat intake boycotting products
that contain palm oil these are just a
few small actions amongst a plethora of
other ways but the point is for us to
become aware of the environmental
effects of these small actions saving
that five minutes in the car do that
every day for about a year and you’ll
save gallons of oil reduce your meat
consumption one kilogram of beef is
estimated to consume about 15,000 liters
of water save say 10 kilograms of beef a
year and you would have saved one
hundred and fifty thousand liters of
water now imagine if every human being
all seven billion and 500 million people
did just that you could be a part of it
and now you might be thinking well what
can an individual do your actions might
feel insignificant and yes that’s true
but that’s the exact mentality that
prevents action and that’s the exact
mentality that prevents progress because
if everybody thinks that way no one will
act so it starts with you and then with
the people around you you can’t change
the world without changing yourself
first so I mentioned near the beginning
of this talk that this trip will
probably go down as one of the most
memorable of my life and it relates to
this notion of thrusting yourself into
unfamiliar and uncomfortable
environments for me and barking on this
trip was doing just that
there are so many reasons for why this
trip was so special for me and that
involves the place that I went to the
people I met the things I learned rather
than comfort traveling I camped in the
middle of a jungle so remote had I’d
been bitten by a venomous snake I would
not get to civilization soon enough to
receive antidotes I was fortunate to
dive at a reef that is still healthy
where I swam alongside beautiful
creatures that I only see photos of in
the classroom I formed a camaraderie
with my other expedition members and
formed friendships I met passionate
scientists who all carry equally
interesting stories about their
adventures to other remote parts of the
world and these passionate these
scientists are some of the most
passionate people that I’ve ever met and
you could tell just by the way they were
interacting with wildlife and their
surroundings that they really loved what
they were doing and I admired that a lot
and finally I learned so much I learned
about all the ways our planet is dying I
was motivated to take action I was
angered by the lack of respect of those
who choose to neglect our environment
and perhaps it’s not as much content as
a biology textbook for example but I
learned in such a way that cannot be
replicated in a classroom by actually
being out there in the world I was
feeling hearing seeing and smelling what
I was learning about so I think what
made this trip so special for me was
that it was wildly different and thus
unfamiliar and as human beings we tend
to fear the unfamiliar and there are
good evolutionary reasons for that it’s
easy to be satisfied with what we have
and therefore stay in what we call our
comfort zones but do you plan on staying
there forever I sure don’t and I hope
you don’t as well because I truly
believe that the best stories aren’t
written inside a room but rather outside
it were crazy unexpected things happen
to make a story all the more exciting so
on our last day at the marine site
before our long journey back to Hong
Kong I was speaking with the head
scientist there and he told me every day
about 200 species of life go extinct
which is 1,000 times the rate it should
be since the start of this talk one
species has
gone extinct so that day I made him a
promise I promised him that I would play
a role in educating and motivating the
next and quite possibly the last
generation of human beings that can
still save the environment and that is
what I hope to have ultimately
accomplished today I hope you now
understand that small individual scale
action is still action and collectively
we can alter humanity’s current course
at the same time I hope to have inspired
you to challenge yourself and put
yourself in uncomfortable and unfamiliar
environments with the two together
you’re bound to make positive change for
both yourself and your world so I’d like
to leave you with a challenge I
challenge you to thrust yourself into
uncomfortable environments I challenge
you to throw yourself out there seek
discomfort seek adrenalin and seek
adventure in the process you will under
grow personal growth and hopefully also
play a part in preserving the health of
our beautiful natural world thank you
you
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