Earth Matters

Earth Overshoot Day 2016 lands on August 8, marking the date when humanity has exhausted nature’s budget for the year, as measured by the Global Footprint Network. For the rest of the year, we will maintain our ecological deficit by drawing down local resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere -- we will be operating in overshoot. If that's not bad enough, the exhaustion of our annual ecological budget has been moving progressively earlier every year. Stephen Watson, the Director of Corporate Engagement at WWF-International joins us to tell us more.

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We spoke to Antony Lynam of the Wildlife Conservation Society, who has more than 20 years of experience implementing and advising wildlife conservation projects in Asia. Based in Bangkok, Thailand he serves as Regional Technical Advisor for wildlife protection and applied conservation projects in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Mongolia, Myanmar, Malaysia, and the Russian Far East. He spoke to us about his work in the conservation field in Myanmar in particular, which included developing a National Tiger Action Plan for the country.

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Dubbed the Godfather of Biodiversity, Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy is also among the first scientists to coin the phrase Biological Diversity. An ecologist who has worked in the Brazilian Amazon since 1965, he works on the interface of science and environmental policy, originated the concept of debt-for-nature swaps and has worked on the interaction between climate change and biodiversity for more than 20 years. He joined us for a chat about his life and work.

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Having colonized land and ocean, garden and tidepool, mollusks exemplify how life adapts, evolves, and moves into new niches. Associate Professor Dr. Aileen Tan, a marine biologist with the School of Biological Sciences at Universiti Sains Malaysia,  joins us for 101 on Marine Mollusks, and explains why they are vital components of the ecosystem.

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“Enough should be the central concept in economics,” wrote Herman Daly, one of the founders of ecological economics. The world's economy, as it is currently run, is causing long-term environmental, societal and economic damage. Author and economist Rob Dietz, who co-authored the book “Enough is Enough: Building a Sustainable Economy in a World of Finite Resources” joins us to discuss how he thinks we can reverse this and how we can challenge the dominant "growth at any cost" thesis of contemporary economics.

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Wildlife economist and conservationist Dr. Brendan Moyle is an experienced researcher of wildlife smuggling, who has travelled the world and tracked smugglers routes to understand the complex black market of illegal wildlife products. He challenges the established conservation perception of how to deal with illegal wildlife trade by advocating for the legal trade option. He joins us to share his arguments for the pro-trade model.

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As our earth heats up more and more each day, solutions are being searched for in every corner. Combining his engineering skills with his passion for humanity, Dr. Ernesto Hernandez, associate professor in the department of chemical and environmental engineering, offers a new spin on tackling global warming: Bio-inspired Chemical Engineering. What is this and how will it help? He joins us to discuss how he plans to engineer the global warming phenomenon for the better of humanity.

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50,000 farmers who lost their land to climate change-related river erosion in Bangladesh, participated in a radical project which transformed barren land into huge pumpkin fields. Since the first trials in 2005, more than 90,000 tonnes of produce has been grown, eaten or sold by more than 16,000 of the poorest people in Bangladesh. With the effects of climate change already making its appearance in Malaysia, we found out more about the project from Nazmul Islam Chowdhury, the Project Manager of Pumpkins Against Poverty at Practical Action Bangladesh, and discuss  how we might incorporate such projects in our own lands.

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Celebrated annually on the 8th of June, World Oceans Day is a global day of ocean celebration and collaboration for a better future. We speak to Brett Garling, the Communications Manager of the US-based NGO Mission Blue, which pushes for the protection of marine parks and places that are vital to the health of the ocean. Brett discusses how the ocean is linked to each and every one of us, and the urgent need to save what we have before it's too late.

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A while back, Bigger Picture producer Dr. Law Yao Hua attended the 3rd Asia Regional Conference of the Society for Conservation Biology - Asia Section. He spoke to two conservationists working with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) about wildlife conservation issues, specifically in Myanmar.

In the first interview, we hear from Saw Htun, the Deputy Country Program Director at WCS Myanmar, who gives a broad overview of conservation issues in his home country.

In the second interview, Yao Hua speaks to Dr. Simon Hedges, who coordinates elephant conservation projects across Asia for the WCS. Among other things, Simon discusses how elephant dung is used to understand, monitor and protect elephants in the wild.

If you'd like to know more about the Wildlife Conservation Society's work to conserve the world's largest wild places in 15 priority regions, you can download the podcast of our interview with Dr. Elizabeth Bennett and Dr. Melvin Gumal.

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