Saving Our Planet

As a girl in England, Jane Goodall dreamed of traveling to Africa to study animals in the wild. In the summer of 1960, her dream brought her to the shores of Lake Tanganyika, to observe the wild chimpanzees at Gombe Stream. Other scientists did not believe that a 26-year-old woman could survive alone in the bush, but Jane Goodall did more than survive. Her work revolutionized the field of primatology. Over the years, she found chimpanzees engaging in activities that were once thought definitively human, such as tool-making, cooperative hunting and even warfare. Her work, the longest continuous field study of any living creature, has forced us to redefine our understanding of what it means to be human, and provided a vital insight into the evolution of our own species. Today, Jane Goodall travels the world, campaigning for the humane treatment of all animals, and empowering young people in their own efforts to preserve the environment for all living things. In this two-part podcast, recorded at South Africa's Singita Sabi Sands Game Reserve during the 2009 International Achievement Summit, Dame Jane Goodall gives an engrossing account of her lifelong study of chimpanzees in the wild.

Award-winning documentary filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert have spent the last 25 years living among nature's most fearsome predators. From their camp in Botswana, hours from the nearest village, they record the social behavior and hunting practices of lions, cheetahs and leopards, the most endangered and dangerous creatures on earth. The pair first met in high school in Johannesburg, South Africa, and fell in love with wildlife and each other while studying at the Lion Research Institute in Botswana. Dereck writes, directs and shoots their documentary films, while Beverly, an internationally acclaimed photographer, serves as producer and sound engineer. Together, they remain in the wild for months on end, editing their films in their tents.

To date, they have created over 20 documentary films, half a dozen books and numerous magazine articles, winning five Emmy Awards and international environmental honors for their work. Their recent documentaries include Eye of the Leopard and Relentless Enemies: Lions and Buffalo. The Jouberts make a compelling video presentation of their work in this podcast, recorded at the Singita Sabi Sand Game Reserve in South Africa, during the 2009 International Achievement Summit.

Richard Leakey won fame as a paleoanthropologist while still in his early twenties, with sensational discoveries of the fossil remains of our most ancient ancestors, but his subsequent career as an author, conservationist, government official and political activist of unyielding courage has been even more extraordinary. For nearly 30 years, he directed the National Museum of Kenya, creating a world-class center for the study of human origins. As Director of Kenya's National Wildlife Service, he led a successful campaign against poaching of the endangered African elephant. After surviving a plane crash that cost him both his legs, he founded an opposition party to combat the corruption of the country's one-party government. Subjected to constant harassment, death threats and even beatings by the regime's supporters, he won election to parliament, where he forced reform of Kenya's constitution. As a government official, he continued his campaign against corruption in the civil service and secured a resumption of international aid. Now retired from politics, he remains a passionate and effective advocate for the environment, for the rights of the disabled, and for the cause of democracy in his beloved Kenya.

David Doubilet first fell in love with the undersea world as a child, snorkeling off the north coast of New Jersey. At age 12, he wrapped a Brownie camera in a plastic bag to take his first underwater pictures. He trained rigorously to excel as both diver and photographer; within a year of graduating from Boston University in 1970, he shot his first story for National Geographic, a relationship that continues to this day. In addition to contributing photographs and columns to a host of travel, nature and diving magazines, he has published half a dozen books of his astonishing images. Both inspired artist and fearless explorer, his expeditions have taken him around the world -- from the Caribbean to the South Pacific, from the Indian Ocean to the Galapagos Islands -- capturing the amazing creatures, brilliant scenery and otherworldly light of the ocean's depths. In reefs and caverns of fluorescent coral, he has recorded the most intense colors on the planet, as seen in his books, Water Light Time and The Kingdom of Coral: Australia's Great Barrier Reef. He has plumbed the mysterious depths of Loch Ness, Scotland and inspected the submerged remains of the USS Arizona at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, pioneering the use of the split-lens camera to take pictures at the water line, keeping objects above and below the waves in focus simultaneously. Recent assignments have taken him to the southern coast of Australia to photograph the great white shark, a fearsome predator, now itself endangered by the unregulated predation of man. His book, The Red Sea, documents the vistas of his "favorite underwater studio." Never far from the water, he maintains two homes in contrasting aquatic environments, one on the St. Lawrence River in Clayton, New York, and another on the sea at DeKelders, South Africa. When he is not on location, David Doubilet is a popular spokesman for the National Geographic Society, sharing his brilliant images to advocate for the conservation of what he has called "the most beautiful, most mysterious part of our planet."

"I can still feel that leap of enthusiasm, and real joy, at the prospect of finally getting out to the beach, and running around. But probably the most important thing, to me, aside from just the freedom of it and the power of it, was the kind of creatures that you could see along the beach, that you can't find anywhere else." That child's fascination with the crabs she found scurrying in the sand, was the beginning of a remarkable career in marine science. Today, Sylvia Earle is the best-known woman marine scientist on the planet. Among other accomplishments, she has walked untethered on the sea floor at a lower depth than any other human being. When Sylvia Earle first began her career, she met resistance. Some people could not accept a woman traveling with men on long scientific expeditions, but her remarkable accomplishments have won her a position in the oceanographic community that transcends boundaries. Botanist, biologist, conservationist, entrepreneur, Sylvia Earle has followed whales in the open sea, fought with sharks, and lived for weeks at a time on the floor of the sea, in the Tektite undersea station. She has challenged and overcome every obstacle that stood in the path of her burning curiosity about the magical world beneath the waves."

U.S. Representative Edward J. Markey he points out the dangers of not resolving the global warming and climate change issues and moderates the panel.

Sylvia Earle speaks about the importance of the health of the oceans to the survival of our planet and how the oceans drive the way the planet works.

Richard Leakey reminds us that something must be done to mitigate the acceleration of climate change, that the protected areas in Africa and around the world have become like islands and that climate change can potentially devastate island populations.

John Morgridge talks about what Nature Conservancy is doing now in order to protect the habitats and species of the world . He also reminds us that the longer we wait, the less opportunity there will be to stop the effects of global warming.

The panel answers questions from the audience.