‍[00:02] Jennifer Wu: Hi everyone, welcome to The Founder Spirit podcast. I'm your host, Jennifer Wu. In this podcast series, I interview exceptional individuals from all over the world with the founder spirit, ranging from social entrepreneurs, tech founders, to philanthropists, elite athletes and more. Together, we'll uncover not only how they managed to succeed in facing multiple challenges, but also who they are as people and their human story. 

“I didn't want it to be a repellent image, I wanted to be an empathetic image. Because Paul has said to me so many times as a biologist, when we tell people that polar bears will go extinct in the next 50 years, they cannot really imagine or feel what that means. And so finding an image that conveys that is really hard.”

“My dream is that we live (on) a beautiful planet that's full of hope for everybody. And I wanted this book to be a reminder everyday for those who have it that there is hope in the courage, in the work, in the inspiration from the people in the front lines that refuse to give up and that are doing the battle that's necessary.”

Joining us today is the world-renowned Cristina Mittermeier, founder of The International League of Conservation Photographers and SeaLegacy, a leading force in ocean conservation.

Hailed as one of the most influential conservation photographers of our time, Cristina began her career as a marine biologist and has dedicated her entire life to protecting the Ocean and inspiring millions through her stunning visual storytelling.

Recipient of numerous awards and accolades, she is also the star of the Disney+ series “The Photographer”. 

But that’s not the only reason why she’s on the show. Cristina and I met earlier this year, I was awestruck by her openness, her authenticity, as well as her amazing ability to connect with people. She felt like an old friend and a kindred spirit, though I am nowhere as eloquent or elegant as she is. She is not only smart and witty, but she is also enormously talented & has a big big heart. 

Just how did a marine biologist become a world-class storyteller who coined the term conservation photography? Well, let’s talk to her & find out.

Hello Cristina, welcome to the Founder Spirit Podcast today. I know it's very rare for you to spend time on land, so we're really grateful to have you with us today. Thank you.

[02:49] Cristina Mittermeier: Oh my God, the beautiful Jennifer Wu. I so enjoy having met you earlier this year and I'm so pleased to be here and having this chat with you today. Thank you.

[02:59] Jennifer: Thank you Cristina. Growing up in Mexico, what were some of the formative experiences in your life?

[03:08] Cristina: You know, one of the things that you and I talked about that first dinner when we met was the experience of growing up in countries where women are not necessarily empowered and privileged. And growing up in Mexico for me was like that. 

You know, it is a developing country, and of course, girls get to go to school, but there is still an unspoken privilege that is given to boys. And this is not something that people talk about, but you know it and you feel it. 

So the formative part for me was growing up with a mother that was a champion. There's four girls in my family and one boy, my older brother. And so the community of girls, you know, they're my sisters - they're so supportive and so amazing, the best playmates. 

And we grew up in a rural setting in Mexico, so a lot of time to play outside. My mom was very good at just letting us go out, get dirty, play with animals, and come home tattered and broken but happy. And I think that was really formative. 

But the other part of it is just like I'm sure it was for you growing up in China, just growing up in Mexico with such a wealth of tradition and knowledge and all of these things that get embedded into who you are. You don't even know about it when you're growing up, but later when you look back, you're like, oh, my gosh, I was rich growing up.

[04:34] Jennifer: Absolutely. Having lived now in three continents, it's really becoming part of who I am. I'm sure that you feel the same thing because you've lived and traveled over 130 countries around the world and across all seven continents. 

Cristina, Mexico city is about 200 miles away from the nearest coast. So I was wondering, what made you want to become a marine biologist?

[05:01] Cristina: That's a great question. My dad was from a small city on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in the state of Tamaulipas - it's called Tampico. And it is famous for two things. It's got an oil culture, so it's big oil extraction right next to Texas. But it also has a great seafood scene. 

And so we used to vacation there as children, and we would go to the beach. The Gulf of Mexico is not particularly beautiful, like the Caribbean. So you go in the water, when you come out, you're covered in tar. And so my mom used gasoline to clean us up before putting us back in the car. 

But I have a memory early on, I remember is that I got picked up by a big wave that tossed me around. And I crawled on the bottom and I opened my eyes, and (it was) like, dark and sandy. And I thought it was great - I think I was hooked on the power of the ocean from childhood. 

But, yeah, you're right. I grew up in the mountains and far away from access to the ocean. So it was books - it was Jacques Cousteau and National Geographic. And then I had these fabulous pirate books that my father would give my brother and then I would steal to read.

[06:14] Jennifer: Yeah, I did see that in the Disney+ documentary.

I also read one of your blogs where you talked about the early days, your first job was working on the Yucatan Peninsula in a very small town called Akumel - I think it's Mayan for “place of turtles.” 

And I understand that while you were working there, you actually took it upon (yourself) to protect the eggs of the sea turtles. And (these) actions actually catalyzed the creation of a local nonprofit on ocean conservation a few years later.

I was wondering, how did this chapter of your life influence your path going forward? Because you were very young at the time, you had just graduated from university.

[07:04] Cristina: You remember yourself at 20, (Jennifer)? I knew nothing. You know, I was so naive, so arrogant, I thought that I was so cool. 

And so I went to Akumal to work for a hotel that had hired me to look at the biodiversity. They wanted to create a little reserve around the property. I didn't know anything, but I had a bike and I had time. 

So I would just spend the day chasing butterflies and drawing the birds and the monkeys, and diving. And it caught my attention the name of the place in Mayan means the place of turtles. And I thought, where are the sea turtles? 

Sure enough, in the spring, they started coming back and nesting in the beaches. So I started walking the beach and observing, and I realized that animals were digging up the nests and eating the eggs, and even the locals were stealing some of the eggs. 

So I had this very naive sense of justice, you know, started relocating the nests and putting them behind little gates, fences that I made with sticks and stuff. And pretty soon, the kids from the village nearby wanted to come with me, and so I started taking children. 

And then the hotel noticed, and they started inviting the guests to join me after dinner on these nightly walks. And it became a thing. And so pretty soon, everybody was all interested in the sea turtles. 

And you always need a group of local champions. I had these friends in the local community, people that live there, and they wanted to do more for the turtles. So we established this Centro de Ecológico Akumal (Ecological Center of Akumal).

And it's one of those things. And I think the biggest influence was the lesson that I learned that so many times in your life, you will plant a seed for something that you will never watch grow, and that's what it became. 

Thirty years later, I went back, and sure enough, there is a building and there is the name, and there's activities happening around sea turtles. It feels really good.

[09:00] Jennifer: The sea turtles, they're such magical creatures. They're solitary animals, actually they don't know who their mother is. Yet after many years, what I found extraordinary was the female sea turtles have this homing mechanism where they come back to the island where they were born.

[09:21] Cristina: After thousands of miles in the open ocean. I think it's that magic of sea turtles, and you're absolutely right - they're extraordinary creatures. 

That really got me thinking about planet Earth as a spaceship. If it was a spaceship, then the ocean would be our engine. And the creatures that live in the ocean are the engineers. You know, we don't understand and we don't know what they're doing, but they play such an important role in keeping the machinery going. 

And the fact that they can complete these massive migrations and talk to each other in languages that we don't understand, they have their own culture, their own maps in their own head. We cannot even imagine these abilities and skills and we just dismiss them and consider them inferior somehow.

So I love that curiosity because I hope that's what's going to get us out of this pickle. Just understanding that we are not the top species on this planet - we're just one of many. 

[10:19 Jennifer: Absolutely. So coming from a scientific background, how did you eventually move into photography? 

[10:27] Cristina: Yeah, you know, I think it's the hero's quest. I had this enormous sense of justice as a young person and I really wanted to right the wrongs. And I could see that we were exploiting too much, not just of the ocean, the land, and treating people poorly. I mean, like all of these sense of justice things were very big for me. 

But I initially thought that science was going to be the way. And growing up in a family where girls have to really excel, I thought I'll be a scientist and write scientific papers and I'll be part of academia. 

And very quickly, Jen, I realized science is a language that is mostly inaccessible to most people. And a lot of people misinterpret the data because they don't have the context or it's just too boring to read.

But when I was working in Mexico City, (I) used to share a space with a photographer and he was putting a book together. I thought, that's so cool. And it was the first time that I had the opportunity of experiencing just what photography can do. 

He was making a coffee table book about conservation in Mexico. And he didn't speak very good English, so he asked me for help and I helped write the captions and some of the text. And then as a reward, I was invited to the launch of the book, (a) beautiful gala. 

You can imagine all the little tables and there's the book open and people are browsing. And I immediately noticed that people were not reading the text or even the captions. You know, they were looking at the photos. And more importantly, people felt confident enough to ask questions about those photos. 

So that barrier of intellectual elitism is removed and people are comfortable just wanting to know what did it feel like? And were you scared? Were you hungry? All these questions and I thought, wow, that is a better way of engaging in trying to understand our planet.

So I thought, I'll become a photographer, who in your 20s, you don't really think about the obstacles. I just thought, I'll learn how to do it.

[12:29] Jennifer: That actually is a perfect segue into my next question, which is, when you're out there framing a shot, either in the field or in the ocean, what actually goes through your mind?

[12:42] Cristina: That's a great question, so it's a two-part answer. And of course it has to do with your left side of the brain and the right side, the more creative. 

On the one hand, I'm thinking about composing something beautiful and compelling. Just in Amboseli (National Park in Kenya) photographing elephants using low-angle photography. And you can barely see what you're shooting. And I was just trying to get the whole animal in the frame and hopefully if it's looking at the camera better, oh my God, it's got the ears open, that's a shot. 

But the other side is you're thinking about the technical aspect to be a fate, it has to have a strobe or whatever it is. 

And the third part of it is I'm thinking, what are the challenges that we're trying to solve by telling these stories? Who can we help protect these creatures? Because it is always a consortium of local heroes and organizations and the donors that support them and the politicians that believe that this can be done, or the opposition. 

And I like that game of chess, figuring out who are the players and where can we insert both the story and the photographer as an ambassador for the story to create change, to solve the problems. All of these things are going through my head.

[13:54] Jennifer: So early in your career you actually took portraits of families when you started working as a professional photographer, what was it like in the early days? 

[14:05] Cristina: So I was married to an anthropologist who happened to be the president of Conservation International. So with him, I was able to travel to these amazing places. And in those trips I was able to make some photographs. 

But 90% of the time I was back home raising my kid. And my ex-husband was very supportive of me being a photographer and helped me acquire some of the equipment. But he also said to me, you know, you're going to have to make this work. 

And I am an entrepreneur, so I started a family portraiture business and I discovered something amazing. I had this little spot in front of the Great Falls in Virginia, which is the Potomac River, and I would have my clients come in and take their position. 

And I had a family come in, they all had the red sweater. And then the next family would come in, they all had the black sweater. And I would have them in a rotation. And for their holiday card, which was like a tradition in this community, the more I charged them, the more in demand I was. 

So that allowed me to not only get the chops of becoming a better photographer, but also the business savvy to actually make it work. It's hard to be a photographer, Jen.

[15:12] Jennifer: Yeah, I can imagine.

Cristina, in 2005, you founded the International League of Conservation Photographers, and thus coined the phrase “conservation photography.” And in the years that followed, I understand you worked as an assistant to Paul Nicklen, who is a well-known National Geographic photographer who later became your life partner. 

I was wondering, how hard was it to take the leap of faith to go from an assistant to the photographer? How difficult was it for you to forge your own path?

[15:50] Cristina: Yeah, this is another awesome question. I think the spirit of the entrepreneur is understanding when there's a need and then finding a way to fulfill that need. 

And for me, becoming a nature photographer and talking to other photographers, I had like this aha moment when I realized that most photographers were not even worried about the fate of wildlife or the places where they were photographing. 

And I thought, I asked, raised my hand, you know, what can we do with our pictures? And I was basically told, that's not what we do. You know, shut up, sit down and don't rock the boat. And I thought, no, you know, I think there's a lot of power.

I went on a family trip and I started following the work of a photographer in Tasmania that had used his photographs to stop the creation of a very large hydroelectric dam. Very quietly, just with his artwork, he was able to galvanize a movement. And I thought, I want to do what he's doing. 

And I started identifying other photographers and I thought, you know what we need? We need an association so that we all can speak with a common voice. And as women often do, you know, I said, well, I'll create it, I'll build it, and nonprofit. And so that's how the International League of Conservation Photographers was born. 

And the biggest challenge that I had is (that) people could not understand the difference between nature photography and conservation photography. So being the nerd that I am, I set out to write a scientific paper defining it and outlining the differences. 

And I published it in the journal called the International Journal of Wilderness. I thought, I have coined it, now I have defined it, and now we can proceed. So that's how that happened. 

Paul Nicklen, I was looking for photographers that really exemplify that activism that's necessary. It's not just taking the pictures, it's what you do with those photographs that matters. I found 40 such photographers and some editors at National Geographic, and Paul was among them. 

Paul lived in a very remote part of the Yukon in Canada, so he didn't attend my inaugural meeting of the International League of Conservation Photographers. I met him later in the cafeteria of National Geographic.

And I think we were smitten with each other from the beginning, but like a big sense of admiration for the work that he had done. He had helped ban the trade of ivory from Canada, from narwhals, at least momentarily, which cost them death threats and the exile from his community. 

It was at a time, Jennifer, when working for National Geographic was really difficult. It was a tight knit group of photographers that were very protective of their little niche and they wouldn't easily allow other photographers to come in. 

And several people helped me. There's a famous photographer, his name is Joel Sartori, he championed me to become part of what they call the image collection - the photographers that are represented by the stock agency. 

And that's how I started just hanging out with these people. And Paul asked me to become his assistant in a story that we were doing for the International League of Conservation Photographers. And that's how we started just working together. For 10 years, I was his assistant. 

And in National Geographic there's a tradition where you first assist others and you learn the ropes and then you get your chance as a photographer. And it took me 10 years and Paul was the person who championed me, to give me an opportunity to have a byline with my name on the magazine, with my photographs on an assignment. And that was to Antarctica where I was the underwater photographer for that assignment. And that was amazing, 

[19:30]  Jennifer: Beautiful beautiful story… I want to also talk about your first published photograph which was miscredited to your ex-husband. And it was this image of a Kayapo warrior, I believe, from an indigenous tribe in the Brazilian Amazon. 

How did capturing this image shape your journey going forward?

[19:56] Cristina: I love answering this question for you because you are somebody who has spent time in the Amazon, living among the people and you know how difficult it is. 

So you have to imagine a 24-year old version of myself and I'm there, I'm pregnant with my first child and I'm just literally following my ex-husband who is the anthropologist and he's the big dog. He always carried a couple cameras with him because he likes to document everything he does. 

And so I borrowed one of his cameras and I think when you are an artist you just see things differently. I saw this Kayapo warrior come out from a house and he was wearing his beautiful headdress and framed as he was but by the black background of the house. 

And I just thought, oh, that's really pretty. So not knowing what a camera can do or how to do it, I just snapped a couple of shots. And those photographs became part of an exhibition for the Houston Museum of Natural History. And sure enough, when they open a new exhibit in a museum, they have all the materials, the poster, the brochure, all with my photo credited of course to him - it was his camera. 

And I felt this sting of not having my name associated with it. So that's, I think, when I started taking it more seriously and I thought, you know, I better learn more about this.

I went back to school to the Corcoran College for the Arts and I really, you know, started paying attention, established a business, Cristina Mittermeier Photography, which I still own to this day. And yeah, all these lessons you learn along the way.

[21:27] Jennifer: Amazing. There's another one of your most iconic photographs was actually done in China - it’s called the Lady with a Goose. It graced the cover of your book, Amaze. 

Can you tell us the story behind this image? Because such a unique image. We're going to show the photograph later in the video, but it's this old lady and she literally has a goose on top of her head. So what's the message you're trying to convey there?

[22:01] Cristina: It's such a funny photo, isn't it? It's so whimsical. I had been traveling by land in China for almost a month again with my ex-husband, the anthropologist. And we were looking for a species of monkey called a snub-nosed monkey that lives in Yunnan and Sichuan. 

And so this is a beautiful part of China, but it's very rugged, remote. And I had my three children with me. So the oldest one was probably 13 and then 10 and then 7 - they were young. And so it was very challenging to be a photographer and take care of all these young people. 

We had gone through a village, we were traveling a little bus, like a rented vehicle that had a driver. And we had stopped at a street market where somebody was selling this camera, a little box, Yashica with some rolls of film in a little plastic bag. And I bought it for like 60 bucks. And so I was trying to figure out how to use it. I had no idea, somebody showed me how to put in the film. 

And one day my ex had gone on to the mountains to look for the monkey and I was left with the kids in the village. And we are almost to the border with Tibet and I'm playing with this camera and I look. It's one of those like you open the top and you can see the image but it's reversed. 

And I see this woman and she's coming right at me with her goose. So I literally just got off from where I was sitting down in a street market eating and I walked up to her. I had my little light meter around my neck. I took a couple of light readings and I snapped three shots. 

And of course, this is the age of film, so it was months before this film came back. And when I saw these three shots, I was blown away. Two of the shots, the goose is panicking and out of focus. But the one in the middle, the lady, she's so poised and she's got this beautiful red outfit, a red hat and her sweater and this goose riding on her head.

When I show this photograph in my lectures, I say to people, I have no message to share with you about this picture except to get your attention, because it's such a fun conversation starter. 

And I sat on that photograph for literally 15 years before I published it, because I knew it was that special. And then it became part of my fine art collection, and it's my best selling photograph. It's now going to Christie's for auction because we're down to the artist proofs now. And she's given me a lot, the lady with the goose.

[24:29] Jennifer: So it turns out I understand that actually the goose was her pet.

[24:33] Cristina: Yeah. I didn't know at the time what the deal with the goose is, as, of course, I don't speak Chinese, so I couldn't ask her, but I didn't know. I was fearing that it was going to the market for other reasons.

But a friend of mine came by the same village maybe six months, a year later, and he sent me a little photograph with Polaroid, and he said, look who I found.

[24:54] Jennifer: And the same lady.

[24:55 Cristina: The same lady. So I'm like, oh, it's a pet.

[24:59] Jennifer: So it's interesting because that image, it could almost be like AI-generated, because it's such a rare moment in somebody's life where you got a goose sitting on top of your head as she's walking through the market.

[25:15] Cristina: Yeah. You know, and it has actually been somebody that asked me to collaborate on an app to opt images out of training the AI robots sent me that photograph. And he said, look, I just asked one of these AI generating images apps to make me a photograph of a lady with a goose in the style of Cristina Mittermeier. 

And sure enough, you know, very similar, but of course not the same. And I was like, oh, my gosh, you know, it's that easy to steal your intellectual property.

[25:45] Jennifer: So I would say the message... I know you said that you had no message for the photo, but I would say the message of the photo is the diversity of cultures around the world.

[25:54] Cristina: Yes, it is. And in places like China, where you have all these minorities that are so distinct and so beautiful, this is very evident and very beautiful.

[26:04] Jennifer: Yes, absolutely. Cristina, you're a celebrated conservationist and you also give masterclasses in photography. 

But I was wondering if you can tell us what does it take to really master the art of photography? Is it can anyone do it? Is there really a special talent required? What do you think takes to master the art of photography?

[26:29] Cristina: Wow. Nobody's ever asked me this, Jennifer. 

You know what I think it is, I think you need a very big sense of empathy and compassion because you are the person with a camera and you have to imagine yourself like a semi-permeable membrane that is enabling a conversation to happen between that thing that's being photographed and the person who's looking at the image. 

And you as a photographer, are just the translator, the enabler, the moderator of that conversation. And if you do your work with empathy and compassion, you can transmit that emotion and the importance of what you're photographing. Otherwise, it's just a two-dimensional object that has very little meaning.

[27:13] Jennifer: Interesting. Speaking of empathy and compassion, in 2017, you shared online a series of images and videos of a starving polar bear in the Canadian Arctic. And seeing it on a screen just broke my heart, especially the videos. I think it was really powerful. 

I felt a sense of desperation, sadness, powerlessness. I can imagine it being very emotional for you in that moment. So I was wondering what you had experienced and how you felt as you were capturing the story of this starving polar bear?

[27:55] Cristina: Such an interesting photograph and the way it came about. We were traveling with Jim Simons. I don't know if you've ever met him - he just passed away. An American chemist, I think, by training, but he had come up with an algorithm to figure out to trade market, the stock markets. So he made a lot of money and he owned this beautiful ship called the Archimedes. 

And so he had invited Paul and I to come to the Arctic with him and his family. And, Paul, my current husband, grew up in the Arctic and he's a polar bear biologist. So that's the expertise that we were traveling with. 

And so we came upon this bay and the captain could see that this white thing was in the landscape, but it was not moving. And so we spent a little bit of time watching. And when it lifted its head, Paul immediately knew it was a polar bear in distress. So we went on land to film and photograph it. 

And I tell you what, Jennifer, I remember it being very distressing, but the emotion for me was fear, because here's the top predator of the Arctic starving, and this is an animal that can be really dangerous. And even though it was so in such bad shape, I figured, it probably could still move pretty fast. 

So I was trying to keep an eye on that and at the same time trying to make an image that was. I didn't want it to be a repellent image, I wanted to be an empathetic image. Because Paul has said to me so many times as a biologist, when we tell people that polar bears will go extinct in the next 50 years, they cannot really imagine or feel what that means. And so finding an image that conveys that is really hard. 

If you show a dead polar bear, the emotion is hard to muster, but an animal that's in the process of dying is a different story. And what we wanted was just to put a dent, a wedge in the conversation that said climate change is not real, to say that it's real. And this is the consequence, as we see the beginning of the effects, and this is what it looks like. 

And it did that; it caused tremendous controversy. 2.5 billion people watched the video and the photos. It became Time Magazine's top 10 images of the year, blah blah. And it stirred a lot of controversy - the emotions were so diverse. 

There was a group of people like you who are very compassionate and empathetic, saying, this is breaking my heart; I can barely get out of bed; this is brutal, and thank you for what you're doing. 

And then there was a second group of people, more disconnected, that were wondering, you know, why didn't we do more? Why didn't we feed the bear? And I'm like, oh, my gosh, people know very little about how the natural world works. I kept trying to explain - it eats 40 pounds of dead seals everyday. You know, there's nothing I can do to feed it.

And then there was a third group of people, Jennifer, and those were the climate deniers. And they took a few days to come out, but when they did, they were very organized. They had experts, especially a professor at University of Victoria that called herself an expert in polar bears. 

Later, we found out that she had never been to the Arctic. She'd never seen a real polar bear, but the PR company had given her this title, and she was quoted in every newspaper, and especially the ones that are funded by the fossil fuel industry, to basically call us fake and to discredit what we were trying to say. It was amazing to me. 

And you know what I thought? I thought, okay, so here we have industry trying to continue business as usual, and they are very well-organized and they're very well-funded for their communications. They have a PR agency, they have experts, they have funding for videos. 

And here we are, the people that are trying to save the planet, underfunded, with no communications budget, and surprised that we are facing an extinction crisis.

[21:48] Jennifer: You're absolutely right. It's beautiful to hear stories like yours, at the same time to know that there are a lot of headwinds against us as well.

[31:59] Cristina: Making progress, though.

[32:01] Jennifer: Yeah, we are making progress.

I see three central themes in your artwork. There's the marine life, there's the Indigenous Peoples, and then there's the conservation. In capturing these stories, do you approach the marine life versus the people differently as subjects?

[32:21] Cristina: That's a great question. 

You know, I don't. I think at the core I am a portrait photographer, and so I photograph an octopus with the exact same mindset that I photograph a person. You're trying to capture the essence of the subject, but also a moment and maybe a candid emotion or you're trying to look for a gesture or something interesting. 

And I approach it exactly the same way. You know, what's the best portrait I can take of a shark or a whale? So, no, it's the same. You're thinking about light, you're thinking about composition, and you're thinking about emotion.

[32:56] Jennifer: I know that Paul likes being very close to these animals, like distance-wise, because he feels comfortable with them. And I was wondering, when you were capturing the image of the polar bear, how close were you?

[33:09] Cristina: Yeah, Paul grew up with polar bears and with big animals, and I think some people just have this calm energy. He just projects that calmness to animals like grizzly bears and polar bears. And for the most part, you know, they pay you back in the same kind of energy.

That polar bear was an animal in great distress. I have a video that I took with my phone. Paul is filming and I'm… I'm filming him filming. And we're probably, I'm going to say 50-75 feet away from this bear. And we have the safety officer from the ship with us, he’s got his rifle. 

And we're hiding behind the little cabin, abandoned cabin. We're all ready to climb up on the roof of the cabin if needed. And thankfully, we didn't need to. We also have our boat to escape. But, yeah, it was pretty close. 

Paul does like to get very close to animals. I am not a thrill seeker, and I don't do it for the adrenaline of it. So I'm trying to have these Zen moments in nature. So oftentimes I just like to be invisible, I just want to disappear. 

The best times are when a pod of animals like whales or dolphins just go, completely ignore the fact that you're human and allow you to hang out.

[34:24] Jennifer: So when you're with these animals, do you see a soul in these animals? I mean, for example, you talked about the octopus that you saw that lit up in the dark.

[34:35] Cristina: Such a good question. Again, I was raised Catholic, so I wouldn't call it a soul.

[34:42] Jennifer: Or consciousness, whatever you want to call it. 

[34:44] Cristina: I would say that there is a set of attributes that are very similar to those that humans have. You can see curiosity, you can see fear, you can see love. When you find a mother with their baby, you can definitely see love. And you can see pain. 

The fact that we have told ourselves a story that these animals don't feel any pain. Again, it's the choice of looking at them through the lens of (superiority). We're conquerors and colonizers, and we can exploit because they don't feel pain. But, no, you do see it. 

And, you know, in some animals, when a whale chooses to look at you because it's difficult for these animals to trust, to come a little closer and take a better look at you and follow you with its big eye as it swims by. You know, you can tell it's nervous, but it's making a choice. 

And I always feel so privileged because I feel like I am with my fellow passengers on spaceship Earth. And I'm just getting a glimpse into who they are, the people in row 34, they have a role to play, and I have not yet met them.

[35:51] Jennifer: Right, right. You know, it's interesting because when I was in Borneo last year, I was so close to a young female orangutan. I was maybe about 5 meters away from her, and I sensed that she was so curious that she wanted to actually make some contact with me. 

So I was so excited in that moment, and I wanted to share it with my family. They were standing 10 meters behind me, looking at me like, mom, you're crazy…

You were in the wrong place… 

So I backed away from the orangutan to join my family. And then as I backed away, she went in the opposite direction. But I felt that I was so comfortable with her that I don't think she would have harmed me. I felt her energy through the eye contact. 

[36:48] Cristina: I believe there is. And oftentimes when I'm sitting with an animal, whether it's underwater or on land, I am asking myself, do they hold any resentment for all the wrongs that we have done?

They surely know that humans are not good creatures to be around. And yet, she's curious and she's looking at you, and you can sense that she wants to make an overture. 

And you are so calm, Jennifer. You have that energy of calmness and curiosity and not aggression. And I wonder, because for you to all of a sudden look back and realize that you are the only one sitting there and everybody's behind, way back. All of a sudden your bias is like, I should be moving back and I should be more cautious. Then, and that broke the spell, right? 

[37:34] Jennifer: Right, exactly. It's that rational mind coming in, whereas if I just stayed in the moment.

[37:39] Cristina: By yourself, you would have been totally fine. Try again. When you're with other animals, there is this vibration of mutual curiosity and I mean no harm to you.

I mean, I can feel it in other people. And you can project aggression and anger, too, without even talking. So why wouldn't animals feel it?

[37:58] Jennifer: So it's interesting because I had another encounter just a couple months ago when I was in the Amazon. I was meditating in the jungle. I started chanting this mantra that I learned from my Buddhist teacher. 

And I closed my eyes and I think it only took about two or three minutes of chanting that mantra. I heard this very loud noise next to my ear. It sounded like a very big flying insect. And I opened my eyes and what was actually in front of me was a hummingbird. 

It was this tiny little hummingbird. I've never seen one in real life. It's this big, it's green, and it's stopped right at my eye level, right in front of me. And it was just flapping its wings, and chirping.

[38:48] Cristina: and asking, who are you and what are you doing here. As you would ask of any other creature in the jungle. I often get that feeling, you know, that animals just want to know why are you here?

Those are marvelous experiences. And I know you're a great traveler and I know you're going to have so many more of those because you do give that kind of energy and curiosity.

[39:11] Jennifer: It was a grace. 

[39:12] Cristina: It is a grace. Yes, absolutely. We're so lucky.

[39:16] Jennifer: Yeah, we are, we are. 

Cristina, I know you spend a lot of time with Indigenous Peoples and countless tribes around the world over the past 30 years, from the Amazon to the Polynesian navigators and to the Arctic. I wonder what draws you to these people. 

I know initially it's with your ex-husband's work, but over the years, what draws you to these communities of people in your work?

[39:42] Cristina: Another good question. It's been a number of things, Jennifer. 

In the beginning, it was the realization in the 1990s, because conservation, when you think about it, is a fairly new discipline. We haven't been doing this for many decades. So way in the beginning, the idea was, if we want to protect this piece of forest, we need to remove all human influence and humans as well. 

And that became a brutal practice of removing Indigenous People from national parks and whatnot. And then conservationists started having this eureka moment that if you really want to succeed at conservation, what you need to do is make the people that live there your partners in the solutions. 

And that started this whole journey into how do you approach these communities in a non-colonizing way and make them real participants and beneficiaries of the process? I find that so beautiful. 

And in my photography, I was struggling in the 1990s because I was a young mother and I couldn't leave my children for very long. So demands of nature photography were just too big for me. But I found that to be the subject, the relationship between humans and especially Indigenous People and the place where they live. 

So I focused my lens there for many years. There's a different perception of the relationship of humans with the natural environment is not one of superiority, is one of kinship. And it doesn't matter where you go. They say, we are all made of the same material. These are ancestors. It's out of respect and not greed. And all of these lessons from Indigenous Peoples, I found a lot of inspiration there. 

Indigenous People never take more than what they need. And that gives them a sense of something that I called enoughness. Because we don't have a word in English to describe the contentment of knowing when you reach the level of what you need, that's all you need. And I love that. 

And then it was the women. Just how dangerous it is to travel alone into some of these places. And it doesn't matter where I've been, there's always been a door that has opened and women have shown me generosity and friendship and laughter and camaraderie and protection.

And I believe there's a sisterhood around the planet of women that are watching out for each other. And I have been blessed to meet many women like you, Jennifer, that become instant friends and sisters.

[42:05] Jennifer: Thank you. So there's two reactions that I have to what you just talked about. One is enoughness. 

It was only when I was staying in the Amazon I realized how much we over-consume. When I was living there, I realized how little we actually need to have a very happy life, we don't need very much. 

[42:07] Cristina: And it's usually not material, Jen.

[42:28] Jennifer: No, it's usually not material. 

And also just in terms of food even, we ate very little every day. The tribe that I stayed with, they were a warrior tribe, but they stopped hunting because there were not enough animals around. They stopped fishing because upstream they were illegal gold mines. 

So there were a lot of chickens running around in the village, and they had a fish farm. So I thought when I first got there, oh, okay, we're going to have chicken and fish every day. 

No, not at all. I had fish once when I was there, and it was a very tiny little piece of fish. But then I felt good, like I didn't need to eat all that meat. Our diets were mostly yucca and plantain, and that was what we ate every day. A

And yet people were healthy and they were happy. And also we didn't have electricity at night. I went to sleep at 9 o' clock every day and I woke up at the crack of dawn.

[43:29] Cristina: Amazing, isn't it? Yeah, I think it goes deeper than that. You're absolutely right. The material needs are so minimal. People usually own one T-shirt, you know, one pair of shoes. 

But when I moved to the United States from Mexico, something interesting happened to me. As you get absorbed into the culture, it is a culture of consumption and a culture of competition and a culture of personal exceptionalism. And I felt prey to that, too. 

And I could feel that there was a huge hole in me probably because of my upbringing as a Catholic. I mean, and it's not the religion that matters, it's the community in the church that really was something I was missing. But my family, my sisters, the food from my country, the songs that my people sing, all of that was missing.

And I was trying to fill it by going to a shopping mall and buying things. And when I realized that I was trying to do that, and I stopped, and I thought, you know, I can fill my void, my soul, with things that really matter to me - my purpose, my work, the beauty of art, friendship, all of these things. 

And I thought, maybe enoughness is a personal practice that we all can practice and say, I don't need to buy this because I have enough. And if I'm feeling like I need something, maybe I just need to have a cup of tea with a girlfriend.

[44:48] Jennifer: You're a very conscious consumer.

[51:16] Cristina: I am, I am...

Because the more you have, the more you need to store and clean and insure and repair and it anchors you. You cannot travel because all of this stuff needs to be guarded. And I was like, oh, I don't need this stuff.

[44:50] Jennifer: That's why you live on a boat four months out of the year, right?

[45:04] Cristina: Yeah, and living on a boat teaches you a lot about limited resources and being sustainable.

[45:09] Jennifer: That's right. So let's talk about SeaLegacy. So you and Paul founded SeaLegacy in 2014. And SeaLegacy is a global ocean conservation organization that harnesses the power of visual storytelling to inspire action and drive solutions on the ground. 

Why did you use the vessel as part of your storytelling?

[45:15] Cristina: Yes. So going back to that need that I had identified earlier, that our movement to save our planet needs a better communications machine. And Paul and I were coming out of a 20-year long training ground of National Geographic of telling stories. 

And we thought, instead of working for a magazine, let's start the nonprofit and let's start telling the stories of the ocean and the champions that are protecting the ocean. And that was the idea. But it's very expensive, Jennifer, to be out in the ocean. 

And in the beginning, when we didn't have our own boat, we were really at the mercy of the owners of the boat who wanted to have dinner instead of take pictures, or the crazy captain who was too drunk to take us where we needed to be, or just the cost of a ship. It's like $10,000 a day to charter a boat. 

And so we thought, you know what, it's not owned by the nonprofit, it's owned by us personally. We bought the boat to have the freedom. Because if you want to make a beautiful photograph, you need to spend quite a bit of time understanding the place, the animals. 

We do anywhere from 10 to 20 dives on a single site just to know every blade of kelp and every little school of fish and you start recognizing individual animals, then the pictures just start coming. 

So the boat has been a blessing. And we bought it during the pandemic. Started in Maryland and went to the Bahamas. Helped tell the story of the discovery of the largest seagrass meadow in the world. We used that to help convince the government that was a better path than Big Oil. 

And then we crossed the Panama Canal and we helped create the first interconnected series of marine protected areas in Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia and Ecuador. We spent almost a year diving - Galapagos… so amazing. 

And from there we went to Mexico, my country, where we spent almost a year working. Like that lesson of the sea turtles. In the beginning, you're taking photographs for something that you feel is going to happen, but you don't know what it is. You're planting a seed for a tree you'll never see.

But this time we are going to see it grow. So I went to university in the Gulf of California and I studied fisheries biology. And for 30 years I've been very aware of the devastation of the industrial fishing fleet in the Gulf of California, the impact on the whales and the schools of fish. Wanted to do something about it and it never worked. 

So when our boat was there, I meet this guy, Mario Gomez, and he is working on creating a marine reserve that is so big and so visionary and so beautiful. It goes from Loreto down all the way south to Cabo and then to Magdalena Bay. It's like a sock. And he was calling it that, the sock. And I'm like, oh, that's terrible branding. Let's call it Dos Mares, the two seas, Gulf of California and Pacific. And we just photographed there without knowing. 

Well, all this time, four years later, I'm getting now the news every day that the stories, the socialization that we did with all the artisanal fishermen, the government, it's going to happen, Jennifer. They are going to create a biosphere reserve despite the opposition and the naysayers, it's going to happen at a time when we need it. 

You know, this year alone, 80 gray whales have washed up dead in the Gulf of California. We need these protections for these animals and for the fishermen and for the tourism.

[49:13] Jennifer: So the mission of SeaLegacy being to inspire people to fall in love with the ocean and also amplify for example, this network of change makers around the world. What is your vision for the future of the ocean and how do you see SeaLegacy's role in it? 

[49:31] Cristina: I love this, I love your questions. We should be on a podcast every day, you and I. 

[49:36] Jennifer: Then you wouldn't have time to be on a boat. So it would be preventing you from doing your work.

[49:40] Cristina: Tell you what, you know, when we started Sealegacy, it really felt like National Geographic was the only storytelling institution with the pristine seas, which is the in-house science storytelling arm - my friend Enrique Sala, who's a brilliant scientist and a great photographer. 

And so we wanted to add to that and we wanted to inspire young people and make it cool. We had big social media channels and we wanted to, instead of making it an elite thing where you only get to read the stories if you have a subscription to the magazine, we wanted to have a conversation with people in countries where they never even thought about the ocean before.

And I think we did that, Jennifer, I think over the 14 years since we started, it's been amazing to watch the interest in the ocean and the ocean as a solution to climate, and just bringing our cameras underwater to share a little glimpse into not just the beauty, but just how troubled it is, and then the champions that are working on it. 

It's inspired a huge number of storytellers, young people taking their cameras underwater, hundreds of new organizations out there doing ocean conservation. And now it culminates last week with the 99th birthday of Sir David Attenborough coming out and saying, it turns out that the most important place on the planet is the ocean. And I feel like the usefulness of SeaLegacy has played out. Like, Paul and I have done a lot to inspire and get motion going.

And now it's time for us to move into other conservation arenas. And we're very keen to lend our cameras to the problems that wildlife in Africa is having, for example.

[51:21] Jennifer: Oh, interesting. 

[51:22] Cristina: So it's time to move on. We have funding, we're fully funded for the next three years, until the end of 2027.

We are trying to still create Dos Mares Reserve in Mexico and support other projects around the world. And once we wrap those up, it's time for other storytellers to step in and do it.

[51:41] Jennifer: Yeah. So this is very interesting because I know you flew to South Sudan and spent several weeks with the remote tribes there. How do you choose where to go and, like, what project you're going to focus on? Because now what you're telling me is that you're going to focus more on land.

[51:55] Cristina: Yes. So the portraiture of Indigenous People has always been kind of like a parallel line. And I travel with a good friend of mine, Dutch-British woman named Inger van Dijk. She spent so much time in Africa. 

She's very knowledgeable. All the tribes know her. So I like going with Inger because she's always welcome. And so whenever she says to me, we're going somewhere, I'm like, okay. And then I have to go back to the boat and put my scuba gear again and switch completely. 

And then the African thing, Jen, I'm going to be 60. I feel it now. You know, I never thought I was going to grow up to be this old. And even though I look young, you know, my bones are telling me I need to slow down with this heavy equipment of scuba diving and focus on more gentler pursuits. 

And I think African wildlife never thought in my lifetime were going to see animals like elephants and giraffes in trouble. And I know that some of the big photographers, the African wildlife photographers, are also getting older, so there's room for us to come and contribute.

[53:00] Jennifer: Fascinating. 

The other question that I had was for you is, you know, having watched the episode of Photographer on the Disney series, I was wondering, what is it like to live with five other men on a boat in very close quarters? It's not a yacht, so for those people who don't know, it's a catamaran. 

[53:23] Cristina: It's a working boat, yes.

[52:54] Jennifer: Yeah, right, exactly.

[53:25] Cristina: I tell you what, it's a beautiful boat. It's 62 ft long, it sleeps eight in proper bed. So it's not a small boat. It's got a lot of privacy in the rooms and the cabins. And then it has two bathrooms, two toilets. 

And so I live with Paul on one pontoon of the catamaran, where I have my room, my closet, my privacy, my own bathroom, my own shower. And then all the boys live on the other side. So that is a big plus. 

And I think I had to establish important boundaries when I first came in to say, I am not your mother, I am not the cook, I am not the only person who cleans. And we have established a great working team. The crew and my boat are like family, and they're such lovely young men and occasionally young women. You know, we've had a woman captain for a while, but, yeah, for me, it's like a second home. 

And the transition is hard. You know, leaving the boat to come home and then leaving home to go to the boat. I'm always very heartbroken. I love my garden here. I love my dogs. But then I'm in the boat and I'm like, oh, my God, I get to go diving, and there's whales, and then I don't want to come back. So it's always hard.

[54:33] Jennifer: Cristina, at a recent panel in Davos on the rights of nature, you called for a new economic paradigm. This has to do, I think, a lot with your knowledge or the wisdom that you've gathered from staying with indigenous tribes. 

Why do we need to redefine prosperity? I mean, so far we've defined it in terms of GDP and it's always up towards the right. So tell us, what is this shift that you're talking about?

[55:04] Cristina: It's such a funny thing to think about, right? I was so honored to be invited to come to Davos and to meet with incredible people. Mr. Klaus Schwab and his wife are such visionaries and the generosity of what they have contributed to humanity. 

And so, yeah, there I am with my naive sense of justice, shooting my big mouth in a forum full of experts at economics. But I kept thinking, these are the smartest people on the planet and they're missing something important because you cannot do business and you cannot make money on a dead planet. And I promise you, the planet is dying.

So how do we convince these brilliant minds to shift a little bit of their thinking maybe to an earlier stage of capitalism, when capitalism was meant to be something that benefited not just the shareholders and the investors, but everybody in a company, including the customers and the society where these companies live. 

And somewhere along the way we shifted the story. And now the benefits are clearly just for a handful while the rest of the planet and the wildlife have been left behind. And what I'm saying is by recalibrating economics to exist within the real boundaries of the planet Earth. 

And there's two boundaries that are non-negotiable because you cannot negotiate with Mother Nature. So the first boundary is our social foundation and the aspiration that all humans have for an equitable, just society where I don't have to watch my neighbors be homeless or suffer or be at war. And I think we have failed miserably at that. I think there's so much of humanity right now that has fallen under poverty and substance abuse that we have to do better. 

And the second boundary, of course, is the outside, which is the planetary boundaries. And at Davos, we had Professor Rockstrom talking about the nine planetary boundaries. Non-negotiable is the fresh water we need, the ozone layer that protects us, the livable temperature of the climate. Nine of those, seven of those have already been overshot. The latest one being the acidification of the ocean. And so we cannot ignore it.

And we have to bring our economic system back within the boundaries of those planetary boundaries. We have no choice. And yeah, of course it's painful, but it's already happening. Professor Kate Rockworth talks about donut economics. She needs some rebranding. I may have to help her there.

[57:40] Jennifer: Circular.

[57:42] Cristina: Not just circular, but living within the boundaries of what's just and sustainable. And so it's already happening in places like Amsterdam is a donuts economic city, where they are sharing the wealth of these corporations to make sure that nobody's homeless, that nobody has jobless, all of the things that we aspire to, we have to. 

And so I don't see it in America. I think Donald Trump is taking it exactly to the extreme of what's wrong. But the pendulum will swing, you know, once this episode in American politics comes to an end and it will. It will swing hard the other way. 

And for those of us who are engaged in this conversation, it'll be an opportunity to rebuild the institutions, the knowledge, the culture, the ethos into more of that donut economics that's necessary. 

[58:31]  Jennifer: So what do you think is necessary in order for this shift to happen? 

[58:35] Cristina: It all comes down to the stories we tell. We have told ourselves a story about economics that's based on the GDP, the gross domestic product. This is an invented metric. You know, this is not like the law of the gods. Some humans came up with this metric, and it's a very flawed metric.

Because it leaves out so much of the economic good that happens in a household - for example, the free labor of parents raising children or taking care of elderly parents - not accounted in the GDP. So I would challenge the smarter minds amongst us to retell the story of how we measure our success economically and our wealth as nations. 

And then the second part is we are all going to be forced by the power of nature to recalibrate our selfishness in this moment in history. It's a handful of people that are willing to make the sacrifices that are necessary to bring balance back to everything and everyone. But the vast majority of people are not willing to surrender a single inch of their comfort or their lifestyle for the benefit of all. 

But Mother Nature doesn't care. She's going to come for all of us equally. And the reluctant people that are just concerned about themselves are going to learn the bitter lesson, just like the rest of us that are more aware. 

And at some point, we're just either going to make a choice to recalibrate by voluntarily or by government mandate, or Mother Nature is going to force us to do it.

[01:00:05] Jennifer: And it's coming, change is coming

[01:00:06 Cristina: inexorably. And, you know, there's those who say that Earth will continue to Earth, and Earth will just shake off humans as the parasitic species that we are. 

And you just wish that would happen overnight, but that's not going to be the way it happens. It's going to be a hundred years of miserable war, famine, planet that's too hot, too much drought, too much hunger, too much sadness, too much suffering, and none of us want that. 

[01:00:33] Jennifer: You actually wrote a book on HOPE (chuckles)

[01:00:36] Cristina: on that note. 

[01:00:39] Jennifer: Your most recent book, Hope, is an embodiment of our planet's resilience and the humanity's connection to nature. So on that note, what gives you hope about the future of humanity?

[01:00:51] Cristina: I'll tell you why I wrote that book. So inspired by Martin Luther King and his fight for social and racial and civic justice. And it seemed like such an insurmountable thing, even 40 years later, the murder of George Floyd, I mean, it's all the same fight. But I was so fascinated by the fact that he didn't start his famous speech by telling us he had a nightmare. He told us what the dream was. 

And my dream is that we live in a beautiful planet that's full of hope for everybody. And I wanted this book to be a reminder everyday for those who have it that there is hope in the courage, in the work, in the inspiration from the people in the front lines that refuse to give up and that are doing the battle that's necessary in every aspect of life. 

Even people like Klaus Schwab, you know, he is such an inspirational figure that has given so much of his life to create a forum where we can come and discuss these types of subjects. And all I hear is attacks against this man. You know, he doesn't need that. He needs respect and love and compassion, but he's out there doing it, and we need many more people that are doing what he does. 

Just in whatever your sphere of work is, you need to be inspiring and positive and hopeful, because a handful of us cannot get it done. It has to be everybody participating. So my book Hope is hopefully a little balm in the everyday pain that we feel on an aching planet and a reminder that there's a dream and we should think about where we want to go, not where we came from.

[01:02:32] Jennifer: That's beautiful. Speaking of creating our own dream, I know you mentor and you work with a lot of young people, and you also talked about this concept of ikigai, which is, you know, the Japanese word for a reason for being. It's the philosophy giving you life, purpose, meaning, and joy. 

So, Cristina, for the younger audience out there, how can we find this ikigai? Maybe you can explain it quickly as well.

[01:03:45] Cristina: Yeah, I think that as young people, we are indoctrinated with the mantra that says you have to become productive to generate money, but that's not the purpose of your life. You know, the purpose of your life has to be something bigger. 

And this concept of ikigai is very illuminating because it brings the confluence of four things that every human possesses. And those four things are, you know, you have to find the thing that you like, which is also the thing that you're good at, which is the thing that gets you paid. And then the fourth one is where most people never get there. You know, they stop at that. You know, they are making money with something that they like to do. It is what the world needs.

How do we give back? How do we make the planet a better place? And so when you find something that you can do that incorporates these four elements, you never get up to work. You know, you get up to fulfill the purpose of your life. And you are full of motivation and energy and inspiration because you're doing something you love, that pays you well, that you're good at, and that it's good for the planet.

[01:04:07] Jennifer: But it's hard to find that ikigai. I mean, for me, I have to say, I feel like I'm doing something that I love. I feel like I'm pretty good at it, most things. And I feel like that I'm doing something that the world needs, but I haven't really figured out how to make money out of it.

[01:04:23] Cristina: Well, you know, the monetization of podcasts is happening. It's just. It's very competitive.

[01:04:28] Jennifer: Yeah, that's true. And part of it. I think I almost don't want to monetize it because I want it to stay pure.

[01:04:34] Cristina: And you probably don't need a lot of money. Your enoughness is going to tell you that it doesn't need to be an economic success measured by the metrics that we have been given. Make your own metrics, Jennifer.

[01:04:45] Jennifer: That's true. Thank you so much. Thank you. Cristina, looking back, what were some of the pivotal moments in your life?

[01:04:52] Cristina: You know, I had a hard family life growing up because my father was an alcoholic. And you know, my mom struggled a lot. 

It was not the negative sides of all that because so many of us grew up with those challenges, but it was watching my mother be such a champion and such a warrior that was pivotal for me to say, you know what? You don't have to surrender to any circumstance. You can raise yourself from anything. And finding a thicker skin in the moments when you're down and when the world turns on you is so important as well. So that was pretty important. 

And then marrying two amazing men during my life because they both supported me so much to getting to where I am and my dreams of being a storyteller and an artist. And for me, the pivotal thing was learning how to accept the help, how to say, yes, I accept your support and your help from friends, from family, from all the people who have helped me get to where I am.

And then my children, I think being a mom changes you. I'm not sappy about it because I know that as moms, we all love our children. But for me, it's been important that my kids watch me fight for a better planet for them, that they know that I did everything I could.

[01:06:13] Jennifer: I'm sure for your kids, they're like, my mom is awesome. She's kick ass, she's there making a difference.

[01:06:19] Cristina: She's doing what she loves. And I think your kids will see you doing something that you're very good at and that you clearly love. I mean, very few people that have done a podcast with me have prepared as much as you have, Jennifer, which shows me the curiosity but the respect as well. So, no, I think you're very good at what you do, and podcasts are the future. 

I just listened to Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History, and he was doing a critique of Joe Rogan's podcast. You should listen to it. Yeah, it's what makes a good podcast are the good questions.

[01:06:51] Jennifer: Thank you. One last question. Having traveled to over 130 countries across all seven continents, having witnessed so much wildlife, marine life, and spent so much time with the indigenous tribes, what have you learned about humanity?

[01:07:08] Cristina: I think the most important lesson is that humans are, on average, much nicer and better than what we give them credit for. People are really lovely and nice almost everywhere. 

And if you make a choice to look beyond the cultural, physical differences of humans, you will find that we're so similar, and we all are ruled by the same biological imperatives. We all are born into this planet. We have parents, we have sisters, brothers, children. We dance, we cry, we create art. And then one day, we will all die. 

And I think it's those similarities that really glue us together as a global family. And, you know, the bigger thing that I've learned that wherever you have women in a leadership role, society is kinder, gentler, more successful, wealthier, more peaceful. 

So I hope to see many more women in a leadership role. We deserve it.

[01:08:10] Jennifer: Absolutely. We need to bring back the divine feminine, we're living in a world with a lot of aggressive, masculine energy right now. I totally agree.

[01:08:19] Cristina: Too much testosterone. Yeah, absolutely and look at the mess they're making. 

And it's not going to change anytime soon. So we have to be patient and we have to keep planting seeds for the people that come behind us. We may never see them succeed, but we have to plant the seeds. And conversations like this one are part of that.

[01:08:36] Jennifer: Yes, absolutely. And the love that we gave to the little ones is what keeps on giving. It's invisible, it’s not part of the GDP equation, but it's an investment, and it's something that has tremendous returns.

[01:08:51] Cristina: Yeah.

[01:08:51] Jennifer: Huge Roi which we can't measure actually, with numbers. 

Cristina, we're now coming to the end of our interview, and as you know, we end every episode with a quote. And for this episode, we have a quote from by Martin Luther King Jr., an American civil rights leader

‍

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” 

So thank you, Cristina, for taking the time to join us on the podcast today, sharing with us your passion for ocean conservation and your incredible journey as a storyteller channeling the voice of the natural world. Thank you so much.

[01:09:31] Cristina: Jennifer, my honor, my sister. Thank you so much, xie xie.

[01:09:36] Jennifer: If this podcast has been beneficial or valuable to you, feel free to become a patron and support us on Patreon.com, that is P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/TheFounderSpirit. 

As always, you can find us on Apple, Amazon and Spotify, as well as social media and our website at TheFounderSpirit.com. 

The Founder Spirit podcast is a partner of the Villars Institute, a nonprofit foundation focused on accelerating the transition to a net-zero (and nature-positive) economy and restoring planetary health. 

[01:10:10] END OF AUDIO

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