Poacher or Protector?
Gail Koelln 0:05
I walked in. And here's this little short lady wearing a minister's collar, avian scrubs with parrots all over them, colorful parrots.
Hector Orlando Portillo Reyes 0:22
Something that I respect is the respect that she has for everybody... for the ant, for the bird, for the parrots, for the elephants... for everything. The respect for life.
Gail Koelln 0:38
I call her the Jane Goodall of parrots, the project literally has taken people who are poaching and made them into protectors... and passionate parrot protectors.
Hector Orlando Portillo Reyes 0:49
You know, we have been face to face with drug dealers, she's not afraid. she's always tranquil. She's always in peace and thinking about very positive.
Gail Koelln 1:00
She's got an element of hardiness and bravery, that I think is not typical of your average ordinary person.
Hector Orlando Portillo Reyes 1:10
She consults to the people, what do you want? What would you like to do? How can I help you? In the process I've seen that the people have changed, from poachers, to protectors.
Gail Koelln 1:27
Some of the most awe-inspiring things for me were to see and hear the wild parrots flying.
Hector Orlando Portillo Reyes 1:36
You just lift your head and see they're flying... the beginning, 50... next year 60... and next year, 100. That means that the population is growing. It's the only place in Honduras where we have naturally, in the wild, red Macaus. And that's given me satisfaction... that I am collaborating to recover a population that is declining, almost in extension.
Gail Koelln 2:11
Before I met her it never even occurred to me that parrots shouldn't be pets. And now I'm totally the other way. LoraKim really did change my life. She really did.
Joel Krieger 2:30
Welcome to Outside In. I'm Joel.
Pavani Yalla 2:32
And I'm Pavani. Each episode we'll discover design in unexpected places.
Joel Krieger 2:38
So these creators may not always call themselves designers. They actually go by many different labels. But they all have one thing in common. They create moments that have the power to change us.
Pavani Yalla 3:00
Alright, so today we are talking to LoraKim Joyner, who is a conservationist, a wildlife veterinarian, a Unitarian Universalist minister, and many other thing. The voices that you heard at the beginning of this episode, those were Gail and Hector, two of her really close collaborators at One Earth Conservation.
Joel Krieger 3:23
This episode is about understanding how to transform poachers into protectors. If I had to categorize what type of design this is, this is a story of community design and culture design.
Pavani Yalla 3:39
You know, if you're a designer who's ever practiced Human-centered Design, you're probably going to learn a thing or two about it here in this conversation.
Joel Krieger 3:49
Yeah.
Pavani Yalla 3:50
Also, I love that we talked about science and spirituality. In popular culture, I feel like those are polarized.
Joel Krieger 3:59
Yeah, they are.
Pavani Yalla 4:00
They tend to be put in different buckets. But the fact that we are, in our conversation with her, kind of hitting on these big topics together, I think was fun for me and significant.
Joel Krieger 4:11
Those two things should go together like peanut butter and jelly...
Pavani Yalla 4:15
But they don't
Joel Krieger 4:17
Yeah. Alright, so let's get into it. We join LoraKim telling us a story from her time in Honduras.
LoraKim Joyner 4:27
One story that I say so much, and it had such a profound impact on me, sort of in my middle career was the story of Tomas Manzanares. He is an indigenous Mosquito leader in Honduras. And I first went to Honduras in 2010, like just several months after the coup there, and it was somewhat of an unstable region. And what was happening in Honduras in his area and still is, is the encroachment of illegal land invaders and mostly driven by the narco trafficante, we say driven by the drug trade, wanted the land and wanted to protect their land. And so they didn't want outsiders in and they were taking over the indigenous villages, they were burning them down, they are assassinating people. A matter of fact, over 49 indigenous people have died since January in our area, but on the other side of the Nicaragua border, so it continues to be hot. And Tomas said, I'm tired of this, the government's not doing anything I'm going to... it's called a denouncement. I'm going to turn them in. And I'm going to give names about the people who are taking our land and taking our logs. So he turned in the names of the people. And as typical, the government doesn't have the capacity or the will, or the lack of corruption to enforce the laws. And so the people whose names he turned in, waited for him down at the river to kill him when he took his daily bath in the Rus Rus River. And he was shot four times, and had to be airlifted out and nearly died, and had to abandon his home, the whole village had to flee during this is in 2009. And so I went in 2010 in April, and he came back. Everybody warned him don't come back into the area, it's dangerous. Everybody was packing guns, we picked up the military on the way in because it was a hot area. And we were just investigating to see if we could work with these indigenous people. And so on the first morning, he takes us down to the river where he was shot, and he takes off his shirt, and he tells the story of what happened to him. And he's got scars where the surgeries were in, they're still pink and healing, he's still limping and in some of the places they're still bullets inside of him. And so he tells me the story. And I say, Tomas, why are you willing to risk your life for the parrots. And he said, Doctora, everything is at risk. So I'm willing to risk everything. If the parents don't make it, neither do my people. And that was in 2010, when he told me that story. And I said, OK, I'm in for the long haul. You know, these, this is the kind of solidarity with all of life and with each other that... these are the kinds of communities with whom I want to work. And so I still work with Tomas, he's still in the area, and still has threats against this life as do the other leaders, but they really feel that their way of life is at risk. So that is the story that taught me so much about being in solidarity to take risk and discomfort and messiness of human relationships so we just got to bear up and do that.
Joel Krieger 7:50
I'm curious, what's the connection between the people and the parrots? Why is the work of protecting the parrots, so important here?
LoraKim Joyner 8:00
Why would people be interested in helping parents is maybe part of that question. Many reasons. It's their cultural background, it's their wildlife, they grew up with parrots, so people, you know, they want parrots free flying, perhaps, cultural stories, there is myths around parrots, there's a lot of reasons why people want parrots in their environment. And also parrots are maybe not only integral to the Spirit, and the culture of the local people and the Internationals who work with various groups, is that parrots are seed dispersers, especially the really big parrots, the macaws, they carry really big seeds. And of course, they poop them out, and there's a fertilizer effect. So they're known as the farmers of the forest. So if we lose the parrots, we lose the health of the forest, it's sort of like losing the top foragers of various species of Monkey, so we need them. And for that reason, spiritually, as well as just ecologically, we need the parrots, but maybe what you were getting at, the really big connection is the same drivers of socio economic dysfunction that are leading to extraction economies, and are destroying the parrots, wellbeing and their ability to raise and sustain a population are the same drivers that are decimating the people's cultures and villages and lead to poverty and consumerism and domination mindsets. So that's, you know, that's the real core, that if you are going to an area where parrots are in trouble, the people are in trouble too. And so, you know, what can the conservationists do to get and transform the society that's causing all this and that's where it seems so overwhelming and hopeless because who are we we're just little people out there, trying to come to emergency band aids for the people and the parrots, knowing that it's that entire internal and external transformation that has to happen. Parents are like a gateway species that help us see the connections between domination extraction economies and how it relates to the wellbeing of all of us. We sort of see them as a gateway experience for how we want to live in a transforming way.
And can you tell me more about why they're endangered? I mean, I'm guessing it's some combination of you know, habitat destruction with development, and then also the wildlife trade...the pet trade?
Yes, that's exactly right. And depending on the species and the region, it may be more one than the other. And I come down really heavily that if we didn't poach them illegally, they would mostly survive. For instance, in Honduras, Scarlet macaws are only remaining free flying in the mosquito region, they've just been reduced to the most remote region. And that's where most parrots end up in the most remote regions, where it's the hardest to extract them and poach them and sell them. So parrots, many species are fairly adaptable, and they would do okay, if we would just quit poaching them, or they would, they would, they wouldn't be decimated nearly as much as they are. Because we've seen that Scarlet macaws can nest in the palm tree right next to your house. And they can be somewhat adaptable to food. So I come down that it is the illegal trade. And it's international demand that's fueling that there's also a domestic demand. A lot of these cultures like their pet parrots, and it's also legal, and in two countries in South America, it's legal to export them. And in a third country, it's legal to hunt them for pleasure. So that's in the Guiana Shield and South America. So we also have a legal trade issue as well.
Pavani Yalla 11:50
Switching gears a little bit, could you tell us a little bit more about One Earth Conservation? You know, what is your mission and maybe what's unique about your approach,
LoraKim Joyner 12:01
It's styled along the ideas of what we think parents and people need right now. And so our mission is to go where other people aren't where there are marginalized communities where people aren't doing parrots, or at least the big organizations aren't, and just show up, and just be with the people witness to the story of losing the parrots and losing the the cultures and the way of life and just show up, and then see if other people are excited about parrots, and then see what a plan we could do to be in solidarity to help them with their parrots and livelihoods. And then what would be fun for us and what we can offer and what is meaningful for us. So our mission is to be in relationship with people and parrots listen to them, and see what calls to us that we could do together. And that's what leads us to so much traveling and so many areas, because there's so many areas where people are not doing parrots, and don't even realize the parrots are in trouble.
Pavani Yalla 13:06
Yeah. You mentioned being in solidarity with people. You've said that a few times. Is that an approach that is unique to you know, One Earth Conservation or I understand that it is probably one way of going about doing conservation? Can you talk a little bit about that approach and why it's or how it's maybe different or how you've shaped it,
LoraKim Joyner 13:28
How it's grown on us, or how the world shapes us with the invitation to be aware that we are in unconditional solidarity. It's not like we even have a choice. It's what life outlines for us, you, you are, you are a combination of cells and viruses and fungi and your DNA is not even from one complete mammal species. It's pieced together. So you are a community, you are in solidarity with life in this earth and the ecosystems. There's no no way around that. And what we forget that we, with our cultural overlays and our need to survive and be true to our closest families and friends. And so we forget that background truth or I do. And so the idea of saying it out loud of unconditional solidarity is basically saying that all beings have inherent worth and dignity. And we want to live in a way we want to structure our lives and even more so our society in such a way that reflects that. conservation is changing, it is realizing that it's about the people more and more. If you if the local stakeholders aren't involved in flourishing, then there's, you have a really hard time with sustainability. And the results are better with local stakeholders involved. And then this idea of transformative conservation is and decolonizing conservation. These sort of some of these bigger words is a way to say it can't just be European privileged people coming in and saying quit shooting your gorillas or quit poaching your parrots. That's beginning to have more force in conservation saying that's, that's the old way we need to transform that, and, and live in just ways for people and for parrots. So unconditional solidarity is another way to tweak that and get at that
Joel Krieger 15:29
What you're saying really resonates with me, especially about this, this idea of solidarity, you can't really protect an animal species without considering the people. And this was actually a pretty recent aha moment for me personally, because for a long time, I've been interested in and participating in, I guess what you could call more on the end of nature conservation. So you know, caring about the sixth extinction event, that's unfolding all around us, and kind of viewing people as, you know, part of the problem, the problem. And it's kind of interesting that you can't really separate them. All these issues are so interconnected. And if you really want to save birds, or any other type of animal or a forest, you can't really do that without considering the people. And then there's this whole aspect of just what is the word conservation that's like, you know, it makes you think of setting aside and protecting. And while I think we need areas that are, you know, off limits and, and wild and preserve them as they should be. There's also something nice about conservation that integrates and includes, because I think when people don't see nature as something separate from themselves, but as something that's fundamentally a part of them, as you were saying, then that's when that magic starts to happen. I mean, what's your experience been with that?
LoraKim Joyner 17:07
Well, it's interesting that, you know, we do work on the idea of transformative conservation. And isn't that a paradox? We're conserving and we want to transform, you know, what's, what's, what's going on with that. So I actually liked the Zen sense of that, there is a beauty that we want to sustain and keep going. And we also have to just change everything. At the same time my spouse is very into Zen Buddhism. And so he appreciates that paradox as well. And we look forward to perhaps setting up a Transformative Conservation Center, an intentional community in a couple of years. And we think about changing the name because conservation is so weird, it's not conserving, it's something else going on. But we like the paradox, we like the critique, why do you use the word conservation sort of regeneration? Why do we do that and it just, it plays with the brain a little a little bit. Now we also get criticism, Joel, for, it's so interesting of being too human-centered, or being too parrot-centered. And and so what you were saying about how we really can't separate them is the message and the approach. And it's hard for us to understand that I don't know about you all, but don't you sometimes want to choose one species over another.
Joel Krieger 18:36
Yes, this is it's a real challenge because it's almost like the problem is so complex, so enormously complex, that you almost it's too much and so it is a natural tendency to say okay, well where do I feel I'm just gonna focus on this one thing and then you and then you find that this one thing is connected to these other things. And so it's it's it's really it's complexity is what it is, it's almost like embracing that is a part of the work right.
LoraKim Joyner 19:03
It's so hard. And that's the transformative piece. You know, the sort of the, the piece of the transformation that happened in me going from everything is black and white, white, suburban, privileged, North American to going... wait a minute, things are way more complex than I thought... and I have, I have to shift, I don't have a choice. And in that internal transformation that opens up so much beauty and so much confusion. You have to let so many stories go. And I don't know about you all but I’m still letting stories go. I know that humans are story driven. That's how we come together and have cultural expectations and bonding. But sometimes I feel really lost. Because there isn't a story. There's just showing up in the moment. And not knowing what's going to come or what should come or how to even live this life.
Joel Krieger 20:06
Well, I can definitely relate to what you're saying about losing stories as you get older. I mean, I think there are a lot of cultural, you know, meta-narratives that you don't even see, it's like the air you breathe, you can't even see them, you just take them for granted. And they inform everything about your worldview. And then the more experiences you have, hopefully, throughout life, it pushes you into a place where you have a zoomed out perspective. And you can see those, those cultural stories for what they are, and a lot of them are just fundamentally wrong, you know, our understanding of how life works, for example, our understanding of ourselves as separate from this thing out there called nature. So yeah, I feel like it's totally part of the transformation is letting go of old stories and embracing new ones. I'm thinking maybe this is a good time to switch into the work itself. And, you know, maybe one place to start would be kind of rewinding to our, our conversation about, about people as a part of conservation. So you've written a lot about understanding the needs of poachers. And I think that's really interesting, because often, I think, in any sort of activism, you can get caught up in this war-like mentality, it is like, we are against this, we are fighting against this. But this to me speaks to a really it's not a fight, it's we need to understand why these people are doing, what they're doing, why they believe what they believe. And so I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit on that, and how that's impacted your conservation efforts.
LoraKim Joyner 21:52
So in the younger years, I was pretty mad at poachers. You know, Diane Fossey was my anti-hero. And always realizing that she maybe didn't have, at least the story says she didn't have the best relationships with the local people. And may have even been part of how she ended up being murdered in the field. So I had that question. I've been really mad at the poachers. We chased them, got people with guns. We yelled at that. We did all kinds of things. We were against the poachers in Guatemala in those years. And yet, there was this nagging piece that... they're people. But I didn't understand. So there was that. But you know, who I was really mad at even more than the poachers. I was mad at people like me. I was mad at the colonizers, the North Americans that have caused such havoc in the States of America, the consumerism, the extraction economies that was killing the people I loved and the people I love. And the wealthy Guatemalans that I worked with, and do that were part of this devastating lifestyle for wildlife. And so that's who I needed to forgive. The poachers, yes, but really the rest of the world, the rest of the world that wants to put parrots in cages, because we're lonely, and they're beautiful. And we want them around us, I understand that. So pet owners, breeders of pet birds, that was my whole community before I moved to Guatemala. So I had to come to terms with the international community of people who look like me and have the privilege to extract economies and put other beings at risk. So that took a lot of work. And I knew that was part of my inner work was to not hate anybody or anything because that's not wholesome. And it's... I don't think it gives much resilience. So that's constant work. reframing that judgment story. And nonviolent communication was very helpful for me in that, yes, we want to hold the poachers responsible. We want to hold the government responsible. We want to hold the drug traffickers responsible. But I also know that they're acting out there, the same needs that I have. And so I try to bring that up in the conversation, as people go off with machetes and guns and try to find the poachers.
Pavani Yalla 24:31
What are some of those needs?
LoraKim Joyner 24:35
Belonging. Worth. Family. Respect. Mattering. Being heard. For some poachers, it's sustenance and security. A lot of the poaching families they're making more money. I mean it's income. A lot of poachers like being around wildlife. Not all... some are... seem fairly disconnected and centered on the human species, but a lot of them just like the hunt, they like the risk. They like climbing the trees, they want to hold them, they want to be around them, they like being good at animals. And how is that different than a wildlife veterinarian or conservationists? We're just doing it with cameras and tools to measure bird's nests, but we're all driven to wanting to be outdoors with the animals.
Pavani Yalla 25:31
So for you, then is it a matter of trying to pivot or work with those needs and help people understand there are other ways to fulfill those needs? What goes into the craft of actually transforming someone?
LoraKim Joyner 25:49
I wish I had the power to transform people. So in many of the areas, out of the extraction economies, maybe the entire community, climbed trees and took parrots. I had illegal parents as a child growing up, they were sold in pet stores. So I was part of it. So part of the transformation is to be in solidarity with the people where they are. Why do you poach parrots? What's going on? What's your life, you know really feel like you're on their side. And you really have to be on their side, because they can tell you if you're not on their side. And many of the people who were involved in the trade around the trade, they really don't want to lose their parrots because they love them, you know, or they have a strong tie to them. So it's just being in the space with them to say, Yeah, I understand you, you want to feed your family and you want matter and respect. What if we try hiring you as a Parrot Ranger? How many of those needs could you meet, and you'd also keep parrots in your area for your children to come. And that seems to be fairly attractive is offering stipends and hiring people... pretty quick conversion, because they get so many needs met... team work, being rough and tough, mattering all that great stuff out there with parrot conservation, and, and it gives them some economic leeway to experience different choices. And to see if they could, could live in that way. It gives them the space. I get angry at conservationists who say don't pay people, they should just want to volunteer and commit to... it's their parrots. Don't pay people. That's wrong. Yeah, it's wrong motivation. Well, that's usually being set by conservationists that are making $100,000 a year. They're getting paid to do conservation. So why do we expect the most marginalised amongst us to volunteer their time when they're already sustenance farmers, it seems to be an inherent racism. That I see, that's some of that meta-narrative, that we expect them to do the hard work of conservation and sacrifice, their time and their leisure and their extra, somewhat disposable income to be able to buy a Coca-Cola. And instead of never having something sweet, we expect them to give that up. But we're not willing to live in a way to give it up. So I would say livelihoods is a really important transformer. And if we want to say, well, they don't, they're just doing it because they're getting paid. Well transformation for them maybe is having enough to eat and being able to afford medicine and having some choice about what goods they consume and how they consume them. Maybe that is transformation for them.
Joel Krieger 28:50
Yeah, it's really interesting to think about, you know, there's almost 8 billion people, something like that on the earth. And yeah, if you can't meet your basic needs of providing food and shelter for your family, you're gonna do whatever you need to do to meet those needs. And so like, once you look at it that way, you can kind of easily see how well this becomes a it's not even a question. It's like, if you don't have a lot of choice, if you don't have a lot of opportunity, and this is one way out of your situation, then yeah, it seems like a reasonable thing to do to most people, right?
LoraKim Joyner 29:30
It does. And so some of the work that I have to do and that maybe we all have to do on the inner transformation is what is fueling the extraction economies is the demand. So it was the demand in the US and Europe that wiped out the parrots in Central America. And because that's where most of the parrots were going in the 80s. And then that set up families and lineages of poaching as a way to get cash income because they had not had it before. And now the markets have just shifted. They're, you know, Arabia going east, and they're still going to private, wealthy collectors illegally. So it's that demand that is putting those choices on the people. It's our way of life where the wealthy, the wealthier can extract and pay people to destroy their culture, in their environment, and their parents for their own benefit. So the transformation that we need to do is we can work with the local poachers and livelihoods, that's great. We have to work with the whole society, this demand and privilege and entitlement to extract other people's wildlife to have in their homes. Columbus did it on the very first trip. You know, he ended up in the Dominican Republic. And he took back people he enslaved and he took back three Hispaniola parrots. It began right away, people and parrots together.
Joel Krieger 31:02
I'm curious... you have a really unique background. So you're a wildlife veterinarian, a Unitarian Universalist minister, a certified trainer in nonviolent communication. And so all of these things inform your work and your practice. Could you speak a bit how these experiences have affected your work as a conservationist?
LoraKim Joyner 31:26
I would say a lot. Yeah. A great deal. The nonviolent communication piece is a practice founded by Marshall Rosenberg that can help us reduce our use of violence in our conversations. And it can help us get along better with people because they feel like we're not judging them that we're actually on their side and the center components are is translate everything that you think and say and hear into feelings and needs of the individual. So it's constant in the moment mindfulness practice, of translating, getting out of your loops of judgment. And so being in a constant judgment, space is not only taking away energy, it, it puts me in a space where that actual moment of conflict and confusion moves from being a draining resource to a powerful resource of adjusting me so that I see people where they are, and I believe it, I don't have proof of this, I believe it helps the conservation it helps the relationships for me to just kind of you know, with all my body language and everything I'm saying, Don't judge the poacher don't judge the rich person. Instead, it becomes more embodied of going oh, well what's going on for you. And that was all practice that was all practice that allowed it to be embodied instead of formulaic so that that informs it quite a quite a bit that that basic lack of judgment and empathy. And the Unitarian Universalism ministry, that came about because I just couldn't do frontline conservation anymore. I just I didn't I was burned out. But I realized that I could do conservation through working with the human heart and so I was looking for a way to do that to heal my own and to help others for transformation in their own heart. And in those days we didn't really have the field of human dimensions of conservation and conservation psychology it wasn't there. So I took a class in Divinity School and said well that's the language of the heart and transformation and justice I'll go do that. What I really want to say is what the work in ministry does is it gave me space to be healed and to have a community and also a community of faith and a story that says other people and other beings matter, and that's what we're on this earth to do. So it's a kind of a religious story. But that also informs and inspires me to stay present with the work. I'm not so involved with Unitarian Universalism anymore and not so involved with NVC. My regular spiritual practice has faded. It's not as intense. I get up and do conservation all day. And is that not a spiritual practice?
Joel Krieger 34:35
Yeah, well said. Yeah. And how does that manifest in concrete ways on the ground? I mean, can you describe like what's actually happening? What are you actually doing with these people? When you go to these places?
LoraKim Joyner 34:53
The concrete work, here's the weird thing. I spend most my time teaching people how to count parrots. People don't know how to count parrots, they don't know that their parrots are in trouble. And so we need those statistics to say parrots are in trouble, what percentage are young chicks coming out. And by counting parrots, you have to focus on parrots. And so all of a sudden, you have to understand their biology and ecology. So you can get young people, poachers, all kinds of people. And all of a sudden, they're super excited about trying to understand their parrots so that they can get a good, accurate number. And so it's team building and citizen scientists, they fall in love with the parrots by counting them. So often, when I go in into the countries, I'll go show me your parrots, show me your parrots, and tell me stories about your parrots. And then let's count them, I'd like to count them. You know, I'd like to know what's going on. And then they'll help me count them. And then usually you can find people in the government, other organizations and indigenous communities that might say, Oh, my gosh, our parents are in trouble. I say, well, maybe we should try to protect their nest, what do you guys think? Maybe I can help you guys do that. And, so then we move on to nest protection, it's urgent. And I think we've got to protect the nests. And so we drop off counting and we start hiring people to find nests and report their outcome and protect them. And so that chicks actually do fledge and with those statistics, we can tell the world and granting agencies that we have 100% poaching in this country, or that you barely have any macaws left, because nobody knows nobody's recording it. So. So that's just that's a huge, a huge part of the work that I do, and also looking for funds to pay local people. And developing and growing a project because we're very small, and growing capacity, and then inviting other people to come in who could help support financially and through networks, the local efforts. So usually just starts with one village, one organization, and then we try to build it out from that to have a greater impact within the region and the country.
Joel Krieger 37:08
Yeah, it sounds like, so much of this has to do with being with the community, getting to know the community, building relationships, building trust, I mean, this takes time, I'd love to hear about, you know, structures, and any intentional decisions you've made about how we bring these people together and how we get them engaged
LoraKim Joyner 37:36
And all kinds of people, right? Yeah. Because of demographics and interests. So one is to just share and make available my natural enthusiasm and sense of appreciation for the people and their birds. Just that is a design element. Because it's motivating, it's fun to be around. I'm mostly sincere the internal drama is most days kind of low. And so I think that is a design piece that says, you can trust me, you know, I'm gonna admit to being white, cys, heterosexist, middle class, I'm gonna admit to all of that. And let's go look for some birds. And so I think that's a design piece, putting people that they feel appreciated and heard. And let's go do something fun together, let's just go have experiences together. And that's where the trust in the relationship comes out as shared experiences in nature. People also seem to appreciate... I'd be interested to see how this fits in the design world... I'm surprised at how people appreciate not only the softer pieces of empathy, and presence and enthusiasm, they also appreciate competence. People like science all over the world. They like knowing stuff and knowing their birds and they, and they like learning stuff. They like sharing their knowledge. So knowledge and production of knowledge and lifting up your own knowledge and sharing it and pulling it out of other people seems to be a fairly exciting creative force. And so again, in any science, I can bring and pull out of them. People seem to really enjoy that space.
Pavani Yalla 39:31
Education is empowering, right?
LoraKim Joyner 39:34
And learning together and sharing learning experiences together... just wow. Our minds seem to really enjoy that. I also travel with a full medical kit... diagnostic lab, I've done a lot of teaching in veterinary medicine, because that's part of teaching people that birds matter. So I always figured at least a small kit if not a full kit, so there's always a stethoscope. So if we have sick birds in the field, everybody gets to listen to their heart. And they go, Oh, you treat birds just like people? Yeah, they get the same diseases we do. They matter, let's treat them. And let's treat them with care, with high quality veterinary care. And that's often new for people to go, oh my gosh, and so to be able to listen to the heartbeat of a wild parrot, some people have told me it's been the most transformative moment in their lives, to be able to hear the heart of another bird, they're usually young birds, so they don't mind too much it's like babies, they're sleeping through it. So it's not usually a stress for the birds. And and so offering that connection, for joy for people, resilience for people, and to make the connection to parents. So by being a veterinarian, I can do all that and say, oh, let's birds matter. And we've got all these medicines and surgery we can do for them. And it's just really a witness that birds matter. So I think about all those things where I show up with people.
Joel Krieger 41:03
That's wonderful, it just kind of points to this work can be disarming. And, just human. I mean, I love how you said, let's go, let's just go have a fun experience together. And that's a way for people. And then towards the end of the process, you know, hopefully if everything goes well, there's change that happens. There's a change in the people. There's a change, hopefully, in the parent population, maybe stabilizing, maybe resurging. I'd love it if you could share some examples, just anecdotal stories of the types of transformations that you've seen through this work.
LoraKim Joyner 41:46
So cultural change takes longer than I'll be alive and present in any one area. Right? It just takes generations. And so the short term success that we see in some countries where there's a leadership core that is interested and capable, and even can raise funds to do their parrot work. That's just tremendous. And it's very fragile. So let's take Nicaragua, they have an island there called Ometope Island. It's two volcanoes. It's gorgeous. Nobody knew what was going on with the parrots there. And I said, Well, not my country. But let's let's go show up, and started working with some local people that were kind of counting parents a little bit. And so that was in 2013. Now, we brought in a really big international organization that has a strong presence in Nicaragua. They got some major grants in the last couple of years. And so they're hiring people that I had volunteer eight years ago, they're hiring them full-time throughout the year. And, I'm still their science advisor, but they're just doing it all. And it all started with me just showing up counting parrots for two nights back in 2013. And they're just like, on their own, I still meet with them for science and write up some of the papers with them. But, what's gonna happen when that money goes away? Or if they're not going to get the funding, there's maybe 100 young people that are really involved and committed, but the people who are poaching are the communities, the people taking the forest down are the communities. How do we fix that? We have a really strong crew, but there's no guarantee that that whole island community is going to change, especially if you look at what's going on in Nicaragua now. You know, it's a dictatorship. You know, people are dying, trying to get president Ortega out of office. And there's just no guarantee there... no guarantee whatsoever, that when money moves and goes away, that that core group of committed people are going to have the resources and the safety and security to keep their parrots on that island. So that's a great success story. But it's so fragile. And that's why we need to find sustainable ways to accompany people for 50, I used to say 25, now I say 50 now I say more than 50 years because you have to weather out these really hard socio economic ups and downs
Joel Krieger 44:33
Yeah
LoraKim Joyner 44:33
That was a really positive story. Do you want to hear anything...
Joel Krieger 44:38
Yeah maybe a positive story of transformation. Yeah.
LoraKim Joyner 44:41
Yeah, well so in Honduras, well, I talked about fragile... I mean, we just don't know when that we're going to lose the forests, when there's going to be another coup. When someone else is going to get assassinated there. I mean, it's really, really fragile. However, we went working with the local people 100% poaching them, Scarlet Macau nests in 2014. And it's been up and down, but it's stabilized around 10%. So they're starting to see Scarlet macaws, where they haven't seen them for decades. And it's the local people that, you know, I helped do the finances, the capacity training, but they're out there, risking their lives trying to protect their nests from international interests, and narco people and corrupt officials. And they're doing a huge, it's amazing, 1.1 million acres of 11 indigenous communities in an impossible, impossible area to work in. And they're doing it... this year, I don't know about five years from now, when we have less money, and the political environment changes. But for right now they're saving lives, and they're saving parents. So it's very much a success story this year.
Joel Krieger 45:55
I wonder very much about how, how we make this leap from you know, it's almost like there's this arresting phase, this kind of slowing down or pausing the extraction and the destruction. And it sounds like that's done in a way that's... you use the word fragile. And it also sounds like temporary, because the reason that these people are able to not do that is because they're being paid to do something else. So I wonder, you know, is, a lot of these countries get sucked into this, you know, the big development, global development, here, we're going to lend you money, and there's no way you're ever going to be able to pay off this debt, therefore, you are going to be tearing down your forests, you're going to be allowing mining. And how do you get out of that? I mean, it almost seems like there's got to be, it all comes down to money. It all comes down to, you know, some other plausible way that their economy could be supported. I'm just wondering how you think about maneuvering around that tricky pivot It seems like we have to make?
LoraKim Joyner 47:06
Yeah. And how do we tell the story where we're all saying we have no hope we're just witnessing the destruction of the parents and the planet? But how do we live in that space that we're holding on to a remnant? where maybe the miracle can flow out of it? How do we have we turn around that huge, destructive? economy? I don't know I'm not sure I have much hope that we can do it, or we can do it in time. But we know we can do it today. And we know in the way that we interact with each other in our organization, and with other organizations we know, we can live the dream, we can live the transformation now, today, and is that enough? No, most days, it isn't. But it keeps one engaged to go today's enough. Today, today is enough to do that. How to turn it around. One thing I tell people... quit taking drugs. You know, it's the cocaine habit that we have in this country that's fueling so much of that corruption in the Americas. The big money that's that flows for the officials, and it's the danger risk as well. So the demand for drugs, not just wildlife is part of this. And if we need to all just cut it out. And I don't know, I don't know how to do that either. I don't know how, because drugs is an extraction economy. They grow it, they move it. We leave the violence there, and we extract the product. So it's that whole piece. But how are we going to turn around the cocaine trade soon enough. So we don't have that money flow for corrupting the governments where there's no power to keep the forest from coming down.
Joel Krieger 49:04
It's another illuminating example of how interwoven all these issues are.
Pavani Yalla 49:11
One thing that I hadn't maybe put as much emphasis on is the responsibility that we all have, outside of just not putting birds in cages, we could be complicit and not even realize it. And so that is that overwhelming feeling for sure. And I'm sure everyone... people are at different stages of that, of that understanding. One question I have for you is for folks who have different levels of awareness of what's going on and then how complex it is, what are different ways that you all engage, transforming, not necessarily the poachers, but everyone else, right. I also remember reading about your nurture nature program, you know, the call for, for birding, you're working a lot of different angles. What is your approach there? It feels like a pretty big thing to take on.
LoraKim Joyner 50:12
The nurture nature program is, it's sort of getting at the big picture piece, that we need healthy people that connect strongly to other people and to nature. If they are able to care for themselves, care for others of all species, and if they're able to undo the cultural construct that says humans are separate from others, or that some humans are better than others, or species are important and don't have inherent worth and dignity. So this was our attempt to get out the big picture piece to support people where they are to help them connect and nurture nature, which means it goes back to nonviolent communication, really caring and loving and accepting everything that is, so you're present in the moment. And paradoxically, so you have more strength and power to change what is actually in the current moment. So it's like any other mindfulness intentional social action piece. And so we're really subtle about it. I mean, bird walks are heavy pressure for social justice. But we've experimented with all kinds of ways that what we're good at and what we love to do, can help other people come into full realization of the beauty that connects them to all of life. And maybe out of that comes some social change. And so that's what our program is. So what does it actually do? It's writing books, it's giving webinars, it's taking people on bird walks, it's not heavy duty, all the birds are dying and suffering and blah, blah, blah, it's all because we're into drugs drinking coffee, it's not like that. It's just this is a space for us to see the worth and the interconnection of life around us, and maybe a safe space to try a few of these topics about how there's fewer birds than there used to be, and why is that? And how can we use our time together as a birding community today, to do some changes, to have a little more energy to hold the complexity without a demand. Without saying, you must repent. You must no longer... you must drink bird friendly coffee, and bird friendly cocaine, you know, whatever, you know, it's without a demand. So it's, it's a gentle message. If it comes up, it comes up as a shared message of what we're experiencing together as we see a bald eagle flyover.
Pavani Yalla 52:51
Yeah, that's amazing. So last weekend, I went on a walk with my children, and we saw an owl. And it was huge. And I've never seen an owl like that, you know, in the wild. A few other people were kind of gathered around with binoculars looking at it. And my children were amazed. They were like, their eyes got big, and they're just like, Oh my gosh, because they read about owls in books. And to me, like, it's like capturing that moment, or that type of moment and replicating it. I would love for them and myself to have more of those moments. And I'm imagining that that's part of it... it's just kind of a an innate understanding that there is awe and wonder and then that you're connected, and just reminding yourself of that, that would then eventually to your point be the start of a transformation or maybe a journey, but not a heavy handed approach
LoraKim Joyner 53:44
To hold the whole complexity. I used to lead bird walks when I lived in, outside of New Mexico and the congregation's children came up for the day and we were going around with all this bird watching and telling bird stories. And one young boy had been born with a cocaine addiction with his parents and he was kind of all over the place, little little, little hard to focus. And we came across a pond of snow geese, and it was a bright sunny days. So they're white, and the sun's reflecting and it's beautiful, which is pretty amazing. So we're all there. And then the snow geese all took off at the same time like a clap of thunder right over everybody's head. This young boy jumped up and down and screamed and ran right into the arms of his grandparents. And they held each other as the birds went over. And of course, all the other children had a very similar response. I didn't have to do any teaching there... little Joey knew that this was awesome and wonder and love and connection were his responses to that. And so those are the kinds of experiences that can help us all maybe grow in resilience to hold the complexity and confusion of being alive on this planet.
Pavani Yalla 55:06
Well said.
Joel Krieger 55:08
As you were both talking about the stories of birds, and kind of watching birds I was thinking about... so I feel very fortunate that I live in a very wooded neighborhood. So there's a lot of birds in the mornings, I like to have a cup of coffee out on the back porch, and just you know, it's just very peaceful, just the birdsong. I just think collectively, we take it for granted. I've been thinking a lot about how much of our existence is mediated through man-made environments, man-made objects. And that is shaping who we are, you know, we, we designed our environments, we design these objects, and they're designing us. And so we have stepped out of the community of life. It's not working on us anymore. And that is such a part of this, this struggle that we have is just the simple things, noticing. There's no more time to notice. And sometimes, I think that if we just had more openings like that, for people, if we could only have more of these extended moments, where we remember what it's supposed to be like, what normal really is, then we'd be in much better shape.
LoraKim Joyner 56:28
And slow down, don't need to read a book, or make more money, or have a teacher, we just need to slow down. And, you know, maybe that's the way to bring it back to the community conservation, the offering stipends, the showing up in solidarity slows us all down and say, let's go look at parrots and give some money so there's some spaciousness around paying attention to their, the animals and around their lives. And so they can slow down, we can also go down together and say, this is what's important. Let me tell you, when you're in a three hour count, and you can't move, and you're in one place, you have to slow down. You have to watch and observe. And so. So I think that maybe sort of is our message is just slow down and be aware of who we really are. We are the earth.
Pavani Yalla 57:31
What was exciting for you about this episode? What stuck with you since our conversation with LoraKim?
Joel Krieger 57:38
I don't know I want to be a conservationist. I know, right? Yeah, sometimes I just want to quit my day job and go work in the field. Yeah, I suppose it's the interconnected nature of the work. You know, at the beginning, she was telling the story of Tomas. And he said, if the parrots don't make it, neither do the people. And I was kind of like, well, how can that be? How are they so interdependent? You know, we realize that in order to save the parrots, you got to first save the people. And LoraKim said that conservation in general is starting to realize that it's all about the people. So if the local stakeholders aren't involved, and if they're not flourishing and thriving, then you're gonna have a really hard time. I think she described the work of transformation here is to be in solidarity with the people where they are, you know, don't judge the poachers. maybe ask them, why do you poach parrots? And I thought it was really interesting. She said, you really have to be on their side, and they can tell if you aren't on their side. And isn't that familiar? You know, this idea of transcending sides. It reminds me a lot of what we learned in the last episode with Kevin Jones, you know, asking what is it like to be you? Trying to have compassion, and understand the poachers and understand why are they doing this? They're not bad people. In fact, if you were in their position, you'd probably be doing the same thing. All they need is a decent job, and a fair wage. And so that's why giving them a job protecting parrots is so effective. It's like they can support their families, and they now belong to something bigger than themselves. They matter. I thought that was a really important point. It's that emotion, that feeling of belonging?
Pavani Yalla 59:39
Yeah. Yeah, the whole time she was talking about understanding the needs of poachers, I couldn't help but think about, you know, what we in the design community, call Human Centered Design, and design thinking that initial phase of like empathizing and understanding your audience or your users, so that you can design for them and solve their problems, right? That is very familiar to me like she was talking about all those like, Oh, yeah, you're thinking about what people are thinking, feeling doing, what do they need. And so she is applying design thinking, again, whether she calls it that or not to the work, and I think in a much more pure way, to be honest, than most of us do. Because they don't really teach us and I don't know, I mean, it's been a while since I went to school for this kind of thing, but they don't really teach you how to truly empathize with your audience and understand their needs. And I think we often come to it as designers with our own objectives, whether they're individual, you know, I want to do this project, because I want it, I want to check off these skills, or I want something in my portfolio, or you come to it with the objectives of the business that you're working for, or the industry that you're a part of. And so there are I think, preconceived notions and judgments that are baked into all of those. Whereas what she's doing, and I think her unique training in nonviolent communication, as a minister, those have all helped her show up in a very different way, when she's doing those early phases of the design process, where she's actually really, truly in solidarity with folks and trying to understand what they need, what do they want to do?
Joel Krieger 1:01:31
Yeah, there's a really emergent process you described there, where it's almost like she's coming into these communities without necessarily a preconceived notion of what has to happen. But it's almost like the formula is: go there, get to know the people build relationships, and together, figure out what needs to happen. Which to me is very different than how a lot of design is done, it's almost forced... I'm going to create the circumstances to force the thing to happen, to make a thing happen. Well, this is a more organic way to let things unfold.
Pavani Yalla 1:02:05
Yeah, for sure. You know, the other thing that was interesting to me, as we think about that process of just showing up and understanding what people really need. One of my favorite moments in the interview was when she said that people say, it was such a transformative experience to hear the heartbeat of a parrot. And it reminded me of some of the work we used to do, you know, educational work, experiential education, like learning by doing. So what she's doing is providing knowledge, but experiential knowledge. So it's not just theoretical, where she's going in and teaching people about parrots and telling them that they're endangered, and you need to help. But she's putting them in situations where they feel it in their bones, they feel the loss innately. And it starts with, like she said, getting them to count the parents, right? Like, she probably knows that there's parrots, the numbers are down. But she's getting them to count their own parents so that through that process, they realize, oh, wow, we are in trouble here, right. And then they're invested in, in a problem that maybe they weren't thinking too much about before. And then the experiences that she has with them where they are, you know, treating the parents feeling the parents, these are all very hands-on experiences that get you to feel invested in the problem, but also understand the problem in your bones in a way that you wouldn't if you were just being told something, I think it's very effective.
Joel Krieger 1:03:35
Yeah, I was thinking about the job that they give a lot of the former poachers is the job of a parrot counter. And it makes me think about the significance of attention. It's a slow, very meditative thing, you're going out into the jungle, and you're watching, and you're observing. And in a way, it kind of directs their attention to the parrots in a different way than they've been looking at them before. So they, it's almost like this job gives people the space to just notice the beauty. You know, before they may have seen it as a commodity, as a dollar sign. And she actually said, they fall in love with the parrots by counting them. So, you know, it just brings us back to how very little of our attention we give to the natural world today. You know, maybe that's really just all that's needed, at the start, anyhow, is just to notice.
Pavani Yalla 1:04:33
Yeah. You know, I was thinking about the notion of time, also. Thinking about, gosh, it's gotta be hard to go into this work, to be doing it for not only years, but for decades before you start to see the fruits of your labor. Yeah, how do you first, motivate yourself but also motivate others, to commit to this type of work when, you know we live in a world now, where increasingly we rely on instant gratification, whether that's in our careers or in our day to day. So, how do you do that? That just feels like a really hard thing to solve for to get people to commit to something that is a big problem that you don't actually see change. Change is slow. And it takes a long, long, long, long time. And as I was thinking about that i was also remembering some of the things she was saying about how nothing is permanent, right? Like when we were her asking her about transformation and what's happened to some of these places. She says, you know, today, this is working, but we don't know five years from now, 10 years from now. So she acknowledges that, but I didn't sense despair. And maybe this is where her spiritual training helps where you focus on each moment. And you focus on the now. There's no despair about the future, because it's very much about the experience in the present moment. And so maybe for her motivating people to work on this type of stuff isn't all about... hundreds of years from now, parrots will be here, but it's about... this is fun, in the moment, right now. You're enjoying doing this work. This is the type of work that you can be engaged and be fulfilled in the moment, regardless of what might happen in the far future.
Alright, that's it for this episode. But one quick note before we wrap. The work that One Earth Conservation does depend so much on the livelihoods of the indigenous people who are putting their lives on the line for the parrots and their people. Please consider donating to their cause by visiting the One Earth Conservation website at oneearthconservation.org. Here you can also learn more about the organization, LoraKim, and her collaborators. And special thanks to Hector and Gail for providing their perspective on One Earth Conservation and the work that they do with LoraKim.
Joel Krieger 1:07:00
And as always, if you like what you hear, and we really hope that you do, please support our work by giving us a rating and review. Or think of one person in your life who would find value in this podcast and share it with them.
Pavani Yalla 1:07:16
See you next time.
