Conservation Connection

The Chattahoochee River is a hotspot for all kinds of conservation work, and in this episode we sit down with Dr. Troy Keller to discuss his research into the subject! He focuses a lot of effort into understanding the effects that invasive crawfish are having on the ecology of local waterways, where they come from, and what we can do about it. Not only that, but he's an expert on how small dams fragment rivers and slice up populations into smaller and much more vulnerable chunks! Click here to check out our nonprofit: https://www.lastchanceendeavors.com

In our first episode from the 2021 batch of REU students we talk with Jake, Elle, and Olivia! From investigating the interactions between native and invasive algae, to studying the bacterial colonies associated with algae, and even looking at the ways in which sea sponges may influence cloud formation this is a power packed episode! Not only are these undergrads pushing the boundaries of scientific understanding in their topics, they're practicing valuable skills in science communication that they'll need for the rest of their careers as researchers! Communicating science to other researchers is one thing, but helping the public understand why their research matters is a different skill set entirely. Want to read more about their work this summer? Check out the College of Charleston REU Blog: https://blogreu.wordpress.com

We're kicking off season three by bringing Dr. Bob Podolsky back on the show for his third appearance! He's a professor at the Grice Marine Lab and the director of the Fort Johnson Research Experience for Undergraduates Program, and he's sitting down to describe the incredible opportunities they make available to undergraduate students every summer. These students get ten weeks to pursue original research, allowing them to experience the life of a professional researcher while honing skills they'll need in their future careers. Over the next few weeks we'll be posting episodes that highlight these students' research and their experience in Charleston during this field season, so be sure to tune in next weekend! If you'd like to learn more about the College of Charleston REU Program, click here: http://reu.cofc.edu If you'd like to check out their Instagram, click here: https://www.instagram.com/cofcbiology/?hl=en If you'd like to check out their Facebook, click here: https://www.facebook.com/cofcbiology/

We're kicking off season 3 with our first ever remote interview! This episode is in collaboration with EarthXOcean, which is hosting a virtual conference on ocean issues [http://earthx.org/earthxtv/]. Vasser Seydel is an activist pushing for a moratorium on deep seabed mining in international waters, a destructive process that would disrupt the ocean's ability to perform vital ecosystem services. Tune in to learn about the process of deep seabed mining, and what you can do to make a difference!  Click here to learn more about our nonprofit: https://www.lastchanceendeavors.com Click here to read Flora and Fauna's report on the impact of deep seabed mining: https://cms.fauna-flora.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/FFI_2020_The-risks-impacts-deep-seabed-mining_Report.pdf Click here to visit the Oxygen Project: https://www.theoxygenproject.com Click here to check out the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition: http://www.savethehighseas.org

Tune in to another EarthX 2019 episode as we sit down across from Jerry Tinianow, the Chief Sustainability Officer for the City of Denver! His job is to set the high-level sustainability goals for the city and then help the various departments and services in reach those goals. This is a fascinating discussion on the concept of sustainability and the best ways to implement it.  If you'd like to learn more about our nonprofit, click here: https://www.lastchanceendeavors.com

How do you divide up a public resource that private individuals have access to? How do we protect everyone's access to an increasingly scarce resource? Listen in to Vanessa Casado Perez, Associate Professor at Texas A&M School of Law and a Research Associate Professor at Texas A&M Department of Agricultural Economics, as she discusses the complicated situation that surrounds water rights in semi-arid ecosystems. This episode is a great discussion at the intersection between ecology, human behavior, and our current legal system! To learn more about our nonprofit, click here: https://www.lastchanceendeavors.com

Tune in to another EarthX Episode as the Last Chance Endeavors team sits down with Vance Martin, president of the WILD Foundation! Vance chats with us about the importance of connecting with nature, the strategies that the WILD Foundation uses to tackle massive environmental crises, and the "Nature Needs Half" movement. When was the last time you spent time out in nature? We hope this episode will inspire you to go take a walk in the woods, even if it's only in your backyard! Click here to learn more about the WILD Foundation: https://www.wild.org Click here to learn more about Coalition WILD: https://coalitionwild.org Click here to learn more about our nonprofit: https://www.lastchanceendeavors.com

You've probably heard of genomics, the study of all of the genes found in an organism's DNA, but have you ever heard of proteomics? Listen in to this episode with College of Charleston associate professor Mike Janech to hear how he's using proteomics (the analysis of all the proteins present in an organic sample) to better understand the relationship between species!  Click here to check out the NIST CoMPARe program: https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/comparative-mammalian-proteome-aggregator-resource-compare-program Click here to check out the Grice Marine Lab at the College of Charleston: http://gricemarinelab.cofc.edu Click here to check out our nonprofit: https://www.lastchanceendeavors.com

Listen in to episode 34 as we chat with Doug Woodring, the founder of the Ocean Recovery Alliance! He approaches current environmental crises with an artistic and entrepreneurial spirit that's helping him tackle big problems in new ways. Who would have ever thought to use images of plastic pollution as the art for a jigsaw puzzle? Doug Woodring, that's who! What better way to bring the obvious effects of plastic to the forefront of a family's mind? And that's not the only way that he's cleaning up the planet; he's created public art projects in Asia, an app to crowdsource the location of plastic pollution, and a surf paddle made entirely from recovered plastics! If you'd like to see a video with Doug and his products, click here: https://youtu.be/wORw8YJ66EU If you'd like to learn more about the Ocean Recovery Alliance, click here: www.oceanrecov.org If you'd like to check out the Bad Fish paddle, click here: www.wawhandplanes.com.au/thebadfish If you'd like to learn more about our nonprofit, click here: www.

In this episode we sit down with Erica Bjelland, a Program Development Specialist at the Rural Renewable Energy Alliance! RREAL is a nonprofit organization who's goal is to make solar energy accessible to communities of all income levels, providing support for anyone who is interested in bringing solar energy into their community. Listen in to hear a great conversation about the importance of renewable energy and the ways in which RREAL is making it easier to access!  Click here to learn more about our nonprofit: www.lastchanceendeavors.com Click here to learn more about the Rural Renewable Energy Alliance: www.RREAL.org

Listen in as we sit down with Erik Sotka, an evolutionary ecologist with the Grice Marine Lab at the College of Charleston. He's an expert on invasive species and the ways in which they're changing the ecological make up of marine habitats in the eastern United States. Did you know that the vast majority of introduced species do not go on to become invasive, but instead fizzle out? Erik Sotka is fascinated by why some species succeed where others fail, and the effects that they may have once they're established! Click here to learn more about our nonprofit: https://www.lastchanceendeavors.com

Listen in to this EarthX micro-episode to hear what the Mexican government is doing for the critically endangered vaquita! This species of shy porpoise is endemic to the Gulf of California, and is on the brink of extinction. Often caught as bycatch in illegal nets set for a species of fish called totoaba, the number of vaquita remaining in the wild is estimated to be fewer than 30 individuals! If you'd like to learn more about our nonprofit, click here: https://www.lastchanceendeavors.com If you'd like to learn more about vaquitas, click here: http://www.vivavaquita.org

Join us for our final interview to come out of WhaleFest 2019 as we sit down with Janet Neilson, a whale biologist who works at Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. Janet's job is to understand how many whales are in Glacier Bay each summer, and to figure out where they're concentrating! She and her team use a variety of techniques to monitor their whales, and spend the entirety of the off-season analyzing all the data they collect in the few short months that the humpbacks visit the park. If you've ever wondered what the day-to-day life of a whale researcher is like, this is a must-listen episode! If you'd like to learn more about our nonprofit, click here: https://www.lastchanceendeavors.com If you'd like to learn more about Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, click here: https://www.nps.gov/glba/index.htm If you'd like to explore the "humpback yearbook" click here: http://alaskahumpbacks.org

Join us for another episode recorded in Dallas at EarthX 2019! This week we're sitting with Emily Hazelwood and Amber Jackson-Sparks, two leaders in the Rigs-to-Reefs movement and the co-founders of Blue Latitudes! Their company designs sustainable, creative, and cost effective solutions for environmental issues in the offshore industry. Offshore oil rigs are massive pieces of infrastructure that are put in place for decades at a time to extract petroleum, but once the oil reserve has been depleted a new issue arrises: what to do about the infrastructure left behind? Emily and Amber argue that after decades in the ocean the structure has built up an incredible amount of sea life, and that it's beneficial to allow everything below the surface to remain. In fact, these man-mad oases can become important safe-houses for marine life in an increasingly over-harvested ocean! To learn more about our nonprofit, click here: https://www.lastchanceendeavors.com To learn more about Blue Latitudes, click here: http://www.

 Join us for another gripping episode coming all the way from Sitka, Alaska! We sit down at WhaleFest 2019 across the table from Mayumi Arimitsu, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center, to discuss the shift that the mysterious "Blob" has caused to the food chain in the eastern Pacific! A massive die-off of critical sea birds puzzled scientists, and Mayumi's work has helped clarify some of the possible links and mechanisms behind it! To learn more about our nonprofit, click here: https://www.lastchanceendeavors.com To learn more about the Alaska Science Center, click here: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/asc/

Join us for another EarthX episodes with the CEO of Fresh Food Connect, Candace Chandra! Fresh Food Connect is a tech platform that allows small-scale urban agriculturalists to connect with the people who need their produce the most, and was launched as a way to lessen the impact of food deserts- urban areas with no easy access to fresh produce. It's important to remember that environmental issues go beyond just preserving habitats or species: if your family has no access to nutritious food you've got a lot more on your mind than trying to go green.  If you would like to learn more about our nonprofit, click here: https://www.lastchanceendeavors.com If you would like to learn more about Fresh Food Connect, click here: http://www.freshfoodconnect.org

Join us this week as we continue our Sitka WhaleFest series with Rob Suryan, Research Ecologist with the NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center and Science Coordinator for Gulf Watch Alaska! Listen in as Rob unravels the mystery behind the disappearance of a critical link in the Alaskan marine food chain! If you've been listening to our other WhaleFest episodes you're probably already familiar with "The Blob", a several year phenomenon of unusually warm water in the northern Pacific ocean. With the appearance of the warm water came a drastic decline in the number of forage fish, a group of fish that serve as a critical food supply to animals higher up the food chain, and Rob's job was to figure out exactly what happened! To learn more about our nonprofit, click here: https://www.lastchanceendeavors.com To learn more about the NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center, click here: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/region/alaska To learn more about Gulf Watch Alaska, click here: https://gulfwatchalaska.org

This episode tells the story of how some very special dogs are helping to protect one of the most iconic marine animals found in the US! Listen in to the hilarious Christian Fritz, Founder and Chief of Operations for K9s 4 Conservation, an organization that trains dogs to sniff out sea turtle nests so that marine biologists can protect the precious hatchlings within. Believe us, recording this episode with an adorable pup in the studio was a highlight of our week! If you'd like to learn more about our nonprofit, click here: https://www.lastchanceendeavors.com If you'd like to read more about K9s 4 Conservation, click here: https://www.k9s4conservation.org

This week's episode is with one of the most driven and passionate guests we've ever had; Jackie Hildering, the keynote speaker at WhaleFest 2019! She calls herself the Marine Detective in part because she always asks the question "Why?", and she believes that a sense of wonder is the most important tool in the conservationist's toolkit. Listen to her journey from the classroom to the co-founder of the Marine Education and Research Society, and all of her crazy stops along the way! Click here to learn more about our nonprofit: https://www.lastchanceendeavors.com Click here to learn more about the Marine Education and Research Society: https://mersociety.org Click here to learn more about the Marine Detective: https://themarinedetective.com

This week's episode is a power-packed panel of film makers and producers discussing the massive impact that virtual reality films can have for conservation. We sit down with Christophe Balihache (an underwater filmmaker and co-founder of Underwater Earth), Sophie Ansel (a virtual reality filmmaker), Raymond Chavez (a producer for Guardians of the Kingdom), and Susan Grella (an associate producer for emerging media at Vulcan Productions) to hear about the process behind the incredible VR film, Guardians of the Kingdom! The film tells the story of the Tongan people as they transitioned from a whaling economy to one based on eco-tourism.  Click here to learn more about our nonprofit: https://www.lastchanceendeavors.com Click here to learn more about the VR film Guardians of the Kingdom: https://www.vulcanproductions.com/guardians-of-the-kingdom