28 Dec

IN CONVERSATION WITH SYLVIA EARLE
COP28 UAE
Introduction by Hussain Aga Khan

8 December 2023

In Conversation: Prince Hussain Aga Khan and Dr. Sylvia Earle
Terra, the Sustainability Pavilion, Expo City Dubai

Conservation photographer Prince Hussain Aga Khan and renowned oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle share their remarkable stories around special encounters with underwater species and ecosystems.

Through his exhibitions, publications and illustrated talks, Prince Hussain hopes to change minds and behaviours by raising awareness to ensure the protection of biodiversity, endangered species and ecosystems.

Dr. Sylvia Earle has dedicated her life to protecting the ocean from climate change, pollution and habitat destruction and decreasing ocean fish stocks. She has created a global network of over 140 marine protected areas – Hope Spots, to save and restore the ocean, the ‘blue heart of the planet’.
 

Introduction by Hussain Aga Khan:

It is such a privilege for me to introduce you to the most amazing person I know and one of my favorite people on this planet.

Dr. Sylvia Earle is legendary.

 

The most Beautiful Woman in the sea Sylvia is the most graceful, capable and purposeful fish you will ever meet.

Sylvia, I have a raging crush on you. I can’t help it.

She is beautiful, smart, strong, courageous, undaunted, single-minded and determined. Inspiring…

My God is she clever. Most of us are specialists of some sort. We have compartmentalized knowledge. We’re dolphin specialists, turtle specialists, coral scientists. Photographers…

But not Sylvia. She knows everything. About everything. Much like a marine honey badger she don’t care. She doesn’t give a ship.

You want to know about sharks? Throw them at her. She’ll tell you about them.

Want to know about plankton? Throw it at her. She knows that, too.
Algae, geology, diving physiology, cephalopods… she’ll deal with them.

You want to know about coral? Throw it at her. She’ll handle it!
Maybe not hard coral.

I have never seen Sylvia stumped by a question or hesitate in a talk.
Speaking of talking… She can speak to anyone at any time. A boat full of 106 conservationists, scientists, non-profit people and donors, a room of 12 government authorities and marine park managers in Baja… and the 5 or 6 wardens on Cocos that she made feel like kings a couple of years ago, praising their work, thanking them, detailing how their island compares to others, describing global issues and telling them how very important their work is.

Sylvia is STRONG. She’ll outkick a 30-year-old dive guide or expedition leader any day. Dive 3 dives a day, travel 300 days a year (she really does) and give myriad speeches.

She is endlessly courageous and convincing. This is the lady who earned the nickname “the sturgeon general” after excoriating national fisheries for overfishing.
The person who convinced Google to map out the ocean floor in Google Earth. She told them if they didn’t include the oceans it might as well be called “Google Dirt”. I can just imagine her picking up the phone and yelling at Google! Take that Sergei Bryn and Larry Page.

Did I mention to you that she was an Aquanaut and lived under the sea with a few other people for a week? Or that she dove to 381 meters in 1979 in nothing but a JIM suit, setting the women’s depth record.
She goes down in research submersibles alone to explore the depths.

She was chief scientist at NOAA for a couple of years.
She was named a UN Global 500 Laureate and Conservationist of the Year in 1998, entered the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2000 and is a Library of Congress Living Legend. She received the Audubon Society’s Rachel Carson award in 2009, the Carl Sagan award for Public Understanding of Science in 2010. Sylvia, this is getting long! The Walter Cronkite Award and UN Champions of the Earth award in 2014. Oh and of course she was Glamour Woman of the Year then as well.
This amazing woman has won more awards and probably been given more honorary degrees than you and I have had breakfasts.

 

And it’s all effortless for Time’s Hero for the Planet! Her smile – it’s such a lovely smile – her conversation, the twinkle in her eye.
And these wonderful, amazing quotes. I’m sure you’ve heard her “No water, no life. No Blue, No Green”, “every time I slip into the ocean, it’s like going home” and “we need to respect the oceans and take care of them as if our lives depended on it. Because they do”.

She just instantly comes up with one-liners.
In Mexico a few years ago our group saw a bunch of Mobula rays jumping beautifully out of the sea. Someone said, “I wonder why Mobulas jump out of the water like that”. And Sylvia says, “because they can”.
She calls sport fishing “sport killing” and when a guy who inserts trackers in sharks’ bellies after cutting them open told us it doesn’t hurt them she immediately answered, “you don’t know that”.
She also rightly says that we should think of fish as wildlife.

And where you or I would probably say a shark tried to eat us, Sylvia described an encounter with an oceanic white tip as the shark “showed a little too much interest in my fins”.

 

She promotes hope & hope spots – her Marine Protected Area designations, and hence inspiringly has the word HOPE in her programmes.

 

Oh, I nearly forgot: she brings industrial quantities of M & Ms on every expedition – for her shipmates to enjoy.

 

I would strongly encourage you to watch her TED talk and the film Mission Blue. You’re missing out if you skip those.

 

In closing, Sylvia is a living legend, brilliant, courageous, inspiring and inspired, much admired and lauded.

But to ME Sylvia is amazing because she is also gentle and kind, affable, unassuming, sweet and engaging, encouraging and generous with her time. A delightful well of knowledge and experience.

It’s a great honor to introduce you to “Her Deepness”, “the sturgeon general”, my favorite fish, doctor Sylvia Earle.