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Rationalisation, conformity, impunity, ownership: tune in to hear the story of two remarkable environmental defenders Maria and Zé Cláudio –through the lens of criminal psychology. In conversation with Climate Curious co-hosts Ben Hurst and Maryam Pasha, join criminal psychologist Dr. Julia Shaw to ask, why are land defenders getting killed in climate conflict zones such as The Amazon Rainforest, who is killing them, and what can we do to protect them? Featuring excerpts from capable guardian Paulo Busse, an environmental and human rights lawyer.
Learn more in Julia’s new book, ‘Green Crime’, https://linktr.ee/drjuliashaw
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Created by TEDxLondon
Executive produced by Josie Colter
Produced by Ben Beheshty
Curated by Deesha Chandra
Hosted by Maryam Pasha and Ben Hurst
Communications by Tara Cooper and Issey Gladston
00:00 Introduction to Climate Curious on Crime
01:14 Case overview: Maria and Ze Claudio
03:05 The role of environmental human rights Lawyer Paolo Busse
06:09 The struggle for Indigenous rights in Brazil
12:44 The broader context of environmental crime
18:32 Human behaviour and environmental conservation
23:11 Psychological ownership and Indigenous land rights
23:58 Rights of nature and legal entities
25:08 Case study: Maria and Ze Claudio
27:53 The murder investigation
32:00 Impunity and crime prevention
40:00 Universal nature of Indigenous issues
42:22 Conclusion and next week’s preview
[00:00:00] Introduction to Climate Curious on Crime
[00:00:00] Paulo Busse: There is always a person in front of a tree in the Amazon to attack the person. Get rid of the person before attacking
[00:00:10] Ben Hurst: the tree.
[00:00:10] Ben Hurst: Welcome to Climate Curious on Crime, a four part miniseries, examining the psychology behind some of the world’s most successful climate crime takedowns.
[00:00:19] Maryam Pasha: I’m Maryam Pasha.
[00:00:21] Ben Hurst: And I’m Ben Hurst.
[00:00:22] Ben Hurst: And to take us through some of the biggest. Success stories in the Fight against Green Crime is our special guest, co-host, criminal [00:00:30] psychologist, Dr. Julia Shaw.
[00:00:31] Maryam Pasha: Hi, Julia is a criminal psychologist at University College London regular podcast and TV host, Ted and TEDxLondon, speaker and author of the new book, green Crime.
[00:00:42] Maryam Pasha: Inside the Minds of the People Destroying the [00:00:45] Planet and How to Stop Them
[00:00:46] Ben Hurst: Guided by Julia, we are gonna explore how some of the worlds. Biggest climate criminals have been brought to justice through the eyes of a capable guardian and the psychological aspects of why people are perpetrating these crimes in the first place.
[00:00:58] Maryam Pasha: All brought to you in the [00:01:00] format of a special four-part series called Climate Curious on Crime. Thanks for joining us again, Julia.
[00:01:05] Dr. Julia Shaw: So happy to be here to talk about this incredibly important case and it’s one of the most famous cases in Brazil.
[00:01:11] Maryam Pasha: Wow. So let’s get into it.
[00:01:14] Case overview: Maria and Ze Claudio
[00:01:14] Maryam Pasha: And before we do, just I guess a bit of a heads up to say that we’re shifting gears a bit with tone this time, episode one.
[00:01:21] Maryam Pasha: Uh, as you all know, covered corporate crime, Dieselgate. Um, and this week we’re shining light on the tragic loss of two environmental defenders [00:01:30] lives, including details of the persecution and murder, and also their legacy and memory, and celebrating everything they work so hard for. So we just wanted to warn you that this week’s content is a little bit heavier.
[00:01:41] Maryam Pasha: Before we turn to you, Julia. Ben, do you wanna give us some of [00:01:45] the key facts of this case?
[00:01:47] Ben Hurst: Right. Well, this is the incredible story of Maria and Z Claudio. It involves a man who bought land rights that couldn’t be sold, a scuba diving master that formed a key piece of evidence [00:02:00] and a criminal who evaded justice for years under a false name.
[00:02:04] Maryam Pasha: If we rewind back to May, 2011 in one of the Earth’s last ancient forests. Two Amazonian Rainforest Environmental Defenders, Maria and Zay Claudio [00:02:15] are murdered in broad daylight just months after. Zay does a TEDx Amazonia talk where he says that this will happen. His ear is cut off as proof, and the police quickly find the killers.
[00:02:27] Maryam Pasha: But who hired them? You’d [00:02:30] think in such a vast and dense geography as a rainforest, it would be impossible to solve such a crime. But in reality, there were so many suspects and law enforcement didn’t quite know where to start. This is a story of the psychology of impunity and ownership, A story of the psychology of [00:02:45] short-termism and why sustainability is always framed as anti.
[00:02:49] Maryam Pasha: Even though the murderers went to prison for the murders of Maria and Zay, the bosses didn’t.
[00:02:54] Ben Hurst: And the fights on the front lines of the Amazon still continue. Environmental [00:03:00] defenders and indigenous peoples are getting killed and no one talks or even hears about it.
[00:03:05] The role of environmental human rights lawyer Paolo Busse
[00:03:05] Ben Hurst: Someone who’s working to make that invisible work visible is environmental human rights lawyer Paolo Buse.
[00:03:12] Maryam Pasha: So Julia, can you tell us a bit about this incredible [00:03:15] lawyer that you met? Yeah,
[00:03:16] Dr. Julia Shaw: Paolo Buse, I met, I actually snowballed from a un, uh, course that I was doing. So I was doing a course on environmental crime. You a lot, a lot of research
[00:03:26] Maryam Pasha: for this book. Do lot of research.
[00:03:27] Dr. Julia Shaw: I’m just so many conferences. Uh, [00:03:30] I know a lot of UN researchers now.
[00:03:32] Dr. Julia Shaw: Um, we, we WhatsApp. Um, but it’s, it’s not, that’s not a flex I thought I’d have, but here we’re. I know all about the convention on the international trade, endangered peace. Anyway, um, I’ve got so [00:03:45] much new language, but the, um, human rights lawyer, Paul Boce, who’s also an environmental, uh, lawyer mm-hmm. He was working, actually one of his first jobs with was with Greenpeace and he was initially defending activists who are being accused of various [00:04:00] crimes or who had.
[00:04:00] Dr. Julia Shaw: In fact perpetrated misdemeanors in various ways as part of their activism. And he was hired by Greenpeace to represent them. And so he says that he sort of accidentally fell into this.
[00:04:11] Paulo Busse: I consider this the most important, uh, work I’ve been involved in [00:04:15] my life. I think because I always had the idea that, uh, we should make, uh, the theme, you know, violence against, against people in the Amazon visible, not only abroad.
[00:04:28] Paulo Busse: But, uh, [00:04:30] also to Brazilians. Mm-hmm. Because, uh, it was kind of unknown even for, uh, Brazilians. For instance, the Brazilians who live in the region that I live, you know, uh, in the southern parts of Brazil, nobody even had an [00:04:45] idea of, uh, what was going on in the Amazon, you know, people being attacked and killed and, uh.
[00:04:50] Paulo Busse: In massive numbers. Nobody, uh, knew and nobody, those who knew didn’t care [00:05:00] much.
[00:05:00] Dr. Julia Shaw: But now what he’s doing is he has a couple of decades under his belt of working in different ways with environmental law, and he finds that the connection between human rights and that kind of international law [00:05:15] and environmental law is really important.
[00:05:17] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm. And so he is taking. Uh, a, a brief, so he’s compiled a bunch of cases of the murder of environmental defenders in Brazil mostly, and he’s put, put it together into this file that he’s submitting to the [00:05:30] ICC, the International Criminal Court. So the idea is to make sure that the world pays attention to the fact that in Brazil, a lot of these environmental defenders who are people who often, who live in the rainforest or, or other parts of nature and are really on the front [00:05:45] lines or the thin green lines, it’s sometimes called where there’s really people.
[00:05:49] Dr. Julia Shaw: About to tear down the, or burn down the rainforest, and there’s a human being there and they are the only ones really on site to stop them. Um, and they get murdered at a relatively high rate, and they’re [00:06:00] often indigenous peoples and vulnerable populations. And so he says, we need to make sure that people who murder these individuals get prosecuted because the conviction rate is incredibly low.
[00:06:08] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
[00:06:09] The struggle for Indigenous rights in Brazil
[00:06:09] Dr. Julia Shaw: But when I was talking to him about these indigenous peoples who were living in the forest, he said, [00:06:15] there’s this really famous case that you need to know about, and it’s the case of Maria and z Claudio. And so this is one of the. The case is in his portfolio that he’s submitting to the ICC.
[00:06:24] Dr. Julia Shaw: And it is, it is a wild case both in terms of the [00:06:30] people and who they were as activists and also in terms of the actual unfolding of the case itself.
[00:06:36] Maryam Pasha: This seems like really important work that he’s doing. Um, and I guess part of it is, is you, you said, you know, this is like one of the most [00:06:45] famous cases, but you know, we don’t hear about it.
[00:06:47] Maryam Pasha: Have you ever heard of it? No.
[00:06:48] Dr. Julia Shaw: No.
[00:06:49] Maryam Pasha: I mean, I think we’ve had the. Well, on the podcast we’ve talked about like the murder of environmental offenders, but never heard about this case, and I think. That’s what is quite, [00:07:00] um, shocking. ’cause I think people just don’t know that there’s this thin green line. What a kind of beautiful phrase.
[00:07:06] Maryam Pasha: Right. Let’s talk about this a little bit. Can you, um,
[00:07:14] Ben Hurst: I have a, a [00:07:15] question which is, you said that the conviction rate for these crimes is really low. I’m wondering like what. Is it, is that, because my assumption is that that’s because people aren’t, and are indigenous people not registered, they’re not in like a census?
[00:07:28] Ben Hurst: Or is it like, what [00:07:30] makes it harder to prove or to convict people for that crime? Or is it just because the rainforest is like a, a dense place and don’t find people getting murdered in the rainforest? I don.
[00:07:42] Dr. Julia Shaw: That’s a good question because the question there of course is [00:07:45] why murder of indigenous people specifically, and is, is this any different than other kinds of murder?
[00:07:49] Dr. Julia Shaw: Right. And the answer is it seems to be in Brazil. Mm-hmm. And Paulo Busse told me that he thinks part of the issue is that governments aren’t taking it seriously and they’re, that police maybe [00:08:00] aren’t investigating it and that the sort of the systems are failing that should be holding people accountable and they’re just not.
[00:08:06] Dr. Julia Shaw: Right. And some of that he thinks is. Due to corruption. Some of that’s due to, uh, people not taking it maybe as seriously as other issues. Some of it’s [00:08:15] these issues being these people being at capacity. So police forces, especially when you’re talking about the preliminary risk factors to the murder. So in the case of z Claudio and Maria, they had reported repeatedly to the police that [00:08:30] they were being threatened.
[00:08:31] Dr. Julia Shaw: And so if we sort of. Start the case there. We can start with Maria and Zio. They were environmental defenders and they specifically were, um, people who were. Helping others also to make sure that they had land rights and that [00:08:45] when they were in these settlements, so they were in a specific settlement project, it’s called, and they heard that this family was, that someone was trying to evict them basically.
[00:08:53] Dr. Julia Shaw: And they’re like, no, you have rights as indigenous peoples. And since the COBO Report, which was published in 1987, [00:09:00] which defined who indigenous peoples are and started giving rights to indigenous peoples, Brazil has become actually over time. Quite strong in terms of the rights of indigenous peoples and land rights.
[00:09:12] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm. After being really bad historically. Right. Since like [00:09:15] 1600. Like terrible. Just like horrible. Uh, just taking land whenever they wanted. Basically saying, well, you’re not making productive use of this land, so it’s ours now. Right, right. And productive use was putting cattle on. It was, you know,
[00:09:27] Ben Hurst: mowing it down, mowing it down, yeah.
[00:09:28] Ben Hurst: And turning it into,
[00:09:29] Dr. Julia Shaw: turning into [00:09:30] food basically. And so they’re like, well, if you’re not doing that within a couple of years, we take the land. We being Portugal. Because they colonized Brazil and, and then over time it solely. More recently, indigenous peoples got more rights. Mm-hmm. And so z Claudio and [00:09:45] Maria are out there saying, you have rights.
[00:09:47] Dr. Julia Shaw: We can help you make sure that you contact the right people about your rights. ’cause they can’t force you to get off this land.
[00:09:52] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:53] Dr. Julia Shaw: And so they’d done that. So they’d reported that this person was trying to, this ero, this is a, this is the [00:10:00] term for someone who is a, like a cattle owner. Someone who’s a, so a businessman, basically in this context.
[00:10:06] Dr. Julia Shaw: And he was trying to say, I bought this land, now you need to get off. And they’re like, no, we’ve lived here forever. What are you talking about? Yeah. Um, and Maria [00:10:15] was like, you bought land that you can’t, you can’t extract for from this land it for sale. It’s not for sale. Exactly. Right. And you were sold a lie.
[00:10:20] Dr. Julia Shaw: And this is the other thing is he, the person themselves was also sold something that was untrue. Right?
[00:10:25] Dr. Julia Shaw: Right, right. They were like, you can
[00:10:26] Dr. Julia Shaw: have the land rights, but turns out the land rights only meant that you can like. [00:10:30] Be there. We can’t actually take as much as he couldn’t do what he wanted to. You
[00:10:33] Ben Hurst: can’t extract from it what you want to extract from it.
[00:10:35] Ben Hurst: And you can’t can just burn it down into Yeah, you
[00:10:37] Dr. Julia Shaw: can’t just turn it into cattle ranch basically. Yeah. Um, and so he was told this by Marie and Z Claudio and he was like, ignored it and then he showed up to their door and said, you need to [00:10:45] get out. And they said no. And then they were reported that, and from that moment on they were getting more death threats, so people were threatening them, Maria and Zio Zio for reporting that basically.
[00:10:55] Dr. Julia Shaw: And then they reported that to the police. And still nothing happened. And so, and [00:11:00] then there’s this remarkable moment where Z Claudio goes on the TEDx Amazonia stage, which is basically as public as you can be mm-hmm. When it comes to this stuff.
[00:11:09] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yes.
[00:11:09] Dr. Julia Shaw: And he says what they did to, and he mentions another famous, uh, environmental [00:11:15] defender in Brazil, what they did to this person they’re going to do to me.
[00:11:18] Dr. Julia Shaw: And three months later he is killed. So the what I see in terms of the difference between. Other kinds of murder and this kind of murder is that at all of those [00:11:30] moments, somebody could have intervened and they could have taken it more seriously. It was
[00:11:34] Ben Hurst: very clearly premeditated, telegraphed. There was a, people were saying, this is going to happen to me.
[00:11:40] Ben Hurst: And nothing’s been, nothing was done. Nothing at all.
[00:11:43] Dr. Julia Shaw: No. Things were done, but it [00:11:45] wasn’t enough, obviously. Okay. Right. And so you’d think there might be like police escorts or people around to make sure that there’s, you know, enforcement in that area. And as far as I can tell, that wasn’t what happened. Yeah.
[00:11:54] Dr. Julia Shaw: And instead, um, they were going down a dirt road. And they were ambushed on their [00:12:00] motorcycle. Oh. And, um, shot down. So gunned down by two Hitmen, and to prove that they had finished the hit, they cut off the claudio’s ear. And so this is a, a classic. A hallmark of these kinds [00:12:15] of killings of hitmen in Brazil is that they chop off someone’s ear in this case while he was still alive.
[00:12:20] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:21] Dr. Julia Shaw: Um, and they bled out and with this ear, they basically take it as a receipt saying we did it. Wow. And so also when the police saw this crime scene, [00:12:30] the first thing they go is, well, this is obviously a hit. Yeah. Because there’s an ear missing. But that’s, I mean, the brutality. Yeah. And, and it’s symbolic.
[00:12:37] Dr. Julia Shaw: It’s the brutality is to scare other people off of doing similar things of resisting. The extraction from the Amazon.
[00:12:44] Maryam Pasha: Right.
[00:12:44] The broader context of environmental crime
[00:12:44] Maryam Pasha: And this is like not just a isolated thing, we’re talking about this one case, right. But just to give people listening context. Just this is a, a much wider scale problem of targeting environmental defenders.
[00:12:57] Maryam Pasha: What are we looking at in terms of scale?
[00:12:59] Dr. Julia Shaw: So [00:13:00] Brazil is one of the highest in terms of the murder rate of environmental defenders and overall, globally. We’re looking at thousands of people being murdered in these kinds of contexts. Now, obviously. Not everyone’s going to be killed by hitman. Sure. But certainly this is not [00:13:15] atypical and that’s what Paulo Buss is trying to advocate for as a lawyer, is this is a thing that’s happening and it’s happening, not irregularly.
[00:13:21] Dr. Julia Shaw: And I actually have a clip where Paulo Busser explains this,
[00:13:25] Paulo Busse: right? It’s all part of the same phenomenon. You know, people being attacked, [00:13:30] human rights violations. Very serious kinds of, uh, human rights violations because we are not talking only about murders, massacres. We are also talking about a whole list of crimes that happened, manslaughter, [00:13:45] aggressions, uh, threats of all kinds.
[00:13:48] Paulo Busse: Rape, uh, modern slavery. You know, there’s a whole list of, uh, crimes.
[00:13:55] Maryam Pasha: I think what gets me about this is. [00:14:00] The idea that like you’re targeting people who are trying to safeguard something that all of us need. Right. Like obviously this is land that is extremely meaningful to indigenous people. It’s their, this land.
[00:14:12] Maryam Pasha: They’ve been stewarding, stewarding for thousands of years. It’s [00:14:15] their home, it, it, you know, all of that. But also this land is also very incredibly meaningful for the rest of us. It’s our lungs. It’s the things that keep us, you know, going as a human, like humanity. So I just think it’s very intense. And it feels like something that [00:14:30] you would want to take seriously if you were the government or the police.
[00:14:34] Maryam Pasha: And I guess I’m curious to know as you were looking into this, is it because, so, so many times these people are from communities that no one cares about that, that, [00:14:45] that these murders are just kind of happening. I don’t think so’s,
[00:14:48] Dr. Julia Shaw: I don’t think nobody cares about indigenous people in the Amazon. So this is something that also, um, Paulo Boer was talking to me about.
[00:14:53] Dr. Julia Shaw: He’s like, the conversation around this has changed. And so for a long time, um, there was this perception of the [00:15:00] rainforest as something to, to be taken. Yes. And that specifically there were political incentives and, and grants to go and put cows in the Amazon basically. Um, and sometimes people, I, I occasionally still get people saying, oh, but what about the soybeans?
[00:15:14] Dr. Julia Shaw: Isn’t that for the [00:15:15] vegans? No, that’s for the cattle. It’s all for the cattle. It’s all for meat production, a little bit for dairy, but it’s mostly for meat production. Um, and most of that meat gets shipped to places like China, and that’s what we’re ripping down and burning down our last ancient forests for, [00:15:30] which is, which is madness.
[00:15:32] Dr. Julia Shaw: And it was facilitated by, by governments that were very much sort of. Pro-growth as they would’ve called themselves, um, which we would maybe say is pro short-termism. Mm. Um, and this is something that came up repeatedly as well, is that the environmental [00:15:45] defenders themselves, there’s an interview with them before they were killed, where they are talking about how everyone has this wrong idea of also indigenous peoples.
[00:15:52] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm.
[00:15:53] Dr. Julia Shaw: Like they’re, they’re not sort of just sitting there petting trees, you know, obviously what. They’re interested in is also [00:16:00] extraction, but in a sustainable way. Mm. And so whether you’re a rubber tapper or you, uh, you know, harvest other things from the trees around you, they say, this is our livelihood.
[00:16:10] Dr. Julia Shaw: What we’re trying to protect is both our home, but also our way to make money. Mm. Because if we cut this [00:16:15] down, we can only cut it down once.
[00:16:16] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm. Yeah.
[00:16:16] Dr. Julia Shaw: So when I was speaking with a. The professor, um, about Dolores Armand, she was talking about the biodiversity hotspots and how these rainforests are also not just important for sucking [00:16:30] carbon out of the air, which I think we’re all familiar with as sort of the lungs of the earth.
[00:16:33] Dr. Julia Shaw: Although, I mean, the amount of things that are called the lungs of the earth. Yes. I mean, bogs for one, there are many lotions. We’re very lucky. We have a lot of lungs. We have a lot of lungs, carbon sinks. Yeah. So, but they are a carbon sink and [00:16:45] obviously they also store it. And so if you burnt down, not only do you.
[00:16:47] Dr. Julia Shaw: Not have the ability to suck it out of the air, but you also emit more, you release it, but also you’ve got, um, cooling effects. You’ve got weather regulation. You’ve got, they make their own rain. That’s why they’re called rainforests. It’s not because [00:17:00] it rains a lot.
[00:17:00] Ben Hurst: Earlier when you were saying, uh, talking about the Amazon as the lungs of the, the planet, like I, I’m relatively new to this world and I don’t think like five years ago, I would’ve understood, I knew that trees were important, but I don’t think I would’ve thought, oh no, you can’t.[00:17:15]
[00:17:15] Ben Hurst: Touch the Amazon rainforest, I probably would’ve just assumed, but you would assume that people live in there and experience in the environment would have some kind of different, maybe that’s like a bit, um. I don’t know, spiritual or like airy fairy of me to be like, oh, it [00:17:30] must be special when you’re there.
[00:17:31] Ben Hurst: But like, I would assume that the people who are there actually experiencing the environment would hold more value in it. Yeah. But yeah,
[00:17:38] Dr. Julia Shaw: and that is usually what indigenous peoples say, right? Is that there is a different relationship with the earth and that it’s also [00:17:45] a critique of a lot of, uh, cities and people who live in cities who are, well just in general, non-indigenous, but also just who.
[00:17:52] Dr. Julia Shaw: Who maybe have a very urbanized view of the world mm-hmm. Is that, you know, we think of, we, we go to nature to visit [00:18:00] nature.
[00:18:00] Ben Hurst: Right.
[00:18:00] Dr. Julia Shaw: And they go, no, you’re not. You’re not in nature. You are nature.
[00:18:04] Ben Hurst: Yeah. You’re part of it. You’re part of it. It’s the same
[00:18:06] Dr. Julia Shaw: thing. And if you kill it, you die. That is, that is your, your life support.
[00:18:10] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. And so in addition to that, they also quite literally live there. And if someone came [00:18:15] and stood outside your house with a, a can of petrol and was like, I’m gonna burn your house down, you’d also be pretty upset about that.
[00:18:20] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah, yeah.
[00:18:21] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. So I think there’s a lot of things going on in terms of the people living there, but also the biodiversity loss.
[00:18:27] Dr. Julia Shaw: And we need to obviously protect that. Um, [00:18:30] these, these huge biodiversity hotspots.
[00:18:32] Human behavior and environmental conservation
[00:18:32] Maryam Pasha: I guess there’s just this enduring, I think a very colonial way of thinking, right? That this land is quote unquote empty.
[00:18:40] Dr. Julia Shaw: Well, that again, that was the case. And I think, so in the chapter in Green [00:18:45] Crime, I talk about, um. These experiments where we talk about what happens if we have a common good, right?
[00:18:51] Dr. Julia Shaw: So public goods experiments mm-hmm. Where you have a, a park, and then the question is, are we going to protect the park or are we going to take from the park? Are we, if, [00:19:00] if we have a, a prisoner’s dilemma, dilemma kind of situation and we have to, um, wrestle for a resource. Do we share so that we each get some of it?
[00:19:08] Dr. Julia Shaw: Do I try to take all of it and take it from you? Do I take some of it? Even at the risk that you will take some of it and it’ll be [00:19:15] destroyed, for example. And so what we find when we look at these experiments, which BA basically testing human selfishness, is in general, if there is a common good, do people act?
[00:19:25] Dr. Julia Shaw: Selfishly, what do you think the answer is? There’s recently a really big meta-analysis [00:19:30] on this and it surprised me.
[00:19:33] Ben Hurst: In the end if there is a common good, yes. If people act selfishly, do
[00:19:37] Dr. Julia Shaw: they try to take it for themselves or do they try to share it? I think they try to share it.
[00:19:43] Ben Hurst: I think it depends on [00:19:45] which people they are.
[00:19:46] Ben Hurst: I think it depends on how. Polluted they are polluted. Strong word, but like how psychologically socialized. Yeah, how socialized they are into a, a capitalistic way of being. Because I think if you dropped me into one of those [00:20:00] experiments, I would, my thought process would probably quite literally be, this will benefit everyone, but somebody’s gonna fuck it up.
[00:20:08] Ben Hurst: So I need to take a bit for my, like in COVID with the toilet rolls. Do you know what I mean? Like where it’s like, obviously we all need. [00:20:15] Resources and there’s enough. There’s more than enough for everyone, but in case somebody makes it so that there’s not enough I need to get mine.
[00:20:23] Maryam Pasha: I guess my thinking on this, because I don’t, you said it’s pretty wide study, is I think that people who are from [00:20:30] parts of the world and are from community, basically, I think people who are.
[00:20:34] Maryam Pasha: Not wealthy and come from very, very wealthy backgrounds, actually are much more willing to, to share and take care of a common good. And I have [00:20:45] this ERUs stereotype that people with extreme wealth and other kinds of privilege are kind of have this mindset that they need to hoard it for themselves. So that’s why I think, I think there are more people that are, yeah, not extremely wealthy.
[00:20:59] Maryam Pasha: [00:21:00] And so I think more people would share it.
[00:21:02] Dr. Julia Shaw: So the studies that have been done, which don’t, as far as I know, include extremely wealthy billionaires, somehow
[00:21:07] Dr. Julia Shaw: would both wrong with both
[00:21:08] Dr. Julia Shaw: include mostly normal people. Um, but in those studies, um, I was surprised because I, [00:21:15] I always wanna see the good in people.
[00:21:17] Dr. Julia Shaw: At most people act selfishly.
[00:21:19] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm. And when you teach
[00:21:20] Dr. Julia Shaw: people about the resource, they learn how to be more selfish and take more for themselves. But. And this is important. It depends on what the other people are doing.
[00:21:28] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. So as soon as you have [00:21:30] one person in a group who starts
[00:21:32] Dr. Julia Shaw: to, that breaks the chain.
[00:21:33] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. Other people collaborate and other people treat it differently. Um, and so I think that, yeah, basically there is this tendency, I mean, I was recently in a place staying like in a communal sort of [00:21:45] facility, and some people treated the kitchen like they would just leave their stuff everywhere.
[00:21:50] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah.
[00:21:50] Dr. Julia Shaw: And you’re going. This is your rubbish. Like this is a shared space. What are you doing? Yeah.
[00:21:56] Dr. Julia Shaw: That’s not how this works. Yeah.
[00:21:58] Dr. Julia Shaw: It was just a, it’s a, it was a bizarre sort of [00:22:00] microcosm of like, most people are doing it properly and this like one person or two people aren’t, and they’re acting really selfishly by just leaving their stuff everywhere.
[00:22:07] Dr. Julia Shaw: Um, but that is a thing that can happen, but we know. Leading by example and changing norms around that. Mm-hmm. Can also lead to conformity in [00:22:15] a good way. Mm-hmm. Right. Where people conform to the fact that that is unacceptable.
[00:22:18] Maryam Pasha: Well, I guess that’s interesting ’cause it’s like whoever sets a trend, right?
[00:22:21] Maryam Pasha: Like if you walk into a space and it’s destroyed, you’re like, I’m not gonna be the fool that cleans this place up. Yeah. You know? No way. But if you walk [00:22:30] into a place and you’re, and it’s pristine or you know. Fine. You think, well, at least, at least I will not be the idiot who destroys it. So you, you can absolutely.
[00:22:40] Maryam Pasha: I think, I think it’s where you set that norm for people.
[00:22:43] Dr. Julia Shaw: Definitely. So definitely [00:22:45] the norms. And also in terms of what you were saying with the ownership of the, I’d wanna have all the toilet rolls because I know I’m gonna do this properly. I mean that’s the billion argument for charity.
[00:22:53] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah.
[00:22:53] Dr. Julia Shaw: Which is that I don’t think we should pay taxes because I wanna control which organizations get money.
[00:22:59] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah.
[00:22:59] Dr. Julia Shaw: And that [00:23:00] is assuming also a lot of knowledge. It’s, it’s very. A self-confident thing to say, right. Where you’re like,
[00:23:05] Ben Hurst: yeah. It seems you understand the landscape of what needs to happen robustly. Yeah. Better
[00:23:09] Dr. Julia Shaw: than the experts who’ve been doing this for Yeah. Right.
[00:23:11] Psychological Ownership and Indigenous Land Rights
[00:23:11] Dr. Julia Shaw: Ages as well. Um, and so with that, uh, that, that is a, a, a thing that comes up a lot.
[00:23:16] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. Which is ownership of like, what, what if we just. Give people like indigenous people ownership. And the answer is it does seem to work with indigenous peoples. And that’s because they have what’s called psychological ownership.
[00:23:28] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm.
[00:23:28] Dr. Julia Shaw: So they don’t just legally own the [00:23:30] land. Yes. They also, it’s their home.
[00:23:31] Dr. Julia Shaw: It’s theirs. They, they wanna protect it. It’s much like we have our homes that we don’t wanna burn down. Um, but if you just give people legal ownership without psychological ownership Yeah. They trash, they’re more likely to destroy it. ’cause it’s theirs and they go, this is [00:23:45] mine. I can do whatever I want with this.
[00:23:46] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. And so there is that sort of, I can understand the thought of, if it’s mine I’m gonna wanna protect it. But actually that’s not what,
[00:23:53] Ben Hurst: not how it works is found
[00:23:54] Dr. Julia Shaw: most of the time. Yeah. It is more important to make sure that people also have psychological ownership.
[00:23:58] Rights of nature and legal entities
[00:23:58] Dr. Julia Shaw: And sometimes, and this I write about as well, is that nature is also occasionally now given its own rights.
[00:24:05] Maryam Pasha: Yes.
[00:24:05] Dr. Julia Shaw: And so the rights of nature. In as an inherent entity where you have sort of a committee or board that is managing the rights much like we have for companies. Mm-hmm. Like companies are a legal entity. [00:24:15] We had that, didn’t we? We talked to
[00:24:15] Maryam Pasha: the, we talked to Grant Wilson, who’s helping do this as a lawyer, but also we talked to two incredible activists from the river.
[00:24:23] Maryam Pasha: Um, um, Bessie and India.
[00:24:26] Dr. Julia Shaw: Oh, Albania. Albania.
[00:24:27] Maryam Pasha: So which one to, [00:24:30] we talked to these two amazing, uh, activists. Well, they wouldn’t even call themselves activists were they, they were just people trying to give rights to a river in Europe so that it could be protected. And it, it’s kind of incredible. Mm.
[00:24:41] Dr. Julia Shaw: There’s been various rivers, especially of cultural [00:24:45] significance that have briefly either people, where people have tried to give them inherent rights or where they have briefly succeeded in giving them rights.
[00:24:52] Dr. Julia Shaw: Um, but it’s never stuck. But there is a, a, an an a space called Te tera. In, um, [00:25:00] in New Zealand, which has its own
[00:25:02] Maryam Pasha: rights. Yeah. And this river in Albania has just been given its rights, has it? So we’re hoping it sticks that it sticks.
[00:25:08] Case study: Maria and Ze Claudio
[00:25:08] Maryam Pasha: So let’s go back to this case, because I think one of the things that can happen is we can always talk about the murder, and you’ve done some incredible work.
[00:25:16] Maryam Pasha: Also telling us a bit about Maria and Z Claudio’s work and the work that they stood for and the work that they did. Will you tell us a bit about them? As people as well. So we don’t just know about their deaths.
[00:25:29] Dr. Julia Shaw: So z Claudio [00:25:30] and Maria, they are, or they were living in the rainforest and in a place called Parra.
[00:25:36] Dr. Julia Shaw: And in this state it’s known as one of the most violent states. It’s one of the most dangerous place to live because of the shaky land, right. Situation. Mm-hmm. [00:25:45] And so what we know from research is that whenever there are. Land, land ownership insecurities is often how it’s talked about. Mm-hmm. Where you’re not totally sure who has what rights over which land, that’s when conflict is highest.
[00:25:58] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm. And so this region of [00:26:00] Para, where they live has that, but they, they lived there their whole lives and they were. Nut gatherers. And so they were living off of the trees and when they weren’t able to collect and sell those, they would weave baskets. And their whole [00:26:15] thing was again, that they are there to profit from nature and to live with nature.
[00:26:20] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm. And as part of nature. And you can see in their, in the videos that were. Recording them. So before they were, were killed, they were announced to [00:26:30] be heroes of the forest by the United Nations and they were getting this award. And so there was this video made of them to like give them this award.
[00:26:38] Dr. Julia Shaw: And so it has Z Claudio just in front of this huge tree. And he is got his arms outstretched [00:26:45] and he go and you can just almost like see him like fly. And the tree is wider than his wings. That is, and he’s got this like avara hat, Avara, and he is, he’s just, he, he seems [00:27:00] simultaneously really happy and it’s really nice to see him like in, in his home.
[00:27:04] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. But also when it then switches to Maria, you can see, you can see that she’s worn out.
[00:27:10] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm.
[00:27:11] Dr. Julia Shaw: Like she seems. Sad and tired. Yeah. Of the [00:27:15] fight. So I think that’s where it’s quite emotional to watch. Yeah. Because she is describing how difficult it is. She’s describing how, you know, they’re not, they’re perceived as the enemy, but they’re not the enemy.
[00:27:26] Dr. Julia Shaw: And how there’s these people coming after them and [00:27:30] it’s just really difficult and
[00:27:30] Ben Hurst: nobody’s doing anything
[00:27:32] Dr. Julia Shaw: well, or, or they’re not
[00:27:33] Maryam Pasha: doing enough.
[00:27:33] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah.
[00:27:34] Maryam Pasha: And so. Once what happened, like, so they obviously, you know, murdered for trying to [00:27:45] stand up against this landowner. Mm-hmm. Quote unquote landowner. Um, what happened then?
[00:27:53] The murder investigation
[00:27:53] Dr. Julia Shaw: So what happens is the murder scene is discovered, so they’re murdered early in the morning and they’re driving their yellow, [00:28:00] yellow motorcycle down this dirt road, and they’re ambushed by two men and, and Z Claudio’s ear is cut off and they bleed to death on the road. And the men who escape, however, leave behind [00:28:15] like a neoprene diving mask.
[00:28:16] Dr. Julia Shaw: Like the, like under, like the under mask.
[00:28:19] Dr. Julia Shaw: Okay.
[00:28:19] Dr. Julia Shaw: And the police find this and it’s unclear whether they had sort of tossed it off on purpose or whether it, they dropped it by accident, but it’s really, it’s nearby. And they go, okay, [00:28:30] well this might be a clue. They have someone who was fixing his fence that morning who says, I saw.
[00:28:36] Dr. Julia Shaw: The guy is on the motorcycle and I recognized one of them because I’d spoken to him. And so he’s identified pretty quickly. And then the diving [00:28:45] mask, they find hair is in the diving mask. And this forensic scientist, um, she goes through it and she says, I’ve got a match for one of them, but there’s a hair.
[00:28:54] Dr. Julia Shaw: For somebody else. So this person who was identified is matched quickly with this hair, and then there’s this other [00:29:00] hair and they’re like, who is this other hair from? And it’s not from the, and it’s not from the guy who was also on the most, so there’s two guys on the motorcycle. Mm-hmm. Um, it’s from somebody else.
[00:29:08] Dr. Julia Shaw: And they realized that it’s from the brother of one of the hit men. And that’s the guy who had recently bought the land [00:29:15] rights. And so initially Oh wow. They had this really big list of suspect because. Zio was sort of going around knocking on people’s doors with Maria saying, you know, you know, you can’t extract here.
[00:29:26] Dr. Julia Shaw: You need to be, you know, the, the right. Your rights aren’t, [00:29:30] um Right. We have rights here and you don’t. Yeah. And there were all these different people who had a grudge basically with these guys ’cause they had for decades been standing up for other people’s land rights. But this guy was then quickly tied to the case.
[00:29:42] Dr. Julia Shaw: And so they’re brought in and they’re questioned [00:29:45] and they are tried. And this ends up being a really big deal for the local community because these. These two men, these hit men, and the brother, the guy who hired them, are both in in court. And so the two men on the motorcycle, they are both [00:30:00] convicted and they’re are convicted to, it’s like 20 years each, a huge amount of time in prison.
[00:30:05] Dr. Julia Shaw: And it’s this really big success story in that they are convicted, but the person who hired them, the brother. He walks free. [00:30:15] And so because of this, there’s this uproar saying, but this is the guy who paid them. It was really clear, and he walks outta the courtroom and. Very quickly thereafter, a retrial is issued to say, actually, we think that [00:30:30] maybe the, the jury was influenced because it’s a powerful family.
[00:30:32] Dr. Julia Shaw: Maybe they were paid off, they had too much influence, so it has to be moved to a different area. Mm-hmm. And so they move his court case elsewhere, but in the meantime, he’s disappeared. And so this, this guy has fled the country immediately [00:30:45] and we, until, until now. Don’t know where he is and there’s,
[00:30:50] Ben Hurst: but as in to this day, we still do not know where he is.
[00:30:51] Ben Hurst: Right. As in right
[00:30:52] Dr. Julia Shaw: this second. Wow. We have no idea where he is. And there was a second trial where that was held with him in absent, where he wasn’t there and he [00:31:00] was found guilty of the murder of hiring these Yeah. Because
[00:31:02] Ben Hurst: he fled. Of course he was. Yeah.
[00:31:04] Dr. Julia Shaw: And get this. So he wasn’t the only one who, who got away for a while or slash has still gotten away with it.
[00:31:10] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. His brother who was in prison. He broke out [00:31:15] of prison. Oh. And hid in a small town for a couple of years until someone reported him for a different crime. And the police are like, wait, this is, this is the guy. Wow. And so I, I find it quite remarkable [00:31:30] that there’s these. These two people who in different ways experience impunity for some period of time.
[00:31:35] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah.
[00:31:36] Dr. Julia Shaw: Uh,
[00:31:38] Maryam Pasha: it’s, it’s crazy to me because the, the, the, the two men on the motorcycle, they were just hit men. They were just, they were hitman. Yeah. They weren’t like [00:31:45] personally aggrieved, they weren’t involved in this. They were just hired.
[00:31:49] Ben Hurst: But one of them is the brother of the guy who is the, the landowner.
[00:31:53] Maryam Pasha: That’s right. I mean, we talked about it in the last episode, right? Like, as well around like impunity when it came to like fines and corporations, et [00:32:00] cetera.
[00:32:00] Impunity and crime prevention
[00:32:00] Maryam Pasha: I, I’m curious to know, ’cause obviously, you know, as a, as a criminal psychologist, like. You worked on crime, murder a lot, and we talked a little bit about what makes it different.
[00:32:11] Maryam Pasha: I’m just curious about the, what your thoughts are here and what [00:32:15] you found in terms of like prevention or uh, deterrence or what is there.
[00:32:21] Ben Hurst: Yeah. And also across, you said thousands of cases of this over the last decade. A across. I mean obviously you dunno [00:32:30] the details of every single one of those cases, but is there a theme that you see across that, that impunity as a part of the rationale for people?
[00:32:38] Ben Hurst: Doing this kind of action or or murdering people in this way?
[00:32:42] Dr. Julia Shaw: It seems to be, so impunity [00:32:45] is certainly an issue, and I think part of the reason why these crimes are much more likely to happen in places like Brazil is because the police forces are at capacity or past capacity already. Mm-hmm. Just dealing with.
[00:32:59] Dr. Julia Shaw: If you [00:33:00] will, normal crimes. So crimes that we often associate with cities. Yeah. And gang crimes and violence of other sorts. Theft, theft, robbery. And then you’ve got someone in some remote community where there aren’t many police or maybe are no police [00:33:15] saying also being threatened. And you just go, well, I’m gonna focus on the murder case I’ve got here.
[00:33:20] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. Why am I gonna go to this other place? And protect this person who might be, you know, murdered. Yeah. And so I think that’s part of the issue, but that leads to impunity, both actual and [00:33:30] perceived.
[00:33:30] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah.
[00:33:30] Dr. Julia Shaw: And so for me, impunity psychologically is interesting, not just in terms of do people get away with it.
[00:33:36] Dr. Julia Shaw: But also do people think they’re going to get away with it? Yeah. Because that’s often more important for the motivation in the first place, right?
[00:33:42] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah.
[00:33:42] Dr. Julia Shaw: And one reason people can think [00:33:45] that they’ll get away with it is because they see people around them doing similar things and getting away with it.
[00:33:49] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. And so that’s a pretty clear message saying, you know, this isn’t gonna, you’re not gonna have to pay the consequences. So
[00:33:55] Maryam Pasha: here’s the question then, because is is I guess, ’cause again, alluding to our last [00:34:00] conversation, it’s not always about like locking people up and punishment. What we’d like is for environmental defenders not to get murdered in the first place.
[00:34:08] Maryam Pasha: Right. That’s yeah. The world, yeah. That’s our preferred, our preferred course of action is not more police to police more murder. [00:34:15] Right. Um, what have you found, if impunity is the thing that enables. Or not enable impunity is the thing that makes it feel like people can do this and get away with it, right?
[00:34:27] Maryam Pasha: Which is the definition of impunity, but what is it [00:34:30] that stops people?
[00:34:31] Dr. Julia Shaw: So psychologically, the question of course is how do we stop people wanting to do these things? Yeah. Because it’s not just impunity that’s driving. This impunity allows it to happen, and it allows the cost benefit calculation if you’re making that calculation to be [00:34:45] well.
[00:34:45] Dr. Julia Shaw: I might as well. But the bigger question is in terms of things like, like ease, for example. Why do people think that it’s easier to murder an environmental defender than to have cattle elsewhere? Right? Or to not have cattle and have a different kind of [00:35:00] business. Yes. And so that’s where other factors come in like.
[00:35:03] Dr. Julia Shaw: What kind of businesses are being supported by the government? Where are people getting grants? How are things being insured? And so you have these other pieces that are going to make it easier to do things that are less harmful both to the rainforest, [00:35:15] but also to the people who live there.
[00:35:16] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah.
[00:35:16] Dr. Julia Shaw: Then you’ve got things like, like greed again, plays a role because of course, if you value.
[00:35:23] Dr. Julia Shaw: Your your own family and the financial benefits to your own family or to yourself more than these [00:35:30] environmental defenders, then you might go, well, it’s worth it to me. Mm-hmm. And so I’m gonna do it anyway. Right. And then with rationalization and conformity, again, you’ve got this, they’re in the way, I have to do this.
[00:35:42] Dr. Julia Shaw: I don’t want to do this, but I have, but they’re [00:35:45] forcing me to do, other people are doing this, they’re forcing, whatever. However you rationalize it to yourself and to me, a lot of the. And to me, some of the interventions that we can do actually parallel what we know from organized crime.
[00:35:57] Maryam Pasha: Right. Interesting.
[00:35:58] Maryam Pasha: Is
[00:35:58] Dr. Julia Shaw: that we’re not comparing this with [00:36:00] someone who’s impulsively murdering someone out of anger. Mm-hmm. We’re comparing this to like a hit that is being ordered in, for example, an organized crime or gang situation. Mm-hmm. And that isn’t because the person profoundly hates and cares deeply about this individual.
[00:36:13] Dr. Julia Shaw: That’s usually because [00:36:15] they’re part of something else. That they do care about, that is part of their identity or that’s paying them, and so they’re going to engage in this criminal behavior. So it’s stopping those, those factors, but also holding people accountable is part
[00:36:28] Maryam Pasha: of that. I guess there’s something here, and we talked [00:36:30] about it a bit about land and ownership.
[00:36:31] Maryam Pasha: Like it seems like if we could get a, a more clarity, I. Um, it’s very boring answer. I, I wonder, but it’s like if we had clearer land rights Yeah, clear ownership, [00:36:45] clear documentation, all of that, then it wouldn’t be easy. Like, for example, if, if, if Maria Z Claudio could have just been like, well, here it is in the government documents, like we own this land.
[00:36:59] Maryam Pasha: You [00:37:00] don’t, you know? Would that have made it easier? Would would it have made it harder? Sorry, for. This other person to then use the kind of like lack of clarity [00:37:15] as a, a reason? I don’t know. Because in
[00:37:16] Ben Hurst: the first instance you said that he, he also believed that he had bought the rights to the land. Hmm. So. W was that, in your opinion, was that like a genuine sense of like, well this is mine and they were saying, [00:37:30] no, this is ours, and he was like, well, then we’ll fight for it.
[00:37:32] Ben Hurst: Or, or was it something where he would’ve acknowledged that it wasn’t really his, but he wanted it anyway?
[00:37:39] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. So. In green crime, I write about how uncertainty breeds conflict. [00:37:45] And we know from research on indigenous peoples in general around the world, that where there are land disputes around the rights of who owns and or is able to use in certain ways the land that those are the most precarious places.
[00:37:58] Dr. Julia Shaw: And so yeah, having [00:38:00] much more clear land rights and not being able to sell and having more crackdowns on people who are missed. Selling and misrepresenting the land rights that they are selling to somebody else that is going to improve the situation. Almost certainly, [00:38:15] because I think some of it is because people go, but this is mine and you are, you are, this is the other bit, right?
[00:38:23] Dr. Julia Shaw: Where if you think the other people are committing a crime by. Squatting on your land, then you get righteous about it. Mm-hmm. And [00:38:30] you go, well, I warned them. I tried to get them off legally. I tried this, I tried that. And you feel like you’ve exhausted your options. And so now it’s sort of justified that you take a more extreme measure.
[00:38:38] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah. Right. And that’s also forced my hand to,
[00:38:41] Ben Hurst: they force my hand. Because you feel the same sense of. I need help and nobody’s helping me. Right. Exactly. [00:38:45] It’s you
[00:38:45] Dr. Julia Shaw: saying, this is my land. Yeah. Them saying, this is my land, and you get this conflict. And that’s where unfortunately also we know that things like torture and like really horrible treatment of environmental defenders before murder as well, that doesn’t lead to murder, um, is also a huge problem [00:39:00] because there, these escalations, they, they happen repeatedly in these kinds of contexts.
[00:39:04] Dr. Julia Shaw: I think
[00:39:05] Ben Hurst: so. Interesting. I hate it because it, it made it like I love. Things being black and white in my mind. You know, like I love, I love it to be like a, sure this person’s right, this person is wrong. And obviously in this [00:39:15] scenario when there’s murder involved, obviously some, there is one party that is incorrect.
[00:39:19] Ben Hurst: But also, like you say, the uncertainty in the scenario does create something where I guess people are gonna end up taking things into their own [00:39:30] hands. But then. Uh, yeah. In, in the book. Are you, are there, are there genuine question? Are there solutions in there? There are. There’s lots of solutions. There’s lots of solutions.
[00:39:38] Ben Hurst: Okay. Okay. There’s, if you’re listening, read the book.
[00:39:41] Dr. Julia Shaw: There are, and going into environmental law, going into activists, [00:39:45] going into how do we support indigenous peoples? Where can indigenous peoples come together to work for land rights countries where it succeeded. And of course, the psychology behind the perpetrators and also the pe, the, the, the defenders.
[00:39:58] Dr. Julia Shaw: The lawyers who are helping them. Um, it’s [00:40:00] all
[00:40:00] Maryam Pasha: in there.
[00:40:00] Universal nature of Indigenous issues
[00:40:00] Maryam Pasha: The last thing I wanna ask you then, I guess point I that you made that I think we should make is that, is this idea that indigenous issues aren’t niche. Mm. Right? That we’re talking about these two particular people in the Amazon, in Brazil, and it can.
[00:40:14] Maryam Pasha: Seem [00:40:15] far away for people, but actually some of what you talked about short-termism, like the what we value our psychological connection. These are, these are universal things, and I’m just wondering whether in the conversations with Paolo and with others for this section, whether you [00:40:30] found that kind of more universal nature of this, this.
[00:40:33] Maryam Pasha: In this, in this piece.
[00:40:34] Dr. Julia Shaw: Definitely. And well, for one, as a Canadian, indigenous peoples don’t just live in the Amazon. Yes. Yeah, yeah. There’s indigenous peoples all over the place. Uh, and, [00:40:45] and if, if you put all indigenous peoples together into one, one group, if you like counted everybody, they’d be the third most populous country in the world.
[00:40:53] Dr. Julia Shaw: Wow. And physically, the biggest country in the world. Like, this is not like this tiny little issue that should be sidelined in, in books. Also, I, I [00:41:00] thought about starting the book with this chapter just because this seems like such an obviously important issue, but, um, I’m, I was worried that people would say, but this feels far away.
[00:41:08] Ben Hurst: Yeah, this book is about therefore
[00:41:10] Dr. Julia Shaw: not for me, not for me because I live in a city and so this, I can’t relate to this as [00:41:15] much, but really I think all of us. Certainly the kinds of people listening to this podcast and hopefully the kinds of people reading green crime already on board going, I, I like this earth.
[00:41:25] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm-hmm. And I, I kind of wanna to
[00:41:26] Dr. Julia Shaw: live it,
[00:41:27] Dr. Julia Shaw: it to not die. Yeah. And so we care about [00:41:30] nature and I think having that psychological ownership over the earth is the thing that I took most out of this chapter as something that. I think it’s shared by a lot of people, and we just need to highlight and reinforce.
[00:41:41] Dr. Julia Shaw: Mm.
[00:41:42] Dr. Julia Shaw: And even just making it visible is such an important part [00:41:45] of just making sure that all of these voices are heard. As Paulo told me,
[00:41:49] Paulo Busse: all kinds of people are being attacked in the Amazon, uh, indigenous and non-indigenous, the black. The white equally, you know? That’s why I think it’s [00:42:00] very important you to make it all visible.
[00:42:02] Paulo Busse: You know?
[00:42:02] Dr. Julia Shaw: And to be clear, Paul Bu is himself an environmental defender. Mm-hmm. When I was speaking to him, he was talking to me from the rainforest, right? Like he was standing at his desk and through the back all I could see was, was lush [00:42:15] trees and crashing sunshine. It was. He is also right there in the heart of
[00:42:21] Maryam Pasha: it.
[00:42:21] Maryam Pasha: Mm-hmm. It’s amazing.
[00:42:22] Conclusion and next week’s preview
[00:42:22] Maryam Pasha: Thank you, Julia, for this. Conversation. I think this has been a tough one, Ben.
[00:42:26] Dr. Julia Shaw: Yeah,
[00:42:26] Maryam Pasha: it’s been a tough one. Yeah. Um, but we really appreciate you writing about it. And [00:42:30] again, I think people will find, so like you just go into such detail, not just about the case, but about what we can do to stop like awful things like this happening again in the book Green Crime.
[00:42:40] Maryam Pasha: Um, next week, what we talking about [00:42:45]
[00:42:45] Dr. Julia Shaw: next week, we are talking about the ONG syndicates and we get deep into organized environmental crime. I met the undercover agent who infiltrated an organized crime wildlife poaching gang. I see your [00:43:00] cover agent that is in, oh my God. We’re leaving regulators and lawyers for and trading them for undercover agents.
[00:43:08] Dr. Julia Shaw: Wow. And. And I spoke with the Interpol agents who worked to coordinate efforts to tackle one of the [00:43:15] last big poaching syndicates that was dealing ivory. So it’s a huge success story and it changed how the world deals with, uh, ivory trafficking and it. Taught me a lot about how to protect animals and how and why [00:43:30] we need to think about organized crime in these contexts.
[00:43:32] Dr. Julia Shaw: Are you curious, dad?
[00:43:33] Ben Hurst: Um, listen, stay curious. I’m so curious.
[00:43:37] Maryam Pasha: See you next week.
[00:43:38] Ben Hurst: Stay curious.
[00:43:41] Maryam Pasha: Thank you for joining us this week. We really hope you enjoyed this [00:43:45] episode.
[00:43:45] Ben Hurst: If you did, please hit the follow button to make sure that you get next week’s releases. While you’re at it, please leave a rating and a review.
[00:43:53] Maryam Pasha: Now let’s shout out to our fabulous team behind the poll
[00:43:56] Ben Hurst: executive, produced by Josie Colter,
[00:43:59] Maryam Pasha: produced by Ben [00:44:00] Beheshty,
[00:44:01] Ben Hurst: also by Ben Beheshty,
[00:44:02] Maryam Pasha: communications by Tara Cooper and Izzy Gladston.
[00:44:05] Ben Hurst: Curation by Deesha Chandra,
[00:44:07] Maryam Pasha: hosted by Ben Hurst.
[00:44:09] Ben Hurst: I’m Maryam Pasha, and remember, stay [00:44:15] curious.
