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Sea otters are helping to capture carbon, says Alister Scott, the co-director of the Global Rewilding Alliance, on Climate Curious. By reintroducing sea otters back to their habitat in San Francisco, scientists have seen a growth in sea grass, which is a massive carbon sink. Tune in to learn more about this otterly wonderful natural climate solution –rewilding!
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
01:04 Understanding rewilding
04:24 The sea otter story
05:36 The impact of kelp forests
07:17 Get involved in rewilding
09:59 Conclusion
Transcript
[00:00:00] Introduction
[00:00:00] Maryam Pasha: Welcome to Climate Quickies bite-sized nuggets of Climate Goodness. From our TEDx London experts in under five minutes
[00:00:08] Ben Hurst: in this week’s climate, curious, we are talking about sea otters protecting the world. Our guest today is the co-director of the Global Rewilding Alliance, Alistair Scott, his mission to reintroduce dwindling species back into their natural environment in order to encourage a completely natural and effective solution to climate change.
[00:00:29] Ben Hurst: Or [00:00:30] as he puts it, to animate the carbon cycle. Let’s head over to Alistair now to hear how sea otters are soaking up. CO2, stay curious.
[00:00:42] Alister Scott: I’m Alistair Scott. I’m the executive director of an organization called the Global Rewilding Alliance. We are an umbrella body for the global rewilding movement. We are a membership organization for rewilding organizations, and we have, as of today, [00:01:00] 249 rewilding organizations are our alliance partners, as we call them.
[00:01:04] Understanding rewilding
[00:01:04] Alister Scott: So Rewilding is this idea that nature conservation is not enough. We’ve had many decades of defending smaller and smaller patches of nature as human society expands. And at a certain point in the nineties, a group of people said that is not going to be enough. Not least because the smaller, smaller patches of nature start to get genetic narrowing and so on.
[00:01:29] Alister Scott: [00:01:30] So we need larger areas. We need corridors to connect up the core areas, and then we need to bring back animal species that have gone missing from ecosystems, whether that be on land or in the oceans. So that’s rewilding, and it particularly gives a central place for animals in the knowledge that wild animals drive ecosystem processes.
[00:01:53] Alister Scott: They drive the health of ecosystems, whether that be in forests or in wetlands, or in the [00:02:00] ocean. So if you look at a forest, you’ve gotta ask yourself, is that an empty forest that has all of its sort of wild animals like bison, otters, beavers, foxes, et cetera, missing? Or is it a healthy ecosystem where those animals are present and making that ecosystem work properly?
[00:02:18] Alister Scott: So there’s a central place for animals in rewilding. Everybody assumes, a lot of people assume that in order to, for example, stabilize the global climate, we have to plant [00:02:30] trees. And that is intuitively obvious because most of us have, you know, been in our GCSE biology, we’ve learned that plants draw down carbon, carbon dioxide.
[00:02:41] Alister Scott: But uh, the. Very simplistic solution of just plant trees is very wide of the mark. So Rewilding is trying to broaden people’s approach to restoring nature and stabilizing the global climate. I came to Rewilding very early. I saw the destructive [00:03:00] effects of. Mechanized chemical agriculture on the landscape in the west of Ireland where I grew up, and it led to an epiphany, a sort of wake up call where I was, well, gosh, if we sweep nature aside this blithely, we are in big trouble as a species because the web of life supports everything, all human wellbeing.
[00:03:19] Alister Scott: So that happened when I was about 16 and. Ever since then, I’ve been sort of working to make myself useful in the face of these big challenges that humanity faces if [00:03:30] it’s going to thrive into the future. And just before I discovered the Global Rewilding Allowance, I spent 15 years as a, as a consultant helping I.
[00:03:39] Alister Scott: Catalyst people who are making big change happen. And when I discovered the Alliance, I got in touch in touch with the founders and said, this is what I do. I support people like you. How can I help? And they asked me to organize a retreat in the Swiss Alps for the three founders at the end of Covid.
[00:03:56] Alister Scott: ’cause they hadn’t seen each other for two years. So we walked and talked and [00:04:00] strategized. At the end of it, it was sort of like a three day job interview, and they sort of said, oh, we think we need someone with your skills in communication and convening and so on. Would you like to join the team? So I joined the team as Director of Communications and Outreach, which I did for two and a half years.
[00:04:15] Alister Scott: And then just a week ago I became the executive director.
[00:04:24] The sea otter story
[00:04:24] Alister Scott: The Sea Otter story is a brilliant way for people to understand rewilding and [00:04:30] the benefits not only for ecosystems, but also for the global climate. So when ecologists arrived in California in the late, late 18 hundreds, the. They recorded sea otters as a non-native species ’cause they had been hunted out for their fur and for their meat.
[00:04:46] Alister Scott: So they didn’t find any sea otters, so they recorded them as non-native. It’s kind of shocking fact, but in fact, sea otters had always been on the west coast of America playing a crucial role in the marine ecosystem. [00:05:00] And what happened as a result of sea otters being stripped out? Was that the kelp forests?
[00:05:05] Alister Scott: Then collapsed. Why did this happen? Well, because sea urchins, which are these little spiky creatures, they eat kelp and without the predator. The sea otter, sea otters eat dozens of these things every day. So without the sea otters, the population of sea urchins, boomed. They ate all the kelp. And the kelp forests just disappeared on along most of [00:05:30] the California coast and all the way up North America into Canada.
[00:05:33] Alister Scott: So there’s this huge kind of collapse in that ecosystem.
[00:05:36] The impact of kelp forests
[00:05:36] Alister Scott: Now, what do we know about kelp forests? Firstly, that they are an amazingly rich ecosystem there where a lot of sharks reproduce, for example, turtles and so on. Huge diversity of life. Relies on on kelp forests. So when the forest disappeared, that spelt trouble for a, a lot of the marine ecosystem.
[00:05:57] Alister Scott: We also know about kelp forests that kelp [00:06:00] grows incredibly fast. In the summer, Aron of kelp can grow up to a meter a day, and that draws down a vast amount of carbon. So up to 20 times the amount of carbon that a terrestrial forest will, will draw down. That now that sea otters are coming back in California, they’re now protected and they’re being rewild and reintroduced.
[00:06:22] Alister Scott: They are eating the sea urchins, and as a result, the kelp forests are coming back and this is what we call [00:06:30] reanimating the carbon cycle. So we’re bringing animals back into the carbon cycle, into their ecosystems, and by balancing out those ecosystems and helping them to recover, in this case, the kelp growing incredibly fast.
[00:06:43] Alister Scott: And coming back along huge stretches of the California coast, you are getting a vast amount of carbon being drawn down. And so we are reanimating the carbon cycle, bringing back animals that are playing this crucial role, not only in restoring these amazing ecosystems, [00:07:00] beautiful places. But also in helping to stabilize the global climate by drawing down some of the huge amounts of carbon that we’ve put into the atmosphere, mainly by, by burning fossil fuels.
[00:07:17] Get involved in rewilding
[00:07:17] Alister Scott: I really recommend getting involved in a re rewilding project. I have not heard a single person who’s got involved in Rewilding and hasn’t come away happier, more connected to their local community and [00:07:30] just re enchanted with, with beautiful wild nature. You know, I think a lot of us feel a bit beaten down by events out there in the world war and, and climate anxiety and politics and so on, and just going out to a local environment.
[00:07:45] Alister Scott: Connecting with amazing people who are getting involved in rewilding and seeing how quickly nature bounces back. It just lifts your spirits, fills your heart, and brings you new connections to, to human beings. You know, rewilding is, is at least [00:08:00] as much about people as it is about nature. And so I think if you are feeling challenged by life, find a local rewilding project, find ’em on the internet.
[00:08:10] Alister Scott: Ring them up, send ’em a message and say, how can I help? And I can promise you that anybody who’s trying to do something like this, they will so appreciate your help. Whether that be stuffing envelopes or digging a pond or, I don’t know, you might have more specialist skills. You might be a lawyer or an accountant, or, um, you [00:08:30] might be a digital native.
[00:08:31] Alister Scott: You know, there’s a place for everyone. And projects really need a, a, a diversity of skills involved. So. That I, I thoroughly recommend getting involved if you want to help us at the global level. So we are the Global Rewilding Alliance. Our website is Global Rewilding Earth. You can find us on Instagram and LinkedIn, in particular, just global Rewilding Alliance.
[00:08:55] Alister Scott: Everything from liking a post, to sharing a post, [00:09:00] reposting, sending it to your friends, um, or, you know, just even those simple things help get the word out there. The majority of the world still haven’t heard about rewilding, so we need a lot of help getting the word out. It’s such a beautiful, what I call a system catalyst.
[00:09:16] Alister Scott: You know, we’re solving many problems all at once, but if you wanna get more involved on our website, we have a volunteer interest form. You can write to us there. Tell us what your skills are, what you want to learn, how you would [00:09:30] ideally like to be involved, where in, in this country or elsewhere. We have as of today, 249 Alliance partners around the world in every continent.
[00:09:39] Alister Scott: So we launched this volunteer that, uh, talent pool and within a week of launching it, we had connected up someone in Portugal with a group in Brazil, and that woman is now working as a volunteer in Brazil. So yeah, there are real possibilities for going and following your dream and getting involved in Rewilding.
[00:09:57] Alister Scott: I thoroughly recommend it.
[00:09:59] Conclusion
[00:09:59] Ben Hurst: Thanks for [00:10:00] listening to this quickie.
[00:10:01] Maryam Pasha: This episode was created by our superstar podcast team at TEDx London. Until next time,
[00:10:06] Ben Hurst: stay curious.
