National Park Scandal and Whale Encounter Updates

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It's my birthday! and

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in my business life. In my work life, I tend not

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to worry about that too much. It's more of my business life, in

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other words, this podcast. So I wanna talk about sort

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of the goals I want for the next four months and how things have gone so far, but

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I also wanted to give you a couple of updates on two

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of the stories that I've been covering. One was the National

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Parks in Florida update and with

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the developments that were going on there. literally and figuratively, as

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well as the swim with whales story

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that I covered a couple of episodes ago. So we're gonna talk about

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a lot of just updates. It's gonna be a random kind of episode, but I hope you enjoy

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it. Let's start the show. Hey

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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the

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Ocean podcast. I'm your host Andrew Lewin, and this is a podcast where you

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find out what's happening with the ocean, how you could speak up for the ocean, and what you

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can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. On

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today's episode, it's going to be a little bit of a mishmash. of

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episodes. We're going to first talk about a couple of updates of

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some of the past episodes that I've done. The first one is the national, the

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Florida National Park, uh, developing in the Florida National Park,

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uh, update as well as, uh, some updates with,

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or one update with, uh, the swim with whale story, kind

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of an update, but kind of something that I want to do that I may not have mentioned

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in the past. So, uh, we're going to be talking about those two episodes and

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sort of some updates with that as well as it's my

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birthday. or it was my birthday yesterday, I'm 46 years old, and

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I have some ideas that I want to be putting forward and

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I want to be working on for the next four months before

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the next end of the year and also for the next year. It's almost like my New

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Year's resolutions, I guess, in a way. But

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we're gonna be talking about all that today, so I'm super super excited But before we

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get to that I just want to remind people if you are looking for

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ways to get Access to more information on the ocean

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you can do that through our newsletter I put out a newsletter Monday to Friday and

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the idea is to let people know of all these different articles

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that I find on the ocean that I may not be able to cover in 3 episodes

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a week with the podcast so I put those up I

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put 3 articles per day as well as 3 job

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postings per day I try not to repeat myself if I can

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and I send that out every day Monday to Friday and

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then I also will add sort of a summary of the podcast that comes

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out. So today there'll be a summary of this podcast if you get it in

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your inbox. So to go there to get that into your inbox, all

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you have to do is go to speakupforblue.com forward slash newsletter.

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That's speakupforblue.com forward slash newsletter.

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The link is in the show notes if or in the description depending on where you're watching

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this. Just to remind you we are a video podcast on

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Spotify, as well as on YouTube. And of course you can listen

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to this audio in the auto version in

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Spotify, in Apple Podcasts, as well as your

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favorite podcast app. So we're available almost everywhere.

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And if we're not available in a podcast app that you like, please let

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me know. I'd love to hear which one we're not a part of. Okay,

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let's get started with the show. So the first update is

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the National Park update in Florida. So the

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story I cover was a couple of weeks ago. Essentially, the Florida

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government wanted to put together a plan

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to develop a certain number of resorts as

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well as golf courses, pickleball courses, and disc

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golf courses on National Park land.

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Now, these national parks are supposed to be natural. They're

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supposed to be kept natural, untouched, make sure that all

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the ecosystem functions are there and not developed within that.

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Now, a couple of updates that were made it really, really interesting. One,

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the idea for them to put it through actually

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ended up being a little scandalous. There was a GIS analyst that

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worked for a cartographer that worked for the

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state government in Florida. He found out about this

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sort of movement and this way of developing on

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the national parks back in the beginning of August,

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and found out from the meetings that he wasn't allowed to talk to

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any of his colleagues about it, nor the public. And it

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was going to be released a day before the public meeting. So

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they didn't want anybody coming to the public meetings. They were very worried about that.

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He ended up leaking it, getting fired for leaking it,

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but leaked it in time for people to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going

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on here? We need to stop this right away, because it's ridiculous. It

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doesn't make sense. And so he got fired for that, unfortunately. There

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is a GoFundMe to fund it. I'll put that link in the show

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notes so that people can support him. Because you know what? As environmentalists,

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as conservationists, whether it's land or water, and a lot of these national

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parks are by the ocean, so that makes it really important. We

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don't have a lot of options for jobs and so when we put

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our neck out there and you end up getting fired for maybe Disobeying

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an order or disobeying what your boss is

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saying for the good of the environment It's

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really hard to get a job. It's really hard to support yourself It's hard to get a job in

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this industry in the first place. So imagine you getting fired for

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doing what's right and Should he have been fired? to

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get ready for public comment. And I'm sure there were a lot of organizations that

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were out there that could have put something together, gotten a lot

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of people together to join those public comment periods, as

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well as if there was in-person meetings. But they didn't want to do that.

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They did that as a tactic to stop it from going through, and they

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can just have it go through without having any problems.

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That didn't happen, though. So the last episode, it

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was delayed until September. now i've heard it

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was delayed until the new year and they're hoping that we

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forget about it but we're not going to forget about it because i've got some

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people who's going to help remind me we're going to do another episode in

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the new year maybe even before that as a reminder to

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let you know that national parks ours or not

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just now it's not state but state parks any park is important i've

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been saying national parks this whole time it's florida state parks These

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parks are important, right? Keeping natural

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areas natural is important. Developing on these areas

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is the counterproductive. And yes, it might provide money, but

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for what? Like, what is the cause of this? Why

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are we just, we're lining the pockets of private owners,

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lining the pockets of business people. We know that's not necessary. We

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know that protecting natural areas is necessary. So protecting these state parks,

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not national parks, state parks in Florida is very important. So

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we're going to be on this. and we're gonna stay on this so

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that's the first update and I want to thank I want to thank Courtney

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I'm gonna thank I just want to make sure I get the

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name right because I've been talking to a lot of people it

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is Courtney one second here Courtney

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Dobberton, sorry. Thank you, Courtney Dobberton, for your

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help in keeping me updated on this story. Really appreciate it.

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What they're doing by sneaking this and delaying these, they're tactics

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that the government uses when they want to put something by. whether it's for

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good or for bad, they use it. It shouldn't be, it should always be the same. There

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should be the same amount of time, like you announce something, there

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should be a certain amount of time that passes and then they have public comments or public meetings

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or both so that the public can comment. This is, these are, you

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know, the lands of the citizens. So of the citizens of

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Florida, these are their lands. They should have ample time to prepare

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and comment whether they want certain things or they don't want certain things. So

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Courtney, thank you so much for keeping us updated on that. She sent me a couple messages

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over the last week to be able to talk about that.

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So I really do appreciate that. Bring me to the next

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thing is the... There's

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another update with the story that I covered a couple of episodes ago on Monday, where

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I talked about the swim with whales operators. The

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story was that in one of the swim with a whale

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operations in Queensland, Australia, just off the coast, there

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was an operator that was actually lifted out of the water. A lot of

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people use launched out of the water. I think I use that as well, lifted out of the

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water by a humpback whale, which is dangerous, right? We know that humpback

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whales are huge. Any interaction or touching

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of the whales should not happen But this one the whale

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came into that person lifted him out of the water brought it back in he was okay

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But that could have been a lot worse And if he got injured who knows what

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they would have done to the whale or who knows what that would have done to the operators looking

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at a business opportunity or a lack or a missed business opportunity where

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a the operators may have been shut down because

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of the incident, somebody got hurt, or the whale could have gotten hurt,

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or they would have tried to kill the whale just like they do with sharks when sharks bite. There's

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a lot of things that could have happened, didn't happen, thank God, but

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it could have happened. So one of the things that I wanna do is

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I wanna proceed with this story and look

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into it a little bit deeper. A lot of times what happens is you'll get

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operators who come together and they are like, okay,

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we gotta go above and beyond you know what the

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research says and says let's enforce protections even if the

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government has certain protections and they're not very good or they're

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not what is necessary there's some science out here that

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says hey you know what we need to do a little bit better and we need to hone

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in on these regulations make them a little stricter It may impede

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the viewing capabilities, but it's better for the whales as well as

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the safety of the tourists that are in the water while these humpback

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whales are swimming around, right? You just never know what's

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going to happen, how a whale is going to come in. You don't know how fast they're traveling. it

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could be a disaster. If that fluke comes down, that tail comes down, and they do

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a tail slap, and they hit you in the head, could be knocked out, right? That's

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a big tail coming down, or even a fin coming down and

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smacking the water. You just never know. Plus, it's not good for

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them. We know that from research that Stephanie Stack did.

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She's doing her PhD out there, wrote a paper on it. I linked to it in

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the last episode, or two episodes ago, so you can check that out.

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the update here is not really an update I'm going to try and

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get an interview with one of the operators from Hervey Bay which was

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part of the research that did the work but

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it's still not like perfect you know we there's not a

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lot like a lot of times when we do these types of episodes We

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try and tap into the already existing efforts that

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are going on to bring in more regulations. And

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there are a few people who are speaking up. Stephanie is one of them, but it's

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not enough. And it's very frustrating, as Stephanie says, sometimes like screaming

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into the vastness of the universe and nobody really

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like hearing her or being able to do any kind of protection.

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And so it comes with numbers. And so that's why in that episode,

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I put in the link to contact the Queensland government around

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looking at marine mammal sightings and saying, hey, look, we need to

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do better when we're in the water with these humpback whales to

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make sure that the people don't get hurt and the humpback whales don't get hurt.

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And it doesn't alter or disturb their

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path and their resting areas as well. So that is

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important. And so I'm going to tell you that I'm going to continue to look into

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this story. I'm going to try and get maybe a couple of the operators or

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at least one of the operators to talk about what they're doing to go above

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and beyond. And if not, just to talk about what they think they can do

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or what they want to do and maybe talk to somebody who maybe

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doesn't want to do anything and just see the dichotomy around

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this issue and where this issue is going to go and where it needs to go.

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So I'm going to look into those more and that brings me to sort of the final

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thing I want to cover. It'll be a quick episode today. Mind you, I'm already at

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13 minutes and I'm halfway through. But, you

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know, it was my birthday yesterday and like I said at the beginning of the episode, I

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like to kind of look at things of what I want to do. from

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now on, whether it's until the end of the year or from now on. I

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had some ideas of what I wanted to do at the beginning of January. Part

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of that was post more YouTube videos, do video

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podcasting, which has been up and down in terms of timing, although

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the last number of episodes I've been able to put out a

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YouTube video, including this one, I've been able to do video podcasting on

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Spotify with some help and push and motivation from a

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group that I'm a part of, it's like Nature Podcasters, it's really fun. Um, and

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shout out to them, but it's been, you know, really interesting

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to be able to put that effort and get into that workflow. I mean,

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for me, who's doing it by himself and the efforts are

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going by myself. I do the newsletter. I do this, these episodes, three

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episodes a week. It's a lot of work. As you know, I have a full-time job.

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I, uh, I have my, my girls, one of them is in grade 12. So

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it's an important year for her. in their last year of high school, the

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other one is in grade 10, still an important year. I want to be there to help

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them out with schooling. I've stopped coaching for a

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little bit, football coaching, because it's taken up too much time because

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I want to focus more on this podcast. And so what

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I want to do now is I've been covering a lot of news

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that's been out to help, you know, help spread the

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awareness on different sites like Manga Bay News, Hakai

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News, and Hakai, unfortunately, is shutting down, which is really

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disappointing to hear. Hopefully, it'll be saved by somebody. But

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there's a lot of news that I try and share. Fizz.org, I

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try and share the ocean stories and a number of stories from

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the cooldown stuff that have already been written and I'm just kind of re-amplifying

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it through this platform. However, what I've been trying

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to do over the last little bit, especially with the interviews, is get into more stories

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that are not being covered in that type of news or

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even in the mainstream news arena. And so

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if you have stories or you have issues that you're trying to work on,

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similar to the swim with whales, similar to the state park

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issue that's happening in Florida, please hit me up on

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Instagram at howtoprotecttheocean or you can email me andrew

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at speakupforblue.com. if you're part of an organization you're

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trying to work get something at work I would love to cover it and re-amplify that

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for you and just kind of have these stories being told because

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if they're not out in ink or on a digital website

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or on a podcast or in a video I want to help you get that out

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I want to cover more original stories so that we can look

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and build upon these conservation movements and these campaign movements

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I want to I

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want to kind of take this and pivot into more original stories. We're

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going to lose, potentially, Hackeye Magazine, which brought a lot

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of original stories. I want to be that resource to

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bring more original stories. There's still Manga Bay, which is doing a fantastic job.

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Fizz.org, which is doing a number of

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articles and stuff. Scientific America and The Conversation, they do a lot, but

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I want to bring in some stuff that we may not see covered before. We

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know there's a lot of efforts going out there. We know there's a lot of conservation challenges and

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issues and I would like to bring those more to the forefront for you

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and so that you can help amplify them just as we're doing it on this

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platform. So that's really, you know, a quick and dirty

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of what I want to do going forward in my 46th year around the sun.

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I guess it'll be 47th. year around the sun because I've just finished

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my 46th. But that's essentially what

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I want to do is get more into the conservation and

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to build it as a community of trying to figure

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out how we can make more of these conservation stories popular

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and get people to talk about them. So that's what we're going to be focusing on.

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The other thing that will be coming out, and I still have to get an update from

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the developer, but I have been working on a community app.

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This is an app that will help build the community. A lot

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of you are following me on various social media or you're

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just subscribed or following this podcast, which, by the way, really

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appreciate or you subscribe to our YouTube channel or Spotify or Apple or

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whatever, however you're listening to this episode. But what

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I want to do, you know, since everybody's on social media, everybody is sort of

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disconnected and disparate across platforms. what

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I want to do is bring all everybody into one platform because you know with social

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media they just bring they just bring stuff that's different you

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know they have algorithms that's supposed to help you focus

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on one thing but if you're interested in birds or you're interested in

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like what's happening in your local area then you're gonna get served up information on

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that and you may not get served up information on what's happening globally in

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the oceans which which we cover and so you may not get all my

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stories or all my posts or anything like that and sometimes it's really hard to

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post all across these different pieces of social the platforms

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of social media so what I want to do is what I'm going to be

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doing is putting an app together and I'm in the process of doing that

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it should come out hopefully this month if not next month And

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I can put together stuff where everybody's in the same area. There's no algorithm.

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When I post something, you all get it. And it just comes off of an app

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on your phone. It's almost like a social media app just for ocean

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lovers and speak up for blue people and how to protect the ocean people and beyond JAWS

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people. And you can just check it out. We'll have scientists on there doing AMAs,

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ask me anythings. I have a lot of plans for this. There's

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going to be some group coaching for careers. There's

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going to be ways that if you, I've had a few people reach out to me and be like, hey, Andrew,

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I want to support your podcast, you don't have to do anything extra, you

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do enough, I want to support it. There's going to be ways to do that as well

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through that app, but the general idea is it's going to be a free app.

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There's going to be some paid options in certain areas, but the whole thing

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is most of the information, 90% of the information is going to

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be free just like you're getting it now, but all in one spot. So

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I want to be up front with you and just kind of build that

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community even more and make it a little bit more intimate. So I think that's

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going to be a lot of fun. So those are the two major things, bring more original stories

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and more conservation challenges and issues to the forefront and

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maybe get some call to action on it, work with organizations, work

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with different people and activists and scientists and

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conservationists, as well as bringing the community together

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so that we can get to know each other and we can share information as well. So

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it's going to be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to it. I

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hope you are too. If you want to see something from

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this podcast or from the videos or from the app, love

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to hear from you. Hit me up on Instagram at HowToProtectTheOcean or

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leave a comment on Spotify, which you can do now, or

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YouTube, where this is posted. Apple Podcasts me

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for today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I

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want to thank you so much for supporting me in another year around the

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sun with this podcast as well as all the efforts that we're trying

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to do to protect the ocean because you're trying to protect the ocean as well

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and we're doing it together. I want to thank you so much for listening to this episode of

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the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and