Guys, welcome back. If you saw yesterday's video, I talked about mindset during this time. As we all know, the coronavirus is here. I know here in the US, things are steadily progressing towards a lockdown, which means right now, if you are training clients, you're going to not be able to see them face to face. That's the path that we're on right now. And yesterday's video was something I really want you to watch if you haven't seen it yet. Just if you haven't seen it, just go to YouTube. Go check out on March 16th. Go check out my video there. And that will be very pivotal for you to watch that and watch it all the way through. It was a little bit longer. It was like 22 minutes, I think. And that will really help you when you go through this video right now. And what I want to do in this video is show you solutions. I'm not the type of person that likes to talk about problems. When there's an obstacle in my way, I look for solutions. And I'm going to show you six ways to expand your business right now during this time when everyone's freaking out. Everyone is considering stopping business. These are six different ways that will work if you put in the time. And coaches in our mastermind program, they're going to be receiving a full course that I break down this stuff in a lot more detail. But I'm going to show you some different concepts and ideas that you can do. And this video, again, this might be longer. So if you are the type of person that has a short attention span, you might need to break this up. If you can sit here and learn and take notes, I believe this will really help you out during this time. This will give you new income streams. And if you are someone who's wanting to learn more about these things, reach out to me. Just send me a text at<PHONE_NUMBER>. It's the best way to get in touch with me during this time. That's the fastest way to get in touch with me. Now, I'm going to go through these piece by piece. And first, I'm going to start at the top left. It says, spend time learning. Now, in yesterday's video, I talked about what most people are going to do right now. 99% of coaches are going to use this time to complain. They're going to waste time. They're probably watching Netflix or watching movies. They're not knowing what to do with their time. So instead, what we want to do is we want to spend time learning. Invest the time you have right now, the extra free time, especially if you earn a nine-to-five job and you can't go to work. Well, why would we want to just sit around? This is the best time you can spend learning. And invest into yourself. And when you do that, you can really fast track what you're doing. So coaches that are in our mastermind program, they have access to our entire course. I would expect those who are new to the program to go review it, those who've been part of it to go back and clean up some areas that maybe they haven't done yet. And for you, if you're watching this, I would think, how can you learn more faster during this time? And there's a difference between learning and implementing versus just filling your brain with information. This is why I've seen there's a big difference between coaches who really succeed and those who kind of succeed. Because those who really succeed, they just learn and they go for it. They don't learn and then go listen to the next podcast or go listen to the next guru or go read another email from someone else or another course from someone else. If you're jumping from thing to thing, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about clear cut focus on learning something that's going to really give you a valuable skill in the future. So that's number one. That is how you can quickly expand what you're doing is learn. That's the first thing you need to do. Now the second thing, these are all tactical here. The next five is start pre-selling your summer camps. Now, right now we are in March. We know that the summer is, for most people in the U.S., it's starting in June. So June, July, August. Now, let's say the coronavirus knocks us out for the next six weeks, all right? That could be a lot longer. That could be shorter, I don't know. But if you start planning your summer camps now, we can start selling those now. So this means you're going to inject more income into your business right now, instead of having to wait. So this is going to come down to organization. This is why in our course, the camp machine, I go deep into how to set it up, how to sell it out, how to market it, how much time you need to market your camp, how many kids you need. Like it's very detailed in there. And what we want to do though is we want to start doing that today. We don't want to wait. And if you're not considering doing camps this summer, I would start considering to do that now. And think about your client base that you have. Let's look to send out some emails. Let's create a sales page. Let's get things set up so we can start selling this now, not later, right? I know a couple of coaches that I'm helping right now, they're going to make probably in between five to 10 grand in the next week. Each, just by doing that, right? So instead of looking for excuses, we're, again, we're looking for solutions here, right? That is a very easy way of generating more income right now is pre-selling summer cancer clinics. And don't wait, right? And we got to think about it too. Most parents right now are trying to figure out what they want their kids to do this summer. And I know most parents right now are sick and tired of their kids because they're at home and they should be at school, right? So this is an opportune time to start pre-selling those. And those could be cancer clinics that range between like $50. Some coaches we help run cancer clinics that are like $500 or $1,000, right? That all depends on your value, what you're doing, what's included. But you can see there, if you start pre-selling those, all right, you can financially do it really well. That's just gonna come down to spend time learning how to set that up, which is something I can help you with, right? The next thing that you can do, if you already have an email list or you have social media, this is a lot of coaches we're helping right now.  They're creating online training courses. So this could be an online training course that's like $50 or $100 or $500 or it could just be included in their current program. They're taking their current clients that they have right now and we're transitioning them from on the field or in the gym to online, right? And I'm going very deep into that this Friday with our mastermind members on the exact tactics on how to do that, how to set it up, how to transition. And that's something that you can do too, right? Instead of waiting and being like, all right, well, I can't train anyone. Well, let's step up. Like let's step up for our clients right now during this time, like our clients need us. Our clients need us to lead them. And think about all the kids that you're working with. If they don't get to do anything or train over the next couple of weeks, they're gonna get depressed, they're gonna get down, they're gonna get discouraged. They're gonna lose a lot of motivation, a lot of discipline. So why do that? Why damage our clients from this time when we can improve the results? And you can do that by creating a simple online training course. Now, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, go to, I have another business, it's called OnlineSoccerSkills.com. Go there right now. You can see how I have that set up. You can see that I have a lot of different products there. Those things sell 24 hours a day, right? And because I have another YouTube channel, that's a way that I can generate more income by selling online courses that require zero extra work. Like when parents buy those courses, I'm not having to physically speak to anybody. I don't have to meet with anyone. I have clients from all over the world. Like essentially every country you could possibly think of, we have clients now. And that's been something I've been doing for the last four or four and a half years, right? So online training courses can be a great option if you are doing one of two things. If you already have an email that's great, if you don't have one, you need to build one. And you can also do that from social media. Like there's codes I'm helping right now who are selling online courses just from Instagram. Or just from Facebook, all right? Now the next one is the thing right now I'm the most interested in as far as helping coaches within our program do, which is high end online mentoring. Now, this is where you have to really expand your mind and you have to be open to this idea because most people aren't. I've talked to a couple of people about this over the phone recently and I can tell most coaches when I tell them this, they try to shut off because they don't think it's possible. But I can tell you, it's very possible because I've personally done it. There's a couple of coaches right now that I'm helping that are doing this as we speak. If you're part of my email newsletter, you saw it was last week, one of our coaches and you can go look her up online. If you go look at Alpha Girl Soccer Academy on Instagram, go look it up right now and you'll see. We've helped Shea, her name's Coach Shea, we've helped her put together a high end online mentoring program. It's an eight week program and it sells for $1,300, right? So between when she started and now, I believe at this point she's already sold seven, I think six or seven of those. Now I want you to think about this, right? Let's say you sell five of those, right? And they're $1,300, right? Think about what that can do to your income without having to physically meet anybody, all right? All of that is done online. You can be at home. The way I am right now behind my computer, this is how you can do it, right? And it's all done through creating a mentorship program which takes time, right? It's not like she just woke up one day and was like, oh, I wanna do this. We had to spend a lot of time together putting that, putting the pieces together and she has it now and now she has that for life and she's going to expand that and the way she's gonna expand that eventually she's gonna have small groups and that's gonna be the most scalable way of doing it. So she could have small group of 20 kids that are on there, parents are paying $500 or maybe $800 or $1,000 to join that, right? Think about the possibilities with that and again, all of that is done online and it's all done through a mentoring program. So that can be mindset, confidence, nutrition. I could go down the list of problems that you can solve for clients and the cool part about that is the clients that she works with they could be anywhere in the world, right? It's the same way my mastermind program is set up right now. All of our clients that are in our program we have 85 different clients from eight different countries are on the roll. Europe, South Africa, Australia, Canada, US, we have some people in the Middle East. It's all possible. You just have to get started, right? The next one is I think probably outside of pre-selling the summer camps is the easiest one to do, all right? Which is publish an e-book or an audio book.  I'm gonna give you the free version of how to do this, all right? And I'm gonna break this into three steps, very simple. Step one, go to Google Drive and create a document, all right? That's step one. Step two, I want you to clearly define what your e-book is, all right? So what is it? And then let's break it down into chapters, all right? Step three, write the dang thing, all right? Stop thinking about it. Stop worrying about it. Stop trying to make it perfect.  No, you don't need to do that, all right? I want you to go to Google Docs, all right? Then write out what are the chapters? Then write the book, all right? And an e-book is something that can be delivered online. For me, I have right now three different e-books. Again, those are things when my customers buy those, they have access to it immediately. That's number one, they can download it. They can look at it from their phone or their computer. And it requires zero communication and you're offering value, you're solving someone's problem. A great example of this, like if you wanna see how I wrote mine, just go buy my e-book right now. If you go to buildminesportsbiz.com and click on the Startup Sports Academy and e-book series, or e-book and video series, you can go right there. And if you want, send me an email, I'll give you a discount to the book. You can see how I did that. I created videos and I created an entire e-book. Think it's like around 60 pages. And it's not like it's a 600 page e-book. No one's gonna read 600 pages, all right? It's short, it's concise, it's to the point, there's zero fluff. We've helped, at this point, there's been over like 2,000 coaches who've gone through that e-book, all right? So publish an e-book. Now, with an audio book, all you need to do is if you don't wanna write an e-book and you wanna have an audio book and you want to upload that into a website where you can have clients download it, all right? Then you just need to do two things. You need headphones, all right? And you need a, I would look at QuickTime Player, all right, which is something you can download on a Mac, it's free. If you don't have QuickTime Player, use your phone. Just record yourself talking on your phone. And on there, it's essentially like, think about it almost like a podcast, but you're either reading off or you're talking, all right?  I don't recommend doing it that way. So I recommend writing it out, then doing it. That's why I recommend an e-book and an audio book, because you can just do the e-book and then go read the e-book and make it an audio book. Very simple, right? So those are different things that you can do with that. And again, you don't need to overthink it. With an e-book, you can go to Google, drive, all right, create a new document, write out the chapters, write the dang book, all right? And then you take that and you turn it into a PDF and then you upload it into a membership site like Kajavi. I'm telling you all the things that I've talked about relentlessly here on YouTube over the last couple of years and now a lot of people who are freaking out, they're trying to go do these things. Like, the thing is, I've been talking about these things for a while now, right? I've been talking about using Kajavi to set up a membership site, to sell e-books, audio books, high-end online mentoring, online courses. That's where you should have your website, that's where you shall have your marketing done. These are all things that I've been talking about. Now, coaches are starting to go use them because there's a little bit more urgency now, right? Now, the last thing, this is something I know most coaches are afraid to do right now, but I promise you this will work. You just have to pull yourself out there and you gotta do it. And what it is, it's promotion of a discounted upfront offer. And what I mean by that is let's say right now you normally have a private training program and it sells for, let's just say it's $300 a month, right? Now, I don't care what your price is, it's $300 a month. There's some coaches I help right now, they charge $1,500 per month for private training. Some charge like $200 a month. Don't worry about the price, but whatever your price is, right? I want you to think, all right, how could I turn this into a 12 month program and sell it upfront? So when we get through this coronavirus, right? I can immediately start training now, right? So the way I would do this is I would get on the phone with Ms. Jones, someone who's a prospect or someone who's been in our program before or a current client who I know would benefit from this offer. And I would say, hey, once we get through this coronavirus, once we can get back out to the field, I'm putting together a 12 month option. And when we do this, when we have this set up, I'm gonna have it set up at a discount. You'll get two months free, all right? So I can take however much I charge per month and then deduct two months from that as far as cost and sell it upfront. Now, I want you to think right now, let's say you have, let's say you do that with five people, all right? And you normally charge, let's say you normally charge $300 a month, all right? I'm just gonna do very simple math here. It's $300 a month times 12, that's $3,600. Now, if we take $3,600 minus $600, because if you're giving two months free, that means each client signs up, they're paying $3,000, all right? Now, if you don't believe that clients will pay that much or you don't think they'll pay three grand upfront, I will prove your own. Go look at my Instagram. You'll see over 100 screenshots of coaches who've done way more than that in one day, all right? But let's take 3,000 times five clients, that's 15 grand that you could generate by doing exactly what I'm talking about, all right? So these are all ways to expand right now, all right? I'm not talking about waiting to do this later. I'm talking about this week, have a high sense of urgency, start doing any of these things. Like the summer camps, that can generate a ton of income. The online courses, that can generate a lot of income quickly, all right? And that can give you a secondary income stream later on. That can be there 24 seven, the way I have it so. All right, the high end online mentoring, that again is something you can solve a big problem, a big obstacle for clients. And especially during this time when no one can go outside, like that's a great thing to put together, all right? The e-book, that's something you could do within probably a day, all right? If you just sit down and do the work, you could do that, and then from there you have an audio book. And then with the promotion of discounted upfront offer, that's something you could do right now. Like you just gotta put it together on paper, get on the phone, start making sales. And that's the thing I want you to focus on right now is you need to be focusing on sales. You don't need to be focusing on what's happening in the world. If you do that, you're gonna get in a slump and you're gonna feel like no one's gonna buy anything right now. I can promise you, like, because parents and kids have more time, this is an opportune time to start selling more. More kids have more time at home to be going through an online training course, all right? And if you don't believe me, like go look at what I'm doing on my other YouTube channel right now, all that saga shows. Like, I'm putting together a free seven day trial for a ton of kids, like I already got like around 50 kids last night to email me about that trial. And if I can convert 50% of those kids and do it into the paid program, like, again, with that, that's very simple to do. All right, it's not rocket science. It's about being creative during a time when others are freaking out. This is why I talked about yesterday, in yesterday's video. You can create or you can complain. I'm in create mode right now. I'm gonna be just fine. And hopefully you're that way too. So take what I'm talking about in today's video and use it, right? Now here's how it's not gonna work for you. If you try to go do all of these things right now, none of it's gonna work. You need to pick one and do it and do it well and then go on and do the next one, right? So take your pick. If you have any questions for me, reach out to me. I'm gonna be very available this week, all right?<PHONE_NUMBER>. That's the best way to get in touch with me. Don't call me. I don't do random phone calls. Shoot me a text, all right? I have a lot of coaches who text me throughout the day. Send me a text and I'll see how I can help you with this. Like, again, if you're wanting to go the online training course or high end online mentoring route, you're gonna wanna join our mastermind program because like this Friday, I'm releasing a new course that's gonna walk coaches through exactly how to do that, exactly how to charge, how to market it, how to structure the programs. It's gonna be extremely in-depth. It's the same thing that I've done with Coach Shea from Alpha Girl Soccer Cat and that's generated thousands of dollars for her in a very short amount of time. So that's it guys. Hopefully this helps you out. Again, stay positive during this time. Like don't get down in the dumps. We need to be the leaders in our area, right? That's how I want you to be. That's if you are not, someone else is gonna do it. And I'm telling you right now, like if you start to go into a turtle shell right now, someone else in your area is going to expose what you're doing and they're going to take the lead when we get out of this. This is why this is a time we need to build strength within your business, right? So hopefully that helps you guys. I know this a longer video but I'm gonna try to go into as much depth as I can with these upcoming videos because I wanna help you out. Like I don't want you to just sit there and take a whooping right now. I want you to thrive with what's going on right now and that's a choice that you get to make. So I'll see you guys later shooting a text this week if you need my help.


So hello, everyone. My name is Salomi Deoprima. I'm the Agile liaison for women in natural relations, and I'm so so excited to host this panel on climate change. As climate change is one of our greatest challenges that we face, and it requires international cooperation and coordination to mitigate implications of rising temperatures. Understanding the causes of climate change as well as both the gendered and overall impacts to our communities is imperative. Today we are joined by three women who have all made a remarkable contribution to the fight against climate change. Breonna Furran, Stephanie Buchler and Jennifer Tosca. Breonna Furran is an activist and environmental advocate for Samoa. Furran began her career in environmental activism at the age of 11 where she became a founding member of the 350 Samoa, a community that is focused on building awareness of climate change and working solutions, and a leader of the environmental future, Rush. Since then, Furran has attended the Rio plus 20 summit, the UN small islands developing states conference, and the United Nations climate change conference where she has had opportunities to address policymakers at the conference. Furran has held on numerous climate change advocacy positions, and was named the youngest recipient of the Pacific region Commonwealth Youth Award winner at the age of 16 in 2015. She continues her work as the youth ambassador for as prep today, while attending the University of Auckland. So thank you so much, Breonna for being here. And I'll move on to Stephanie. Stephanie Buchler is a research professor at the agriculture and agriculture science global at Penn State University. Her area of expertise includes gender and urban agriculture, renewable energy and global environmental change in agriculture. At Penn State Buchler works at the works with gender equity and agricultural research and education program, and the globalizing extension innovation network initiative. Prior to joining Penn State Buchler was a professor at the University of Arizona, and a research scientist with the unit international water management Institute. Her career has driven her work in Latin America, South Asia, as well as the Southwestern and North Eastern regions of the US. Her research focuses on an examination of the adoption of climate change and she is an expert on gender and climate change specifically. Finally, Jennifer, Jennifer Talesca is an associate professor of environmental justice and the Department of Social Science and Cultural Studies at Prost Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Her works takes on a critical approach to ocean studies and spans the interests of political ecology and the human animal relationship, political politics of extinction, science, technology and policymaking, environmental and cultural ethnographies of international law and society. She conducts field work at the United Nations and in treaty bodies diplomatic missions and other sites scaled super nationally. Currently Talesca is visiting researcher at the University of Bergen in Norway. There she contributes to a team to execute a large scale cross disciplinary project island lives, ocean seas, sea level rise and the maritime sovereignty in the Pacific. So that was so lengthy but thank you guys for being here. And I guess not even first question but if there's anything you'd like to add to those bios like please feel free to unmute. And if it's all good then we can go to the questions which I wanted to start off career based because I feel like we have a kind of diverse array of interest here and I'm very curious on how you got there.  Any particular order, it's okay I'll go ahead. Hi everybody. It's great to be here and thanks so much Maya for the invitation I really appreciate it. So, I started off in the nonprofit world, and I worked in Bolivia and also in Honduras in Central America with low income communities, and I began to see how water really became a scarcer and scarcer commodity. Not only because of drought, which was an issue, but also because of intersectional issues of social class and gender and age, because it was women and children who then had to pick up the work and go collect the water from sometimes and also bring their laundry to far off wealthier communities in the capital city of Honduras, and in Bolivia in La Paz, Bolivia, the capital city of that country. And also children who had to take off from school to line up for the water tankers when they were no longer being supplied with water because the wealthier residents of the city were being supplied with the scarcer and scarcer commodity of water, and they in these poor communities had to pay more than their richer urban counterparts for very bad quality water. So then after that I did my, you know, education I got masters and masters in public affairs at Cornell University and then a PhD in sociology at Binghamton University, and looked at issues of access to water in Mexico for my PhD and where I also began to see that it was not only issues of geography like where you were situated along a system of canals whether you got water for irrigation but also who you were. You were a widow, for example, a widowed woman you didn't have the same access to power in like you couldn't take the ditch rider who was the canal operator to a bar and in that way I mean gratiate yourself with him. And that was not socially acceptable so you didn't have the same access to getting that scarce water delivered to you when you needed it, like mended. But it was also where you were if you were at the tail end of the system of canals that community actually used urban wastewater running in the river because they did not get any water, it was all used up upstream in the canal system. So, and then I began to look at children's work also in agriculture. I was funded by an applied research Institute the International Water Management Institute, I will recognize it it's basically the headquarters is in Sri Lanka, and I then was hired as a postdoc with the same institute and worked in India, looking now at more closely at people who made use of a scarce resource water, but it was water that had been once used in cities it was urban wastewater that flowed in the river and then was used by people for urban agriculture peri urban agriculture and further downstream rural agriculture and I began looking at the gender dynamics of who was using this degraded but still very coveted resource of urban wastewater. And I looked at it by gender by age by cast because that was an important factor, and also by location urban peri urban rural and by crop. So it was women who grew vegetables for sale in the markets. And then I wanted to give voice to the people in a way that academic kind of writing couldn't. And so I actually collaborated with my colleagues, who are my research assistants to make a documentary film. And then I began to see also there, the impact of climate because this was an area that had very, you know, temporary rains in the form of these rains that would come very seasonal rains. And sometimes they were coming later sometimes earlier sometimes very strong rains that would flood the fields. And so I began to see more and more the impact of climate change on their agriculture. And after that I began working more on urban agriculture with first and non profit, and then with the University of Arizona I became a professor and worked on these issues, then on the border I like working kind of in my own backyard and India I lived there for four years and I would constantly going back to the field see what was changing over time in these communities. And when I was living in Tucson, Arizona I was only one hour from Mexico, and northern Mexico so I would go back and forth, and I had a full one point so I was there more frequently, and looked now, almost solely at gender and climate change issues. There I looked at fruit production, as well as livestock, and especially dairy production, and saw how people were changing over time what they were growing, how they were growing water they were using they were using even for kitchen gardens water from their washing machines, for example, and also for the dairy production for cheese we don't really think of it as something that is affected by climate change when you make cheese but those are live cultures that can die with extreme temperatures in the cheese so what women were doing was they were sharing the cultures maybe if theirs died then their mother in law would have it. They would heat and cool the spaces now where they were making the cheese but also to preserve the cheese until it was sold they had to now freeze it. And so they were using more energy and so they asked for solar panels, but unfortunately the government didn't provide them with solar panels, they only said no those are just for the people without access to the electricity network, not realizing that they could help people in an unusual way yes maybe, but that that was the processing of these agricultural commodities was very much part of women's sphere, and it was a very important part of agriculture, not just the production of the crops or the production of dairy but also the processing. So, I began to look more at policy issues, and in my work I have incorporated stakeholder meetings as well as policy briefs to try to reach a wider public and to try to change kind of opinion. Finally, I have worked in the US in Tucson, Arizona looking at women, for example refugee women and what a difference and made to have access to urban plots and community gardens under coven for example. And realize that it wasn't just the food that they were getting it was also the social networks that this was enabling, even despite coven. They were still able to go to the gardens and see their fellow migrants, but also other populations who could guide them in how to access other resources during coven, and during a time of high unemployment in insecurity. So here now I'm looking at the combination of kind of looking at agriculture and access to renewable energy for agriculture and looking at women's roles and that I'm about to embark on a new adventure tomorrow. I'm going to Mendosa Argentina to look at displacement so what is climate change doing for low income populations it's also meaning that they have to sometimes be relocated. And so this is a large scale relocation one of the largest in the country that was done in 2019 moving people from river banks, and moving them to different neighborhoods in this urban and rural areas. But they were practicing urban agriculture there on the river banks that were now increasingly flooding, yes, but they had extensive land that they had for growing crops, and having livestock. Now they don't have access to that, and they're having to make do with more reduced or smaller spaces. And so I'm looking at also the gender dynamics of that. So I'll stop here. Thank you. Thank you so much. That was such an interesting way that you were involved with studying of climate change and all these facets I don't think that are generally considered, but I would also love to hear from Jennifer and Brianna where you guys have found your interest in passion.  Thank you Jennifer. Thank you for the climate work very young so before I even knew that it was a study I just knew it as this thing that was happening to my community. And so I think I first learned about it in primary school which is when it was still quite new to us and a lot of our textbooks were very old and they had global warming which is like a big topic in science. And then I was lucky as I was coming in. There was like newer studies coming in for our primary school and we were discussing climate change, particularly what that meant for Pacific Islands. And so that really lit a fire in me because I just I just felt like it was our responsibility to not just stand by and let this happen to to us and so for context I'm from an island called Samoa. And our population is around 190,000. And that's across various islands and the island I grew up on an Oolulu for like size context, it could take you only an hour to get from one side of the island to the other.  And so growing up in like this small community. We knew that as an island, we would feel the brunt of climate change. And so that really motivated me to get into climate activism. And then pushed me into the policy space to see how as our small governments going into spaces like the UN can hold bigger countries accountable for the impact that they make in global emissions and how we really need to reframe our minds around loss and damage around impact around who's causing this because a lot of the time it's seen as climate aid and charity that's given to the islands to adapt to climate change when really it's climate debt. And so there was this this importance around wording around policy around how we can fight for ourselves in the climate space, which is why I wanted to study international relations and politics which is what I studied. And we just need more Pacific people for every Pacific negotiator in these roundtables in these political spaces this 30 fossil fuel lobbyists. So we are largely outnumbered. We have so many negotiators who run between between negotiation rooms who are trying to cover all the fields but it's very hard and so that's why I wanted to get into the space because more people are needed here. You know, it's, it's kind of humbling to go third I guess. But I want to certainly thank you all and just also comment on how impressive it is that this is an event that's student organized and student led. So I really appreciate that. So, you know, even though I can't see who's in the audience on zoom but I'm imagining being with my students and just reminding you all that it's okay to not know what you want to do yet. I was speaking from personal experience which is to say when I graduated undergrad I had no idea what I wanted to do, except I wanted to learn a language, and I spent my 20s traveling back and forth between the US and Latin America and actually spent quite a lot of time in Bolivia. And I was working with a self managed women's collective at the time figuring out how they might be able to use some of their artists and crafts, and just bringing them to the states and kind of figuring out how to open up markets for them. And that led me to a graduate degree in anthropology. And when I was so I have a master's in anthropology. And then I switched programs to study long society. So I have a master's in long society and now PhD in media culture and communications so. And I should say to that when it was time for me to figure out the dissertation topic. It was at the time of the Copenhagen climate change talks. And I remember literally sitting horizontal on my bed for about three weeks staring at the ceiling, because I felt pressure to decide a dissertation topic otherwise I was going to run out of funding. And I remember thinking, there's a preoccupation here, at least in Copenhagen. It's changed over the last decade or so of a preoccupation with land. And very little at the time was focused on the, on the ocean. And that led me into a project. So I published a book in 2020 about what it means for an institution, formerly part of the UN system, managing sea creatures on the high seas, including most famously Atlantic bluefin tuna, which is the most expensive fish money can buy. And, and then that project actually has brought me now into my current one and this is, you know, so there's interest. So it's great to have, you know, Stephanie has some background in Bolivia as well but also Brianna. So delighted to meet you because I'm here in Norway working with a group of anthropologist climate scientists.  And the whole project is trying to understand how to manage rising, how to manage sovereignty and light of rising seas. And this really brings me to my next project, which will be looking at deep sea mining and bio prospecting in the, in the deep sea. And I'm focusing on hydrothermal vents, which are considered the birthplace of life on Earth. And yet, these are sites that are the object of tremendous amount of extraction, or at least interest in it. And the kicker here really is that industry is using this, or at least the rhetoric is that mining in the deep sea is necessary to transition to renewable energy. This is coming at the cost of compromising the health of the ocean. And I'll just say briefly, because I know you have many other questions to get to that the way I see gender playing out often, repeatedly in my research is at the interface so especially in UN spaces about the climate crisis, or about the ocean. Science is fundamental in order to get that work done. And, and this is a very male dominated space, not only by the people who populate the space, but also the very logic of it. And the other thing that I also see quite frequently and this is one of the things that I'm actually working on developing a paper about this which is, you know, does diplomacy have a gender. And, and one of the things that I've been thinking about is that it's not just about counting the number of women in the room. But it's also about understanding what are the solutions that are on offer that are themselves. Kind of, you know, have this legacy of the imperial colonial masculinist kind of logics. And I'm very interested in unpacking and exposing so as to neutralize those power structures. Well, thank you so much. I find it so inspiring, especially as a university student. And I briefly mentioned before how I'm from North Carolina and an issue that like I face locally is how Dupont leaked Gen X into our waters for several years. And I just remember being so enraged that this just happened and there hasn't been really follow up on it and everything like that and how do you, how do you even a singular person or someone who's made to feel small, go against these larger institutions and for you guys it seems like the UN and other corporations kind of are that is that like other that you have to face you know in trying to get these types of issue solved. And so that goes on to my like next frame of question or like what are some difficulties you face as women in these, the field of environmental studies, and do you think it has become more inclusive. Yeah, so I was asked to actually present on this recently at a conference in Mendoza organized by the irrigation department, and it was an international conference on water, and I was asked to reflect on my three decades of water, and, and my participation in the water field. And I have, you know, been met for many years looking at the interconnections between water and climate change and gender and so, you know, one of the things that I noticed was that I came from a male field first of only looking at water where I was often the only woman in the room and, and certainly the only person looking at gender issues and intersectional issues with respect to water and I've looked pretty much exclusively on, except for a little bit at the beginning on water for agriculture, and to a field of climate change which actually as Jennifer pointed out is also male dominated. And so, and I think that Brianna would also say is dominated by more voices from the north, and so I was particularly sensitive to that having come from the gender and water field when I entered the climate change debates. And so what I did was I carved out, you know, groups of small groups where I would kind of train or mentor the next generation of, you know, young people who are usually from the countries that I was studying and we would learn from each other, we would support one another. And my edited book on gender and water and climate change was with a student who became a colleague but who was originally a PhD student in mind. And we looked for examples from around the world of women who had been, you know, really marginalized but who came from all sorts of disciplines and different backgrounds in terms of many had worked with NGOs and, and we formed kind of a community and that I think, you know, helped me to feel less alone, but also feel like maybe I could make a difference for the next generation of women. And I did the same thing in Mexico with the Mexican woman who came from a community not far from the communities that I was studying and then I began collaborating with her in the field and now I'm, you know, so proud of her because she's continuing to look at gender issues and climate change, and now also in urban centers as well so you know, I think that all of us need kind of to feel like we have a community, and if your institutions are not really providing you with that community in fact they're doing quite the reverse of all evaluating it, then you need to create one and it's a little bit harder than because you don't have that ready made community there's you can't take anything for granted. I guess I'll hop in in the same order. Yes, definitely, I will. I have the same thoughts around the space being very male dominated. I'm both Jennifer and Stephanie and I think Mary Robinson, she always says it. She hits the nail on the head when she says that the climate space is too male to pale and too stale. So too white, too old and too male dominated. And that's not what we need, right. So the stat that came out from the recent cop that the attendees of cop was around. There's, there's an even amount of male and female people attending so you know that the world is there. People want to speak people want to be a part of this process, but almost 80% of the speaking spots across the plenary across the side events, even across the little workshops that happen alongside is by males. And if you go up to any panel it's it's all male. And so that's our huge issue and then an issue on top of that like Jennifer mentioned is even when we have women in those seats. How what is the system like it's still a very masculine system, and it comes back to this, this fundamental thing about masculinity and wanting to take over things. And then some of the way intersex back to some of the first colonization and the first white men that came to my islands is the way that they saw our land. And even some of the first Hollywood films that was filmed in Samoa based on Samoa. It follows this the same storyline and I don't know it's a very old movie but called return to paradise. And Samoa about basically white men coming to Samoa for the land and meeting the women. And it follows the same arc of meeting a Samoan woman woman, the daughter of the chief, so like the highest prize in the village. So being able to take her away from her family and make her fall in love with him, and she was always younger. They always made sure she was younger. But the storyline of being able to take the woman to take the top of the chief story was also it paralleled the taking of the land. So once he won the girl he won the land, and then he could use the girl and use the land. So it's this this very like it makes your skin crawl. This idea of ownership over women ownership over bodies of females but then also ownership over bodies of land bodies of water, like being able to conquer and rule. We still have like even just tidbits of that same attitude in our, in our systems and, and think that things like well if we've, you know, taken too much of this resource. Let's then now take out of this resource which Jennifer was mentioning around, you know, deep sea mining, like let's just keep taking and taking and if we can't take from here we'll take more of there like that attitude is not going to get us out of this there there needs to be a complete shift in values in in train of thought in the type of attitudes we have towards earth and towards women and a lot of the times, those two issues can really be seen as how we treat the women on earth, and then how we treat Mother Earth. Thank you for that. Absolutely. I I think we all share a very similar experience I'm just pulling up on my phone here I was the question so low me I didn't think of this earlier but it struck me which is to say, there was an article in the Guardian, a week ago Sunday, with the headline, sexist snubs against female leaders are shockingly familiar. It's a story about the way in which the European Commission President or so that Vandalian has been consistently treated as a woman as the as the head of the European Commission. And so, as much as you know I've, I receive that with tremendous frustration, at the same time there is a part of me that also wonders had me to not happened with this article have even been published. And I think there's also something really important for us to think about which is, I do think that there is at least in the popular imagination in, in general discourse there's at least an acknowledgement that this is real that this is widespread. And I actually I was going to put. I realized I can just put this in that there's two. I just watched this film last night, it's called picture the scientist. It was actually so the, the, the Fajian climate scientist she's. She actually recommended this film to me. And it's, it's worth watching in large part because it kind of references some it's on Netflix it references some of the themes that we've just spoken about. And the other other reference that I hope might help people is a book called all we can save. It is very much about. It's a feminist approach to the climate crisis, and it offers some very useful ways that kind of help us flip the narrative, so that as Brianna mentioned it's not just about mastering control. It's not just about, you know, extract and remove that, and that that the, the path forward must be about how we can heal the planet. And how we can revalue the planet, and not just how we can treat it as commodity fit for our own consumption, which is a very human centric way of, of understanding it. Thank you so much. So I wanted to go back to kind of Brianna's point you made a really nuanced point about language and how powerful language is, especially when talking about climate but also gender. So as this point to the world leaders at COP26 about the importance of their word words, and I was wondering if you could kind of expand on that a little bit. Yes. The, the in policy I'm sure everyone is familiar that like every single word counts, because with every single word is a loophole. And so if you're not explicit with what you're trying to say. So if people can can turn that around and in law and in policy. If there's no words to, to hold people accountable and to put measures into these these things we're trying to implement. I think that the government and and people will find a way out of it. And I think what is also important to mention is that there's so much gaslighting in the space, and I, and towards activists towards women towards communities. But every time people who are trying to save our planet, say things. A lot of the times these systems in these industries say, Oh, that's crazy, like, no, that's impossible that can never happen and it happened with the push for 1.5 in the document. For a long time, Pacific Islands were saying that if our temperatures rise beyond 1.5 we are going to drown our islands aren't going to exist. So please we need to be putting this language and it's just, it's just three characters in document one, a point and five, but so important it's really the survival of islands like mine. And a lot of the time, big government, especially from the global north and industries and lobbyists were saying that's impossible and say that you guys are crazy to even think that that's going to be in the document. Years later so that happened in in Paris and COP 21 years later I was at COP last year, and there are all these pins and these signs that said 1.5. So obviously it was possible, but they they try and make you think that you asking for too much that's crazy. And I think, you know, for a long time we thought that the world couldn't stop, and then covered happened in the world stopped. And so I think it's important that we think about language and we think about words and how they can actually be weaponized against us and the words that we do use can sometimes that we can be made to seem like it's too ambitious or too much when it's actually just enough. Thank you so much that I'm fantastic point and I, you bring up the idea that people are unwilling to make concessions if they, it doesn't have anything to do with their priorities and clearly this is priority for the small island nations but also, it should be for everyone the gaslighting that's going on, and I commend you for like bringing that forward especially again in light of all these significant hurdles, and I just want to transition guys because I'm cognizant of the time and I appreciate you guys for being here. So the other priority issues related to gender and climate, and I have some listed our land and resource accessibility food security and sustainable agriculture access to energy water policies. And kind of what are the intersectionality between gender and these issues that you guys have seen in your work. I would say geography matters a lot. Because, you know, even sort of at the micro level, you know, where you're residing will make a difference in terms of how you're treated by program and policymakers. So, you know, like the case that I'm studying in Mendoza, Argentina. Those were very, very low income people who are living in, you know, what would be called shacks, you know, but for them, it was their home that they had made for themselves. They had some migrating from Bolivia, and others from other parts of Argentina, and they had lived there for 60 years. And so, you know, they had social networks there. And I'm wondering, you know, with the melting of the glaciers of course there is going to be more flooding of river banks, but also now they're in a drought. You can see already the extremes. But I'm wondering whether if it had been a wealthy community located elsewhere, you know, maybe in a landslide prone area in the hills, right, where often wealthy people live because you have a beautiful view of a city right. Would there have been relocated, or would there have been an attempt by the government to create a safer, you know, maybe safer, you know, place for them to live in situ. I'm wondering with displacement, is it going to be by policy, not by necessity maybe that people are relocated. And those who are relocated will be seen to be those who have less political power less voice, right. And so, I'm going to sort of ponder those issues as I talk to people, and think about, you know, this, it has certainly relevance for, you know, island nations right for relocation, and this sort of issue of environmental displacement. I'll stop here I could say a lot more about other sort of intersectional factors, but I'll stop in the floor. Maybe I'll let you go Jennifer because I was just sharing long before Stephanie. I think really I'm not really in a position to say what I would consider a priority. I guess I'm also a bit struck by being in Norway, the last few weeks. And kind of dialing down to just everyday life. I mean, it's just to, you know, to create a work environment that enables families and children and efforts of care to flourish, right so, and I guess I'm coming off of having just read a report on like so thinking through, so I just read this UN report on it's called like beyond COVID-19, a feminist plan for sustainability and social justice, and they break down the area initiatives in terms of job care and climate. And the care issue is, is very powerful to me in the sense of not just childcare but also elder care, and how that more often than not is becomes the burden of women in ways that inhibit our participation in actually creating the spaces and the future that we're talking about here, and creating the spaces in the future that we want. And so I guess, you know, and also just thinking of what it, what it means to have, you know, to have a domestic worker have paid sick leave. And so that, you know, just kind of, you know, that there's that we can think about that these that climate crises actually just raise often every day issues of just basic equity and justice down to something like how am I going to care for my parents when they get sick. And I know that the way my family is organized, it's likely going to come to me. And it, you know, it's very gender based, but I'm just sort of, you know, thinking through the way in which that the issues that we're talking about aren't happening. So, you know, you know, Brianna, you, you know, you offer us that this is happening like very much in your home but and it's happening everywhere in our present but I don't I don't have to turn to the global south to see that there are also important initiatives that we can take here as well in order to ensure the equitable participation of women in this space. Yeah, I would love to add on to that and I completely agree with both views on this and I think that because everything is so intersectional it's hard to say, like what will be the thing that helps all the other problems because I feel like they all do. And I heard something this week actually that I've been holding on to it and it's that all these these systems that have been suffocating our world socially environmentally politically economically. It's all being suffocated by the same cloth and the cloth has been woven together by sexism by racism by white supremacy by by environmental crisis caused by corporations that again are linked to these things sexism racism colonization. And it's all been woven together so tightly that it's suffocating us, but this thought can be overwhelming, but it's also important to remember that, as long as we can pull on the thread that we know we are the strongest at pulling, it will slowly unravel this wall. And so I think whatever we're doing is a priority to us because we think we can do it the best so whether that's getting into gender justice work whether that's getting into protecting our soil protecting our ocean whatever field you may be studying or whatever work you may be doing, just keep doing the work because we'll slowly stop pulling those threads that will dismantle this whole thing. And I think that's how I want to view it, because sometimes I watch things on YouTube or I read a new article coming out and I think oh my gosh we're also in a soil crisis. We're in so many crises that I'm like I want to do like a million things at once but I just want to remind myself just to keep doing the thing that I know I'm good at doing. Thank you guys so much for like these salient points and again, not being bogged down by all these current crises crises crises, because, and then that leads to apathy and then what do you have then, if you don't have a base to mobilize and you know fight for these issues and then people just let it happen and you can use and that's simply not an option. And so now Jennifer that you wanted to show some slides and while I do that I'm going to move some things around so that we can have q amp a section. Let me know if you're able to share your screen. I believe you're muted currently. There we go. I'm just going to run through. I just want to share with you all. Actually, so this was the film that I put in the chat, just to offer some resources for those of you that want to continue the discussion beyond the panel. And just some important points that come up in this I'm happy to share actually this the PowerPoint like with you all if the help. And this is in particular, this is really the book that I really do want to share. I don't know if any of you have come across this but it's one of the reasons why I find it very powerful. I want to highlight some of the things that we just spoke about right so focusing on making change rather than being in charge right so what would a feminist approach mean right healings systemic injustices rather than deepening them. I'm appreciating heart center rather than head center leadership. And I think really bring building on Brianna's point earlier. Like building communities, right is central to what it is that we need and then this is the, you can actually go on the UN says a really interesting, or at least I found this report quite good and there's actually a. This Thursday there's a public session with Mary Robinson and others and it's open to the public. So I would encourage you all to, you know, just just some of the things that I thought might help you all just to beyond the panel for today. Thank you for sharing those resources I personally have not heard of them. And I'll definitely be looking into them after this. If there are no further remarks currently I'd love to go into the Q&A session. And the first question that I have and I believe I'll take one that was sent directly on zoom and then the people in the room will be speaking I believe. But the first question I have is, I believe for Brianna and it's could you further define climate debt.  Definitely so the term climate debt is really around this idea that because safe islands like mine Samoa, we would contribute is probably like 0.00 something to global emissions. We contribute so little like just a speck on the map of of what this is what is causing this crisis. And so therefore, because we are impacted by this crisis. There is a debt owed to us because we didn't create it. So it's like you're living in the house, and then someone comes and just takes a hammer and wrecks your house. Maybe you accidentally tripped over something and broke a piece of wood. Like, you know, you only broke a little thing, but someone just destroyed your house. Therefore that person should be liable to fix it. But yet we still live in a world where that person would come and fix one wall and say, you're welcome. That was my gift to you. It's not just it's not right.  But like you've mentioned, it's very hard for people to admit that's why I'm lost in damage is a very like tricky topic for a lot of big governments because they don't want to be liable to give money to the things that they've destroyed. They want to be able to donate money that they want to and not have to be liable to give the money that they actually owe people. Yes, thank you so much. Again, while I don't feel like those words are to me common sense I believe it scares a lot of people and for a reason that you elucidated, and I believe now I'll turn to the room. I'd like to unmute and ask any questions on the audience. This is a little bit of a co-president. We do have a couple of questions from the audience. The first one that we have is how have young women specifically been impacted by climate change. I'll give an example from Uttarakhand, India, that is in northeast India, and that is where young women are among those who are in the communities because the men, including their husbands who, you know, these young women are married quite young and their husbands are already migrants in cities, and their fathers are also migrants in cities, their brothers as well, so they're there with their mothers and grandmothers. And they are finding that their springs, that their deal, you know, that they get water from are drying up in some circumstances, which are often made worse by projects, for example, like hydropower projects run of the river which is a little bit worse, where you don't flood an area, but you instead channel river water through these large pipes. But the problem is that it does dry up springs in the area where the water is abstracted, and also along the stretch of river where the water no longer flows, then women don't have water for irrigation, they don't have water for fodder, you know, the grasses that grow for their livestock, so they have to go further afield now. Now what women are doing is that they themselves are deciding that they really want to get educated, so they are in many cases getting a much higher, you know, level of education than their mothers did, and so this is opening up some spaces for them. And so I see a lot of hope among the young women, and in some cases they're just saying no to their in-laws who they're living with, because it is a case where they go to live with their in-laws in those communities of their husbands. But they're saying no, we don't want to only be in these communities, we want to go and live in some cases, even in areas where they're universities, where they're high schools. And so I see that the young women are, their horizons are broadening.  I think actually if I might jump in and also just acknowledge that I think young women like young men like all young people are also experiencing, finally acknowledged last week in the IPCC report about the tremendous anxiety that the climate crisis presents to us. And I think, you know, and just the way in which the future feels tremendously precarious, even aside from what's going on politically, economically in the world around us. And so I just want to kind of hold space for that and, you know, also just encourage us to think through how we might not get swept away by the anxiety and to really push through it so that it becomes a source to build solidarity, to build communities. Because I think really this is the challenge, the real challenge that we're all facing and that so that we can reach across and no matter, no matter, you know, that we have to acknowledge our identities but at the same time, push through them so that we can build communities of solidarity. And I think really that's, that's what I see amongst the students that I'm working with the, it's the increase in anxiety. And that I hope, I hope can be overcome. Yes, thank you so much I completely agree with this idea of anxiety and what Code Red for Humanity really means and how we should take that. And I think it's important to transform into something that yields results, you know, we have if we have time for one more question if that's okay and I'm checking in with in person and receive there's one there if not there's one in the Q&A. Perfect. So our final question is, how has COVID-19 shaped the ongoing and new forms of climate change action. I think that the silver lining is that it's become much more international. I think as the shared experience of COVID has brought the world in some ways together. Because of this shared lived experience, then I think that people are seeing the possibilities for acting together around climate change. And so I do find that there is some hope in that. And I think that people are, you know, reaching out because also COVID has been a time of isolation. And so people are trying to connect in whatever way they can. And so I think that this could mean that there would be, you know, greater sort of global connections around that. The only thing is that some people's voices will be heard that way and we can never forget that others will not be heard that way because of a lack of access to cell phones or the internet and computers. So we have to try to, you know, try to write that by increasing access of course to these but also to make sure now with things opening up that we try to get those voices back into the room. Yes. I think, like we shared, COVID has definitely told us the important of collective care in times of disaster, what really helps us is this feeling of being in it together and looking out for your neighbor. And doing things that may inconvenience you but will actually help someone else and being okay with that. And I think that the leaders who have really been able to keep this collective care strong that we've been seeing is female leaders. And I get to live in, so I'm based in New Zealand where I'm studying in Aotearoa and our female Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was able to really look out for her country and we have some of the lowest death rates of COVID in the global north. And so just being able to acknowledge that and the fact that we're currently in an Omicron outbreak, but as a leader she managed to keep us so in tact as a community in New Zealand and she would say things like we are a team of five million. And even though that seems big, we're still a team and what that made New Zealanders and Kiwis think is that we have to look after each other, we have to protect each other. And so now is in the past two years we're going through our worst outbreak while everyone's vaccinated and boosted. And what that means is that all of my friends that had COVID all of my family members that have COVID in New Zealand right now none of them have gone to the hospital and that that is a big privilege as opposed to the people who were in hospital at the beginning of this pandemic. And so really appreciating the female leadership that has come out of COVID and this collective care that has really saved a lot of our communities. You know, I do hope, I do hope both Brianna and Stephanie are right. And I say that in large part because some of the field work that I've done most recently as I've participated in the negotiations at UN headquarters for this new treaty for the high seas it's called the acronym is BB and J it's for biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction. And the very last conference that was supposed to crown potentially the release of this treaty was delayed now for two years, because of COVID. And they finally so the meeting is going on right now in New York. And my understanding is that because so just to kind of like, give us also a sense of the knit in the grid of how international relations actually happens. So inside the UN space part of what has been going on is that because of the COVID restrictions civil society groups so Greenpeace High Seas Alliance other groups are calling on the Secretary General of the UN to say, you know what, New York City has lifted So does the UN complex, because currently, the, the meetings are withholding civil society actors from actually participating in some of the negotiations because of the COVID restrictions. So, you know, hopefully this will now lift. But I, I, there is some lament that COVID delayed the release of and the potential agreement for this new treaty for the high seas so I'm hoping, at least within the year 2022 we might finally have that treaty in hand. Yes, thank you so much for having highlighting the complexities of all like the actions that we face. Is it to one step forward two steps back but then you have more as like the overall progress towards something, and I really appreciate that like what you guys have highlighted. So I believe that's the end of our time, unless there's any final remarks I just want to thank you actually from the bottom of my heart because this I've been such an enlightening panel because I think at times climate change has been used just like as an overarching topic and oh like climate change is a big issue let's just talk about it, but I found very, very salient points from this like panel that I think I'll bring back with me to my studies and just general interest and I just want to thank you so much for being here. If there's any other topics you guys want to discuss or anything I, I believe that's it. Thanks a lot for organizing us I really appreciate it, bringing us together. Yes, definitely thank you for having us and also just on what Jennifer shared earlier about climate anxiety. I just wanted to share with everyone that these topics can be like very heavy and you could also walk away from this feeling like there's so much to do. Or that you haven't been doing enough but I hope that everyone is that you're kind to yourself and forgive yourself for what you didn't know before this. Because now you know now and and just be be kind and feeling like you are part of something bigger and you're supported and you have community out there. Yeah, and that this space is the making of a community that's that's exactly the point right and so that's really why, as I said earlier like it's so encouraging to see that this is student led. So I, it's, it's, that's super important to emphasize. You know I'm an ambassador for sisters on the planet and Oxfam America initiative, and the way I think about my involvement in that is not just the bigger events that I'm part of for that but the daily practices that I have. So I take care to dry most of my clothes just by hanging them up. And the reason for me to do that is because I think about my other sisters on the planet, and I want to have a livable future for them today and into the future. I also have a daughter and who's actually also now looking at negative climate emissions. And so she's, you know, carrying on that work. And so I think what one can do is to think like what can I do in my personal life, and what can I do in my professional life to be a really good sister on the planet. And to be a good citizen to right to actively participate in the political process to create the policies that we hope can also scale the change that we need. Yes, thank you guys so much for being here and I hope you guys have either a good night or a good day, wherever you are. Thank you so much. Goodbye.


Belonging, belonging somewhere is being accepted for you, fitting in is being accepted for being like someone else. We don't want to fit in, we want to belong based on who we are. And yet often because of how divided the world has become, you can only belong if you agree to certain beliefs and perspectives that they have that say that's the grounds of belonging. Or when you have to belong by surrendering something of your individuality, it is not true belonging.


Kia ora whānau, ko maitaito kutakungua nō mania poto ahau. For generations, my whānau lived and thrived on the, at the foot of our manga, our mountain Kahuera. And they lived and thrived on the banks of our river Moko. And for those generations, Papa Tūnuku, our earth mother, she nourished them and sustained them. And as you heard from Lou this morning, our earth mother in all her glory gifted us with the most vibrant and abundant flora and fauna and animals and insects and anywhere else. And in return every day for that gift she gave us, we thanked her, we cared for her, we loved her and we worshipped her. When our land was illegally confiscated by the government, we became alienated from her. We could only, for future, for following generations, we could only stand by as spectators on the sideline and watch, as her radiance was stripped bare, as her flora and fauna were replaced and swapped out with blades of grass and pine trees and sheep and cows. And we could only stand by on the sidelines and watch as spectators, as every year thousands of tonnes of imported nitrogen and phosphate and poisons and chemicals like glyphosate and everything else were spread across her. And we could only stand by and watch as every day another piece of her peals off and gets washed away into our now polluted river. Our rivers crying. Our fish are dying. 75% of our native fish species are on the edge of extinction. What have we done?  When Europeans first arrived here, we, as Māori, we embraced the tools and technologies that they bought with them. We were the first ones exporting goods and produce around the world on our ships to Australia, US and beyond. And it's well documented that at the time people observed, Mishurini's and people who came here observed that we were able to thrive in an economy, our own economy, where our culture was vibrant and alive and healthy and well, our people were healthy and well. We looked after Papatūnuku, we had our own systems and processes and places to make sure that as she gifted us her bounty, we were able to make sure that we could gift our love back to her so that we could sustain this for millennia, for generations to come. That's well documented. Google it. Those tools and technologies at the time, our ships, were burnt, confiscated and burnt. Our tools were taken away. I don't know if any of you realise, but will realise this, but back in the day, it's really hard to carry out business when you don't have any land and tools, right? So our economy collapsed, our society started to break down and our culture is still freaking awesome. Because you can take our land and you can take our capital, but they can't take our mana away from us. And so as long as we remain mana whenua and tangata whenua, as long as we remain the people of the land with our other indigenous brothers and sisters around the world, Papatūnuku has a chance. But to have a chance, we have to embrace the tools and technologies at our fingertips once again. We have to make sure that our values and our aspirations and our views on how we need to, our worldview on how we need to protect her at the front of that design process, not at the back. This is not about tools and technologies, it's about us. So how do we do that? We follow the guidance of our ancestors as we always have. We use our sensors to stay connected and we take the advantage of the tools and technologies we have at our fingertips right now. Our sensors and their sensors. We now have at our disposal sensor technology with its radars, water sensors in the water, fixed wing drones, kiawtalex with hyperspectral cameras. We can now see for ourselves our Papatūnuku in a completely different lens. We can see topography, geology, hydrology and all the other ologies. We can see our cultural data and our wahitapu, our sites of cultural significance in there. We can start to understand for ourselves what is actually going on in real life. If we want to talk about the quality of our freshwater we can see chlorophyll from space and we can see chlorophyll from sensors coming off the lake itself. We've got a platform that we've developed that we're bringing technologies like that last one which is one of my ones called Takiwa together putting it on a toha platform to create an investment model where we can flow gifts into that model and funnel impact where we can actually measure in real time what impact looks like. If you're going to drop a million dollars into this funnel don't do not drop it in unless you are absolutely clear that everyone's going to know what the result was out the other end. The only way we're going to solve this problem is having much more transparency much more open conversations about how we're going to solve this problem. There was a really difficult conversation that took place yesterday. A lot of people were wildly uncomfortable. We have to stop taking those conversations offline and have them out in the open. Let's have them not in a meeting room in Wellington with 15 officials. Have them in the paddock, right? We're doing a presentation this afternoon if anyone's interested. I've spent a lot of time on the why not the what but we'll show you what the what looks like. On Thursday a bunch of us are going up to visit some farms where we've replaced the one blade of grass out with 9 to 12. We've got all the imported fertilisers and chemicals off the farm from day one.  Papaturnika is starting to sustain this land and these people once again in the way that she knows how. The soil is healthy. The farms are healthy. The farmers are healthy. The pastures, as you can see, are healthy. The freshwater that runs through those drains and into the rivers is clean. And if you look in the background and this photo I took when the penny finally dropped for me with all our education, health and all the kind of housing and challenges we've been working on when I stood in the paddock having this courted or about what we need to do and I looked in the background and saw those trees. Those pine trees are referred to apparently as a carbon sink. Look at that paddock. You want to know what a carbon sink looks like?  So we invite anyone to jump on this waka. The waka is setting sail. There's a whole bunch of it. Absolutely incredible people in this room here who have already jumped on it and there's people outside who are already on it and there's people outside who are ready to get on. Anyone is welcome to get on that waka. There's only two caveats. Firstly, you need to get on that waka with an absolute firm commitment and a belief that we can solve this and be courageous enough to then bring your gift to the table. There's no such thing as a big or small gift. It's a big agenda and we've got big and small gifts. And the second thing, if you want to get on that waka with us, you have to be prepared to keep up because that waka is going at supersonic speed because we ain't got time to piss around anymore waiting for the next policy framework or the next Fonterra strategy or working group. How's this? We do it. How about we never have a working group? Right? With our sensors and with the use of technologies at our fingertips now, we can bring our sensors and their sensors together once again. So we can say to Papatunuku, we see you and we feel you and we love you. And we're never going to turn our back on you ever again. Kota koutou katoa.