Save the Animals, Save the Planet with Leif Cocks

[00:00:05] Jasmin Singer: I was just telling you that I was very envious of Mariann that she got to interview you last time you were on. So very happy that it's me this time. And I was re listening to that episode today, actually. I'm so, very, very glad to have a chance to pick your brain. The last time you were on, you spoke about the Orangutan Project and we want to catch up with you regarding that work, but you mentioned that you particularly wanted to focus on another of your efforts, the International Tiger Project.

So we'll get to the Orangutan Project shortly, but can you tell us more specifically about the tigers that you're working to protect?

[00:00:44] Leif Cocks: Well, the most critically endangered and the smallest extant, i. e. living tiger, is the Sumatran tiger. And it's critically endangered, literally only 300 or so left.

[00:00:56] Jasmin Singer: Wow.

[00:00:57] Leif Cocks: And unfortunately, again, is there is no sustainable or viable population of Sumatran Tigers left. They're all in these scattered ecosystems, separated from each other.

And which means if we simply just protect them, they will go extinct. They'll inbreed to extinction because each population isn't large enough to have the biodiversity within its genes for that population to survive. And so, we have to put in place what we call a meta population strategy, where not only do we need to protect the remaining populations, but we have to transfer individuals from populations, in order to maintain genetic viability over the whole extant population across the island of Sumatra.And of course, when you're dealing with a large killing machine, such as the Sumatran tiger, there's an extra element of problems, which is added onto that. And of course, then, every part of their body is valuable to poachers for the Chinese medicine trade, the pelts for trophies, etc. So you've got this extremely valuable poaching item, it's dangerous, there's no viable populations left, and it's critically endangered.

So you have this whole suite of problems that need to be solved to bring them through this extinction crisis.

[00:02:26] Jasmin Singer: Wow. Ugh, good Lord. That is a lot. Where do they live exactly?

[00:02:30] Leif Cocks: They live in the rainforests of Sumatra. Now there used to be, for example, Javan tigers before, and even Bali tigers, but they went extinct. Although there's maybe a hint that there may be at least one or two Javan tigers somehow surviving on the island of Java. But as far as we know, The Sumatran tiger is the next one down the line of extinction along this archipelago. And so yeah, unfortunately, like 80 percent of Sumatra over the last 20, 30 years have been pulp papered. They basically destroyed the vast majority of the rainforest. And so there's only these small remnant ecosystems that we're trying to save before it's too late. And in each one of these, there's a very small population of Sumatran tigers that we need to manage.

[00:03:22] Jasmin Singer: So, what are the major drivers in their disappearance? Can you tell us a little more about that?

[00:03:28] Leif Cocks: Like with all these critically endangered species and rainforests, it's a destruction and conversion of the habitat to unsustainable monocultures such as palm oil and pulp paper, which is the main driver of extinction. And then on top of that, you get the human tiger conflict, because they're dangerous, and the illegal poachers as two additional factors.

But with everything, the number one game is preservation of enough habitat. Unfortunately, we're never going to have enough habitat ever again in even our grandchildren's lifetime for a single sustainable population of Samaritan Tigers. But if we go with the metapopulation strategy, we have the ability to save the species, but it will require constant ongoing management to allow that to happen.

[00:04:18] Jasmin Singer: Is all of the work you do in Indonesia?

[00:04:21] Leif Cocks: We do some, we support work in Malaysia and Borneo as well, for elephants and orangutans. There's no tigers on the island of Borneo, so the tiger project is limited to the island of Sumatra. And with elephants, we do support work in the island of Sri Lanka as well. And so, we really go where the most critical need and to take advantage of the last viable opportunity to save intact ecosystems of the right type, shape and size to save these species before it's too late.

[00:04:54] Jasmin Singer: So, okay, this is something I've always wondered. If not developed, would Indonesia be pretty much all rainforests? Or are there varied climates?

[00:05:04] Leif Cocks: Yeah, no, it very much, obviously there'll be some mangroves and, and some swamp land and, and up in the mountains, almost an alpine environment, but by and large, you can really just say the vast majority of Indonesia would be just one big lush tropical rainfrost, if left untouched by modern man.

[00:05:24] Jasmin Singer: Fascinating. I wish more was untouched by Modern Man, but that's another interview altogether. So you work on projects protecting a number of iconic wild species. Are all of these species existing primarily within protected areas? Either protected by the government or by NGOs? Like, what I'm asking is, is there still a lot of unregulated wild left in Indonesia?

[00:05:53] Leif Cocks: Yeah, now, unfortunately, the reasons governments tend to protect areas is usually for two reasons. Water catchment, or it's too hilly and high up in the mountains to put your palm oil plantation on it. And all the tigers, orangutans, and elephants, and the vast majority of biodiversity lives in the lower lands, outside of protected areas.

And all these unprotected areas where all the wildlife and biodiversity live has been logged to a secondary forest. And so, the vast majority of effort needs to be into securing unprotected forest, which has been logged. So, ironically, people think as a conservationist, you're after, you know, primary forest and you're looking after legally protected forest. But if we did that, all the species go extinct and the vast majority of biodiversity would disappear. We're actually interested in secondary log forest in the lowlands, because that's where all these species and the biodiversity lives.

[00:06:57] Jasmin Singer: Speaking of the biodiversity, although you focus on particular megafauna, does the work you do trickle down to other less well known and less beloved species?

[00:07:11] Leif Cocks: Yes, no, of course. So, the concept is what we call the umbrella species concept. And so, we started the Orangutan Project, originally we said, okay, the Orangutan was going to be the umbrella species for all the biodiversity and other animals to come along for a free ride. However, we found that there was three species falling outside of the umbrella for specific reasons.

They were tigers, elephants, and indigenous communities. So we started the International Tiger Project, International Elephant Project, and Forests for People to bring those species under umbrella of our concern. The reason why we use charismatic megafauna is not because that's a sole focus of us.

One, it's a great way to capture people's imaginations and connection to the rainforest through these charismatic megafauna species. The second reason is, they require additional work on top of the normal habitat protection. For example, if we save enough rain forests to save the metapopulation of tigers, we don't have to start the International Squirrel Project.

They'll come along for a free ride. And so from the outside people go, oh my, you're only concerned about the megafauna or you're only concerned about this species. It's really about connecting people and those species requiring additional effort on top of our concern and preservation of all the biodiversity in these ecosystems.

[00:08:39] Jasmin Singer: So is human population growth the fundamental issue in the disappearance of wild land or agricultural development or both, maybe something else?

[00:08:49] Leif Cocks: Hmm. You know, it, it is a very good question. No, it, it's really predominantly it's about huge multinational companies destroying the land for unsustainable activities such as, you know, mining, rampant logging, or conversion to unsustainable monocultures. And all monocultures are unsustainable by their very nature.

So it's about exploitation, and passing a true cost of production on the powerless. And so it's really about some very rich people destroying the planet. And of course they always want to characterize it as, poor people are stupidly destroying the environment.

And that's really far from the truth. The other aspect to it is, I believe that the myth of overpopulation of the planet. I'll just quickly explain that, because people love to extound that for two reasons. They want you to come up with and say, well, let's give up, because we're going to overpopulate and kill the planet anyway, so why bother?

Or let's come up with a Dr. Evil plan and wipe out the other half to save the planet. But luckily, you know, actually we're facing the opposite problem. I mean, once we reach the peak, the replacement value, i. e. 2. 1 children per woman is actually not being met and most futurists are concerned about a time where we can't sustain our economies because we're not replacing our population.

So I think we get over this hump, we won't be dealing with an overpopulation issue at all, and at the moment that the major drivers for defrostation isn't overpopulation, it's rampant greed. So I don't think we have to worry about population as such, but we do have to worry about getting these species through this extinction crisis before it's too late.

[00:10:41] Jasmin Singer: Ugh. Oh, yeah.... that little project. Uh, Well, another one of your projects is called Forests for People and it has to do with the indigenous people who live in the Indonesian, and maybe other, I don't know, forests. So can you tell us about these people and tell us about what the pressures are to leave or to live differently than they have traditionally?

[00:11:06] Leif Cocks: Yeah, no, it's really interesting because both from, you know, often from outside conservationists see, let's say, the rainforest as this empty forest that's never been lived in, and certainly all the multinationals see it as that too, it's this forest you destroy. There's no one in there, isn't there? Let's just ignore all those people that have actually been living in there for centuries.

There's two types of ways of living in the rainforest environment in Indonesia. One is slash and burn agriculture, where you cut down a bit of forest, burn it to get the ash in the soil, because rainforest soil is extremely poor, people don't realize that.

And you farm it for three years, the soil becomes infertile and you move on. Totally sustainable. You just keep going, next time you come around back to that bit of forest, it's been rejuvenated by the forest. And the other one is hunter and gatherers, where they roam nomadically through the forest, hunting and gathering in the forest.

Now, these systems have been sustainable for centuries, or fairly good. But their ancestral land has been taken by these big multinationals. And so, their way of life, which has been sustainable, is not unsustainable because they don't know what they're doing. It's because all their land's been taken away from them.

So they keep slashing and burning agriculture or hunting and gathering, they're destroying the environment in which they live. Not for any fault of their own. Now, for example, in some of the, the children are literally malnourished and starving, are not getting enough food. They're not getting education. They're exploited. The women are taken off to the brothels, you know, in like modern day slavery. They're exploited because they're uneducated and often don't know the local language. And so we're working with the Indigenous communities. Now the hard bit is, you know, orangutans and elephants and us, as intelligent persons, predominantly adapt to the environment through culture, not by natural selection alone.

And culture is really good for helping us adapt to an environment in far quicker response. The natural selection in genes can do, but we still have trouble adapting in extreme changes. You know, and for example, this is why Indigenous communities will inevitably always become dysfunctional when the environment changes rapidly because they can't adapt quicker enough to the changing environment.

And we're seeing that, for example, in North America and Australia with Indigenous communities where there's a rapid change in the environment from outside. And they're in the same situation. And so it's a really difficult proposition to how do you look after the dignity and the survival of a community.

But you cannot now just say, just continue out on as you were, because you will destroy the future of your grandchildren. And for no fault of their own, we have to work with them in a very sympathetic way. To move them to regenerative agricultural systems under the rainfrost canopy in order for the community to survive.

And that takes a long, long time. In the meantime, what we're doing, we're feeding the children. We give them breakfast and lunch, and so they're not malnourished. We're providing full scholarships for primary school and we have a primary school let's say in the village. And then provide scholarships for high school and university so they can prosper.

In the meanwhile, so looking after the most precious thing in the community, the children, while we slowly try to work to develop new ways of living. And of course, the last thing is with the communities, why have their land been taken away? Well, because they have no money and they're uneducated. The two things which define power.

And so what we want to do is educate and make them affluent through these agricultural systems. Which are the two things which give them power. And so often people, when I'm looking a little long in the tooth these days, getting older, the usual question I get, which I never got before is, what's your secession plan Leif?

Where's Leif 2. 0 to take over? But my secession plan is not that. My secession plan is to leave the indigenous communities and our ecosystems empowered so they can look after their own interest with systems which are sympathetic with their forest. And that's how I want to leave these ecosystems working both environmentally sustainable, but economically sustainable, and therefore protected for future generations.

[00:15:41] Jasmin Singer: Ugh, that's beautiful. You have so many different projects. The orangutan, the tigers, the elephants, the people. Are they all kind of the same thing? And do they focus primarily, like, on protecting habitat?

[00:15:54] Leif Cocks: Exactly. They're all really the same part of the same strategy. It's about bringing everybody and every living being under the umbrella of conservation. So for me, they're all the same thing. It's about intelligently expressing love for all the living beings. And you can't leave anyone behind, you know, love that has to be everyone in together, or you leave part of the jigsaw puzzle out, which allows the whole thing to collapse.

But, you know, but from a fundraising point of view. For example, in my social media, I talk about me visiting like two weeks ago at the school with the children that we are looking after and someone complains, I'm giving money to orangutans. How dare you give it to, you know, these horrible humans, you know?

And of course I say, well, no, that's Forests for People. So give to Forests for People if you want to look after the indigenous community. So, the different projects also allow people to give according to, their particular preferences. But for me personally, there's no boundary.

There's no boundary to love and concern. It's really about a better way of communicating with people.

[00:17:04] Jasmin Singer: Oh, that's really beautifully said. Okay, well, something that occurred to me when I was re listening to your interview on Our Hen House in 2019, at the time you said we had 10 years in which we could save the orangutan and presumably other species as well. So almost five years have passed. I'm a little bit afraid to ask this next question, but where are we now?

Has there been progress?

[00:17:32] Leif Cocks: Yeah, there's definitely been progress. We're working in seven ecosystems now, and that's kind of at our capacity. Of course, if we got more money, we would expand that number of ecosystems. But we're involved in seven ecosystems now. And for example, in the Busang Weir ecosystem, in East Kalimantan, our joint company, PT Hope, has gained in that time, 100, 000 hectares of forest that's now under permanent protection. And we have entered partnership with another company in our adjacent concession who is allowing us to protect orangutans and also release the orangutans we're rescuing in that province, another 163, 000 hectares has been, you know, included into that scenario.

We're almost in northeast actually, we're almost hoping, well this month, to get another 50, 000 hectares. of ecosystem as part of 200, 000 megafauna sanctuary in the North East there. And we're well on our way to our land purchase strategy to protect the most densely populated rain tanks and water sinkhole, in a sinkhole peace font where we're slowly buying all the land on the West side of the river to protect that last and most densely populated population of orangutans in the world.

So there's lots of progress and we haven't been idle in the last five years going to our plan. We still got a lot of work to do, and once we obviously, are able to secure the boundaries of viable ecosystems, the right type, shape, and size of forest, you know, over this decade, we still have to have a bit of work in securing the environmental and economic sustainability of those ecosystems before our job is done as such.

But the main game at the moment is still in, as you suggested, in the next five years, we've got a lot of work to do to, to bring under more of these unprotected areas. into permanent legal protection. Otherwise we may have rainforests, but the rainforests would be unsustainable because it's too small, too fragmented, and doesn't contain the right type of forest to save biodiversity.

And so that's a challenge over the next five years, to continue that process to secure the boundaries. Then we've got some work to secure the sustainable future for those ecosystems.

[00:19:55] Jasmin Singer: Well, okay, so That's fascinating to me. Another thing that you mentioned back then, you told us some of the challenges in returning captive orangutans to the wild. Are there also efforts to return the other animals that you work with, like tigers and elephants, to the wild?

And is that harder or easier then with orangutans?

[00:20:19] Leif Cocks: Oh! No, a lot harder. You do have orangutan human conflict, but it's really about orangutans becoming from the company's point of view, a pest. Maybe you're destroying your palm oil plantation or destroying your crops and so they kill the agricultural pest, but there's no danger from an orangutan.

When you're talking about elephants and tigers, you're talking about the conflict with humans. Tigers and elephants will kill people in defense of their areas. And so there's, there's an extra element there, which makes it a lot more difficult to do reintroductions. With tigers you don't really have to do reintroductions because they breed up relatively quickly.

So once you protect an area and you've got some tigers left, in five or six years it's full of tigers again. They'll expand out to fill the population. The main concern with the tigers is that each population is genetically unsustainable. So we have to remove what we call dispersal tigers.

So tigers which are moving out of the ecosystem because they're displaced by the other tigers and transferring them to another population to help with the genetic viability. And the same thing with elephants. So elephants, we're protecting an ecosystem we say has 120 elephants, which is kind of the maximum each ecosystem can hold.

The young bulls want to leave the maternal herd and normally they just go out to the rainforest and find a new herd of females. But now they just enter a human dominated landscape where they've got targets on their back to kill them for tusks. And, and of course then there's human elephant conflict where people and elephants kill each other.

So, what I always say, we've got this strategy which I call Halfway Between Uber and Tinder for young bull elephants. So, they want new females, so we basically put them on trucks, And we drive them to the next ecosystem and then release them. And many of the ecosystems where we actually start protecting the herd and bring these bulls, there is no male elephants left.

They've all been poached for their tusks. And so the females are waiting there, hoping that a male elephant comes along. And, unfortunately, there's this ticking clock, because once female elephants don't breed for a certain period, they develop ovarian cysts which stop them from getting pregnant ever again.

So we've got this ticking clock. So once we find a herd of female elephants, but no bull we have to protect them, number one, but two, we have to get them some young bulls as quickly as possible. Otherwise, they may live for decades afterwards, but they can never contribute to the survival of the species again.

[00:22:56] Jasmin Singer: Wow. The Uber and Tinder, that was funny. I'm gonna think about that for a while. That's a great way of putting it. But very sad, very sad situation. In other parts of the world, people speak about rewilding land. In Indonesia and some other places as well, I'm sure, it sounds like there are still important opportunities to keep land wild rather than ruining it and then having to fix it.

Though of course, those opportunities seem to be fading fast. So is that right, Leif? And, and how are you doing that? And for what species?

[00:23:31] Leif Cocks: Yeah, I mean, obviously what's protected, we want to keep protected and the areas we're mostly getting, the secondary forest, we need to allow it to regrow back to itself. And it'll often do that better and faster if we just leave it alone and just protect it because nature knows how to reestablish itself.

Just as long as it's got a seed bank of intact forest close by. So, active reforestation is often the last resort, when you don't have that opportunity, but mostly it'll grow back by itself. But you're right in the sense that we have to rewild about 25 percent of our planet, as well as all the other things we have to do, in order to leave a viable planet for future generations.

And so the ecosystems we're working in, to establish viable ecosystems in the multi generational aspect is only the first stage because we'll be providing the framework for the necessary rewilding after that. Because all these palm oil plantations, pulp paper plantations, and of course coal mining, everything, it's all unsustainable.

And so, the whole environment will collapse and the economy will collapse in 50, 60 years time. And so, we need to reestablish and rewild. But our role in this generation is not to leave a sustainable planet for future generations. We don't have the capacity to do that.

What we can do is leave a recoverable environment for future generations. And these last viable ecosystems is our way of doing that.

[00:25:07] Jasmin Singer: Well, and relatedly, what are the impacts of climate change now and predicted? Like, it's already very hot there. How much of an increase can the animals and the people sustain?

[00:25:20] Leif Cocks: Yeah, no, it's an extremely good question. I know, literally, like when I was in the Sumatran rainforest last week, all the staff was saying, before it used to, maximum 28 degrees, you know, that's just how it is, you know, yes, yes, it's humid, but it's not that. Now it goes up to 35 degrees, unheard of, and so, there's two things which are happening, it's one, if you remove the rainfrost, you know, the vast majority of rainfrost, the ambient temperature in the local area goes up 4 degrees because the rainfrost is as big a factor of air conditioning, which has been keeping everything cool.

And then we're seeing several degrees on top of that because of the global warming aspect. And then what we're seeing is more droughts, more forest fires. We're seeing rainfall being decreased because rainforest creates its own rain. Less rainforest, less rain. And then we're having more of these El Niño effects becoming increasingly common when it was only a rare event. So we're getting these feedback loops.

So destroying the rainforest creates climate change, climate change ends up destroying, degrading rainforest. And so, you have these feedback loops, and yeah, it's a frightening aspect and you know, the rainforest is only one example of that, is once you go past these tipping points, you know, you have these feedback loops, which make things worse and worse.

And this is again, why we talk about, we've got the next 10 years to turn this around, not just in a local sense with our work with Indonesian rainforests, but the whole planet, because these feedback loops can be quite frightening.

[00:26:59] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, absolutely. And although habitat is obviously incredibly important, there are other pressures on these animals as well. For one thing, how much of an impact does the trade in endangered animals and animal parts have?

[00:27:14] Leif Cocks: It's a large impact. I mean, maybe 20 years ago you'd've said, well, minimal impact, let's say with tigers and elephants. Yeah, that people come in, but the population is large enough to respond. Now, no, it's extremely critical. When you've got 300 tigers left. When you have 1, 200 or only 1, 000 Sumatran Elephants left, every individual is a genetic component that is critical for survival of the species.

And when you have very slow reproducing species such as Elephants and Orangutans, who can't respond to pressures from poaching, you basically can put your population in the demographic spiral to extinction extremely quickly. And so, these pressures, poaching, for example, of tigers, for pelts, elephants for tusks, and orangutans for the illegal pet trade, for the babies.

As the populations decrease, they become extremely more acute in their threats and nature. And so, we can't ignore any of these problems. We can't just say it's only about habitat, and not worry about rescue, rehabilitation and release of orangutans, because that's critical to it now. We can't just worry about habitat for tigers and elephants anymore.

We have to bring all these issues, including poaching and human wildlife conflict into it, if we're going to save them before it's too late.

[00:28:41] Jasmin Singer: So what are the best ways to engage the international community in helping in these efforts to protect the animals and habitat in Indonesia and in other parts of the global south before, as you say, it's too late?

[00:28:54] Leif Cocks: Well, I guess I spend a lot of my time doing that, communicating the issue and the importance of the issue. But that's not how we kind of act in that sense. Our brain is set up, we have an emotional response to our biological needs and desires and then we use our vast intellect to justify that.

It's rarely the other way around. We have an intellectual understanding and we put our heart and emotions into achieving that. And so one of my goals is to connect with people's hearts, to understand how wonderful orangutans are and tigers and elephants, and how important these Indigenous communities' children are, and connect with people's hearts.

And then I take them on a bit of a journey of the intellectual journey to understand the importance of that, for the individuals themselves, but for the whole planet, and then hope to raise enough funds and interest to make that meaningful change. But the good news is, is although we're finding it very hard to raise money and it's increasingly so, with people's gloomy outlooks on the economy, et cetera, but you know, relatively it's so cheap. We can save whole species, and whole viable ecosystems for the pocket change that billionaires lose behind their metaphorical couch and not notice it's gone. So, it's certainly doable, but, my goal is to reach as many hearts as possible and bring them on that journey before it's too late.

[00:30:24] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, well, I sure hope so, and you're doing an incredible job of that already. But what I want to talk about now is the elephants, specifically. I know we started to, but let's go back to that. What are the elephant populations that you're focused on? And are they also primarily in Indonesia?

[00:30:44] Leif Cocks: So what we call the island elephants are the elephants which are on the islands, let's say Borneo, Sumatra and Sri Lanka, they're the most critically endangered because they're smaller, more isolated populations. And the Sumatran one is the most endangered. And so we're, um, a vast majority of concentration on them and to recover that population.

Now both for tigers and elephants, the population is actually too small to survive now. We have to kind of stop the destruction and then allow an expansion of, you know, up to 2000 individuals each for that population. So we're trying to recover a population which is already going down the sinkhole and claw it back out.

We also started supporting working in Sri Lanka. Now Sri Lanka is a different situation. There actually is a viable population of Sri Lankan elephants still there, but it's been eaten away through poaching, people killing elephants and habitat destruction.

And it's almost for us, it's like looking at Sumatra 20 years ago, the conservationists are there going, oh yeah, look, it's pretty good, we've got a sustainable population of elephants, and we're saying, oh no, look, the same thing we could have said 20 years ago in Sumatra, and now look. We're really struggling to pull them back from extinction.

We've got to put together some really strategic conservation outcomes of protecting viable habitat for populations now. And we can do that cost effectively now, rather than waiting for all the destruction and killing to occur into the future. And so our different projects are at different stages, depending on the particular need and we have to adapt to that.

But it's mainly the island elephants that I was describing that we need to concentrate on now as the critical populations.

[00:32:35] Jasmin Singer: Have elephants in Indonesia been semi domesticated, as they are in other Southeast Asian countries, such as Thailand?

[00:32:43] Leif Cocks: The Sumatran elephants traditionally haven't, they've been wild. And so any domesticated Sumatran elephants is a recent aspect. And because there hasn't been a longstanding tradition of domestication, for example, in the island of Sumatra or the island of Borneo, as you've had with, for example, India and Sri Lanka, which is fantastic because the domestication of elephants, as self aware persons, is not good.

Persons don't do well in captivity and the domestication process normally involves mental and physical torture, which mentally breaks them. And so, it's never a good thing from a welfare or conservation aspect. And because, for example, let's say, the Sumatran elephants, they have to lower their vulva in order to allow the male elephant to mate.

And they won't do that to a bull which they feel is inferior, that make sense? Or broken or not up to scratch. They want the confident stud bulls, you know, with all the masculinity and the bulls which are broken by human interference and put in elephant camps, et cetera, are simply unattractive because they're like, broken males, why would you want those genes?

And so what you're finding is in these elephant camps, they used to have baby elephants because there used to be wild bulls that used to come in and mate with the females in the camps at night. But they're all gone now, they've all been killed for their tusks and so you have all these female elephants that won't mate with the bulls there and then they're developing these ovarian cysts, which is stopping reproduction. So the idea of, for example, a population of elephants in captivity that can save wild elephants, or save the species, is not true. They're basically genetic sinks of elephants being destroyed and dying, and at the same time mentally breaking them.

So from a welfare and conservation point of view, it's a really bad situation. And so I will say it may be difficult to save megafauna, such as tigers, elephants and orangutans in the wild. Maybe it's difficult, but it's impossible to save them in captivity. There's no plan B here and therefore we shouldn't be in an illusion that there's a possibility of a captive breeding program to bring back from extinction.

[00:35:07] Jasmin Singer: Yeah, wow. I know that one of the difficulties in protecting elephants and other animals is the conflict between the animals and small farmers. Is there a lot of that type of conflict between humans and the animals you're working to protect? Or do most of the issues come from the monocultures like palm oil and other mass production agriculture?

[00:35:30] Leif Cocks: Yeah, no, it's both, but what they do is, the big companies, they take up the land and they force the people off the land, right? And then where they go? Well, they go where there's some rainforest left, into protected areas. Does that make sense? So they're forced off the land. And they also do the same thing forcing the elephants out of the plantations.

And so what they're basically doing is they force the people and the elephants into a more confined area where they're fighting to survive. So the poor people who are left in the marginal land that's left from the big greedy multinationals. And the elephants in the same situation, they get driven, physically driven out of the plantations.

And they're fighting each other to survive. And then of course they characterize it, you know, there's human elephant conflict between the poor people and the elephants. We've got to educate the poor dumb people, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

Only if they were educated. It's not true. It's, it's big, rich, greedy billionaires which are causing a problem. And the poor elephants and people are killing each other for their survival. Unfortunately, we have to work with the Indigenous communities to develop agricultural systems and we, for example, have our elephant teams to go protect people and elephants from each other.

And so they can try to live in some sort of harmonious situation, but it's neither one's fault. Both humans and people are victims of unsustainable greed.

[00:37:01] Jasmin Singer: Well, and speaking of unsustainable greed, I mentioned palm oil. Palm oil is a huge factor in Indonesia's economy. So what efforts are being made to limit its destructiveness? And I guess that of other monocultures as well?

[00:37:17] Leif Cocks: Yeah, unfortunately money talks and so, we have to compete with palm oil and other unsustainable monocultures to try to lease and protect the land and we have to pay the same taxes and have the same burdens of a palm oil plantation, which make millions off the land, to protect it and to work with the indigenous communities for their thing.

So, unfortunately, yeah, we're on this uneven playing field with the unsustainable, agricultural systems and coal mines and these sorts of things, which is destroying the environment. Yeah, but what I would also caution though people is, we often get misdirected and I always talk about the carbon footprint and people believing that individual actions can make meaningful change.

In the same vein, people going palm oil free or starting an anti palm oil campaign or wanting sustainable palm oil, whatever that is, cause it's all unsustainable. That that's just a lie. What we really have to focus on is strategic ways of getting the land. Because for example being palm oil free and stop expansion of palm oil, they'll destroy the same rain forest for pulp paper, or just for the value of the wood, or coconuts, or rubber. And so you're not going to make any meaningful change. And one of the big challenges you have as a conservationist is there's so many fantastic people spending their lives doing things like going no palm oil or even sometimes planting trees, etc. that has no meaningful impact on the environment because they're misled I guess to believe these actions, especially actions as an individual, will make a meaningful impact.

[00:38:56] Jasmin Singer: What do you think would make a meaningful impact?

[00:38:59] Leif Cocks: The first thing is we always have to collectivize. We either collectivize our capital or our labor to make meaningful change. And human beings can never make any meaningful change without that. That's why British Petroleum, one of the hundred companies that's caused 90 percent of the climate change, created the carbon footprint. Because they want to make sure that you knew that you were the problem, not them, and they wanted to make sure that you're going to go off as an individual and virtue signal how wonderful you are, while they get to continue to destroy the planet.

And so collectivization is the main thing. And then the next thing is we have to then put in the multitude of conservation actions to secure these last viable ecosystems. And there's no one particular solution. Of course, we love one solution. We'd love stop the boats or build the wall, or it's a Jew's fault or whatever some politician comes up with.

And our brains love that. Oh, well, that's a nice, simple solution, but for every complex problem in the world, there's a simple solution, which is always absolutely wrong. And so what we have to do, diagnose the disease of each of these ecosystems and apply land purchase, community development, rangers, reintroduction, habitat restoration, in the right dosage to secure the outcome.

Unfortunately, those are kind of complex solutions to complex problems in the world. It's really bad marketing. It's really bad fundraising because people turn off. That's not what people want to hear and like to hear, to engage them. And so I normally only talk about those things when they offer opportunity to take people on a more meaningful journey on conservation.

Instead, I really like to touch people's hearts and understand that the beauty and value of orangutans, tigers, elephants and indigenous communities and the beauty of the rainforest. And that's, I think is my best opportunity. to bring people along to collectivize their labor and capital to make that meaningful change.

[00:41:03] Jasmin Singer: Well, it's very inspiring to hear all that you're doing, despite all that you're up against. Something we talk about a lot on Our Hen House is factory farming. I'm curious, is there a lot of factory farming there?

[00:41:16] Leif Cocks: There is, but from a conservation point of view, it's not a major problem. It's at a level that's not affecting these conservation ecosystems. Very different in North America where you're factory farming and destroying your waterways and your fisheries and pollution. And of course, it's also the reservoir for all of these next, next pandemics.

I think it's bird flu, which has now infected the cattle and everything in America and killing off the penguins at the moment. And, lining itself up for the next pandemic to kill tens of millions of people. And, and so one of the things is, is there's always an outcome for our lack of concern for the environment, indigenous communities, causes feedback loops, which affect us.

And our exploitation and lack of concern for the misery we cause animals in factory farming, that is killing us and will kill us. And so, unfortunately to convey to people, you know, that we live on this planet and we are a community of sentient beings and it's only for the care and love and connection of the whole planet of the sentient beings that we can create a planet that we will prosper.

But unfortunately, you know, we have very short term goals, and in fact probably memories. And, and so, we can destroy our whole environment through, let's say, things like factory farming, and cause untold pain and suffering behind those opaque walls. And unfortunately, it may be too late by the time we realize that our compassion and love needed to extend it, beyond humanity, to make this a viable planet.

[00:42:58] Jasmin Singer: Okay, I have one last question for you before we get to bonus. So, Leif, last time you were on Our Hen House, you said that hope was overrated. What do you suggest as the emotional resource that people should tap into when they feel despair creeping in, in order to keep going and working toward making the world a better place for animals?

[00:43:22] Leif Cocks: It's love.

Love is, is a realization or understanding of a shared beingness, a shared connection with others. And love has to be, in its ultimate state, universal. Love which has been restricted, in any way, ultimately becomes selfishness and destructive. Let's just go straight to our go to for evil, the Nazis. Why did they do what they do? Well, love of the Fuhrer, love of the nation, love of their race? But the ignorance doesn't make sense. You know, Germans fought well beyond the rationality of being able to win because they didn't want to let down their mates, didn't want to let down their fellow fighters, and that's love. But it's love which is bordered by ignorance which causes so many problems in the world.

Hope comes with always despair because the world doesn't cater to our needs and wants. So if you, for example, on a conservation journey, you're full of problems, full of setbacks.

And if you're running on hope, you're going to end up with hope's consort very quickly, despair, and you will fall out of the ability to make meaningful change. Love has an endless wealth of capacity. But my warning is, love has to be universal. Because if it's tainted by restriction, it will turn to hate and evil.

And this is why, for example, we're always talking about expanding umbrella conservation, including all those other species other than orangutans. And for people to understand, as we just talked about with factory farming, that we're all interconnected. And, you know, it's only the love of all living beings which will allow us to prosper.

And so yeah, so love is my way. And the wonderful thing is, love is this external expression of connection and shared beingness. But internal manifestation of that is joy. Joy and happiness. And so it's a win win situation. If you want to become happy and joyous and be able to endlessly express goodness and intelligently express that love in the world, sustainably, love is the answer.

And it's a total win win situation. And so this is why I write my books, such as Finding Our Humanity, and I'm writing a new one now, Wild Lessons. And one of the things that it does, not only obviously I want to engage people in conservation and extending love beyond humanity, but it also makes people happy.

I take people on eco tours and often one of the main results of the eco tour is afterwards they're happier, you know, they're more connected with themselves and feelings, joy within themselves. And so love is a fantastic win win solution to the problems of the world.

[00:46:11] Jasmin Singer: Beautiful. I love that so much. Leif, how can people find out more about what you do and how to help maybe get their hands on your books?

[00:46:19] Leif Cocks: The most easiest one, just go to the orangutan project, all one word, oig. And then you got access to, all the menus to see where to buy my books and then access to links to other projects, tigers, elephants, and people. Of course you can read the books, I'll be in North America next month on my speaking tour, into six major cities. And come on eco Tours and spend a week in the wild with these magnificent creatures. So there's many ways of connecting and making a meaningful change in the world and that also is empowering because we feel so helpless as individuals, which I suggest is by design, us feeling helpless. But through joining a bona fide organization such as the Orangutan, Tiger and Elephant Projects, you can feel a little bit empowered to know that your small individual efforts have been collectivized to make real meaningful change.

[00:47:18] Jasmin Singer: Love that so much, and we will also link to that in the show notes. Please stick around for our bonus content, but Leif, thank you so much for joining us again today on Our Hen House. It's been such an honor, and I hope that you come back soon.

[00:47:32] Leif Cocks: You're most welcome, Jasmin. Thank you.