Damien Mander: The Vegan Sniper On How Women Are Winning The War On Big Game Poaching

You don't want to fuck with Damien Mander. The very definition of an alpha-male modern warrior, Damien is a former Australian Royal Navy Clearance Diver (the Australian equivalent of the Navy SEALS) and Special Operations Military Sniper for the Tactical Assault Group East, an elite direct-action and hostage-recovery unit. Post-military career, Damien spent years as a private military contractor in Iraq, where his duties included training the local police force in Baghdad. But after 12 tours, disillusionment rendered Damien's occupation no longer tenable. Burned out and cynical, an existential crisis precipitated a directionless walkabout. Seeking adventure, Damien ultimately found himself in Africa volunteering in the fight against big game poaching. Coming face-to-face with the horrors of this practice, an encounter with a pregnant wild buffalo viciously trapped and mortally injured by poachers basically changed Damien’s life – and sparked a new one altogether. Immediately thereafter, Damien began liquidating his personal assets, founded the International Anti-Poaching Federation (IAPF) and reinvented himself as an African wildlife crusader — a warrior leveraging his modern tactical warfare experience to advance the cause of animal welfare and environmental conservation to put an end to the barbaric practice that is big game poaching. Damien and the IAPF have had much success. But over time, Damien began to identify limitations in his highly militarized approach to solving the poaching problem. In 2017, this realization lead to his formation of Africa’s first armed, all-women anti-poaching unit. Dubbed the Akashinga (The Brave Ones), these incredible women have been incredibly successful at changing the way that animals are protected — arresting poachers without firing a single shot — and permanently changing the conservation landscape for the better. Damien's work has been featured in National Geographic, 60 Minutes, Animal Planet, Al Jazeera, Voice of America, Forbes & The Sunday Times. He is prominently featured in the upcoming James Cameron produced, vegan athlete documentary Game Changers. And I highly recommend everybody watch his incredible TED Talk, Modern Warrior. A riveting tale you won't want to miss, today Damien's relates his transformation from ‘man's man' meat-eating mercenary to hardcore animal conservationist to women's rights champion. His story is as extraordinary as it is inspiring. His work has completely changed the poaching and trophy hunting landscape. His heart is massive. And his example shifts the tectonic plates on how we think about masculinity and ecological responsibility in the modern age. It was an honor to spend time with Damien. He is a role model to me personally. A man I respect deeply. And a paradigm breaker if there ever was one. I sincerely hope you enjoy the exchange as much as I enjoyed having it. More than that, I hope it spurs you to action. To learn more and get involved, please visit IAPF.org For the visually inclined, you can watch our entire conversation on YouTube at bit.ly/damienmander419 and the podcast is now available on Spotify. Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 1:04Speaker 01

  The best decision I've ever made is to go vegan. You don't even have to get out of bed before you're doing something good for the environment and good for animals. And it's a really liberating feeling to know that, because you can't look in the eyes of an animal and deny that that animal doesn't want the same thing as us. It wants safety, it wants shelter, it wants to live without suffering. It wants to live without have to line up and walk into a slaughterhouse just like any other person would. And I think we're gonna look back at some stage and be ashamed of what we've done as a species. You know, do you really wanna be a person that pays somebody else to do something to animals you're not willing to do yourself? If we just take their time to reflect and have a think about what's on our plate and

• 1:46Speaker 01

  where did that come from and what did it go through to get there? Anyone with any conscience, we wouldn't want that happening to their own child, their own mother, their father, their brother, their sister. So why would you want it happening to something else, something that just doesn't have the ability to defend itself?

• 2:00Rich Roll?

  That's Damian Mander, this week, on the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 2:15Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. How you guys doing? What's happening? Rich Roll here, your host on the podcast. Welcome or welcome back to the show, the show where I do my best to have conversations that matter with the most inspiring people, positive change makers that I can find, or I guess I should say, at least that I can convince to sit down with me, right? I just. But, look, I feel like this show is off to an incredible start in 2019. David Goggins, Dr. Zach Bush, Killian Journay. And today's episode extends that trend with a truly remarkable human being, the vegan sniper

• 2:56Rich Roll?

  himself, Damian Mander. Damian is a guy I respect deeply, a guy that I've wanted to get on the show ever since I watched his incredibly powerful and moving TED Talk. It's called Modern Warrior. Back in around 2013, I think. I urge all of you to watch this video. It just might change what and how you think about what it means to be a man. And of course, I'll put links to that in the show notes. Damian is a former Australian Royal Navy clearance diver and special operations military sniper. Basically, this guy's a massive badass who, after several years and many deployments in Iraq, experienced what

• 3:40Rich Roll?

  I think can only be described as essentially an existential crisis around how he was living his life. And this catalyzed a complete lifestyle 180. He ends up liquidating all his personal assets that he acquired from 12 tours of duty, and ultimately founds

• 4:01Rich Roll?

  The International Anti-Poaching Foundation, which kind of punctuates this reinvention of himself from modern warrior into African wildlife crusader, leveraging his tactical warrior experience to advance the cause of animal welfare and environmental conservation. This guy is a very outspoken vegan, alpha male, soldier-turned-activist, who is now on this amazing life mission to end poaching and trophy hunting. Damien's work has been featured in National Geographic, 60 Minutes, Animal Planet, Al Jazeera, Voice of America, Forbes, and the Sunday Times.

• 4:41Rich Roll?

  And he is prominently featured in the upcoming James Cameron-produced vegan athlete documentary, Game Changers. But please don't ask me when that documentary is coming out. I do not know. In any event, Damien is the real deal, and his transformation from being this meat-eating man's man mercenary into hardcore animal conservationist is absolutely riveting, and you're not going to want to miss it. It's all coming up in a couple few, but first. Okay, Damien Mander.

• 5:19Rich Roll?

  So after three years on the front line of the Iraq War, Damien departs in 2008, and he essentially has no new direction in his life. He just starts traveling. And this trip to Africa ends up leaving him face-to-face with the horrors of big-game poaching. He has this encounter with a pregnant wild buffalo that was viciously trapped and mortally injured by poachers. And this experience, which he describes in our conversation, basically changes his life and ultimately gives him a new one. It catalyzes this mission to use what he knows about modern warfare to... Put an end to the practice of poaching.

• 6:02Rich Roll?

  But what's really interesting is that Damian begins to experience limitations in his militaristic approach and strategy. And this is what leads him more recently in 2017 to form and found Africa's first armed, all-women anti-poaching unit tasked with protecting rhinos, elephants, and other wildlife. The unit is called the Akashinga, which translates into the brave ones. And these incredible women are really changing the way that animals are protected in this part of the world, arresting poachers without firing a single shot.

• 6:42Rich Roll?

  And Damian is now convinced that women really are the answer and the future in this movement, that women really will be the ones to change conservation forever. And I think there's a lot to be learned here. Damian, again, absolute badass, you not want to fuck with this guy, but his heart is massive, his story is incredible, and his work is changing not only the poaching and trophy hunting landscape, but how we think about masculinity in the modern age. So without further ado, here's Damian. Thank you so much for coming up. I've been anticipating this conversation for a very long time. It's a pleasure to meet you, man.

• 7:25Rich Roll?

  Your work is inspiring and it's an honor to talk to you today.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Likewise, Richard. Thanks very much, mate.

• 7:31Rich Roll?

  I think a good place to start is to kind of establish the world of poaching and what's currently going on right now. What is this, like, explain this whole world of poaching.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  I mean, poaching is illegally taking something from nature that you're not supposed to be taking. I mean, that comes in many different forms, whether it's removing plants or even rocks, right up to killing elephant and rhinoceros, either for the tusks in the case of the elephant or the horn on the rhino, the bush meat, the skins.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  You know, ultimately, it's a way to exploit nature and in nature exploit animals. And that's the part that appeals to me, or in terms of trying to stop it, is the suffering that is happening to those animals. And, you know, I've got a certain unique skill set, which is unfortunately required to protect nature, and that's where we're at.

• 8:29Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. And in terms of of the landscape in Zimbabwe and the neighboring countries, um, you know, break down the kind of economics that is fueling this whole industry.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, poaching is is often a function of greed and of poverty, of greed coming from places like the the the Far East, uh, where ivory and rhino horn are two highly desired prizes, basically. And what that results on the ground is is people that are either trying to make a living or trying to get further and further in front. Uh, going out and taking taking what they can from nature and selling that. And I mean, it's another, it's another currency for organized crime. And often the victims, other than the animals, animals themselves in organized crime, are are the people that are that are at the lowest levels, who are there to carry out the function of of killing these animals.

• 9:26Rich Roll?

  Sure, I mean, there's poachers that are simply just trying to survive. And then there's organized crime, right? Where the profit margins are super high. I mean, the the the price for these tusks is insane.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, in the in the case of of rhino horn, a rhino horn can go for up to thirty five thousand US dollars a pound. And it's not uncommon for a rhino to have twenty or thirty pounds on its snout. You know, these these animals, I mean, they should be locked in safes, but they're out there running around in the bush. And, you know, it takes a very concerted effort to try and give them every chance of survival. And in the case of poachers, they've got to be right once. We've got to be right a hundred percent of the time.

• 10:07Rich Roll?

  Right, of course. And the demand for these tusks is driven by.

• 10:13Rich Roll?

  Places like China and Vietnam.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore.

• 10:18Rich Roll?

  The belief is that they hold mystical health properties.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Well, with the case of ivory, ivory is used as carvings, trinkets, uh, creates status. Uh, you know, when, when these tusks in full, and particularly the bigger ones are, are turned into these intricate pieces, they carry a lot of value.

• 10:34Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  And that's seen by certain cultures as a, as a form of investment and beauty and art. In the case of a rhino horn, rhino horn traditionally has been used as part of, uh, traditional Chinese and traditional Vietnamese medicine. Uh, varying, uh, curing, um, qualities, uh, that are, that are, that are recognized in those cultures. But recently what we've seen is it's become a status related good. And that is it's similar to having a Rolex watch. Particularly in, in the way that business is done in, uh, in these parts of the world, being able to present someone with a piece of rhino horn or a trinket, uh, made out of rhino horn. It demonstrates wealth and, and, and a certain level of capacity.

• 11:17Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. So in two thousand nine, when you embark upon, you know, this, this journey that you've been on. What was the state of, of these animals, particularly rhinoceros and elephant in terms of how many were being poached? How decimated were the populations becoming like, you know, how close to extinction are they like? What are the statistics on this?

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Uh, when I first got to, uh, Zimbabwe in two thousand and nine, I, I arrived in Africa without having too much knowledge of, of conservation or any of these populations. What was really going on? I arrived there, you know, simply to go and do some anti-poaching. Um, and we can get into the reasons that I went there in the first place, uh, later in the, in the, in the interview. But, uh, the year I arrived into Zimbabwe in two thousand and nine, the, the previous year had lost fifteen percent of its black rhino population. A black rhino is listed as critically endangered. As far back as the, the turn of the, um, twentieth century, there was a million black rhino, uh, that were, that were, you know, roaming African plains. And, uh, Two thousand and nine, we're down to five thousand left.

• 12:26Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  You know, so it gives you, um, it gives you an idea of, you know, a rhino is a, is an indicator species of, of not only what we're doing to nature, but doing to our planet and ourselves. And seeing that downturn in, in those numbers, it, I mean, to me, it was, it was a war that presented itself that I chose to go at and, and try to fight.

• 12:46Rich Roll?

  Well, let's work our way up to that. Um, let's go all the way back to the beginning. You grew up outside Melbourne.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. Uh, well, I was born in, born in Melbourne, raised in Sydney. Um, yeah, dad ran pubs. So, and we lived in pubs. It's my first ten years of my, my life in a pub and the last ten years getting kicked out of them. But, uh, but, uh.

• 13:09Rich Roll?

  I read one story where, uh, I don't know how old you were, you must have been a teenager, where some guy came at you with a pool cue. And you just stared him down and, and chewed your, your beer glass in front of him. Is that like apocryphal or is that, did that happen?

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's happened.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Not much comeback when you eat your own spoon of glass.

• 13:30Rich Roll?

  Just don't swallow it.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, spit, don't swallow.

• 13:32Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I was a bit of a young, uh, hothead, I suppose I'll say. Um, yeah, interesting as I sit here and look at your book on your, on your desk here by Ryan Holiday, Ego is the Enemy. Well, it certainly was my enemy for a long time.

• 13:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Um, so you grew up as a young kid, a little bit entrepreneurial, uh, free diving for, uh, for fishing lines and then selling them back to the fishermen?

• 13:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so back, back, this, I moved back down to Melbourne when I was about 10 years old with my parents, obviously. Um, and we lived, uh, in a, in a small fishing town called Mornington. It's not a, it's not a small town anymore, but it was, was quite small back then. And the fishermen would go fishing for calamari or squid of, of a nighttime and they had these little lures that. You know, colorful little things that sell fifteen, twenty bucks in the, in the, in the shops. But I used to sell them for five. Uh, so I had, you know, I'd free dive, free dive down and collect these lures and, and come back up and sell them to the fishermen and, and use the money from that to start buying my own scuba diving gear and, and put myself through training. And of course this was paying off. So what do you do? You go and get a bunch of shopping trolleys and throw them in the water and wrap them with rope.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  And that's, you know, conducive to catching more and more fishing lures. So.

• 14:45Rich Roll?

  It's like a whole enterprise.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, um, so the other, you know, I was only like fourteen, fifteen when I'm, when I'm doing this and, and just falling in love with being in the water. And if I wasn't in water or, or near it, uh, you know, I was, you know, I was, I was, I was lost. And, um, natural progression for me was to, to try and join the Navy and become a diver.

• 15:08Rich Roll?

  Right. So it was sort of perfect training to become a clearance diver.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I, yeah, the, the sea was my office for many years and I, I love being underwater and, and submerged and just having a task to complete under there.

• 15:21Rich Roll?

  So what led you to that decision to, to join the military?

• 15:26Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, I, uh, it just seemed like a, honestly, it would seem like a cool thing to do, adventure. Uh, I joined the military for adventure.

• 15:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah. You don't seem like the kind of guy who could sit still for too long.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  But what are you saying that? Cause I'm twisting and jumping around here.

• 15:42Rich Roll?

  Based on everything that you've done.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  I was little Johnny, the little shit up the back. It was always like throwing things and getting in trouble, getting sent to the principal's office. Yeah, that was, that was, I was that kid. So if everyone out there that is listening that had an idiot like me in your class and stunted your education, I'm very sorry.

• 15:58Rich Roll?

  So, uh, there's still a gap between joining the military and becoming a, a Royal Navy clearance diver, right? Like it, it's sort of the equivalent of Navy SEALs.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  So I, I actually joined up as an electronics technician because they wouldn't take divers straight off the street. So I joined up and, uh, eventually was accepted to go on to the, the clear, what they call the clearance diving acceptance test. That's our version of, of your buds hell week. And that's exactly what it was, sleep deprivation and being exposed to the, uh, the, the four great pillars of misery to be hungry, tired, cold and wet.

• 16:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Uh, you'd know all about, about that and those, um, you know, those elements, but, uh. Yeah, man, I got through that and then went on to went on to training to become a clearance diver. And then um September eleven happened.

• 16:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, was this, did this coincide, do you know Paul De Gelder?

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know Paul very well.

• 16:51Rich Roll?

  Were you guys in it at the same time?

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Uh, I think I was just getting out, or I'd gone over to the army at that stage, the special operations when he was uh when he was coming through, I'm sure.

• 17:02Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  But I know Paul well, he's a good mate of mine.

• 17:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he's a friend too.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  I've got a funny story about Paul, if you wanna hear it.

• 17:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah, definitely.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Paul was out filming a documentary. Now, for those of you that that maybe weren't listening in when Paul did his show here, you know, Paul is is a survivor of a shark attack, uh and he lost his arm and his leg. But uh so we we're filming this documentary and um Paul was there and we're doing unarmed combat training and Paul's bloody tough. So I go in there and I'm it's me against two Rangers. I get flattened in two seconds. They got me on the ground tapping out. And now Paul goes in. Now Paul wasn't willing to tap out. And so what happened is he's he's essentially wrestling with these two Rangers, but while he's doing it, his prosthetic arm and leg came off and had been thrown to the side. And he was still wrestling with these Rangers and I had him on the back foot.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  And just then a game drive vehicle with all these tourists came around the corner and saw these two local Rangers. This guy's missing an arm and leg, wrestling on the ground. I had to run over and say, it's all cool, it's all cool, you know.

• 18:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he's a tough guy.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  He's tough, mate. He's bloody tough and he's a good guy. He's a good guy to, you know, just hang out and have a beer with.

• 18:11Rich Roll?

  It's interesting that that both of you guys have now, you know, taken a place in this in this movement in different ways and have such a powerful voice like this. That life has brought you full circle to kind of, you know, coincide on on different but, you know, analogous missions.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and I he's he's got a great voice uh for for sharks and for the ocean and and and animals in general. And I think that's a really important thing because our movement and the movement of of having a better understanding and appreciation and compassion for animals.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  It's a story that we got to hit from multiple angles and that requires multiple people and multiple stories and backgrounds.

• 18:51Rich Roll?

  All different kinds of voices.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:53Rich Roll?

  You know. All right, so September 11th happens and and why was that significant for you personally?

• 19:00Speaker 01

  I mean, it changed the world for for a lot of people uh to a place that would never be the same again for various reasons, but uh I mean, for for me, it it changed the course of of my life. The Australian government formed what they termed the first and last resort for a terrorist attack on home soil, and that was the Tactical Assault Group. Um a very small niche unit uh made up of uh various special operations uh units and and Navy Clearance Divers. I went across uh into that unit um as a as a diver and I'd been there for a couple of days and was told I was going on to become a sniper or to.

• 19:36Rich Roll?

  Which takes you away takes you away from the water.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  It does my fish out of water uh literally. Um so that was it, man. I went and trained and and then passed, qualified and and went online as a as a special operations sniper. Um when was that? Two thousand three, two thousand four, yeah.

• 19:54Rich Roll?

  And then you get deployed?

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Um so I left the the Australian military and went to work in the private sector uh and during the Iraq War.

• 20:03Rich Roll?

  Oh, I see. So you never went to Iraq under official military capacity?

• 20:07Speaker 01

  Well, actually, I did. I went uh with uh private companies, but were employed by the US military, um the US Marines, uh a division called CPAT, there's a civilian police assistance training team, and then um with the US Army Corps of Engineers, Project Matrix, uh rebuilding major infrastructure uh across the country.

• 20:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and a big part of that, uh seeing from what I understand, it was that you were training the Iraqi police force and, you know, basically trying to get, you know, the the Iraqi population on its own feet with respect to self-defense.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, look, uh that, I mean, that was the role. Me personally, I mean, I I didn't join the military to serve my country. I did it for adventure and I I definitely wasn't in Iraq trying to trying to make uh the situation better. Uh I went there for money and that's uh that's God's honest truth. Um it just so happened that the stuff we were doing there. Was aiming to be constructive, however, it wasn't. And, you know, I think one of the biggest mistakes of the war, other than going there in the first place, was disbanding the Iraqi army and Iraqi police overnight and then trying to replace it with uh just a whole different, you know, a whole different group of people in a short space of time. And we made so many monumental mistakes that have scarred that country.

• 21:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, having to train all these people in a very short period of time to do a job they're ill-equipped to do, right? I would imagine that resulted in a lot of people perishing.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I mean, I I was project manager for the Iraq Special Police Training Academy in northern Baghdad. And we had, um, you know, we were tasked by Congress to train and deploy battalion-sized groups and send them back out there on the front lines. Uh, groups that were drawn from a mixture of Sunni and Shiite uh backgrounds and and from anywhere in the country. And we formed the groups, we sent them out after six weeks of training and uh they either got killed. Uh, they joined the militia and fought back against us, or they deserted. And there's no greater way to demonstrate a failed theory than to send guys off to their death. But uh.

• 22:15Rich Roll?

  But politically, they wanted to see the big numbers, right? Just turn these people out because that looks good on a, you know, in a newspaper article.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Exactly, man. Um, and, you know, it was the same time the insurgency was really standing up and, you know, a lot of that was led or contributed by the the people that had been put out of work, the ones that were trained and the ones that had access to all the weapons and all the explosives across the country.

• 22:39Rich Roll?

  What do people not really grasp or understand about what that experience was like being over there?

• 22:49Speaker 01

  I think it affects um, it affects people in different ways, you know? And uh, I say the thing that probably, and I struggle with the, you you don't get time to reflect until you're out of it often. And you're trying to look back and piece things together and figure out, you know, what it was all about and what you were doing there in the first place. And uh, yeah, the thing that affects me the most or affected me the most was just seeing what happened to the Iraqi people and their culture and their country and their families and their children. And um, you know, I I made a very strong effort to learn Arabic and learn the culture when I was there. Spend time with families, eating with them, um, understanding them.

• 23:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  Communicating with them and uh. You know, when you can't sit down at a table and and and break bread with someone who hasn't been directly affected. You can't do that anywhere. Everyone's been directly affected, whether it's a kid that was blown up on the way to school, whether it's a mum that's missing an arm or a leg or. A wife that can't see anymore. And so it's everyone's got a story, man, and every story is tragic.

• 23:50Rich Roll?

  Wow. So you deploy, you did twelve different deployments over how many years?

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Uh, three years. So I mean.

• 23:57Rich Roll?

  How long was the deployment?

• 23:58Speaker 01

  Anything from two weeks to six months. Six months were the longest, two weeks was the shortest, just depending on what the gig was or the mission.

• 24:05Rich Roll?

  Right. Um.

• 24:09Rich Roll?

  I mean, you kept going back. Money was good, though.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  I bought my first house um before the age of twenty one and.

• 24:16Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  By the time I left Iraq, I had six houses, so.

• 24:20Rich Roll?

  Is that a common thing with guys in your trade? There's they start buying real estate with a disposable income?

• 24:26Speaker 01

  No, I wouldn't say it's common. Yeah, I mean, it's it's, I mean, the the great Australian dream is to own your own house, I suppose, but uh. You know, for me, I didn't want a house to live in. I just wanted residential property to invest in and, you know, make money and that that's what. Yeah, that's what that was what drove me in my twenties, uh, adventure and money and trying to make as much of it as possible. Um, it was a status thing, to be honest.

• 24:48Rich Roll?

  So after that twelfth deployment, was there something inside of you that said, like, I I'm done, like, I I've got to find something else to do?

• 24:57Speaker 01

  I was starting to get complacent, you know, we're going out, running up to four missions a day and just complacent, you know, and that wasn't fair on the people around me. Um. You know, I had enough money, I had enough houses, uh, that, you know, if I was smart with my money, I I wouldn't have to work again for the foreseeable future. Turns out I did, after I spent it all on setting this thing up, but.

• 25:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we're gonna get to that.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  But uh.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's about nine years of military and I suppose I was just burnt out, man. I mean, you're sitting there, you're like a coiled spring for three years uh over there. And um, you know, same shit, day in, day out, get up, draw your weapons, roll on missions.

• 25:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  And then come back in and fucking sit there and try and watch a television show.

• 25:42Rich Roll?

  Right, go to the grocery store.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, it has to be super weird and disorienting. I had a uh a woman in in here to do the podcast the other day. Who suffered, you know, terrible PTSD from from uh her deployment, you know, to the point of, you know, coming close to suicide and having lost a bunch of people, you know, that she was close with. And it was interesting to hear, you know, her journey back towards trying to become whole again after that experience. I mean, do you qualify as somebody who experienced PTSD? Or do you just think you needed to find like a, you know, a healthy outlet for all that adventurous energy that you have?

• 26:22Speaker 01

  I suppose the danger with PTSD is is thinking you don't have it or saying it doesn't affect you. I think there's no way you can you can go to a place like that and not be affected um in some way. And also, you know, it doesn't affect you straight away for a lot of people.

• 26:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  It simmers below the surface and then rears up uh often with a combination of other factors in your life. But um, no, man, I mean, if a car door slams or kind of a loud, unexpected bang, I'm like,

• 26:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  On the roof, man.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  But uh, you know, I get a little bit of anxiety and stuff like that. But I suppose that's that's what you get when you roll around expecting to get blown up at any stage for for any extended period of time, you you you carry that with you. But um, for me, I think, you know, for for a lot of for a lot of people that leave war, the hard part is leaving purpose. And when you go, and I hate to say war is purpose, but it's not necessarily the war. It's the units you're working with and the people that are your side by side with. And these are, in my case, they're brothers. And uh, there's very few other jobs where you spend.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  All working week together and then you wanna hang out all weekend and they go it's it's just it really is.

• 27:33Rich Roll?

  That camaraderie, that bond is like nothing else.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  It's it's really hard to find and then when you're when you're not there anymore. And that all the skills, I mean, you mean, special operations, it's it's a special job, you know, and then when you're not special anymore, you're just fucking someone else. And that's that's a lot to deal with for some people. And.

• 27:51Rich Roll?

  What are your buddies doing now?

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Fuck, I mean, there's a bunch of it that that have killed themselves, um, there's a bunch that gone on to been very successful in the military, uh, in the private sector, great fathers, some, um, you know, some people that are really struggling, hey, you know, um. Yeah, I had a bunch of guys go off and and follow the diving side of stuff, you know, deep sea, uh, or, um, saturation diving, but, um, yeah, for a lot of guys, it's tough and and and women as well, of course.

• 28:24Rich Roll?

  So you go to to South America first to basically like party? I mean, what was the idea?

• 28:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, I read a book called Marching Powder and they said the best cocaine in the world was made inside San Pedro prison in La Paz, Bolivia. So I thought I'm gonna check it out.

• 28:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah. How'd that go?

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it tasted like shit, but it smelled good.

• 28:45Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Look, um, yeah, look, not a year I'm proud of, but I suppose we all got to look back on certain parts of our life.

• 28:54Rich Roll?

  I think it's, I mean, I'm asking you not from a purient interest, but really because I think it's important, like, I'm always super interested in, you know, how people take their pain and turn it around. And I think in order to really kind of understand that, like, I wanna understand, like, what you endured and what you went through and like where it took you. Because at some point, there was a powerful catalyst that set you on a whole new trajectory.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, uh, South Africa, uh, South America for me was about bottoming out, hitting rock bottom and I don't know if that was a self-destruct mechanism that I felt I had to had to hit to realize, you know, am I gonna go all the way through the floor or am I gonna use that to bounce back off and come back up the other side? And fortunately, um, you know, it was the latter, came back up the other side.

• 29:40Rich Roll?

  How long were you down there?

• 29:41Speaker 01

  Eleven months in South America, so, yeah, man, just just partying the whole time. And it was it was my way of just tapping out and just, I don't know.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  You know, you tell yourself some funny things when you're when you think you've you've been working hard and you deserve a break or

• 29:58Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  You deserve uh things that may not be good for you. Yeah, yeah. Your mind can play some really good tricks.

• 30:03Rich Roll?

  Trust me.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:05Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:06Rich Roll?

  So did you get, are you sober then? Did you, are you like totally off everything or was it just?

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Oh mate, I still, I still love a beer and have a drink, love a beer and a drink and all that, but um. You know, let's just say I consume my my share when I was over there.

• 30:18Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Of drugs and alcohol. It was um, you know, it was it was a dark time and uh. You know, but it played a role in in shaping who I am and where I am today.

• 30:30Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Uh, and being able to look back and reflect uh on our vulnerabilities and use them as as a tool for change, I think, is what can make us truly human. And nature, nature gets to evolve over millions of years and we only have one lifetime to do it.

• 30:45Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  So we've got to fucking get it right and get it right quick.

• 30:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah, well, that issue of vulnerability, I think, is super important. You know, I mean, you're a guy who I look at and say. You're changing people's ideas of of masculinity in a positive way in the sense that. You know, we traditionally align, for whatever reason, dietary preferences with what it means to be a man. And the willingness to be vulnerable is seen as a weakness.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:11Rich Roll?

  You know, I've come to learn and experience directly and through many other people that I know that when you have, it it actually takes a lot of courage to be vulnerable.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 31:19Rich Roll?

  And that's what is the connective tissue between you and humanity and your community. And I think it holds a lot of power to be transformative for other people that, you know, are struggling in their various ways.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, you're right, hey, you know, it's easy to bottle things up and not talk about them and, you know, puff the shoulders, puff the chest out and.

• 31:39Rich Roll?

  And you're trained to do that.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:41Rich Roll?

  I mean.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  Well, it's expected.

• 31:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Uh, there there's a difference between being trained to be like that or being expected to be like that. And I think being expected to be like that is harder.

• 31:50Rich Roll?

  What, I don't, to explain the difference.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  You know, like, I mean, if you if you're trained to be some tough guy, but then everyone thinks you're a tough guy. I mean, a lot of the guys we work with. Uh, in special operation, now special operations now isn't just a bunch of big two hundred fifty pound guys. Uh, covered in tattoos, you know, there's there's all different shapes and sizes and uh. You know, it's the small, quiet guy in the back corner you've got to be scared of, not the big loudmouth with the tattoos.

• 32:14Rich Roll?

  I've heard that.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  So, um, you know, a- and for me, I suppose the hard part was is I'd, I'd, you know, I was a hard footballer. Uh, and, you know, I was a, I was a tough scrapper as a kid and it almost like I felt as though I was always having to do something to prove who I was.

• 32:32Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  And to prove the next thing and impress someone. And that, I suppose, has been one of my biggest downfalls.

• 32:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Where does that come from, you think?

• 32:40Speaker 01

  I don't know, man. Just as a kid, just trying to find your place in, in the world, in, in, out there and, and figure out who you are and, and where you're from. And I suppose, you know, you, you can get on a slippery slope pretty quickly. And, uh, yeah, I mean, I did some cool stuff, but, um, I, I wouldn't say I was happy with the person that I was.

• 32:59Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. So how do you get from South America to Africa?

• 33:02Speaker 01

  One way ticket.

• 33:04Rich Roll?

  Oh, you do go straight from there?

• 33:05Speaker 01

  What's that?

• 33:06Rich Roll?

  Do you go straight from?

• 33:07Speaker 01

  No, I went home, had a, had about eleven months worth of dirty laundry to take back to mum and, and, uh, nah, nah, I went home and just, um, put some weight back on and I got down to eighty nine kilos. So what do you go? What's that in pounds?

• 33:20Rich Roll?

  I don't know.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  I'm sure somewhere, you know, it's probably like, uh, two hundred pounds or something.

• 33:24Rich Roll?

  Right. You're like, what, like two forty?

• 33:27Speaker 01

  Two fifty.

• 33:27Rich Roll?

  Two fifty, uh huh.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  So, so, yeah, just went back home, mate, spent some time with the family. I'd been away for the better part of three years. And, you know, I'm very close with the family and, and everything. So, yeah, went back there, regrouped and off I went, man. I had a, I had a one way ticket.

• 33:43Rich Roll?

  Why Africa?

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Um, look, I, I read a lot of Wilbur Smith as a kid. Honestly, it was another adventure. And, uh, I heard about anti-poaching some years earlier. Actually, I just got a message, uh, from a mate yesterday. He said, I remember you talking about that in two thousand and three, uh, in a, in a bar. And I'd heard it years earlier as well. So it just.

• 34:04Rich Roll?

  Interesting.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  It just, uh, it just sounded like a cool thing, you know, and it's.

• 34:09Rich Roll?

  But was it the, was it just Africa? I mean, did you have an intention of seeking out this whole anti-poaching thing?

• 34:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I was going, I was going over, I was going over for another adventure, another, another, another, you know, chapter in Damien Amanda's life. I wasn't going to do anything constructive. I was looking for a core, a fight, not a cause.

• 34:28Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  And, um, yeah, it was a, a, another, you know.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  I would say, you know, was a misdirected use of my energy and skills at the time, yeah.

• 34:41Rich Roll?

  Well, looking back, not so much. Your intention maybe.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, things have worked out. Things have worked out really well. And I suppose, I'm really happy with where we're going as an organisation. I'm happy with my own personal evolution and, and just, I suppose, and I'm proud to say the courage that I feel I've had to stand up for those that can't speak for themselves and to, to try and be a role model, particularly to younger men. And, you know, we don't, we don't have to hurt things to be cool. You don't have to put people down to be cool. You don't have to be a sniper to be cool. You don't have to eat meat to, to prove how macho you are. You can just be you and, and you can be much more powerful and courageous and, and, and much more of a role model when

• 35:29Speaker 01

  you do what you believe in.

• 35:39Rich Roll?

  It's interesting that you're, you, you know, you said your evolution, but that evolution, you know, is continuing to unfold. Like the changes that you've made just since you did that TED Talk are, are pretty amazing, right? It's not, it's now extended to caring for all of these women. And it's almost become a female empowerment movement as much as it is an animal protectionist conservation movement.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, interesting you say that. You know, at the core, we're a conservation organisation, not necessarily a female empowerment organisation. We have chosen to employ women and put them out there on the front lines in what is the only nature reserve in the entire world that's completely managed and protected by women. We're doing this not because we felt a pressure to equal our numbers, not because of a Me Too movement. We're doing it because it makes business sense. And I think for a lot of people, that's important to understand because it, it makes business sense. And the bottom line is what influences a lot of people. I come from the ultimate boys' club, special operations. You can be the president of a country and be

• 36:46Speaker 01

  a woman, but you can't be special operations. And so for me to be in a position now where I am, and, and genuinely believe that women will change the face of conservation forever.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Is a big turnaround and ego was the thing that was holding us back the whole time.

• 37:01Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Well, let's work our way towards that. Um. You you arrive in Africa and and what you just like immerse yourself in the anti-poaching community? I mean, how does that work?

• 37:12Speaker 01

  I tried to sell myself as, you know, this tool that could be used and deployed out there on the front lines and then you start.

• 37:18Rich Roll?

  Like, here comes another white guy.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly, man. And, uh, you know, I've got a lot of, a lot of closed doors that people and I get an email every day from someone that wants to come over there with their own sniper rifle or whatever it may be and run around the bush and hunt poachers. And it's not like that. There's a far more complex situation going on on the ground. And this is not the Wild West where you can just turn up with your own rifle and go out and start hunting people. You can join the army if you want to do that, but you can't come to Africa and do that. And, uh, you know, the position I've carved, uh, in the industry and in Africa has been out of granite. It's been tough, uh, a long hard slog and one in which I invested a hundred percent of my life savings.

• 37:55Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Uh, to set up this organization and and and make a go of it. And, uh, you know, it wasn't until I'd I'd spent the better part of six months traveling around the continent, trying to get a feel of things that I realized. You know, maybe I'm I'm going about things the wrong, the the wrong way and.

• 38:12Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  And we, um, you know, we eventually got a start in in Zimbabwe and I just started working with an anti-poaching unit and just seeing the difference that a bit of face time with these guys made, you know, seeing now for them to to learn that they were appreciated and and, you know, that someone wanted to train them and work with them. And, you know, this was only in one area. So, I mean, obviously there's great efforts going on across across many other areas, but I was just seeing impact that I was able to make. And then you also see, you know, I'd just come from Iraq. Come from from the military units I was in where fuck, mate, if I wanted anything, I'd go to the storeroom and get it. Uh, if we needed budget increase, we get it, you know, we just ask for it. And

• 38:54Speaker 01

  I was part of a a a military unit that was spending seven hundred billion dollars a year. Uh, it's the the annual defense budget and I was just an instrument of war. And, uh, you know, you're part of this huge funds, you know, spending mechanism, which is, you know, we're looking after fucking oil in the ground and dotted lines on a map. And then you come over to Africa and you see these people that are protecting the heart and lungs of the planet. You start to think, shit, you know, what was I doing? And and not only that, I was trying to have an adventure on the back of their hard work. So it made me feel, um. It made me really reflect on who I was and what I was about. And I was increasingly becoming the person that I didn't want to be.

• 39:33Rich Roll?

  Hmm. But there's this one experience that you have, like a moment where everything seems like it, from what I understand, seems like it changed things for you. Like coming upon an animal that had been basically, you know, murdered and the tusk removed. And that was kind of a turning point for you.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  I mean, there was there was gradual things that were going on. Uh, but there's catalyst moments. And the first one being seeing a buffalo, like, you know, one of the biggest and most powerful animals uh, in the bush there and one of the most dangerous. And she had her back leg caught in a wire snare. And the rangers can read the ground like you read the front page of the newspaper. They they it's a language to them. And they're able to determine that she'd been struggling for three days and she'd ripped her pelvis in half. Uh, trying to escape. You know, they use these wire snares, they're like landmines. They stay there and designed to trap animals that walk through around the legs, the neck, the head, whatever it may be. And indiscriminate.

• 40:38Speaker 01

  And, you know, animal doesn't, you know, it's confusing when you're trapped in a bit of wire and you don't have hands to undo it or anyone to help you. And, you know, we had to euthanize her. We had to put a gun to her head and pull the trigger. And she gave birth to a stillborn calf. And that's, um, you know, I may appear to be a tough guy, but something like that'll break your heart, mate. Yeah.

• 40:58Rich Roll?

  And the thought was,

• 41:02Rich Roll?

  if there's a way to bring to bear this skill set that you have and, you know, kind of institutionalize it, it could provide a line of defense against essentially what is what you're combating, which is, you know, a highly organized, well-funded operation to poach these animals.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:22Rich Roll?

  And up until that point, the line of defense was not organized, not well-funded. Uh, people that lacked, you know, certainly lacked the skill set that you have to deal with this problem.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  Look, there's, there's a lot of good efforts that are taking place out there, but not enough of them. And there's a huge imbalance in, in this world in terms of what we're willing to give towards protecting nature and, and animals. Uh, I think about five percent of all charitable giving that goes out is, is dedicated for animals, domestic and, uh, and wild.

• 41:54Rich Roll?

  And only five percent.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  And, and, and the environment, uh, religion gets about thirty percent and, uh, the rest is all humanitarian stuff. So there's a, you know, we wanna look after ourselves. We, we, we gotta look after nature to be able to do that most effectively. And look, I saw a problem. I had two things. I had a certain skill set and I had money. So I decided to do something about it, simple as that. Uh, there was no long-term thinking about it. I mean, I was enrolled to go and be trained as a chef down at, uh, Silwood in Cape Town at the time. And, uh, you know, that was gonna be my next, next life choice. And then once, you know, I'd got submerged enough in, in this with, with the ranges, that was it. Sell up and, and start up.

• 42:34Rich Roll?

  So you sold all your properties to like self-fund this thing?

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't pay myself a salary for the first three years and, uh, just used the rest of the money to, to pump back in vehicles and aircraft and training centers for rangers, supporting various programs. And then, uh, we got to a point where we had two thousand dollars left in the bank. I thought, shit, I need to figure out how to fundraise.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  And, uh,

• 42:58Rich Roll?

  Get on a plane and come to LA.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, well.

• 43:01Rich Roll?

  Start doing TED Talks.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that'll help. But, um, this is, you know, this is many years ago. We, you know, started the organization. It was sort of ragtag, small operation, um.

• 43:11Rich Roll?

  And who are you recruiting to, to be your feet on the ground? Were people in the community or some of your peers from special forces? Like what kind of dudes?

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Combination of the, of the two. And, and we were, we were working largely to empower indigenous forces. Uh, and ones that were already in, in a role, not necessarily going out to train new, new forces. And, um, yeah, it's just, I mean, a lot of the skills that they need out there on, on the front lines are, are very similar to what we needed in, in the military. And we, we don't need SEAL Team Six out there on the ground, protecting these animals. We just need people that we can trust, uh, people that are willing to work hard, that are, uh, well motivated and well led and, and with the right basic equipment. And I always say what we're doing. The first ninety percent is is just working with people and, you know, we can't replace people with algorithms in Africa. The most important asset and the val- most valuable

• 44:04Speaker 01

  asset is the people there. And if you work with them and just focus on the the first ninety percent of your of your model is is getting them well motivated, well led, well equipped, then that'll generally solve most problems. The last ten percent, you can start introducing the sexy stuff, like the drones and.

• 44:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, everyone wants to talk about the drones, but you're always bringing it back to the people.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you know, well, there's, I mean, there's, there's been a number of trials done uh with drones in in Africa and and in conservation and the con- I mean, the bottom line is conservation doesn't have the budgets that the military does. And so we sit there stuffing around with with bits of equipment that the military superseded decades ago and trying to make that work when in actual fact, there's a reason the military is has uh evolved and that's because they've evolved to things that work in in in tougher theatres. We don't have a, we don't have those budgets.

• 44:53Rich Roll?

  Are there certain areas where everybody knows these are the established front lines where where the poachers tend to, you know, navigate towards? Like, how do you know where the hotspots are, where the poachers are gonna be? Like, how does all that work?

• 45:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely. Um, you know, one of, one of the programs we we ran was uh on the eastern side of Kruger National Park's uh border, on the Mozambique side of the border, and that is essentially the piece of land that separates a third of the world's rhinoceros from most of the world's rhino poaching syndicates. And that is very much the front lines there. And uh, you know, we, we, the border was essentially the, the, the front line of the war there.

• 45:33Rich Roll?

  Because they wander off the protected land and then they're fair game for that, or?

• 45:39Speaker 01

  Well, when they wander across the border into Mozambique where South African forces could not cross the border and pursue them, uh, they knew that they could sneak at up to the border, shoot, cross over, shoot, and then get straight back across to Mozambique. And we stopped that. We uh, we created a viable force on the Mozambique side of the border that was able to pursue uh Mozambicans on Mozambican turf.

• 46:02Rich Roll?

  What is the law? Like, are you legally allowed to shoot poachers? Like, shoot to kill if you catch them in the act? Or how does that work?

• 46:10Speaker 01

  I mean, it's very much the same as, as, as a Western law enforcement models, where you can shoot to protect life as a last resort. We teach our rangers to use the minimum amount of force required to get the job done. And what we're essentially trying to do is not only preserve wildlife, but also preserve human life. And, you know, you post something on Facebook and, you know, you get all the comments there. It's like, I'll just shoot them and stack them up and all that. And it's not about that, you know. You know, we, we, we have to work within the laws of the countries that we're in. And we actually wanna, wanna see this thing go to, go to trial and have a fair hearing. And, you know, we, we can't be seen.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  We, we're not some sort of vigilante force out there. We're working with the government departments. We, we have respectable people that are on our boards of directors. Joan Goodall is a patron. You know, we, we can't jeopardize that because we wanna go out there running around and, and just hunting poachers. It's not like that on the ground.

• 47:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So how, I mean, are you able to ward off violent altercations in most cases? Or how often does it escalate?

• 47:18Speaker 01

  With the men, I would say, you know, and when I was, when I was in the military, you know, men, you sort of, you, you're geared up to fight and you're always in that sort of fighting mode. Countering insurgents, or counter insurgency is, is countering insurgency. You go out and you look for, look for a fight. Women, women have proven to be very different, different in what we've seen on the front lines. And the 76 arrests that the, the women of Akashanga have made in the past 14, 15 months have been made without a single shot being fired, which is quite remarkable to see. Because usually there would be confrontation when there's so, so much altercation. Now, the, the, the area they're protecting, and I don't wanna get too far ahead here,

• 47:59Speaker 01

  but the area they're protecting is home to the second largest elephant population left on earth. Eight thousand elephants have been killed in that area in the last 16 years. So that's thousands of times teams of armed men have come into that area, thousands of times that. They're not only willing to shoot elephants, but the people that protect them. And for the women to be able to operate in such a dangerous environment and do so in such a passive way is, there's a lot to be learnt from that.

• 48:24Rich Roll?

  How are they doing that? Like, what's the secret there? Is it empathy? Is it that the poachers are reluctant to kill the women? Or escalate it to that level of violence?

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Women are very good at collecting information. Women form the informal communications networks of rural communities. About three percent of crimes that are solved around the world are solved by catching someone in the act. The other ninety-seven percent that are solved are solved through intelligence-led operations. And that requires information to analyse, turn into intelligence, and we can go out and do those missions. And the way that the women communicate, not only communicate, but relate to the people in the communities they come from, gives us so much information. We know what's going on anywhere at any one time when we have to know it. And a lot of the arrests they do is based on the information they collect. And we go to the poacher's house at two or three o'clock in the morning.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  Surround the place and it's over very quickly. The arrests that they've made in the bush, they're very well-trained, they're very fit, they're tough, they're well-armed. We don't like the fact that rangers have to be armed and they need these sort of skills, but that's the reality of it out there on the front lines.

• 49:33Rich Roll?

  That's interesting.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  And I don't know the exact dynamics. We're working with the Tsuenoi University of Technology to look at a number of different things in this project that we want to understand from a scientific standpoint, because there's some really different things that are going on here. I mean, another thing, for example, the old patrol reports of when the men worked in this area, they were charged by dangerous animals like elephant and buffalo quite regularly. The women haven't been charged once yet. And we look at that and we thought, well, what's going on there? We found a study where... Voices from two different tribes were played to elephants in Kenya. One of the tribes had historically hunted elephants, one had not. Elephants became very agitated to the voice recording of the tribe that had hunted them and not agitated to the other voice recordings.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  These animals know what's going on, man, they're smart. And we spoke to the professor, Victor Mposhi, at the Cut University there. And he said, what do you think this is, Prof? And he said, well, it's probably as simple as this. What's been hunting animals for thousands of years? It's been men, not women. And so if we can scientifically prove that all female patrols are actually much safer from the biggest threat that rangers face out there, not necessarily poachers, but the animals they're trying to protect. You know, it's another dynamic to what we're doing.

• 50:49Rich Roll?

  That's super fascinating. Yeah, I mean, that being met with that specific dialect and having them be agitated, even if they weren't directly, hadn't directly experienced that before, it's almost like baked into the genetic code.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:06Rich Roll?

  That's amazing.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. I need to get back to you on that, man, and let you know where we.

• 51:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I'd like to know more about what they figure out.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Fascinating, and we're learning a lot. Just, I remember during the training, very early in the stages, I'd never worked with women. All our units were all male. And I'm just watching them, and they'd been given a team building task, and I was getting super frustrated that there wasn't all the grunting and groaning that you would expect with doing what we were putting them through at the time. And, you know, I was about to go and intervene and just say, you know, look, if you don't want to be here, then just, you know, you can pack your bags and leave, okay? We only want people that are putting in a hundred percent effort all the time. And then I shut up, bit my tongue, I went shut up and sat down and just watched them. And they got the job done, and they got it done in time, and they got it done as well as it had to be done.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  They're just, it was far less bullshit, and I realized there's just different ways of doing things.

• 52:06Rich Roll?

  Well, we should just establish that you started this unit called Akashinga, which is this all-female ranger program. What was it like, within a year, right, or a year ago, or something very recent?

• 52:21Speaker 01

  August 2017, we started.

• 52:24Rich Roll?

  And explain to me the impetus to forming this.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  I mean, we're reading more and more literature about the empowerment of women and industries that are transitioning to have more women inclusive in management positions, board positions, field positions, and the flow on benefits that they're realizing. And being part of a largely male-dominated industry, and particularly at ground level, where men outnumber women by up to 100 to 1 on the front lines. And the ratios you'll hear are different. There's a study done said 19% of rangers are actually female, but those females are restricted generally to looking after a gate or an office job, or not frontline jobs. And so we thought, if women aren't being given access to every role at ground level,

• 53:14Speaker 01

  then they can't really rise into management positions and be expected to make life and death decisions in an operational environment. They can't do that without having all that experience behind them. And I thought, well, if we can't progress as an industry, an industry that's had tens of billions of dollars invested into it, and we're still talking about animals going extinct, then maybe we need to relook at how we're doing things. I read an article, I believe it was the New York Times, about the US Army Rangers, and they were putting a platoon through that had a certain percentage of women on there. Now, I have a close affiliation with the US Army Rangers because we got into a spot of bother in northern Baghdad, and those guys came and got us out of there.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  So I thought, well, if these guys saved my ass in northern Baghdad, and they're actually transitioning and including women in frontline roles now as rangers in the army, then maybe we need rangers. Uh wildlife ranges that are females in Africa. I mean, there's certainly women that are employed out there in in various roles, but uh other, uh well, we we looked at other projects that were including women. It seemed almost like a token gesture, like women were being put in certain positions, but not given given the opportunity uh to complete all the roles. And so we thought, stuff, you know, let's let's do a selection and see where it goes. And we tried and tried and tried in in many different areas and we got um we got blocked

• 54:41Speaker 01

  from this concept of having an all female anti poaching unit, an armed one, which there was no armed all female anti poaching unit anywhere on the continent. Um there are other female anti poaching units, but they're unarmed.

• 54:52Rich Roll?

  That the block, the Black Mamba.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  Uh, the Black Mambas is, yeah, is is one example, um where they are working outside in in in the communities and doing a fantastic job and building those relationships. But the inside of the reserve is is is um the role is done by an armed male unit that's uh it's a private security company. So also doing, you know, fantastic job, but it undermines the men because they're not given the recognition that the women are getting and it undermines the women because they're not given the opportunity that the men are are given to do every role. So we, you know, we wanted to create something where there was complete opportunity for everyone that that passed the selection.

• 55:29Rich Roll?

  And when you say you were blocked, I mean, what exactly was going on?

• 55:32Speaker 01

  Ah, there's politically correct uh responses to why it wasn't the right time to look at this or no, thank you. And no, we don't want to take the risk. Um but, uh, you know, we we were determined to give it a try. Uh, we eventually found an area in the Lower Zambezi ecosystem in in Zimbabwe and one of the largest elephant populations left on earth. Um, an area that has been home to a lot of trophy hunting operations throughout the years. And twenty percent of Zimbabwe's landmass is actually set aside for trophy hunting or tro- or safari areas. Uh collectively, uh, across Africa, an area the size of Texas is is set aside for trophy hunting. Now, if I was to say to you, Rich mate, we're gonna, we're gonna scrap.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  Seven hundred thousand square kilometers or an area the size of Texas, we're going to wipe out all of those national parks across Africa. People would be in absolute uproar. Now, this is happening with all the areas that have been set aside for trophy hunting, but they're not national parks. They're communal areas, communal hunting areas. They are areas that have equal biodiversity importance as national parks, but let's just say, uh, not, not ideal for tourism.

• 56:44Rich Roll?

  Is it, are they privately owned or is it government land?

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Usually government or owned by the communities. And so when these areas, when these areas do well, the communities do well. And when they don't, the communities see no need to conserve them anymore and they, they move in, the trees get cut down, the animals get poached, it often gets converted into grazing area for cattle. And so we, we saw trophy hunting not as, as an argument to be had, but rather as an equation to be solved. And we, we went on to this area to try and create an, an alternative economic model to trophy hunting at the same time as trying to stand up this, uh, all female anti-poaching.

• 57:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So it serves, it serves multiple agendas because one of the things with, um, the International Anti-Poaching Foundation and what you were doing initially and traditionally is effective, but also sort of a Band-Aid on this massive problem because until you get, until you create the right incentives, the right economics incentives and, and you're, you're sort of woven into the fabric of the community where they're supporting what you're doing.

• 57:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:51Rich Roll?

  Um, you're going to be challenged, right? So by creating this, uh, this all female, you know, cadre of women, uh, of, of rangers, um, you're basically connecting with the communities in a more, uh, in-depth way.

• 58:09Speaker 01

  I think, uh.

• 58:10Rich Roll?

  Creating incentives that these people can support themselves and find a way, you know, a better way.

• 58:16Speaker 01

  I think, uh, I mean, to summarize it, I think women have become the bridge that conservation had to build into the communities and break down those barriers.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  And I mean, historically, when we were forming an anti-poaching unit or working with one, the men that we would employ would be employed from places far away. We'd bring them in and that's so they they weren't living next or the working next door to their cousins or their brothers and, you know, they can give information of where certain herds of animals are going to be. Because I've worked with some of the best units in Africa and corruption always creeps in. And I often say going to Africa and getting upset with with corruptions like going to the beach and getting pissed off with the sand, it's there, it's it's how we how we manage it that that determines the difference between success and failure of a program. And if you can walk in and take corruption out of the equation, you're already halfway home.

• 59:03Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 59:03Speaker 01

  And, um, you know, so with with the women, we we haven't seen corruption yet. Uh, we're we're fifteen months into it, we we haven't seen an incident of corruption. And that allows us to employ a hundred percent from the local community right next door to where we're where we're working. And that turns the biggest line item we have in conservation, which is law enforcement, into a direct community investment.

• 59:26Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  And and putting money that would otherwise be dispersed around the country directly into the local community at household level into the hands of women.

• 59:34Rich Roll?

  And just politically, I mean, that makes it a lot easier for you to get done what you're trying to get done. And then these women are empowered and they can buy land and, you know, raise their kids.

• 59:43Speaker 01

  It's amazing watching, uh, you know, the transformation and e- each one of these women has a has a tough story, a tough background. Um, they're all survivors of abuse, um, you know, domestic violence, sexual sexual violence, um, AIDS orphan, single mothers, abandoned wives. So they've, you know, when we put them through training, we, you know, we thought we were being tough on them, but they'd already been through hell and back. So, um, yeah, just seeing the way that they transform themselves and there are absolutely no handouts that have been given on this program. Uh, we made it bloody tough. If anything, we made it tougher than we normally would because we were at reputational risk in our own minds of employing women now and putting them out there, so. We thought we're gonna, you know, we're really gonna test them.

• 1:00:25Speaker 01

  And once we saw the potential, the capabilities, the toughness, the resilience, um, it became our job to train them.

• 1:00:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah. When you got the first group of women and began the training, did you think like, you know, this could go sideways? Like, or did you think like, this is gonna work right from the outset?

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  No, from halfway through day one, we knew we had something very special, something very different. Uh, you can just see, you know, you learn the most about someone when, when they don't think they're being watched. And, uh, some of the stuff we're putting these women through and seeing how they work together and, uh, just cracked on with, you know, minimal fuss and, and getting the job done and, and, uh, you know, it was a pretty arduous and dangerous environment at the time.

• 1:01:06Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. So how many women are part of it now?

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  Uh, so we've got forty seven, uh, staff that are employed, uh, around forty of those are women. Um, we've got seven guys that are working, uh, on building roads and doing construction, uh, out in the bush. And we've got James. So James was the Skinner for the hunting operation that used to be there. And, uh, so when, when someone would come in and shoot an animal, uh, which doesn't happen anymore. We've bought, we've bought the company, um, uh, well, the, the, the area out, um, working with the, the, the other stakeholders there. So we've bought out the options to, to hunt there ever again. Uh, and putting different, uh, models in, but James, uh, who was left over there, he's now being trained as a, as a vegan chef.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  So he used to skin animals, he's now skinning potatoes and carrots.

• 1:01:55Rich Roll?

  And all these women are eating vegan, right?

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, the whole program's vegan, uh, and we, we took that stance by making the program vegan, not necessarily making the women vegan, but giving them the opportunity and, and the understanding of why we think conservation should be leading the pack. In terms of driving a vegan message around the world, people that had signed up for conservation because they love the environment or animals or a combination of the two and what better way to protect animals than not to stick them in your mouth?

• 1:02:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I saw the 60 Minutes piece that just came out recently, right, in Australia?

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:32Rich Roll?

  On the Akashanga and it's emotional, I mean, to see these women coming from the circumstances that they were in to this incredible place of empowerment and then to be recognized and when they go back to their communities or they go to schools, like, everybody knows who they are, like, it's a, it's a big thing.

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's, there's this unintended social engineering that's going on there in these communities where women were once, you know, I won't say outcast, but, you know, treated, treated very poorly and, you know, they weren't necessarily victims of circumstance, they're largely victims of men and to see now the, the way that they carry themselves and the respect they have in the local community, the way they've been able to break down the barrier between conservation and community and, and build relationships and conversations instead of conflict, it's a testament to, I think, what is natural quality that these women possess.

• 1:03:31Rich Roll?

  What did the male villagers think of it?

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  So, when these women were coming for selection, they were told to, to go back home, to essentially piss off back, back to the home and, and carry out their, their job there as, you know, domestic workers and, you know, they still, they stuck their head down and they turned up and they went through the training and, and the ones that made it through are now just fantastic ambassadors in, in the local communities, you know, Abigail, you know, young lady, she's, um, she's 19, finished school about a year and a half ago. She goes back to her local school now, she's mobbed like a rock star by every, every young girl in that, in that school and, you know, she creates hope for them and that's, that's

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  special to see in, in a community where, you know, women get pushed constantly right to the back of the line.

• 1:04:22Rich Roll?

  Right, and what is the effectiveness of the unit in terms of combating poaching?

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  So, well, when we first got in there, we would see animals as wildlife as little as once a week. We're now seeing animals coming in, uh, on, on every patrol that we're, we're going out. The women have made seventy six arrests, which is sort of unprecedented unprecedented success throughout that area. The distance between where they operate from and where they're making those arrests is getting further and further apart. So the information they're getting is driving them into the syndicates and mid levels of the syndicates and breaking those open. Information that they got last year implicated former first lady Grace Mugabe in ivory trafficking. That led the Zimbabwean government to set up a task force.

• 1:05:12Speaker 01

  So here you've got the most oppressed demographic under the Mugabe regime for thirty seven years, being women in rural communities now responsible for triggering an investigation into one of the most powerful women on the continent.

• 1:05:22Rich Roll?

  Wow. So Mugabe's out now. Has that changed anything politically?

• 1:05:27Speaker 01

  Well, President Mungagwa has taken over and, you know, we are hoping that more investment and more visitors to Zimbabwe will see, you know, it's actually a very safe and beautiful country. And Mungagwa's daughter, Tariro, is one of the rangers that works with this program.

• 1:05:48Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:50Rich Roll?

  It's better than, wasn't, didn't Mugabe's wife get busted for poaching?

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  So that's, you know, and I mean, Mugabe's kids would be on Instagram tipping champagne over their Rolex watches and just carrying on like brats in general. And here you've got the daughter of the current president, you know, she spends time out there on the front lines patrolling to protect the natural heritage.

• 1:06:13Rich Roll?

  That's a huge change.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:15Rich Roll?

  Do these syndicates operate with relative impunity? I mean, what is the, you know, how effective is the government, is the government complicit at all? Like, what is, what is the level of corruption that allow these crime organizations to flourish?

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't think corruption is isolated to Zimbabwe and I suppose any, any different government department is going to have good people in there and bad people. And I don't think Zimbabwe is any different to the other countries over there. You know, it, it's always tough.

• 1:06:51Speaker 01

  For governments to look favorably upon conservation, particularly in the current climate, because conservation is becoming increasingly militarized. And it's becoming increasingly militarized because people are becoming increasingly desperate. And so we put up bigger fences and more guns and we we are at war with the local population on a continent that's going to have two billion people on it by twenty forty. Now, when a government is seen to favor those actions, they're viewed by the people, their voters, as favoring the lives of animals over people, and that is that that pushes the priority of conservation further down the down the list. Now, with these women forming that bridge into these communities where we're not having a war with the local population, we're having a relationship with them.

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  It actually brings conservation into a much more favorable light for the government.

• 1:07:37Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. And as somebody with with boots on the ground over there, what is the real relationship between conservation and trophy hunting? Because there's this argument among hunters that, you know, by participating in this structure that exists over there, that that is actually contributing to the promotion of conservation because of how they use the funds.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  Look, I I I don't. I mean, I used to hunt, you know, it's a chapter in my life that I will be having to take to the grave. That's that's me. Um. What I dislike more than hunting is the fact that we, as a global community, have accepted it as the only economic model to look after so many areas and relied on it on it and and

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  you know, this unethical model where people pay to come and shoot something uh so they can hang it on their wall has been the only way we've been able to come up with those funds. And for us, as I was saying before, we wanted to look at it as as an equation to be solved and you know, we're hunting has put money into certain areas to fund the protection of those areas that that funding is drying up and we do need alternative models.

• 1:08:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I would imagine, you know, social media has played a part in making it less and less uh popular for people to embark on those trophy hunts, you know, with Cecil and the like, you know, it's it's gotta be a dying thing, is it?

• 1:09:07Speaker 01

  It definitely is. I mean, hunting is is an endangered species itself and one which I think is going to be increasingly reserved for the the uber-rich. Uh you've got reduced wildlife populations from poaching and in some cases, hunting, uh trophy hunting. And there is a distinction between the two. Poaching is is illegal and sanctioned trophy hunting is legal. Uh and then the third, the the, you know, we've got tougher policies and laws surrounding the export of trophies such as ivory from countries like Zimbabwe to places like America. Uh so it makes it harder for the trophy hunter to bring their trophy back. And those sanctions are normally imposed by entities such as the US Fish and Wildlife

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  Service when they they assess a country's conservation efforts and they try to make different adjustments to to help conservation on the ground. And the third reason is exactly what you said, social media, a generation of people that are grown up, uh been able to see exactly what hunting is at the click of a click of a finger and and make the decision that they don't want to get on a plane and fly across the world so they can shoot something in the face anymore.

• 1:10:15Rich Roll?

  What is the biggest obstacle to winning this war on poaching?

• 1:10:22Speaker 01

  Look, I think we definitely need a shift in the balance of how we look at protection of the natural world and our our our future as a species is directly intertwined with our willingness to preserve biodiversity. And if we don't wake up and actually get behind this environmental move, whether it's doing something about climate change, uh A small change, a big change, whatever, whatever it is in your own home with your own children. Uh, if we don't do something, then we are the endangered species. This rock has been spinning through, through space for five point three billion years. Uh, doing its thing and it survived much worse than mankind. And unless we can seriously get together and, uh, and get behind this environmental movement and shift things like this.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  I mean, this crappy proportion of funding that we have in the, in the, in the not for profit world from five percent.

• 1:11:13Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:11:14Speaker 01

  I mean, five percent, seriously, guys, five percent to look after the natural world. The, the, the world that we all have to live in and inhabit and all these other animals have to live here too. If we can't seriously get that right, then we're fucked.

• 1:11:29Rich Roll?

  Do you think you're pessimistic or optimistic?

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  I'm definitely optimistic, mate, you know, and I've had my, had my pessimistic couple of years. And you know, the good thing about crisis is, uh, it's like me in South America, man. You can either fucking, you can either get shut back out the other side, man, and, and get up and dust yourself off and, and, you know, learn from the lessons, evolve, uh, or you can sit there and be fucking grumpy about it. But, uh, you know what, man, there's a, there's a, there's a bunch of people that are doing some really cool things and some inspiring things, you know, and to look. If you're gonna go back 10 years and look forward to today and look at all the talk that's going on around protecting the environment and, and policy changes. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of shit things going on out there, but you know what? We're, we're aware of them and when we're aware, we can start to make changes.

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  And I don't think that, you know, there hasn't been a, a point in history where people have been so excited about trying to do good things for the environment. We just need more and more momentum.

• 1:12:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:31Rich Roll?

  It's interesting how we as a culture are more empathetic or we can wrap our heads around getting, um. Here, you want some more water, uh, compassionate about.

• 1:12:43Rich Roll?

  These incredible animals like rhinos and elephants and the like. But right under our noses is this, you know, massive industrial complex known as factory farming and we just can't find it in ourselves to extend that same sense of empathy or concern to, you know, cattle and chickens and fish and these other animals that, you know, we consume voraciously.

• 1:13:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that's speciesism, which is the same as sexism or racism, allocation of different values and rights to different species and animals, depending on how convenient they are to us. And this is, you know, I was a victim of my own bullshit. When I walked around the bush for four years, refusing to acknowledge that a cow has the same capacity to suffer as a rhino. And the only difference we create between their two abilities to suffer is the difference we create in our own minds. And, you know, I was a master of coming up with all these excuses as to why we, you know, other animals didn't need the same level of appreciation as what the ones were that I was protecting.

• 1:13:54Speaker 01

  Cows aren't going extinct, or, you know, they've been bred for us to eat.

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  You know, or I do so much good work in conservation that I've earned the right to be able to come home and eat these animals and it's bullshit. And eventually, I suppose if you're open enough to acknowledging the truth, it gets too much for you. And that's a good thing.

• 1:14:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it is interesting. You weren't vegan from the outset. You were kind of well into this work before.

• 1:14:19Speaker 01

  You know, I mean,

• 1:14:20Rich Roll?

  That switch for yourself.

• 1:14:21Speaker 01

  I mean, I come from a background of hunting, not caring for the environment and not giving a shit about animals. And I'm not proud of that, but you know what? It's a good start point to have a conversation with pretty much anyone in the world because, you know, some people are born close to perfect. I was, you know, quite the opposite and it's being able to change and being able to identify where the mistakes are and use those as lessons. And, you know, I can sit down with Hunter from Texas. I can sit down with the guy that likes to eat his steak. Because that used to be me.

• 1:14:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:14:53Rich Roll?

  Well, not only that, I mean, you're not, you know, a dreadlocked hippie, you know? It's like you walk in and you cut this very masculine frame. And you have your background that you have. And I think that that, you know, with that gives you some gravitas to walk into a room and be taken seriously on issues that perhaps would be dismissed if somebody who looked different than you was trying to communicate them.

• 1:15:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:21Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:22Rich Roll?

  I mean, it's back to that, like, issue about masculinity.

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  All different shapes and sizes, you know. And I'll still say that the, the, the best decision I've ever made in my, in my life, out of everything I've done, places I've been, the best decision I've ever made is to go vegan. And to acknowledge that, and you know what? You don't even have to get out of bed before you're doing something good for the environment and good for animals. And it's a really liberating feeling to know that, because I mean, we've, I mean, I don't think there's anybody out there listening today that doesn't have some sort of connection with animals, whether it's a dog or a cat or you go out to a farm, or you've been to Africa, or whatever it may be, you can't look in the eyes of an animal and deny that that animal doesn't want the same thing as us. It wants safety, it wants shelter, it wants to live without suffering. It wants

• 1:16:11Speaker 01

  to live without have to line up and go and walk into a slaughterhouse just like any other person would. And I think we're gonna look back, we're gonna look back at some stage and be ashamed of what we've done as a species. And, you know, it's fucking good to be on the right side of history, Rich.

• 1:16:28Rich Roll?

  What do you think is the biggest stumbling block for, for most people and wrapping their heads around going vegan?

• 1:16:36Speaker 01

  Honestly, acknowledging the truth. Because you flash up the, you know, the, the story or the video of where meat actually comes from, people are pushing, I turn it off, I don't want to see it, don't want to see it. People don't want to know, people don't want to acknowledge the truth. They know it, they just don't want to listen to it. And, you know, if you really let your own guard down internally, let your guard down and analyze yourself and just, do you really want to be a person that pays somebody else to do something to animals you're not willing to do yourself? And, you know, I think if we just take the time to reflect and have a think about what's on our plate and where did that come from? And what did it go through to get there? You know, anyone with any conscience,

• 1:17:21Speaker 01

  we wouldn't want that happening to their own child, their own mother, their father, their brother, their sister. So why would you want it happening to something else? Not only something else, something that just doesn't have the ability to defend itself.

• 1:17:33Rich Roll?

  Certainly, this movement is on the rise. More and more people are adopting this lifestyle, but there's still a long way to go for full mainstream adaptation to it, I think.

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  There's a long way to go, but you know, we're a species that responds well to crisis. And I think, you know, as a, we've been digging our own graves with our teeth as a civilization. And I think we're starting to understand that when we look at global warming and we look at the effect that the meat industry is having on our planet and on our health.

• 1:18:08Speaker 01

  We're not fucking stupid. We know what we're doing. We just don't acknowledge it. And I think as we get further and further into the corner, people are starting to wake up and it's cool. It's, it's actually exciting, mate. It is, you know, I come here to LA, I go to New York, wherever, and I type in vegan restaurants and all these red dots pop up and you walk in and you can't get a bloody seat anywhere, you know, and it's, it's a good thing, man. Good things are happening by good people and it's catching on.

• 1:18:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and, and young people are, are really on board with this in a, in a, in a way that my generation isn't, you know, which is exciting.

• 1:18:40Speaker 01

  And you know what, and funny I should mention that because so many people say, oh, you know, we've got to get the children involved. That's where the future is. That's bullshit. Everybody, it's never too late to change. Okay. We can't rely on the children to fix this. The next generation, it's, it's everyone's responsibility. It's everyone's responsibility now. Just because we've done something for 50, 60, 70 years that may not have been right, it doesn't mean it's too late to change. And, you know, it's, it's a very liberating thing when you get with the program.

• 1:19:11Rich Roll?

  How old is your son now?

• 1:19:13Speaker 01

  I've got a five-year-old son and I've got a, a young daughter as well now.

• 1:19:17Rich Roll?

  Daughter too. So what is the world that you would like to see for them?

• 1:19:23Speaker 01

  You know, I'd like them to be able to grow up in a, in a world where animals are not treated as commodities, where animals are given the right to live out their lives as, as, as we would like to live out ours. And that is, you know, the flow-on effects when we have that compassion towards animals and protecting the environment is, is I think a much happier world for us all to live in.

• 1:19:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:47Rich Roll?

  It's amazing work that you're doing. I would presume that you're here in the States trying to raise funds and awareness, right? So if people are listening to this and they want to learn more, they want to get involved, they want to contribute or donate, how do they do that?

• 1:20:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, thanks. Thanks for asking that, Rich mate. Yeah, you know, I mean, I come over here three times a year and do a bunch of lectures around the country, fundraisers. This trip is a short one, two weeks on the ground. And if anybody wants to know more information, they can go to www.iapf.org or type in anti-poaching into Google, it will come up, the International Anti-Poaching Foundation. But yeah, it's, it's, no donation is too small or too big. I'll throw that one in. But yeah, we, we really appreciate all the people around the world that make the work that, that we do on the ground possible.

• 1:20:37Rich Roll?

  And what do you most need the funds for? Like, how would you deploy those funds if you could meet all of your budgetary dreams?

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  So at the moment, we are scaling up the Akashanga program. So we're about, what, what we do is we, we buy the long-term leases in collaboration with the local community of these hunting areas. And we're looking to purchase the, the place next door now, and that's going to cost us just over $300,000 US dollars a year to run. And that, that will, that will be a 25-year lease on that area. So for 25 years, and we'll renew it again after that. That'll be 50 years that hunting will not take place on there.

• 1:21:16Speaker 01

  And animals can just do what animals do, uh, go about, uh, go about their, their lives. We've got a 2025 vision of having 20 areas that have been reclaimed from trophy hunting. It'll take a thousand women to manage and protect, uh, and putting 6.2 million dollars a year into the local communities.

• 1:21:33Rich Roll?

  It seems like it's super scalable, right? To take the, the training techniques that you have and deploy them to groups of women in different communities, you know, across Africa and beyond. And also it seems like a system that would work well for other types of endeavors beyond animal protection.

• 1:21:53Speaker 01

  Mate, uh, funny you should mention that. You know, I mean, we, we, we go into an area, a conservation area in a small country in Southern Africa and able to switch the dynamics in the local community where law enforcement is involved and in a much more positive way, much more cost effective way. And we don't need helicopters and more guns and bigger fences, we, we have in those conversations. But if we can do this in a conservation setting, imagine what we can do outside of conservation, beyond conservation, beyond Zimbabwe. I think, um, it's, it's, it's really exciting to see where this program is going to go.

• 1:22:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And what are the differences country to country, you know, when you go to the neighboring countries outside of Zimbabwe? Does the, the legal landscape change? Is poaching different there?

• 1:22:38Speaker 01

  Fifty six countries on the continent, everyone is, is different, some in better ways, some in worse. Uh, look, every, every country we're operating now in, in Kenya, uh, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe, we just did a leadership training program in Uganda, uh, last week. So we, we constantly having a deal in, in different climates, different settings, different languages, cultures, uh, and political structures. So, you know, we, we, we actually have a matrix where we assess what we're going to do and where we're going to do it and why. And, uh, political will is, is a, is a very high scoring, uh, metric in, in that calculator, if you want to call it that. And, uh, you know, it, it's a very powerful thing when you have political will behind you and, and in favor of conservation and it's a huge hurdle when you don't.

• 1:23:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What's the biggest obstacle or hurdle that you're facing like short term right now that you're trying to overcome?

• 1:23:30Speaker 01

  Look, I mean, funding is always a, it's always a tough struggle. We're an organization that has some of the best people in the industry at ground level, running the programs and trailblazing in conservation. And then, you know, we've been less successful in hiring the fundraisers or getting our head around it ourselves. You know, it's just, it's been a struggle on this, this side of the pond in terms of getting funding. And, you know, we have a really simple, scalable model that is working in a way that is more effective than any other operation I've been involved with before. It's pioneering. It's a viable economic alternative for trophy hunting. We've shifted the strategy of conservation to put female empowerment at the top.

• 1:24:14Speaker 01

  It's the most effective single dollar to be spent in community development and conservation became the byproduct. We are lifting up communities, putting a majority of conservation funding into community development. And, you know, on top of all that, the program is a, is a, a launch pad using some of the most powerful ambassadors we have in these societies, driving a plant-based vegan message at grassroots rural level. You know, no big change in history ever started from the top down. It always comes from the grassroots.

• 1:24:49Rich Roll?

  Always, always. All right, well, let's close this down. Parting words for somebody who's listening to this, who perhaps is coming into this awareness for the first time, had no idea these things are going on in Africa, is new to the vegan message, is interested in taking that first step, getting involved as an activist or just in terms of their own personal consumer choices every single day. What do you, what can you leave for that person?

• 1:25:23Speaker 01

  Look, I mean, we can't change the world by ourselves. We can do it together. And that starts with changing the things in our world and changing them for the better. We can't protect every animal, but we can protect the ones that are in our lives. And I think it just, if we just open up to ourselves and acknowledge the truth of where our food comes from and the suffering that is happening to animals out there. If we just acknowledge that as individuals, I think the world could be a much better place.

• 1:25:55Speaker 01

  Hopefully, one day I'll be out of bloody work. Because animals aren't being threatened, animals aren't being treated as commodities. They're being treated as people and people that deserve our protection. I think that's everyone's responsibility. We have to, we have to train men and women up to certain levels with various skills and arm them and send them out into the bush, risking their life every day to protect animals. The simple way to protect them is not to stick them in your mouth, you know, and we can all do that. That's the power that we all have and it's a powerful thing.

• 1:26:28Rich Roll?

  Powerful indeed. Super inspirational. Thank you for everything that you do. You're doing incredible work. So for everybody that's listening, please explore Damian's world and what he's doing. Get involved, contribute, donate. If you haven't already, please watch his TED Talk, also the 60 Minutes piece on the Akashanga. I'll link those up in the show notes so you can learn more and come back and talk to me again, my friend.

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  Rich, thanks very much, man. And thanks for what you do and the message that you drive and everyone out there too. For those sitting on the fence, you know, just keep, keep reading, keep educating yourself because once the shutters come up, they never go down again.

• 1:27:11Rich Roll?

  Peace. Plants.

• 1:27:15Rich Roll?

  Super intense, unbelievably inspirational. Thank you Damian for sharing your story with all of us today. I love you. I love the work that you're doing. To learn more about Damian and his mission and his advocacy, please visit the show notes on the episode page at ritual.com. I've got tons of links there where you can do a deep dive into Damian's world and work. And please extend yourself to let Damian know what you thought of today's conversation by hitting him up on Instagram @damian_mander, M-A-N-D-E-R, or on Twitter @DamianMander. Also, visit iapf.com, that is the International Anti-Poaching Foundation

• 1:27:57Rich Roll?

  website, and get involved. If you're looking for some nutritional guidance, check out our meal planner at meals.ritual.com. Thousands of plant-based recipes, all customized based on your personal preferences, unlimited grocery lists, grocery delivery integrated into the service in most metropolitan areas, amazing customer support from a team of highly-trained health and diet coaches, available seven days a week. And you get all of it for just $1.90 a week when you sign up for a year. So go to meals.ritual.com or click on Meal Planner on the top menu on my website, ritual.com, and get started today. If you'd like to support the work we do here on the podcast, there's a couple of simple ways to do it.

• 1:28:42Rich Roll?

  Take a screen grab of the episode that you're listening to, that you're enjoying, and share it on your favorite social media platform. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, on YouTube, on Google Podcasts. Leave a review on any of those platforms. Share the show with your friends across the dinner table in person. And you can also support the show on Patreon at ritual.com/donate. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for production, audio engineering, show notes, interstitial music, tons of help with the website. Blake Curtis and Margot Lubin for video and editing. Jessica Miranda for graphics. Ally Rogers for photography. DK for advertising

• 1:29:27Rich Roll?

  relationships and theme music, as always, by Analemma. Thank you for the love, you guys. I will see you back here next week with another incredible episode. Who's coming up next? Let me see, I gotta look at the calendar. I should know this before I record this. Oh, Marco Borges returns to the podcast. He's got a new book out called Green Print. I love that man. This is a great conversation. So that's going up next Monday. You have that to look forward to. Until then, I hope Damian left you with a few things to think about, to ponder when it comes to how we tread on this beautiful planet that we all share. Until then, peace, plants. Be well. Namaste.