We’re (not) doomed‪.‬ Stacey Mac Donald & Tim van Wagensveld

Welcome to another episode of We’re (not) doomed. Today we’ll be talking with Arjan de Groene, a program coordinator at the WWF who focuses on the Caribbean Netherlands. With Arjan, we cover a whole range of topics: we talk about his work and approach when it comes to protecting the environment and the somewhat debated role of NGO’s when it comes to protecting the environment. We also talk about the challenges he encounters with protecting the environment of the Caribbean, and discuss whether these challenges are really so much different compared to other countries or islands. Both Tim and I have worked with Arjan previously and we were very happy he wanted to join us on our podcast.

As some of you might have noticed, the launch of this episode has experienced a delay of two weeks.

We wanted to make sure that the message we share in this podcast addresses the topics we discuss just right. We also wanted this episode to go live in light of the recent events that have been unfolding in our societies across the globe: yes, we are talking about the issue of racism. Some of you might be wondering why a podcast focused on environmental issues is concerned about racism and others might be concerned that the anti-racism movement might distract us from our fight against climate change.

But have you have ever given thought on how these issues are interconnected?

As marine biologists, Ayana Johnson shared in her post in The Washington Post: “Stopping climate change is hard enough, but racism only makes it harder”. Leah Thomas, an upcoming social media environmental activist, shared a post on ‘intersectional environmentalism’ that has gone viral. She explains: Intersectional environmentalism is an inclusive form of environmentalism that advocates for both the protection of people AND the planet. It brings injustices done to the most vulnerable communities, and the earth, to the forefront and minimizes or silences social inequality.

Ayana’s article and Leah’s post and triggered the topics discussed in this episode of we’re not doomed. In this episode, Stacey has an important conversation with Neelam Melwani, an expert of Sustainable Development on the concept of intersectional environmentalism and how this philosophy is evolving and slowly but surely being integrated into our societies, even at the level of diplomacy.

These are the post from Leah Thomas and the post from Ayana Johnson we are referencing to in the episode. To learn more on Intersectional Environmentalism, read this article called 'My environmentalism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit.' 

To learn more about the Sustainable Development goals, read this article on the Why SDG's matter and this 2020 SDG progress report.

This week we are virtually travelling to Bonaire to have a chat with the interim director of the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance, Tadzio Bervoets. We talk about a whole range of topics, which can be best summarized as the many wonders of the environment in the Dutch Caribbean, but also the complexity of managing these invaluable resources. He shares his journey, which started at having a love for diving and tagging sharks to becoming the face of one of the most crucial nature-management organizations in the Dutch Caribbean. We love his down to earth and balanced view about the challenges we face and the work that needs to be done. Despite the many complexities and often being overwhelmed by this, he remains optimistic that we are not doomed.  We thoroughly enjoyed our conversation with Tadzio and hope you will too! 

Our first real episode on international Biodiversity day. In this episode we talk with Reforestation-guru Adam Mitchell about the importance of trees! Our appologies for the s****y recoding, we’re still working on setting up our home studio. Hope you enjoy!

In this episode Tim and Stacey introduce themselves and their podcast “We’re (not) doomed”. Bare with them, it's still a bit choppy and many bloopers were made but they promise they’ll get better at this. Hope you enjoy!