Conservation is Foundational for Chickenfeet Travels
It seems a bit far-fetched that a travel company’s main drive is conservation, but as we each continue to explore more and speak with people of all walks of life, everything is connected. And there is no better place to get started than travelling more responsibly and with intention because the sheer act of going where no one else is going and supporting the local economies elsewhere, is conserving culture and heritage, natural habitats and environments, and the flora and fauna who live there.
I feel like the best way to understand this connection between tourism and conservation will be by going through my own step by step process of understanding how to affect change. As the Chief Egghead and co-founder of the company, it is my responsibility to hold the integrity of the company and, more importantly, the hope for a better future through collective action.
In short, I love sharks, and I want to protect them from being hunted for their fins, so I went to university to be a marine biologist. In my three years of study, scuba diving, and travel, I realized that next to no one cares or is emotionally affected by statistics; if anything, it overwhelms people and sets a tone for doom and gloom. So I pivoted became a dive instructor the same time I finished my undergrad degree. As I taught hundreds of students, I could see a spark in some of their eyes as I brought some awareness to eating responsibly sourced seafood and farmed animals and avoiding plastic.
I realized that to affect change, people like myself need to see the beauty of what they are fighting and to feel empowered to do so. And that slowly became the foundation for how, where, and why we continue to run and grow Chickenfeet Travels.
If you want the long version, please feel free to continue.
Why Marine Biology?
There are two memories that made me pursue a marine biology degree. In my high school years, there was one year where marine biology was an elective class, and for that class, we made a boat trip off the coast of Southern California to go whale watching. We didn’t see any whales, but we did see what they called “an army of dolphins”. For close to an hour, we were completely surrounded, to the horizon, by thousands of dolphins playing in the wake of the boat and jumping out of the water. That was the moment I knew I wanted to continue with marine biology at university. The second memory is from a TV show, as part of Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. I remember one particular episode where a cameraman jumped onto a bloated whale carcass in order to film a Great White Shark biting, thrashing, and tearing away pieces to eat. My immediate thought is that is exactly what I want to do when I am older.
Marine Biology to Dive Instructor
As I was making my way through my undergrad degree, I also did an internship at NUS and third-authored a scientific paper. This to me was a litmus test to whether I could continue being a scientist. Turns out it was a hard no. The paper I worked on with the lead scientist was to see whether or not citations were accurate and we found that “One in four citations in marine biology papers is inappropriate”.
Come to think of it, this is the beginning of my life as a casual conspiracy theorist. If science was not dependable because of deadlines, budgets, and the source of funding, how could anything be trusted? I learned never to take anything at face value and started questioning everything.
My last ditch effort at science was another internship collecting data on thresher sharks on Malapascua Island, Philippines. I spent a month there to really live the life of a scientist. I realised that science was purely who you knew and if you were willing to pay to play: the amount of years, effort, and money needed to commit to continued education and even to get the right jobs with the right lead scientist seemed intangible. It is a broken system I did not want to be a part of.
However, one thing I did learn from my undergrad degree was that what I really wanted to do was conservation. There is actually an undergraduate degree in conservation biology that would have probably suited me better, but no one tells you what’s actually available in the world of undergraduate degrees. I realized that when I wanted to study sharks, I had a romanticized idea of what a marine biologist actually does. What I was more interested in was being with sharks and taking photos of them.
I threw myself completely into scuba diving and instructing as a back up. By the time I was 20, I had become a scuba diving instructor and put about 200 dives under my belt, saw just about all the species I wanted to see, dived in Australia, Philippines, Borneo, and Mozambique and graduated with my degree in Marine Biology and Geology.
As someone who loves nature, I also devoured documentaries. Blue Planet and Planet Earth were my lifeblood, in addition to so many others. Then there was a nature documentary about the tigers in India. Because of the growing human population, villages and their people kept expanding into tiger territory, and as a result, more attacks on humans were occurring, which then resulted in eye-for-an-eye retaliation. Conservationists came in with failed efforts to protect the tigers.
But what really resonated with me was the translated answer one of the villagers said, which is from memory: “How can we care about the tigers when they keep killing our people? If we can’t farm, we can’t eat. Help me eat and provide for my family, and I will protect the tigers.” And just like that, it was so clear to me that to protect the planet, we have to protect her people.
As a dive instructor, I saw how countless people took their first breaths underwater, saw their first shark, their first turtle, even their first clown fish and their eyes just light up. I have seen close to a dozen of my student divers turn into divemasters and instructors themselves. I have seen so many friends choose more sustainable diet and lifestyles once they saw the darkness of agricultural and fishing industries.
It is all about the people.
Part-time Instructor, forever traveller, and full-time business owner.
“Why is it that scuba divers and surfers are some of the strongest advocates of ocean conservation? Because they’ve spent time in and around the ocean, and they’ve personally seen the beauty, the fragility, and even the degradation of our planet’s blue heart.” – Sylvia Earle
Diving and surfing, connecting with nature, and travelling for better dives and surf breaks gives scuba divers and surfers something to fight for. Walking amongst the trees. Visiting a responsible elephant sanctuary and hearing them crunch away at banana trees. Summiting a volcano/mountain and breathing in the chilly air. Spotting wild orangutans. Swimming in chilly waterfalls. Swimming in natural hot springs.
Getting salty at the beach. Travelling to inspiring places, meeting new people, learning unexpected things, and seeing wild animals are all things that give people a reason to fight for nature and conservation. When we have these incredible moments with Mother Nature when we have enough of them, there is a sense of responsibility to share these moments and to protect the wildlife, the people, and the environment. We are part of nature; nature is part of us. We are nature.
“What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves to one another.” - Gandhi
