Kip Evans ON: Ocean Microplastics | Finding your Purpose | National Geographic

Well, folks, I am so excited to welcome in today's special guest. Kip Evans from North America is one of the most amazing aquanauts and filmmakers this planet has seen. He recently put out an amazing documentary on Netflix. If you haven't seen it, you got to check it out. It's called Mission Blue. And he has worked alongside Dr. Sylvia Earle and National Geographic for so many years. This is one incredible person who's going to help us understand the importance of. Of looking after our planet. A massive welcome. It's so great to connect with you.

Thank you so much. I'm so pleased to be here and to share this time with you.

Thank you. Well, you have just captured some of the most incredible footage on the planet. You know, working with national geographic, mission blue, Dr. Sylvia Earle. Your career is incredible. So I'd love to know, where did this all start? Like, where did this passion for photography, the world and wildlife, where did it all start?

Yeah, you know, that's always a question that I get when I do public speaking. And I think, like a lot of people, you know, it was kind of an organic beginning. I went to college and I kind of discovered my passion for marine biology in my second year. And, you know, I did kind of the traditional educational route of learning as much as I could about the ocean and graduating from college with degree that really prepared me to be successful in the ocean. But there's not a lot of jobs as marine biologists, as you probably know. And growing up as a teenager, I had a father that loved to dive, and we spent some summer vacations diving in places like the Caribbean or the Galapagos. And he would always often bring a camera on these trips and take pictures. And later in my teen years, I, you know, I was starting to get bored underwater. You know, I'd spent, you know, a couple hundred hours underwater just looking at stuff. And he started loaning me his camera and, you know, and I started taking pictures. And I realized that it completely changed my perception of what it was like to be underwater, because suddenly I had a purpose, you know, to capture and share what it looks like down there with people who don't die. And I realized that there was great value in that. And while I didn't realize it at the time.

I continued, you know, taking photographs through college and, you know, going to my tide pools and volunteering with, you know, the Park Service and, you know, doing things where I could be helpful. But I always brought a camera with me to kind of document my experiences and about, I don't know, about Five or six years out of college, I had the opportunity to go and work for a marine sanctuary program in Monterey Bay, California. That allowed me to kind of explore, you know, kind of my artistic curiosity, if you will, more. And, you know, I spent all my weekends out shooting in the water and diving. And in 1997, I had an opportunity to go and work for National Geographic. And I won't get into the nitty gritty of how that happened, but I just happened to have the right skills at the right time. And so I spent five years diving submersibles and traveling around the world. And that was kind of the beginning of my career as a full time videographer and underwater photographer. And so, I mean, pretty much for the last 30 years, that's what I've been doing. I've been diving in different places in the world, documenting what I'm seeing, sharing it with the world, trying to educate the people.

That care about the ocean, about how things are changing, why it's important to pay attention to these changes and how we can help.

That's amazing. What's so beautiful about that is that you spoke of your dad introducing you in a really natural way to the ocean and to diving. You were doing something with your dad. You were being present with your dad, and he was too. But all of a sudden that led to a passion which then connected with a purpose, by the sounds of it.

Yeah, absolutely. And my dad was a busy doctor, and so I didn't get to see him much during the week. But when we went and did trips as a family during the summer, that was a big deal. And, you know, I got certified, God, when I was 15, 16 years old. And I mean, it really did open a whole different world for me. And I have him to thank for that. I mean, he really lit the, you know, lit the fuse that ignited my career. And so anyway, here we are, you know, 35 years later and, you know, doing something that I started off doing when I was a teenager. Beautiful.

It's so beautiful. And I've done quite a lot over the last year, so done a lot of research around what's happening in our oceans. And to be honest, I've been oblivious for so many years. I look at the ocean, I think, wow, it's so pristine. It's so beautiful. And. But I don't realize that some of the destruction that humanity is doing to the ocean. So in your experience, what is happening and what has been changing over your lifetime?

Yeah, you know, it's a complicated question because there's varying degrees of impact, depending on where you are. So you might go to places in the Caribbean where you don't see coral reefs like you used to 25 years ago. I mean, they're gone. They're gone and they're bleached, they're dead. You might have to go 100 miles offshore to find some assemblance of a reef that's still existing. There's other areas that have been protected where countries took steps 25 years ago to protect their coastal waters. And those areas, by and large, do pretty, pretty well, I think, of areas like Cocos island or that's off the coast of Costa Rica, or Cabo Pomo, which is in the Gulf of California, in Mexico, areas off the coast of Honduras. But there's other areas that have changed dramatically. I'm sure you've heard about the Great Barrier Reef and how much that's changed. There's areas like the Arctic and the Antarctic that are melting and changing rapidly. And there's a lot to be concerned with. And I've seen a lot of these changes during my life. I personally witnessed these changes underwater. And it's heartbreaking. You know, I. I can remember diving as a teenager off the coast of the United States, a state, Florida. I'm sure you sure you're, you know, well aware of it. And I remember huge strands of coral and big schools of fish. And it's not like that anymore. It's dramatically changed. And so it's a combination of so many things. It's overfishing, it's pollution from shore, it's the way that we've treated the ocean, it's climate change. And unfortunately, those effects dramatically altered a lot of areas in the ocean. And there's only a handful of areas that are still beautiful and pristine. But most of them have changed. And one of the most striking things that is not visible by the naked eye is the amount of plastics that are in the ocean today. Specifically microplastics. And what microplastics are is imagine you have a plastic bottle that has made its way down a river, a stream, off a boat or whatever, and it's floated in the ocean for, you know, months and weeks, and it's degrading and degrading. And little tiny pieces of that plastic bottle break off and they go into the water column and they further diffuse, but they don't really go away. And what happens is marine life feeds upon these things. That plastic ends up in the food chain, and we, as the ultimate consumers, end up with those microplastics in our own bodies. And so that's. That's scary for me because we've been in, you know, very, very remote places in the ocean and done water samples. And almost invariably there's always microplastics now in those water samples. So.

My hat goes off to the countries that have created marine protected areas. Those work. Those make a big, huge difference for not only species that live there, but for those cities and communities that depend on tourism, and for those communities in countries that haven't done anything yet. They need to do that before it's too late.

Wow. It's something that the microplastics is not something that many of us think about. And it's not until we come across a great documentary on Netflix is where I initially connected with some of your great work, that we become aware of some of our human behaviors and how they're impacting the world at large. And I'll have these conversations with people around, hey, well, look, if each of us don't use plastic bottles or plastic bags, and we get food that's not wrapped in plastic, we can make a difference. But now and then, more often than not, people will say, actually, you know what? It doesn't matter what we're doing. We cannot make a difference one person at a time. But what's your thoughts on that? Can we make a difference and can we turn the tide, so to speak?

I think it's hard for the general consumer to.

Have the impact that we all like to see. I mean, you can definitely make individual concessions to make a difference, and if we all did that universally, it would make a huge difference. But the problem is that everyone has different ideas of how they like things packaged or, you know, how.

You know, easy it is to carry groceries in a plastic bag or as a paper bag. And, you know, I think the important thing is to educate everyone about those options and let people make those choices. Where I'd love to see more pressure put is on the industrial level. And the companies that are creating these products that are causing these problems could make those changes and make a huge impact for the ocean. And if those companies could make those changes and find alternative materials, then we could curb this issue a lot quicker than asking individuals to make those changes. Because the reality is, with all the billions of people on this planet and all these different cultures and everything that's going on, and everyone's in a different state of understanding what the issues are, it's almost impossible to curb it and control it. But if the people who are actually manufacturing those bottles could change the way they produce those materials that eventually find their way in the ocean. I think we'd have a lot more success.

That's amazing. So get to the root of the problem. Change the product, because we're going to still need to consume and do things, but change the actual nature of the product.

Exactly.

That's amazing. I love that. And when you think about your work, you've been in this career for a long time, and we're in a day and age now where a lot of people will change career every five to seven years. You've been doing this passionately for a long time. What's your why? What's the purpose behind what keeps you driving and doing it?

Well, I wouldn't say that it's always perfect. You know, there's always ups and downs. And, you know, for example, during this pandemic, it's been really hard. I haven't been able to travel for nearly a year. And it's, you know, talk about having an identity crisis at times, you know, when you get. Do what you're trained to do and what you love to do. But I'd say what. What has really driven me over this period of time is my genuine love for the species that I interact with, the scientists that are doing work that I think is amazing. And being able to document what is happening in the oceans today and share that with the public, I mean, it's so powerful. And for me, it's one of those things where.

While I can't perfectly put it into words, I can tell you right now that it's like one of those things where your heart drives what you love to do, and you just know it. And I know when I'm in the water and I'm swimming past animals that are unique or dangerous or whatever you want to, you know, whatever you want to say, it's. It's something that most people don't experience. And I feel like I'm so lucky, you know, to be able to call that part of my career incredible.

And if you think through your career, is there one moment that you would say was one of your most emotional moments, maybe an interaction with an animal or something you witnessed, and you were like, wow, that a lot of emotion was evoked. Yeah.

You know, when you've worked as long as I have in the ocean, you have a lot of those. Those moments. Not always. There's many trips where nothing out of the ordinary happens. You know, it's funny, I get the question, what is your most dangerous thing that's ever happened? And, you know, I'VE never had any life threatening experiences. You know, I've had little close calls. But in terms of things that have really impacted me, you know, a couple things in the last couple years I was up in the Arctic and as you know, climate change is greatly affecting the Arctic. A lot of areas are melting rapidly. And I think, you know, seeing areas that were historically covered in ice, that are now exposed rock made me realize, you know, when I looked at photos or been I've seen those areas before, how much they have changed. But during a trip a couple years ago, I. I witnessed a mother polar bear and her cub foraging, you know, trying to find food along the shore. And she was greatly emaciated, you know, and obviously trying to provide for her cub. And that was kind of a shock to the heart for me to see, you know, an animal that was struggling in a habitat that was changing.

But.

But I've also had amazing moments too.

Where I've been diving in areas with sharks. And if you've seen any of my works, you know that I love sharks. And I've spent a lot of my career documenting sharks and learning about sharks and working with shark scientists. And I was diving, I guess it's about two years ago now, I was diving at Cocos island, which is one of my favorite places in the world to work. And I was down about 70ft along a ledge. It's quite well known for hammerheads that come into a cleaning station. And during this particular trip, I was working for a client that had hired me to do some shooting for her. And there were no other boats at Cocos, which is really unusual. So imagine having a tropical island essentially to yourself and going diving. I had a dive master with me, but there was no one else really in the water. And it was amazing to see how the wildlife had changed so much. They had let down their guard and they were coming much closer. And I was sitting on a ledge and I had a hammerhead shark that came up and came within literally inches of me while I was at a cleaning station. And they move incredibly slow. I mean, it's just like this when they're being cleaned. And I had this animal come all the way up in front of me and it got spooked, you know, right when it almost hit my mask and took off. And it was one of those moments where you think, oh my gosh, so many people are afraid of sharks. And really these hammerheads, they're like golden retrievers in the ocean. You know, they're so there's, I don't know I mean, if you can imagine an animal that would be scared of you as a human, you know, it's like it's the complete opposite of what people have been trained to think about sharks. And so I've had those experiences where I've been so close to animals and I've had these interactions. And anyway, that's one of my favorites is, you know, that interaction with that hammerhead.

That's beautiful. So, so lovely. I love how you describe it. Like the golden retriever of the ocean. Brilliant.

So good. There's people out there that have excuses for not following their passions or, you know, I could have done that, but I was too young. I'd love to have done that, but now I'm too old. So for people out there who are trying to find their passion and want to take that leap, but they come up with excuses, what kind of advice would you have for them?

I think everyone's situation is different and we have demands. If we're a parent and we have to think about providing for our children.

We all have certain skills and aptitudes and things that make us great at one thing and maybe not so good at another thing.

What you really need to ask yourself is how much of your life do you want to spend doing something that you maybe don't want to be doing? Right. And what is it worth to you to be doing something you're passionate about? And.

Money always plays a factor in our decisions because we have to pay our bills. Right.

I'm in a career that's competitive, it's non traditional.

You have to be trained in a different way than people are normally used to being trained. Right. You know, in terms of diving and photography and, you know, working in the ocean. But I think it's a great example of if you do follow your heart and you believe in something and you're willing to put the hard work into it, you can make that work. And it doesn't have to be a career in the ocean. It could be career and whatever drives you. And, you know, as I've gotten older during the years, I've realized that a lot of this comes down to perseverance and, you know, not giving up. And I think the people that are successful are the ones that latch onto their dreams and they don't let go.

Right.

They keep on working super hard at it. And those opportunities do come, you know, and unfortunately, there's more and more people in this world and it's more competitive. But those people who persevere are typically the ones that end up doing what they want to do.

Absolutely agree. And you've got kids, and you're such a great role model for your kids. So throughout the years, you've been performing at such a high level in your career. How have you balanced that and still being able to show up as a.

Good dad, you know, it's something that has been difficult at times, because when I do travel, I'm completely gone and out of the picture, and, you know, it drives me crazy when I'm at sea and I know I'm missing my kid's soccer game or I missed a birthday.

But when I'm home, I'm 100% dedicated to my children, and I show up for everything, and I help. And I've been on my son's mountain biking team for four years. I'm one of the coaches that goes out and rides with those kids. And, yeah, I might have to take off for 10 days and miss a tournament or, you know, not be able to ride, but when I'm back, I'm out there every single ride. And So I give 100% when I'm home. And when I'm away, they know dad's away working, and. And that's okay. You know, as long as you can strike that balance and you can give, you know, a lot of yourself in your back, then it works.

That's great advice, because there's a lot of dads and moms out there that will be listening to this that are heavily involved in their careers and their passions. And it's nice to know that there is actually a balancing act and there's compromise for everyone involved. I love that.

You know, I told my wife one time when I was leaving for a trip, I. You know, I was like, I don't. I just don't want to go. You know, I don't want to go to the Galapagos.

I'm terrible.

I know. It sounded so bad, and, like, I'm so tired of being away. And she goes, you know what, sweetheart? She goes, you're around more than dads that are here full time. And one of the great things is how dedicated you are when you are home with the kids. And they love that. And so. And it makes it special, right? If you're gone for 10 days, hopefully you're missed. And when you get back, it's kind of like this special reunion, and your kids actually want to be with you. You know, you're a novelty, at least for a couple of days, you know, I love that.

That's so cool. I want to ask you One last question. So what does it mean to you to live a life of purpose?

You know, that's. No one's ever asked. Asked me that question before.

I think I'm a lot like everyone else out there that's, you know, has to try to figure these things out. And.

I think that we do things in our life that take us on a certain path. And you. You might have a taste of success along the way. And, you know, you can also have the taste of failure. And I think once you have that taste of success and you see that you're making a difference. I know that I've made a difference with helping to protect sharks, for example, and educate people about the importance of these animals that are greatly threatened in our ocean. And I guess, you know, that gives you purpose, right? That's what gets you up in the next morning or out on the next trip. And so.

And if I was put on this earth to inspire people to learn more about beautiful places, important places, then that's a great purpose, too. And so I, you know, while I would love to be different things and for different people and do different things in my life, I'd love to fly an F18, for example, you know, and be a fighter pilot. I also realized that, you know, my skills took me down this road, and this seems to be my purpose in life, is to document the oceans and teach people about the importance of one of the most important areas on our planet. The most important. You know, without the oceans, we'd have nothing, really. No climate, no oxygen. So I'm proud to have spent my career, you know, working in the ocean.

Well, we are very, very grateful for the work that you do. I would not have learned what I've learned about the ocean if it wasn't for the work that you've done. So I just want to personally thank you, and I know there'll be lots of listeners and viewers there that will be so grateful. So please continue to do that work once Covid disappears. I can't wait to see you back out traveling. And please come and say hello when you come to New Zealand.

I will, I will. I can't wait to come and visit your beautiful country sometime in the future.

It'll be fun. Hey, Kip, thank you so, so much for taking the time.

You're so welcome.

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