Drone technology in conservation with Dr Sol

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We are delighted to have a conservation about drone technology with Dr Sol, our Naturalist at Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ambassadors of the Environment programme. In this episode, Dr Sol shares extensive information about research findings, preservation and sustainability.
 
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Transcript

Mark Hehir: 0:00

Welcome back to Sangu Stories. Living in a country covered by 99% of sea. We are closely connected to the marine world, thus protecting and preserving the surrounding ocean has become our mission. We have partnered with Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ambassadors of the Environment programme and we have brought an interesting element, which is technology to the conservation story, taking inspiration from Cousteau family legacy and marine technology. And after all the world's first scuba gear to the underwater camera was invented by Jacque Cousteau. We are conducting extensive research using aerial and underwater drones to find the impact over time and finding more on how we can save the surrounding coral reefs. And today we've got Dr Sol, our naturalist who's here to discuss more about drone technology and what it means to the Maldives. Welcome Dr Sol, it's great to have you here today. Just finished the dive with Jean-Michel Cousteau which has been an incredible and very inspiring, you know, it's great to have you here today with us after that and share with our listeners more about drone conservation and some of the work that you're doing and the insights to what makes you tick as well. So nice to have you here.

Dr Sol Milne: 1:14

Thanks very much, Mark. It's fantastic to be here and it's really amazing week having Jean-Michel Cousteau here, being able to go diving together this morning and then, talking about our research altogether it's yeah. Brilliant to be in the same room.

Mark Hehir: 1:28

Wonderful. So let's talk a bit more about the drone conservation work that you're doing.

Dr Sol Milne: 1:33

Absolutely. So, the work we're doing here is a collaboration between Melissa Schiele, who is a researcher at University of Loughborough who sort of initiated this programme with The Ritz-Carlton Maldives, Fari Islands and Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ambassadors of the Environment programme. And her, I guess, vision for this was to create a marine technology hub. So to study the region around the Maldives, this region of the Kaafu Atoll, in order to understand the movement of plastic debris, to see how human impacts from wider field are affecting this area. And also to look for ghostnets, which I'll elaborate a bit more and later. And most importantly marine megafauna. So that's all the large animals that are seen moving in and around as lagoon here. So, we are using drones to fly almost every day over the lagoon and looking out for these, sort of human impacts and also for the amazing fauna, we get to see from the air.

Mark Hehir: 2:25

It's very exciting and you know, we'll talk more about how the young children get excited about technology and how that creates more interest as well. But so far, how much data have you collected and what has been your observations in that area?

Dr Sol Milne: 2:39

Sure. So it's been a really interesting programme to sort of to do alongside with the guests. So we collect, scientific data when we're doing guest activities. And when we're doing our sort of research flights by ourselves. So when, if you really join our ocean drone activity as a guest, meet us in the morning on a beach between eight and nine 30 and we fly drone right over the reef. Now, while we're doing that, we're collecting information on any, say incidental marine debris we see during the flight. Yeah. We're also looking out for animals like rays and sharks and dolphins and turtles. And the more flights we do, obviously the more and more we see. But for me, I'm amazed at how many interactions we're seeing between different species. So when we go out flying with the guests, we end up going quite low over wildlife because anything under water can't really hear us and we can observe from the drone and see whether or not we're disturbing them. Yeah. So we've seen turtles and in eagle rays interacting, we've seen different race species coming together. Um, recently we saw a, what we fever of mobula rays which is sort of a smaller version of manta rays, swimming, all in formation like geese and must have been incredible to watch. Um, so we're getting those information about the kinds of wildlife that moved through this area. And at the same time we're collecting data on marine plastics, right? So marine plastics really ubiquitous across the whole ocean. And we're trying to understand, how much accumulates here at this spot in the Indian Ocean. We do that by surveying some of the beaches, seeing where small particles land. And we also survey along the reefs looking for called ghostnets. Okay. Um, so as we go on, we're understanding more of the distribution of these things, but also where, how they're affecting the region.

Mark Hehir: 4:22

So then that sort of opens up a question in my mind about and for our listeners to understand as well, is that whilst you're, you're collecting data, you're also reacting in realtime some and you're bringing ghostnets out, but so that's one question what happens to those? So you're able to retrieve some

Dr Sol Milne: 4:41

Absolutely. So when we fly over a ghostnet, we go right on top and we take a photograph. And when you do that with the drone, you record the GPS location directly. So then we head out with Dive Butler. Yeah. And also with our Loss Prevention team. And we go out, to the net directly, um, take it out the reef and make sure there are no animals entangled. And then we remove it from reef and take it for recycling. Okay. So we've recently set up a partnership with Parlay, here working with us on the island to intercept a lot of the plastics for recycling and also for sort of intercepting plastics that arrive here from the environment. So anything that accumulates from the beaches so developing that recycling programme for the nets at the moment, which is very exciting, because yeah

Mark Hehir: 5:26

And also the data, you're sharing about and that collectively data goes somewhere. Does it, you know, what happens to that data?

Dr Sol Milne: 5:35

Absolutely. So, we are kind of using two different methods at the moment. So we're trying to understand the movement of plastics throughout the region. And ghostnets are interesting because they're very visible. Um, so we collect a location where they are identified, and then we use that to model their movement in the greater region of the Maldives. Right. And it's the idea that if we can show that it works here and maybe we can expand it out and further across more atolls.

Mark Hehir: 6:03

So the really, this is the fundamental part of the projects and in the future would be mapping larger parts of Maldives and, you know, and then getting a greater understanding of that. And that would be the benefit for everyone to understand where that's coming from. And I understand you also know where a net would come from almost by pulling it out of the water, and you can understand which type of net it is, right. It has different compounds.

Dr Sol Milne: 6:27

It's amazing. So as you say, yeah, this is sort of the, the ground zero for this pilot project to sort of see where we can, how we can monitor the movement of this gear throughout the region. And the Maldives is actually really unique for this because net fishing is illegal in the Maldives, which is pretty amazing considering how the size of this country and how, you know, expansively it's spread across Indian Ocean. Um, so the regulation of fishing is actually really impressive. So to me, it's an outsider to be able to understand how that works. It's an amazing, but it's also been really useful from a ghost gear perspective because when we find net, we can almost become almost certain that they won't have actually originated in the Maldives. A lot of the time they are used maybe around Sri Lanka, India and even in China, and they get washed out to sea. And just a bit of background when we say a ghostnet. So ghostnet's been discarded. That happens by two ways. Either the net gets damaged at sea. And then t he fisherman decides that it's not worth the effort of putting it back into the boat. They literally just discard it, or t here a re large storms. And then the net itself has been lost due t o wave a nd wind action. So that's actually l oss t o the fisherman itself i n that scenario, t he fisherman doesn't actually w anna lose that because that's t heir revenue. Yeah. So we can tell based on some attributes of the nets o f the mesh size, whether or not they have weights. If t hat has weights, it means they usually lost i t b y accident because if t hey l ost, i f t hey threw out deliberately, they'd take those weights off before. Cause they're valuable. Yeah. U m, so we can tell w here, w here it comes from and what kind of f ishing techniques, we u sed and the kind of boat i s actually used for. So, s o t he kind of marine CSI a nd get a lot of information from it.

Mark Hehir: 7:59

Yeah. And I think, I guess what I touched on earlier is that, you know, through us doing the study and understanding where, you know, we're bringing awareness to this, we're bringing awareness to the children that are here to tell the parents, you know, take care of the environments, taking care of ourselves. Right. And that's what Jean-Michel's main message has been. Absolutely. And we've got actions that play with Parlay that are, that remind us the bottle and bag project and our collection of plastics. And also our reduction of single use plastics in the island is quite prevalent when you come and stay with us. And then we also, don't import still and sparkling water. We make it ourselves and it's complimentary. So it's, I guess it's for us the message here today and bring, you know, talking with you today, sort of you are one of the beacons in the programme that you run with Jean-Michel Cousteau and the Ambassador of the Environment programme and how we bring energy and attention to what's going on in the world through drones, through activity, which again has descending stories, you know, and sort of spirals out. So yeah, please.

Dr Sol Milne: 9:03

Oh, that's sure it's amazing to sort of be part of many sort of tenders of different sustainability projects that are really happening here. Because for me it's a really exciting to be able to work in this location because we get so much amazing wildlife and you know, when we have guests alongside when we're doing the ocean drone activity, part of my effort is actually it's almost to, I don't know, borderline remain professional cause I'm so excited to see say sharks and dolphins. Yeah. And I think that, and that comes across and it's a amazing to have recently have our new shark biologist, Kat Mason joining. Right. Because now we can tell directly what species we're looking at while we're flying over these areas. And we can relay that in realtime, uh, to the guests that joins. So I think there's a lot of energy around that because we're really excited to be able to do it. There's nowhere else in the world doing this kind of thing. And so it's a great project to be a part of.

Mark Hehir: 9:56

Absolutely. And I guess that's, you know, leads into the next question about, what brought you out to this side of the world and how did you appear in our lives here and share us a bit more about your journey, you know, and, and what brought you to this moment?

Dr Sol Milne: 10:10

Well, it's pretty having a pretty roundabout way. So I just finished my PhD in university of Aberdeen, studying Orangutan, which is pretty far, you know from here. Because there aren't many Orangutans in the Maldives, that I've been looking around the island. But we, the research I was focused on was looking at Orangutan nests. So every single night an Orangutan builds a nest, and they used this to, to sleep in. Almost every adult Orangutan has broken a major bone, so they know to make a new nest every single day. So they don't fall and break anything. So you can use the nest to identify how large population is and do my PhD. I wrote some code to identify the locations of nests in different images. Um, and I've actually adapted that to do exactly the same thing out here, but for fishing nets. So in collaboration with Melissa Schiele, I've actually tried to expand that project out here to study the reef and see where these nets are accumulating using code that is originally written for the forests of Malaysia. So it's kind of very different but quite parallel set of research. And it was just sort of been talking with Melissa over the last year have actually ended up getting involved in this project because the great thing about drone research is, is such a new and developing field. There's actually a lot of ability to work creatively within that. And so we can really develop ideas together and we have our sort of grounding to the research projects we're doing, but we also have a lot of capacity to discover. Yeah. So it's interesting to see kind of where we can draw from in inspiration to get this project. So it was talking with talking to Melissa and talking to you Mark, actually, um, that sort of led the way to working out here and I've been here since April. It's from pre-opening. It's been a pretty amazing journey. Yeah,

Mark Hehir: 11:57

That's great. And then you get to meet people like Jean-Michel Cousteau which is incredible. That's fantastic and inspiring guy. I think, you know global warming is a real threat and you know, Jean-Michel brings a lot of attention to that, just, you know, through education and inspiring the youth and us to carry the torch as his father had told him, which we learned again yesterday. So if the sea levels rise and the Maldives may not even exist in the future, what are your thoughts on this in the next 50 years? And I guess, you know, what does Dr Sol's vision of that and what new, what would the world look like? You know, what, what do you feel?

Dr Sol Milne: 12:33

Absolutely. It's difficult really because if we continue along our projected level warming, increase of what is it, 1.5 degree Celsius, then similarly we'll have 1.5 to two meter rise and sea level. Now, if you look at a geological map of the Maldives, just see that actually the highest point is three meters. And the average is about one meters above sea level. So it's actually a really big existential threat for somewhere like the Maldives and actually most oceanic islands, ocean nations. So at COP 26 last week, the global climate, um, climate change summit, on president, Surangel Whipps of Palau said that he put it resisting. He said that if you continue along this path, emitting the same way we do in a sort of business as usual attitude, he said, you might as well bomb us because that kind of puts across how existential it is. The islands would literally disappear. So it's something we're, getting across the same time as doing our beautiful or sort of, um, research on marine megafauna. And we're bringing guests on board to see the beauty of this area and see how precious it is at the same time we're showing the value of actually getting involved in sustainability programmes, you know, the difference it can make by actually powering our water villas with solar power by actually, recycling our water work recycling desalinating the water directly from the ocean using the resources that we have available because even though the Maldives very sort of isolated country in the middle of the ocean, we do have an awful lot that we can use directly. And I think this, this project has a lot to, has a lot to say in terms of showing the value of utilising natural resources in, in a sustainable way. And, I hope sort of through our programme and through the guest, staying here, they can really sort of get an understanding of that.

Mark Hehir: 14:24

I think, you know, the old ideas that we, you know, luxury would, you know, would be, you have to sacrifice the environment for luxury. And we say no, it can coexist and there's ways around it and you don't need to sacrifice the luxury, but you have to be smart. Absolutely. You have to be humble and you have to, you know, lean in and, and look and see we, and we are providing those options here.

Dr Sol Milne: 14:48

Definitely. And there's a great, um, there's a Danish architect called Bjarke Ingels who coined this term hedonistic sustainability, which I really like, which sort of shows that you don't. Yeah, absolutely. You don't need to sacrifice something necessarily to be, luxurious or sort of how, you know, to make amazing structure. I mean, just look at the architecture across the island here, but it needs to be folded into there's a design at the real inception you need to build with sustainability in mind and yeah, it doesn't mean to sacrifice anything. It just means you create more intelligently. And I think it's, yeah, it's a great way to observe that on the island. Definitely.

Mark Hehir: 15:21

So moving into, you know, what we can do to reduce our impact on the environment globally. And what role do you think a luxury brand like The Ritz-Carlton or any brands, uh, should be leading the way in sustainability? What's your feelings there?

Dr Sol Milne: 15:33

Well, so I think we have enormous responsibility because I think, in many people's minds, luxury runs parallel with consumption. And so I think we need to understand that it doesn't need to be that doesn't need to be the cornerstone of that activity. It can actually be done sustainably. And I think by shifting the focus of a lot of luxury activities to their impacts and trying to do that in synergy of the environment is is really important. And to also do that in a, in a tangible way, you know, there's a lot of, there is a lot of greenwash in this industry, but to actually show that we are working on, you know, genuinely doing actual research in this area, looking at how we can improve our impacts on the environment on day by day. And also, you know, a lot of guests see that when they arrive, they'll see that visibly, we're making those efforts, but it's also a point to make, to other resorts and other, um, factors of this industry that we can show that we are, you know, actively reducing the amount of plastic we consume we're actively, um, trying to reduce the amount of energy. What we, what we use on the island and try to get them from more sustainable sources. And I think that puts the honors on other people. And so it's a very, um, it's interesting to be taking part of that with Ritz-Carlton, because obviously we're a global, like a top global. And, um, I think when other resorts and other industries see that we are doing this here, it shows that, you know, no one has an excuse. We need to make these changes as soon as we can.

Mark Hehir: 17:03

Yeah, no, I mean, every one of us can play a part in that. And, again, going back to the water scenario for one example, where if you do choose to drink our still and sparkling water, and don't insist that we would import and fly in a bottle of Evian from France and sell San Pellegrino for sparkling and that would be reduction of carbon air miles or land or by sea. Yeah. And, it's unnecessary and it's adjusting the ego around the essential element of life, which is water. And it's as simple as that. And it's hygienic and it's presented well, and we've done a lot of efforts in that way. Yeah. We're putting it through two passes and then a third filtration system, which is partnered by Nordac out of Sweden, which is a renowned provider of those filtration systems. We've done the work. And now, you know, we just need our guests also to play a part in that. And, you know, I think that's so, so important. Right?

Dr Sol Milne: 18:04

Absolutely. And I think that's one example of the how luxury can be sustainable. Because if, um, yeah, beautiful, clean water, still and sparkling, and the guests can know that it's come directly from the sea surrounding. So I think it's pretty, yeah, really succinct example of how sustainability or at least lowering impact can actually be quite luxurious.

Mark Hehir: 18:25

Yeah, definitely. I think education and the youth and the parents buying into it here. We hope that we inspire the kids as they do meet you, Dr Sol and you, you transform their mind into something about what they could do when they go home and how they could impact the environment. I think that's the bigger message, right? Absolutely.

Dr Sol Milne: 18:44

And a fantastic working with kids because they ask a thousand and one questions. And the fantastic and brilliant thing is we can't answer them all. We don't know all the answers. And so having kids asking questions that we hadn't even thought to, you know, come up with is brilliant. Because it shows that there is a lot of curiosity and being able to sort of get people at a young age really, and most in their environment and seeing the value of that is really special.

Mark Hehir: 19:05

That's great. Well, thanks for your time today.

Dr Sol Milne: 19:07

Thank very much Mark.

Mark Hehir: 19:08

Look forward to seeing you out in the water or up in the skies with your drone. Absolutely. Thank you. Well, I hope you enjoyed today's podcast. Join me next time. When we discover more about The Ritz-Carlton Maldives, Fari Islands.