Kathy Xu of The Dorsal Effect discusses Ecotourism

Kathy

And the whole idea of flying to Lombok in itself already makes me uncomfortable. Like, Oh, do we really need to take another flight? Can we justify this fligh? Right? Especially if I'm bringing a group of school children like so many people on a flight. But can I justify bringing them down? I try my best to be sustainable about the meals as possible.

So one of the things is on that. Dorsel Effect trips we don't serve seafood, but so yeah, but then the schoolchildren, sometimes they would be like, Oh, but why is there no seafood? Why is there no meats? It's just the worst trip ever. I can't wait for it to be over, you know? So it's it's just very difficult.

Paul

Hello and welcome to Rethink What Matters, The podcast dedicated to aligning the economy with the ecology and everyone for improved business performance, stronger families and a greener, cooler planet. And today I'm joined by Kathy Xu of Dorsal Effect in Singapore. Kathy is an environment and marine advocate, sharks and ocean lover and eco tourism business lead. We're going to be discussing eco-tourism.

So eco tourism is such a big subject and it's a little bit about dorsal effect first.

Kathy

So I run the dorsal effects. I basically see it as an eco tourism outfit where I provide shark fishermen in Lombok, Indonesia, with an alternative source of livelihood. So basically getting them to move away from shark fishing, but paying them better when they take tourists out snorkeling on boat trips, it's the dorsal effect.

Paul

Okay. All right. And yeah, if you can expand it a bit more about what exactly eco tourism is, because it seems like it could be a lot of things.

Kathy

Yeah, that's a huge question. Like I, I asked myself that question many times and well, because I feel like eco tourism, just like most other buzz words in today's day and age, like sustainability, like circular economy, they all seem so big and they sound so good. Yeah, it's so hard to advocate. Ah, it's so hard to run them the way that they should be easily carry it out.

But most of the time I struggle. I struggle with calling myself eco tourism because what does that actually mean? Is that because. Because I'm doing it for shark conservation? Is it because I'm doing it to provide an alternative livelihood for the fishermen who would otherwise not be able to make that much money? Is it that I'm doing it in a way where there's less impact on the environment, but is it is it that I do it in a way that I make sure that the people who are who come on the trips with me don't do shit like polluting the waters or eat meat on the trip?

Paul

So tell us a little bit more then about Dorsal Effect. How far do your customers come from or their local or do they come from across the Well.

Kathy

Yeah, most of the time they come from Singapore and Malaysia because I think like I'm based in Singapore, so they hear about it through my talks that I give in schools. Are companies or just any kind of events that are happening in Singapore itself. But because I also have a social media presence. So I do have customers who come from Australia, Europe, America, all parts.

It's just not as frequent as the ones who come from Singapore or Australia. So I that's mostly because that's the direct access from Australia to Lombok is the easy way to fly.

Paul

And how did you, how did you become interested in eco tourism?

Kathy

Yeah, so to go back to the roots of it, back in 2011, my brother asked if I wanted to go on a trip with him to Exmouth and Western Australia, and I said Sure, what are we going to see there? And he said, Oh, we can snorkel with whale sharks. So I thought, Oh, that's really cool, let's do it.

And it was really fascinating trip for me because it was nice to see how they run their trips in a way that they were very strict with the tourists. We were things we were not allowed to do. They would give ourselves, restrict briefings to tell us how far, how close can we swim to the whale sharks, what should we not do?

Basically, they had the welfare of the wildlife in mind first. So I was really impressed with the way they were running things. And he got me to think about this whole like this whole concept of overtourism. It feels like everyone is trying to run tourism in a way that that reaps the most amount of profit as quickly as possible.

But do we really think about the welfare of the of the wildlife or about the impact on the ecology and ecosystems around us? But we were running the trips and I felt like this out in Australia that did it. And I was just really impressed with them and I wonder if that was something that could be done for sharks in other parts of the world as well.

Paul

Okay. All right. So what impact are you seeing? You know, the climate change and climate change changes is having on sharks.

Kathy

Okay. So I think one very direct impact would be like the whole fishing impact, right? But with climate change, it's very hard for the fishermen to know when they can go out like what used to be good times for them to go out to catch fish or sharks or whatever it is that they catch right now. It's so unpredictable and it's very like precarious situations for fishermen.

So that in itself, I hope, gets the fishermen to see that, hey, you know, this is a very unstable trait. Things are not as predictable as it used to be, but also not catching as much as much sharks as we would like to. This is just too hard and too dangerous and too scary. So I guess that's one aspect of it.

I’m no scientist but I've read papers about how scientists have tried to this is, I think in Florida, if I'm not wrong. So they were trying to determine what were some of the zones that tiger sharks were swimming in. And after determining that they actually designate that like marine protected areas in the in the zones that the sharks tend to be swimming in.

But because of climate change and the waters warming, the sharks tended to swim away from these zones up north to cold to cold. Don't want this. So what was initially designated as Marine Protect, that didn't work as well for the tiger sharks anymore. So I guess these are some of the impacts that climate change has on sharks.

Paul

That's a part of ecotourism. It's just being greener in your in your tourist choices and your holiday choices in terms of your transportation or where you're going or what impacts you're having when you get to your tourist destination, Right?

Kathy

Yeah. Yeah. You have a point there. It's just that I think sometimes it can get a little bit complex as well. And coming back to the whole idea of marketing buzzwords they tend to like, companies tend to sell things that look good or sound good to others. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're not unfamiliar with the idea of greenwashing and blue washing.

So, yes, one thing that companies tend to do and some are promoting carbon credits with your flight, but the thing is, I, I see it as greenwashing because I think when you go on a flight, there's just too much of a carbon footprints that you're having that carbon credits just cannot justify it. And there's just so many loopholes when it comes to talking about carbon credits.

Paul

So I think we've got to be really careful of these carbon credits and we yeah, they have their place, but as you said, not in marketing. MM Yeah. When you're giving your talk to schools and companies, what are they most interested in hearing about?

Kathy

Oh I guess it's different for both like for schools because they are mostly children of students with teenagers. They tend to like to hear about like sharks, interesting facts about sharks, the ecosystems, biology, scientific facts and stuff like that. Whereas with companies I think they're looking at, they're more interested in impacts like what is the environmental impact, What does it mean, What does ecotourism actually mean in terms of definitions?

Is there a way to balance profits with doing good?

Paul

What's your biggest frustration?

Kathy

I get frustrated with myself. I mean, I have to start with myself. I can't just criticize other companies and not talk about my own company. So for me, I find it a struggle because if people want to if if people don't live in Lombok, obviously they have to fly into Lombok. And the whole idea of flying to Lombok in itself already makes me uncomfortable.

Like, Oh, do we really need to take another flight? Do we can we just can I justify that flight? Especially if I'm bringing a group of school children like so many people on the flight, Can I justify bringing them down? Yeah, that's that's just one of the things that I constantly feel so frustrate them myself about. Yeah. I think another thing is the meals that we have on the trip.

I try my best to be sustainable about the meals as possible. So one of the things is on that also is like trips we don't serve sea food Yeah, I mean of course because we're trying to protect the sharks and sharks are part of the ecosystem. So marine life, right? It's all interlinked. But so yeah, but then the schoolchildren, sometimes they would be like, Oh, but why is there no seafood?

Why is there no meat? It's it's it's the worst trip ever. I can't wait for it to be over, you know? So it's it's just very difficult.

Paul

Yeah. Well, part of their education when your customers have completed one of your trips, what would you say is their overall impression? How have they come away changed?

Kathy

Of course. I hope that they go away change. Sometimes it doesn't happen. I'm just glad that most of the time it does. So I do collect the feedback from them after the trip, especially with the school children. Right, Because I spend so much more time with them. It's I guess the nice thing is because we do beach cleanups and trash audits as well.

So one of the takeaways for them would be to think about the whole idea of single use plastics like can is there a way that they can reduce the amount of single use plastics in their life?

Paul

Right.

Kathy

Oh, yeah. With the with the no seafood policy, is there something that they can incorporate into their lifestyle as well? I get it. You know, on day one, they too, they might complain about it, but because we do a nightly lectures with them about marine conservation and the whole problem behind eating seafood, sometimes they do go away thinking about it like, oh yeah, maybe there is something wrong with eating seafood.

Maybe I should change the way I make my my diet dietary choices.

Paul

Changing people's behaviors in the way that they think is really key. So shark conservation and is that is that a subject which is growing in popularity, if you like? Is it is it a subject which more and more people are looking?

Kathy

I guess I have been in it for so long that right. I don't really know if people are talking about it as much as they would like to. I know back in 2011 when I first started on this journey, a lot of people were very interested in the whole campaign of saying no to shark fin soup. So that was quite a thing.

But I guess over time on this journey, I also started to see that it's a lot more complex than that. Just because people are saying no to shark fin soup, it doesn't mean that are they're not eating sharks anymore. Because if you say no to a part of the shark, the fish, you have to do something down the supply chain as well.

You have to not just provide all the livelihood, but maybe even talk about fishermen still using the same gear. Is there a way you can change their gear and get them to see that, you know, catching or doing something else would also yield them the same kind of profit? So it's just such a we problem that it's yeah, it's difficult to wrap our heads around.

But I think one of the things about the whole say no to shark fin soup campaign for me was that I felt I was a little bit too simplistic while it was sexy during the time, but it also sounded simplistic. There's so many more layers to the issue itself, and I think after having Journey the last ten years as a shark conservationist, I feel like it's not just about the sharks, right?

It's about everything in the oceans. If we managed to so-call save the sharks, but we don't save everything else in the ocean, that's not a very pretty ocean either.

Paul

And so what are the threats to sharks then? Is it fishing or other other threats? What's what's driving the shark conservation movement?

Kathy

Yeah. So I think overfishing is still a problem, although I don't think it's limited to just sharks. As I said, I think that's a big problem with overfishing the ocean as a whole. Like they're just taking more than we should be taking. And yeah, one of the one of the things that I see also is that fishermen not just in Lombok, but just around everywhere, especially in Southeast Asia, fishermen are not paid properly enough.

So if you don't pay them well and seafood is not expensive, they're just going to want to try to take more and more and more. But over time, they also realize that, hey, the oceans are depleting. It's harder and harder for me to get more fish. So what do I do? So that's the increased sense of desperation as well.

Paul

We don't need a lot of sharks here in the UK. Is shark meat Is that part of people's diet?

Kathy

Yeah, I think the thing about at least in Singapore, is that we do eat shark meat, but there are no proper labels. Ah, transparency in terms of what we're eating. So.

Paul

Right.

Kathy

Let's say you're eating shark meat. You would think it's fish because most people just associate that as, Oh, this tastes like fish or it's fish. Yeah, but it could be shark meat and people are none, none the wiser in that sense. So I think proper labeling is something that needs to happen.

Paul

And are sharks reared in farms as well?

Kathy

So sharks, stingrays, octopuses. Yeah. Most most species of marine life it's you just can't harvest them like they for various reasons. One of it could be that you just don't have enough space for certain species of sharks. They another another thing could be survivability. They can't really live in small spaces that well, or you can have the conditions that are right for them.

Another reason could be their fertility rate. They don't. They just don't give birth to enough young quickly enough. So that's no way to farm them properly. Right. Although it doesn't happen for all species. But yeah, it's just we just don't have enough infant species level information of all the sharks to know for sure what can be farmed, what cannot be farmed.

Paul

I mean, I don't want to follow that. I'm just wondering know, protecting marine wildlife is really important, isn't it? Because I think if the oceans fail, if marine life fails, then, you know, the rest of the planet fails with it. So and so what keeps is what keeps driving you forward then, Kathy With ecotourism and shark conservation.

Kathy

Friendship is to tribe, I think over the last few years, I've I've come to appreciate having a tribe of people who are like minded and will also see things the same way and understand the importance of the oceans. So just having that support has been very, very, very fulfilling for me and it keeps me going. Yeah.

Paul

Okay. Can you share any, any other stories with us about ecotourism, shark conservation?

Kathy

Yeah. So for one, eco tourism is something that I increasingly am struggling with. Like, I feel like there's just too much greenwashing happening around the idea of tourism. Everybody wants to travel. The pace off the wall is getting faster and faster and faster. That scares me. I don't even know if eco tourism could be an answer anymore. But on the flipside, when it comes to shark conservation, because I've been also working on some projects with very good people in Singapore.

Yeah, I won't go into the details about the projects, but just just being able to be more involved in shark sciences and using science as a way to promote conservation. That's something that I don't know. I find it a little bit more hopeful, although I don't know if I'm running out of time to.

Paul

Yeah, do you get any support from the government with that, with your is is that much investment from the government in shark conservation.

Kathy

Yeah. Not so much financially but we do we do like engage with the government and they are on board with the whole idea of shark and stingray conservation. I guess it's an ongoing conversation that we have. Yeah.

Paul

Okay. So you do the tours, but you also mentioned beach cleanup. So what other sort of projects or initiatives that you involved?

Kathy

And so the beach cleanups are just a part of the trip as well, like the meals, beach clean ups getting the fishermen's wife to cook vegetarian meals for the school students. That's all part of the package. But as you were mentioning of our shark conservation, I also do work at the fishery parks in Singapore. So we do have two fishery parks, you know, go indoor fishery part in Singapore where we import seafood.

General seafood. But I could I could my friend, who is the principal investigator of this project, her name is Naomi Collection. She's she's a shark. Scientists in Singapore and we're trying to and we're doing work at the fishery ports in terms of trying to find out what kind of species of sharks and stingrays are we importing into Singapore and is there any threat on certain species over the years?

So that's a long term study that we're working on. Like in Singapore, we import seafood we don't really catch. So much seafood around. I want this. They're mostly imported from the region. So like Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia. So we're trying to see what kind of species are we importing. Is there an increasing trend of these species becoming extinct over time?

These are some of the things that we're looking at. Yeah. Is there a way that we can work with the region to perhaps advance conservation aims not just within Singapore but in the region as well?

Paul

Yeah, You know, I just think ecotourism is, as you say, such a big subject, isn't it? Because I think everything we do when we go on holiday, you know, is impacting on the environment, isn't it? So yeah, we, we get there. It's how we it's how we interact with the local communities. It's kind of everything we do at home, but abroad, if we've also tried to do that in a in a green way, in an eco friendly way, I guess is one way of looking at it.

But then there are specific things we can do, as you say, like shark conservation, supporting supporting organizations that are doing something specific to help with marine life, which I think is what you're doing with your shark conservation.

Kathy

Even the idea of slow travel, I don't know. That's something that could be become popular, like just getting people to see that you can travel slowly if that's a way to get to another land in a slower way without having to fly. Can we do it instead? Yeah, just appreciating every day and every little step of that of the idea of travel rather than, Oh, everything has to be fast.

I only have two weeks. Let's keep busy as much as we can.

Paul

I think that's a great point, isn't it? I mean, in a way we've we've reduced the whole world into some great big theme park. You know, I guess walk around in a couple of days, see it, and then go home and carry on with why we were so slow travel then.

Kathy

I've been thinking about it quite a bit during the pandemic, like when everyone had to slow down. That was great for me. And I thought like, Hey, finally the wall is slowing down, as it should. But then now it feels like we're going back to the pace that we were just before the pandemic. Again.

Paul

Exactly the same experience. You know, people had the time to talk to each other. You know, we were great queuers in the UK. We didn't like queuing up and having a chat and booking to people when I was buying a cup of coffee outside and, you know, speaking to the to the vendor of the coffee. And he said, yeah, you know, people are more relaxed that we're all going to miss this, not to.

Yeah, we well it was, it was, it was just that we all slowed down. We were all. Yeah. So maybe we need to start the slow movement. That's what we need to do is.

Kathy

I totally agree behind you on this Paul. Oh, another thing that I've been thinking about also is I see the I see. I see how science can be very, very impactful and helpful for policies and almost everything that we do. So I'm wondering if science can be a big part of eco tourism as well, instead of making big claims that, you know, we are taking care of the environment or taking care of the wildlife, how about showing it to us through science?

Because I just got my master's in science communication. So I was thinking, can we use science to back up tourism as well? My thesis was basically on how to communicate the consumption of sambal stingray So in Singapore this is very popular, the sambal Stingray So we eat a lot of stingrays in this dish. So in my thesis, I was trying to find out what would get people to eat less of sambal stingray, or shift, our consumption habits when it comes to eating the dish itself.

Paul

Do you think science can help us here then, in solving the problems of marine conservation and eco tourism?

Kathy

I actually I strongly think that science can help us. It's just that, yeah. So to me, I think that the biggest link needs to be between communicating scientists from the Academy point of view to the masses, all of us.

Paul

Yeah, I think the part of eco tourism is just the exchange of ideas. Is this cultural exchange that that tourism drives and helping people to understand different time of different cultures that can probably help to drive the right behaviors in terms of looking after the climate. And yeah, again, marine conservation and conservation in general.

Kathy

And that's a good point that you've brought up too, because it also links back to slow, slow traveling to. Right? Like if you travel slowly, you get to know the community rather than just looking at it as an observer, you get to know the wildlife. You might even get to know the names of, let's say you go to an area and you're sitting with the workshops every day.

You might get so used to seeing the workshops that you actually identify the different personalities of the different workshops that you see. And I think that's priceless.

Paul

Is tourism a big industry in Singapore?

Kathy

Oh, it's huge. It's one of the yeah, it's like Singapore. It's such a melting pot of so many cultures. We depend so much on tourism for our economy and our economic growth. So I think that's something that we kind of run away from sending.

Paul

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And do you think that tourism can impact so negatively on the identity of our country or population or village because of the tourism?

Kathy

I don't know. I think it really depends on the people who are traveling, like tourism on its own. It's, it's, it doesn't have a personality, but it's the people who come into the different countries and what kind of mindset I'd be bringing with them. So I think it's also important that we think about narratives and languages. How do we speak about certain things?

If we're not talking about tourism, How can we speak about tourism such that getting to know the cultures and, and, and, and getting to know what is happening in the country on a deeper level is also a big part of traveling.

Paul

So it's been fantastic to speak with you, Kathy, on this podcast or about ecotourism and shark conservation. Thanks very much for sharing your time.

Kathy

Thanks for having me, too, Paul. I had fun. Thank you.

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