Highlights - CHRISTOPHER GERVAIS - Founder/CEO of Wildlife Conservation Film Festival - Cannes Lions Award-winning Producer

Highlights - CHRISTOPHER GERVAIS - Founder/CEO of Wildlife Conservation Film Festival - Cannes Lions Award-winning Producer

Founder & CEO of Wildlife Conservation Film Festival
Cannes Lions Award-winning Producer

I've been fortunate over the last 13 years to meet some of the world's leading conservationists. Dr. Sylvia Earl, David Attenborough, Jane Goodall, his Royal Highness Prince Khaled bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, who came to the film festival in 2014, where we showed some films from his foundation. And there have been a number of others, award-winning filmmakers, and a number of celebrities that have come to the film festival, Academy Award Winner James Cromwell. We've had other celebrities, from Paul Giamatti to Alec Baldwin to Sigourney Weaver, all of whom may have a passion for, if not saving wildlife, then for the environment. And I have found them very humble, very easy to speak to, and I'm immensely grateful that they took the time to come to WCFF from their busy schedule. And we hope to build more relationships.

CHRISTOPHER J. GERVAIS - Founder/CEO of Wildlife Conservation Film Festival - Cannes Lions Award-winning Producer

CHRISTOPHER J. GERVAIS - Founder/CEO of Wildlife Conservation Film Festival - Cannes Lions Award-winning Producer

Founder & CEO of Wildlife Conservation Film Festival
Cannes Lions Award-winning Producer

I've been fortunate over the last 13 years to meet some of the world's leading conservationists. Dr. Sylvia Earl, David Attenborough, Jane Goodall, his Royal Highness Prince Khaled bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, who came to the film festival in 2014, where we showed some films from his foundation. And there have been a number of others, award-winning filmmakers, and a number of celebrities that have come to the film festival, Academy Award Winner James Cromwell. We've had other celebrities, from Paul Giamatti to Alec Baldwin to Sigourney Weaver, all of whom may have a passion for, if not saving wildlife, then for the environment. And I have found them very humble, very easy to speak to, and I'm immensely grateful that they took the time to come to WCFF from their busy schedule. And we hope to build more relationships.

Highlights - SIR ANDY HAINES - Tyler Prize Award-winner - Fmr. Chair of WHO World Health Report - Chair InterAcademy Partnership

Highlights - SIR ANDY HAINES - Tyler Prize Award-winner - Fmr. Chair of WHO World Health Report - Chair InterAcademy Partnership

Tyler Prize Award-winner for Environmental Achievement
Professor of Environmental Change & Public Health
Fmr. Chair of WHO World Health Report · Rockefeller /Lancet Commission on Planetary Health

In terms of the impacts of climate change on health when we started 30 years ago, because there was very little data then, so we made suggestions as to what we thought the health outcomes we thought would be affected like vector-borne diseases, crop failures, water availability, sea level rise, increasing disasters related to climatic extreme events, and obviously the effects of extreme heat on vulnerable populations. In particular, elderly people, but not just elderly people. So we suggested a whole range of different health impacts that could occur. And I think, in general, those ideas have stood the test of time, but of course, as the situation has moved on, we've also become much more preoccupied with what kind of action we need to take.

SIR ANDY HAINES - Tyler Prize Award-winner for Environmental Achievement - Prof. Env. Change & Public Health

SIR ANDY HAINES - Tyler Prize Award-winner for Environmental Achievement - Prof. Env. Change & Public Health

Tyler Prize Award-winner for Environmental Achievement
Professor of Environmental Change & Public Health
Fmr. Chair of WHO World Health Report · Rockefeller /Lancet Commission on Planetary Health

In terms of the impacts of climate change on health when we started 30 years ago, because there was very little data then, so we made suggestions as to what we thought the health outcomes we thought would be affected like vector-borne diseases, crop failures, water availability, sea level rise, increasing disasters related to climatic extreme events, and obviously the effects of extreme heat on vulnerable populations. In particular, elderly people, but not just elderly people. So we suggested a whole range of different health impacts that could occur. And I think, in general, those ideas have stood the test of time, but of course, as the situation has moved on, we've also become much more preoccupied with what kind of action we need to take.

Highlights - JILL HEINERTH - Explorer, Presenter, Author of “Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver”

Highlights - JILL HEINERTH - Explorer, Presenter, Author of “Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver”

Explorer · Presenter · Author of Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver

If I die, it will be in the most glorious place that nobody has ever seen. I can no longer feel the fingers in my left hand. The glacial Antarctic water to see through a tiny puncture in my formerly waterproof glove. If this water were one-tenth of a degree colder, the ocean will become solid. Finding the knife-edged freeze is depleting my strength, my blood vessels throbbing in a futile attempt to deliver warmth to my extremities. The archway of ice above our heads is furrowed like the surface of a golf ball, carved by the hand of the sea. Iridescent blue, Wedgewood, azure, cerulean, cobalt, and pastel robin’s egg meld with chalk and silvery alabaster. The ice is vibrant, right, and at the same time ghostly. The beauty contradicts the danger. We are the first people to cave dive inside an iceberg. And we may not live to tell the story.

JILL HEINERTH - Explorer, Presenter, Author of “Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver”

JILL HEINERTH - Explorer, Presenter, Author of “Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver”

Explorer · Presenter · Author of Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver

If I die, it will be in the most glorious place that nobody has ever seen. I can no longer feel the fingers in my left hand. The glacial Antarctic water to see through a tiny puncture in my formerly waterproof glove. If this water were one-tenth of a degree colder, the ocean will become solid. Finding the knife-edged freeze is depleting my strength, my blood vessels throbbing in a futile attempt to deliver warmth to my extremities. The archway of ice above our heads is furrowed like the surface of a golf ball, carved by the hand of the sea. Iridescent blue, Wedgewood, azure, cerulean, cobalt, and pastel robin’s egg meld with chalk and silvery alabaster. The ice is vibrant, right, and at the same time ghostly. The beauty contradicts the danger. We are the first people to cave dive inside an iceberg. And we may not live to tell the story.

Highlights - Nina Hall - Author of “Transnational Advocacy in the Digital Era”


Highlights - Nina Hall - Author of “Transnational Advocacy in the Digital Era”


Author of Transnational Advocacy in the Digital Era: Think Global, Act Local
Assistant Professor · International Relations · Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (Europe)

Digital advocacy organizations are recognized as influential actors by the media, politicians, and some academics. In 2016, GetUp, an Australian digital advocacy organization, was named by the Australian Financial Review as one of the top ten actors with ‘covert power’ in Australia.1 Campact in Germany has powerfully mobilized public opinion against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. MoveOn was one of the ‘leading advocacy organizations’ mobilizing people against the Iraq War in the United States. Meanwhile, Leadnow, a digital advocacy organization in Canada, helped to unseat Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the 2015 Canadian federal election. This new model of advocacy organization has spread around the world. Nineteen digital advocacy organizations claim to have a total of over 20 million members. What drove the global spread of digital advocacy organizations?

Nina Hall - Author of “Transnational Advocacy in the Digital Era: Think Global, Act Local”

Nina Hall - Author of “Transnational Advocacy in the Digital Era: Think Global, Act Local”

Author of Transnational Advocacy in the Digital Era: Think Global, Act Local
Assistant Professor · International Relations · Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (Europe)

Digital advocacy organizations are recognized as influential actors by the media, politicians, and some academics. In 2016, GetUp, an Australian digital advocacy organization, was named by the Australian Financial Review as one of the top ten actors with ‘covert power’ in Australia.1 Campact in Germany has powerfully mobilized public opinion against the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. MoveOn was one of the ‘leading advocacy organizations’ mobilizing people against the Iraq War in the United States. Meanwhile, Leadnow, a digital advocacy organization in Canada, helped to unseat Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the 2015 Canadian federal election. This new model of advocacy organization has spread around the world. Nineteen digital advocacy organizations claim to have a total of over 20 million members. What drove the global spread of digital advocacy organizations?

Highlights - Kristin Ohlson - Author of Sweet in Tooth and Claw, and The Soil Will Save Us

Highlights - Kristin Ohlson - Author of Sweet in Tooth and Claw, and The Soil Will Save Us

Author of Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Stories of Generosity and Cooperation in the Natural World
The Soil Will Save Us

I think it's this story of cooperation is important in terms of the story that we tell ourselves about nature, and seeing as how we are part of nature, it's important that we see ourselves as possibly a partner instead of a destroyer. I think that we have held onto the perspective that nature is all about competition and conflict. And when we shift that, when we look at nature as this vast web of interconnection and cooperation, and of course competition and conflict in there obviously in some places. But when we look at this vast web of cooperation and collaboration, I think that it changes our view. It changes our view of what's possible.

Kristin Ohlson - Author of Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Stories of Generosity and Cooperation in the Natural World

Kristin Ohlson - Author of Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Stories of Generosity and Cooperation in the Natural World

Author of Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Stories of Generosity and Cooperation in the Natural World
The Soil Will Save Us

I think it's this story of cooperation is important in terms of the story that we tell ourselves about nature, and seeing as how we are part of nature, it's important that we see ourselves as possibly a partner instead of a destroyer. I think that we have held onto the perspective that nature is all about competition and conflict. And when we shift that, when we look at nature as this vast web of interconnection and cooperation, and of course competition and conflict in there obviously in some places. But when we look at this vast web of cooperation and collaboration, I think that it changes our view. It changes our view of what's possible.

Highlights - Philip Fernbach - Cognitive Scientist - Co-Director, Ctr. for Research, Consumer Financial Decision Making - Co-author, “The Knowledge Illusion”

Highlights - Philip Fernbach - Cognitive Scientist - Co-Director, Ctr. for Research, Consumer Financial Decision Making - Co-author, “The Knowledge Illusion”

Co-author of The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone
Cognitive Scientist · Co-Director of Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making, CU Boulder

The human mind is both genius and pathetic, brilliant and idiotic. People are capable of the most remarkable feats, achievements that defy the gods. We went from discovering the atomic nucleus in 1911 to megaton nuclear weapons in just over forty years. We have mastered fire, created democratic institutions, stood on the moon, and developed genetically modified tomatoes. And yet we are equally capable of the most remarkable demonstrations of hubris and foolhardiness. Each of us is error-prone, sometimes irrational, and often ignorant… How is it that people can simultaneously bowl us over with their ingenuity and disappoint us with their ignorance? How have we mastered so much despite how limited our understanding often is?

Philip Fernbach - Co-author of “The Knowledge Illusion” - Cognitive Scientist - Co-Director of Ctr. for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making

Philip Fernbach - Co-author of “The Knowledge Illusion” - Cognitive Scientist - Co-Director of Ctr. for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making

Co-author of The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone
Cognitive Scientist · Co-Director of Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making, CU Boulder

The human mind is both genius and pathetic, brilliant and idiotic. People are capable of the most remarkable feats, achievements that defy the gods. We went from discovering the atomic nucleus in 1911 to megaton nuclear weapons in just over forty years. We have mastered fire, created democratic institutions, stood on the moon, and developed genetically modified tomatoes. And yet we are equally capable of the most remarkable demonstrations of hubris and foolhardiness. Each of us is error-prone, sometimes irrational, and often ignorant… How is it that people can simultaneously bowl us over with their ingenuity and disappoint us with their ignorance? How have we mastered so much despite how limited our understanding often is?

Highlights - Carl Safina - Author of “Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace”

Highlights - Carl Safina - Author of “Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace”

Ecologist, Founding President of Safina Center
NYTimes Bestselling Author of Becoming Wild · Song for the Blue Ocean · Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel

So we tend to take living for granted. I think that might be the biggest limitation of human intelligence is to not understand with awe and reverence and love that we live in a miracle that we are part of and that we have the ability to either nurture or destroy. The living world is enormously enriching to human life. I just loved animals. They're always just totally fascinating. They're not here for us. They're just here like we're just here. They are of this world as much as we are of this world. They really have the same claim to life and death and the circle of being.

Carl Safina - Ecologist - Founding President of Safina Center - NYTimes Bestselling Author

Carl Safina - Ecologist - Founding President of Safina Center - NYTimes Bestselling Author

Ecologist, Founding President of Safina Center
NYTimes Bestselling Author of Becoming Wild · Song for the Blue Ocean · Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel

So we tend to take living for granted. I think that might be the biggest limitation of human intelligence is to not understand with awe and reverence and love that we live in a miracle that we are part of and that we have the ability to either nurture or destroy. The living world is enormously enriching to human life. I just loved animals. They're always just totally fascinating. They're not here for us. They're just here like we're just here. They are of this world as much as we are of this world. They really have the same claim to life and death and the circle of being.

Highlights - Lars Chittka - Author of "The Mind of a Bee” - Founder, Research Centre for Psychology, QMUL

Highlights - Lars Chittka - Author of "The Mind of a Bee” - Founder, Research Centre for Psychology, QMUL

Author of The Mind of a Bee
Founder of the Research Centre for Psychology, Queen Mary University of London

The world of bees is under threat, and that is not because bees are singled out, but because bees live in the environment that we all share and they are a kind of a canary in the coal mine for what's going on more largely in destroying our environment. And in a sense they are, I think, a useful sort of mascot and icon to highlight these troubles, but they are only a signpost of other things that are also under threat. We need the bee for our own food because they pollinate our crops, and they pollinate the flowers that we enjoy, but I think their utility for us is not the only reason to support them and their environment. I think the growing appreciation that the world that surrounds us is full of sophisticated and unique minds places on us a kind of onus and obligation to preserve the diversity of these minds that are out there and make sure that they continue to thrive.

Lars Chittka - Author of "The Mind of a Bee” - Founder, Research Centre for Psychology, QMUL

Lars Chittka - Author of "The Mind of a Bee” - Founder, Research Centre for Psychology, QMUL

Author of The Mind of a Bee
Founder of the Research Centre for Psychology, Queen Mary University of London

The world of bees is under threat, and that is not because bees are singled out, but because bees live in the environment that we all share and they are a kind of a canary in the coal mine for what's going on more largely in destroying our environment. And in a sense they are, I think, a useful sort of mascot and icon to highlight these troubles, but they are only a signpost of other things that are also under threat. We need the bee for our own food because they pollinate our crops, and they pollinate the flowers that we enjoy, but I think their utility for us is not the only reason to support them and their environment. I think the growing appreciation that the world that surrounds us is full of sophisticated and unique minds places on us a kind of onus and obligation to preserve the diversity of these minds that are out there and make sure that they continue to thrive.

Highlights - Marcia DeSanctis - Author of “A Hard Place to Leave", “100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go” (Copy)

Highlights - Marcia DeSanctis - Author of “A Hard Place to Leave", “100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go” (Copy)

Journalist, Essayist, Author of A Hard Place to Leave: Stories from a Restless Life
100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go

I started looking over the stories that I had done. I would say the majority of the essays were not really about travel. They were more about aging and marriage and memory and all of those things, but I did find in the travel essays those kernels of things that I wanted to explore - bigger kernels of things that were sort of scratching at me from the inside like a piece of sand in my pocket that was irritating me and that I wanted to explore. What I found was that the theme of coming and going, the theme of arrivals and departures, the theme of entrances and exits, and the theme of home and away seemed to repeat itself. I felt that whenever I was somewhere, there was always a tide home. And when I was home, there was always the urge for going. And so I just weeded out and weeded out and really wanted to keep this theme of home and away.

Marcia DeSanctis - Author of “A Hard Place to Leave: Stories from a Restless Life"

Marcia DeSanctis - Author of “A Hard Place to Leave: Stories from a Restless Life"

Journalist, Essayist, Author of A Hard Place to Leave: Stories from a Restless Life
100 Places in France Every Woman Should Go

I started looking over the stories that I had done. I would say the majority of the essays were not really about travel. They were more about aging and marriage and memory and all of those things, but I did find in the travel essays those kernels of things that I wanted to explore - bigger kernels of things that were sort of scratching at me from the inside like a piece of sand in my pocket that was irritating me and that I wanted to explore. What I found was that the theme of coming and going, the theme of arrivals and departures, the theme of entrances and exits, and the theme of home and away seemed to repeat itself. I felt that whenever I was somewhere, there was always a tide home. And when I was home, there was always the urge for going. And so I just weeded out and weeded out and really wanted to keep this theme of home and away.

(Highlights) ANA CASTILLO

(Highlights) ANA CASTILLO

Award-winning Xicana Activist, Editor, Poet, Novelist, Artist
Author of My Book of the Dead

One of the things that is dying is our planet. We hear these sirens every single day. We’re being warned daily by experts and concerned people how vast that squandering is going. It’s a case of urgency and it’s astounding and a very sad, a very pathetic comment on modern life that most people are ignoring those signs. As a poet, it seems to me that one of the tasks that the poet takes on, it’s a vocation that’s born with it, it’s this consciousness, this serving as witness.

ANA CASTILLO

ANA CASTILLO

Award-winning Xicana Activist, Editor, Poet, Novelist, Artist
Author of My Book of the Dead

One of the things that is dying is our planet. We hear these sirens every single day. We’re being warned daily by experts and concerned people how vast that squandering is going. It’s a case of urgency and it’s astounding and a very sad, a very pathetic comment on modern life that most people are ignoring those signs. As a poet, it seems to me that one of the tasks that the poet takes on, it’s a vocation that’s born with it, it’s this consciousness, this serving as witness.