Using Games To Tackle Human-Wildlife Conflict

By / February 28, 2024

Gabi Fleury is a conservation biologist and an ‘interspecies diplomat’ But how do they use games to help educate the world about human-wildlife conflict?

Transcript
Music:

Music Intro

Dhruti Shah:

Hi, I'm Dhruti Shah. And this is my podcast

Dhruti Shah:

Have you thought about. I'm a writer, journalist, and poet.

Dhruti Shah:

And I like to find out about what other people are doing,

Dhruti Shah:

especially if they managed to blend together skills in unusual

Dhruti Shah:

ways. In each edition, I'm going to chat with someone I find

Dhruti Shah:

interesting, and who's managed to fit things together in their

Dhruti Shah:

life or profession that you just might not think of as an obvious

Dhruti Shah:

match. You're about to hear me chatting with Gabi Fleury, a

Dhruti Shah:

conservation biologist, who's also a cancer survivor, and

Dhruti Shah:

video game designer.

Gabi Fleury:

I'm a conservation biologist by training, and I

Gabi Fleury:

work on something called human wildlife interactions. So

Gabi Fleury:

basically, how humans interact with wildlife. And that

Gabi Fleury:

intersection there, which is sometimes positive, sometimes

Gabi Fleury:

neutral, and sometimes negative. And I focus a little bit more on

Gabi Fleury:

the negative side on something called human wildlife conflict.

Gabi Fleury:

And there's some controversy about whether we should be

Gabi Fleury:

calling it conflict at all, but basically how humans and animals

Gabi Fleury:

kind of need to work better together. Because there may be

Gabi Fleury:

conflicting goals. So an example of that would be elephants

Gabi Fleury:

eating crops, or carnivores eating livestock, and I focused

Gabi Fleury:

kind of more on the carnivore side in Sub Saharan Africa,

Gabi Fleury:

specifically within southern Africa at this point. So other

Gabi Fleury:

fun things. I'm a board gamer. I'm a cosplayer. And I'm a

Gabi Fleury:

professional writer as well. So I try to do a little bit of

Gabi Fleury:

everything,

Dhruti Shah:

There's like loads and loads of things to think

Gabi Fleury:

There's a good question. Yeah. So I'm actually

Gabi Fleury:

about. This is basically where this has come from in terms of

Gabi Fleury:

people are doing amazing things out there, you're clearly not

Gabi Fleury:

just doing one thing, two things, you seem to be doing it

Gabi Fleury:

designing a video game with a friend to address fast fashion

Gabi Fleury:

all. How much brain space have you got left? Have you got any

Gabi Fleury:

capacity to add on extra? Or is it at full capacity right now

Gabi Fleury:

with all these different interdisciplinary things that

Gabi Fleury:

you talk of?

Gabi Fleury:

consumption. So that's kind of my other side project. So I'd

Gabi Fleury:

say there's a little bit of brain space left, but I tend to

Gabi Fleury:

kind of relax by watching TV when I get a chance. I am behind

Gabi Fleury:

but I am watching The Last of Us right now. And yeah, and hanging

Gabi Fleury:

out with my kitten who may interrupt this interview. So

Gabi Fleury:

hopefully not, but possibly.

Dhruti Shah:

We love a kitten. Sometimes I have like, you know,

Dhruti Shah:

family members decided it's okay, we'll just we'll just get

Dhruti Shah:

involved and like, that's fine. But I came across you because I

Dhruti Shah:

was on Twitter. And it came up with this thing called Black

Dhruti Shah:

mammalogists. What is a mammologist? Is it to do with

Dhruti Shah:

boobs? I keep thinking it's to do with boobs, but it's not.

Dhruti Shah:

It's something actually quite serious. But also, what is it?

Dhruti Shah:

Because it sounds super, super cool. But I don't... I think a

Dhruti Shah:

lot of people would be asking, what is this? In fact, I asked

Dhruti Shah:

some children that I know. I said, Do you know what one is?

Dhruti Shah:

And they were like, No, you need to ask that. So here's your

Dhruti Shah:

chance to educate.

Gabi Fleury:

Yeah, so it's the study of mammals. Which you

Gabi Fleury:

know, lactate. So that's actually pretty close. So I've

Gabi Fleury:

never really thought of myself as a mammologist until I get

Gabi Fleury:

involved in, in that group. And in that kind of campaign,

Gabi Fleury:

because we all come from very different backgrounds. Like I

Gabi Fleury:

come from a very interdisciplinary background,

Gabi Fleury:

some people are kind of more like pure zoology backgrounds,

Gabi Fleury:

some people actually came through calling themselves from

Gabi Fleury:

mammologists. So it's interesting that because we all

Gabi Fleury:

found ourselves under this umbrella, but it's just people

Gabi Fleury:

who study mammals, essentially.

Dhruti Shah:

And I mean, you say you've got a kitten, but having

Dhruti Shah:

like, I did a little bit of reading cheetahs. Cheetahs -

Dhruti Shah:

came up quite prominently in relation to you. Yeah. I mean, I

Dhruti Shah:

guess my key thing is, how do you go from perhaps, you know,

Dhruti Shah:

growing up, you know, domestic pets, maybe kittens to getting

Dhruti Shah:

like proper full on hardcore into figuring out what's our

Dhruti Shah:

relationship with these sometimes scary creatures that

Dhruti Shah:

are out there? When you're in the field? Right?

Gabi Fleury:

You have to be respectful. I guess I term them

Gabi Fleury:

I wouldn't really think of them as scary, just respectful,

Gabi Fleury:

right? They're, they're powerful animals. Right. So I think that

Gabi Fleury:

it's kind of a hard question to answer because I've wanted to be

Gabi Fleury:

in this field since I was three. So everyone asks the question of

Gabi Fleury:

like, why do you want to be a conservation biologist? So I'm

Gabi Fleury:

like, before I had conscious thought. So um, yeah, I think a

Gabi Fleury:

lot of it is - I'm a cancer survivor. So I had osteosarcoma

Gabi Fleury:

when I was a kid, and I loved African wild dogs and cheetahs,

Gabi Fleury:

specifically, because they could run really fast. So it kind of

Gabi Fleury:

started in this innocent in like fascination of like, these are

Gabi Fleury:

some really cool fast, you know, animals. And then when I got

Gabi Fleury:

older, I realised, you know, apart from habitat destruction,

Gabi Fleury:

which we're all trying to address, human wildlife conflict

Gabi Fleury:

is the second biggest impact on carnivore populations. So that's

Gabi Fleury:

kind of where I got interested in that. And because I'm

Gabi Fleury:

naturally kind of a very interdisciplinary person, kind

Gabi Fleury:

of, like I mentioned, it's a very interdisciplinary field,

Gabi Fleury:

right? You have, you know, animal behaviour, you have

Gabi Fleury:

political ecology, you have anthropology, you have cultural

Gabi Fleury:

things, and all these things kind of tie together to be able

Gabi Fleury:

to work on mitigating this problem. So it's one of those

Gabi Fleury:

things where not only would I be able to do some good, you know,

Gabi Fleury:

about the wildlife I care about, hopefully also reduce losses to

Gabi Fleury:

farmers as well, which I also care about, as well as being

Gabi Fleury:

able to - from an intellectual perspective - you know,

Gabi Fleury:

constantly be engaged because there's always something to

Gabi Fleury:

learn. It's a very difficult problem. It's one of these,

Gabi Fleury:

what we call wicked problems. So problems that are incredibly

Gabi Fleury:

difficult to solve. And I always like trying to solve the hardest

Gabi Fleury:

problems. So I think that's why I'm in this field.

Dhruti Shah:

But that's the thing, like you talked about

Dhruti Shah:

sort of solving hard problems, you know, we're gonna go go back

Dhruti Shah:

to the gaming in a bit as well. But you're like, I want to do

Dhruti Shah:

this since I was three. I mean, I wanted to be a journalist

Dhruti Shah:

since I was like eight. But three, I was probably like still

Dhruti Shah:

thinking about biscuits. I'm always thinking about biscuits.

Dhruti Shah:

But how then do you go, actually, this is how to have

Dhruti Shah:

that to have gone through what you've gone through, and then

Dhruti Shah:

still have that drive to get to where you are now, bearing in

Dhruti Shah:

mind that I'm sure - no disrespect intended here - it's

Dhruti Shah:

probably not the most well paid profession either. Like, how do

Dhruti Shah:

you just sort of make sure that you sort of stay on that path?

Dhruti Shah:

And your thoughts? You know, have you been thinking about

Dhruti Shah:

this, you keep heading towards this, which has a lot of impact,

Dhruti Shah:

actually, what you're doing.

Gabi Fleury:

Coming out of osteosarcoma, I think it was

Gabi Fleury:

hard. But one of the things that it did give me was a sense that

Gabi Fleury:

life is very limited, and you don't know what will happen in

Gabi Fleury:

the future. So that gave me a sense of mission. So I knew I

Gabi Fleury:

cared about these species, I knew I cared about the people

Gabi Fleury:

affected. And I think it was kind of like, you only have one

Gabi Fleury:

life, and you gotta go for it. Because I, the last thing I

Gabi Fleury:

wanted was regret. And to be fair, I mean, like, I didn't

Gabi Fleury:

know if the cancer would return or anything like that. So it was

Gabi Fleury:

one of those things where I just kind of was like, this is what I

Gabi Fleury:

want to do. And I'm willing to do whatever it takes, and

Gabi Fleury:

obviously within reason, to pursue this goal. And to keep

Gabi Fleury:

working on it. So that kind of kept me on a pretty single path.

Dhruti Shah:

Why carnivores? Why not like a tortoise like

Dhruti Shah:

something with a little bit less teeth.

Gabi Fleury:

To be honest, they're cool. So when you're a

Gabi Fleury:

little kid, like they are really cool animals, I think everyone

Gabi Fleury:

kind of is attracted to carnivores, just because they're

Gabi Fleury:

very interesting, and they're beautiful and a lot of the time

Gabi Fleury:

are fascinating. But as I got older, you know, they're the

Gabi Fleury:

lynchpins of ecosystems. Carnivore goes down, they affect

Gabi Fleury:

herbivores, which affects the plant life, which affects the

Gabi Fleury:

ecosystem. So if you take a carnivore out of the

Gabi Fleury:

environment, they have a disproportionate impact on

Gabi Fleury:

everything that happens. It's what we call a trophic cascade.

Gabi Fleury:

That's one of the things that really interests me, because I'm

Gabi Fleury:

like, this is a way that I can have an outsized impact, by

Gabi Fleury:

protecting those species that have trickle down effects if

Gabi Fleury:

they're removed. So as both kind of like, 'they're awesome, and

Gabi Fleury:

I'm really interested in these species in particular', but also

Gabi Fleury:

I can protect the grass and the antelopes, and everything else

Gabi Fleury:

that gets affected when a carnivore is removed.

Dhruti Shah:

But what's also really interesting is that

Dhruti Shah:

people talk about conservation. Now they talk about climate

Dhruti Shah:

change, you know, nature is now no longer at a distance, like

Dhruti Shah:

you know, even if you're in urban areas, if wherever you

Dhruti Shah:

are. But you've been on that path since you were a kid, as

Dhruti Shah:

you were, when you talk about the creatures that you're

Dhruti Shah:

talking about, you know, it's actually just reminded me

Dhruti Shah:

watching one, you know, one of the BBC shows where they had, I

Dhruti Shah:

have a feeling it's leopards, but I could be talking rubbish

Dhruti Shah:

here. It was a leopard in Mumbai, where they're sort of

Dhruti Shah:

wandering around, and you know, they've sort of, they've got the

Dhruti Shah:

footage of them, but you don't necessarily realise that they're

Dhruti Shah:

there. They are living in these urban areas alongside people.

Dhruti Shah:

And that's the sort of, if I'm right in thinking that you're

Dhruti Shah:

also looking at, it's not just like, oh, let's look at

Dhruti Shah:

wildlife, you know, human wildlife conflict, far away from

Dhruti Shah:

like, urban populations. No, actually, this is something that

Dhruti Shah:

is infiltrating a lot of different spaces that anybody

Dhruti Shah:

could end up falling into.

Gabi Fleury:

Yeah. And it's interesting, because like, we

Gabi Fleury:

think of human wildlife conflict, as like I mentioned,

Gabi Fleury:

elephants, or leopards, or something, you know, exotic

Gabi Fleury:

maybe, but, for example, deer, eating people's gardens,

Gabi Fleury:

rabbits, eating people's gardens would be considered human

Gabi Fleury:

wildlife conflict. It's something that we deal with

Gabi Fleury:

every day, like, you know, maybe you know, an animal runs across

Gabi Fleury:

the road, and you have to swerve to miss it. That's human

Gabi Fleury:

wildlife conflict. So I think that it's kind of like a broader

Gabi Fleury:

field, when people understand. It's basically just how do

Gabi Fleury:

humans and wildlife interact that have potentially negative

Gabi Fleury:

consequences for one or either party. So the work I kind of

Gabi Fleury:

call myself doing is like, I like to call myself an

Gabi Fleury:

interspecies diplomat. It's like how you find the best middle

Gabi Fleury:

ground between these, you know, these different parties. And the

Gabi Fleury:

complicated part of my work is coming in as an outsider, and

Gabi Fleury:

trying to make sure that I'm, I know my place as a scientist, in

Gabi Fleury:

terms of like, I consider myself a specialist in the science, but

Gabi Fleury:

in terms of the cultural aspects, I will never know as

Gabi Fleury:

much as the people who live there. So knowing, you know, let

Gabi Fleury:

them take the lead, and know kind of where my abilities can

Gabi Fleury:

be best used. So there's also kind of a sense of humility that

Gabi Fleury:

I think you have to have in this work, and knowing that you don't

Gabi Fleury:

have to know at all, and that you aren't an expert in that

Gabi Fleury:

particular system in the way that the people who are from

Gabi Fleury:

there are. And being able to work within kind of those

Gabi Fleury:

cultural boundaries is really important,

Dhruti Shah:

what you're saying that's been quite sort of

Dhruti Shah:

central to the way that you process and the way that you

Dhruti Shah:

sort of move forwards. I guess at what point did you realise

Dhruti Shah:

that that has to be one of your top criteria? Because as I said,

Dhruti Shah:

not everyone does that. It's just like, okay, I'm here. I've

Dhruti Shah:

done my studies. I know this, I know that this is the way to do

Dhruti Shah:

it. But that's not how it should be right?

Gabi Fleury:

No because when you think about just sustainability,

Gabi Fleury:

right, it's there, the people who live there, like I might do

Gabi Fleury:

a study and I hope to be engaged in those communities for the

Gabi Fleury:

rest of my career, but I don't live there. Or it's not they're

Gabi Fleury:

not my wildlife. Does that make sense? So I think like I kind of

Gabi Fleury:

addressed it from that, where it's like, I'm fascinated by it,

Gabi Fleury:

I want to help. And I've devoted my life to it. But I don't know

Gabi Fleury:

what they know, in terms of how that system works. And I think I

Gabi Fleury:

came to it pretty early in my career. Luckily, before I

Gabi Fleury:

actually started doing a lot of field work, because when I was

Gabi Fleury:

at my undergraduate degree, which is in James Madison

Gabi Fleury:

University in Virginia, there was actually a sizable Maasai

Gabi Fleury:

population, which was really interesting. So the Maasai are

Gabi Fleury:

people who live in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. And

Gabi Fleury:

a lot of the time like, you know, they, they're livestock

Gabi Fleury:

owners, they have cattle, and cattle is really important to

Gabi Fleury:

the culture. And there was a Maasai who was doing a master's

Gabi Fleury:

degree in my university in my programme. And he was associated

Gabi Fleury:

with my undergraduate thesis advisor. So I got to talk to

Gabi Fleury:

him. And I think that was the moment where kind of like, the

Gabi Fleury:

real light bulb came on of like, oh, wow, people really are

Gabi Fleury:

affected by this, because it wasn't just the sense of like,

Gabi Fleury:

Oh, I could lose my livestock. It's oh, losing my livestock has

Gabi Fleury:

cultural connotations affect my standing in the community; oh,

Gabi Fleury:

my kids might get attacked when they're walking, you know, when

Gabi Fleury:

they're herding my animals, or I have to live in fear of

Gabi Fleury:

elephants that could hurt me or my family. And kind of like the

Gabi Fleury:

the other costs, the opportunity cost of that right? And the

Gabi Fleury:

stress, and he was able to kind of explain to me kind of

Gabi Fleury:

scientist to scientist, like what he seen people in his

Gabi Fleury:

community go through and then connect me to other people in

Gabi Fleury:

the community within this little Virginia town, which was

Gabi Fleury:

fascinating without even stepping foot in Kenya yet, so I

Gabi Fleury:

think that was a point where I was just like, wow, like, I

Gabi Fleury:

really need to listen, and learn and slow down and not just rely

Unknown:

I love that. Yes, you did something about like lights

Unknown:

on what I'm reading.

Unknown:

like lights flashing. Ages ago, I did a story while at the World

Unknown:

Service and came across lion lights and came across the

Unknown:

Maasai boy who created lion lights. And we went back to find

Unknown:

out what happened to him. Because we're interested in

Unknown:

these stories of innovation. And it's like, hold on, people are

Unknown:

coming up with ideas. But then what happens? What happens next?

Unknown:

In his case, he got a bit screwed over trying to do a

Unknown:

patent. So it's, it's a little bit weird how this is all very

Unknown:

sort of circular in terms of like, Yes, I know what you're

Unknown:

talking about. Oh, my gosh, it's making me think. You're so super

Unknown:

cool. It's too much. I can't deal with it. But in terms of

Unknown:

being able to deal with it - can we talk about the games? Like

Unknown:

have you not made a video games? Am I making this up?

Gabi Fleury:

Yeah video games is something I'm working on right

Gabi Fleury:

now with, with a colleague and something I've done in the past,

Gabi Fleury:

I enjoy... I enjoy gaming, I think interactive education is,

Gabi Fleury:

is the future and trying to, you know, share information and also

Gabi Fleury:

get people engaged. And it was interesting, because so my mom

Gabi Fleury:

is an opera director, like she used to direct operas. So I came

Gabi Fleury:

from kind of a theatrical background, my dad's a

Gabi Fleury:

genealogist, so I came from kind of science and art. But it was

Gabi Fleury:

really cool, because it's coming from that theatrical background,

Gabi Fleury:

I would see how helpful skits were in outreach. So how she

Gabi Fleury:

would so she, we lived in Alaska, for my middle school

Gabi Fleury:

years, and we would go, she did outreach into Inuit communities

Gabi Fleury:

to do opera outreach. So we'd fly in, and these little planes,

Gabi Fleury:

and I'd go in the middle school, and she would do opera outreach

Gabi Fleury:

and be like, hey, kids, this is what opera is. And they could,

Gabi Fleury:

they would sometimes share kind of like their cultural and their

Gabi Fleury:

musical traditions as well, which is really cool. But there

Gabi Fleury:

is a point to this. But basically, what was really cool

Gabi Fleury:

is that I would see that when they were engaging, when they

Gabi Fleury:

would do skits, and when they would kind of like bring people

Gabi Fleury:

in, that's kind of when the light bulbs were on. And these

Gabi Fleury:

kids were just sitting there kind of crossing their arms

Gabi Fleury:

like, oh, this is so silly. Like, 'why are we being made to

Gabi Fleury:

do this' would suddenly get into it? And I was thinking back

Gabi Fleury:

about, okay, how do we get people interested in

Gabi Fleury:

environmental education? And it's like, we just, we can't

Gabi Fleury:

just talk to them. Like, we can't just rote say the

Gabi Fleury:

information, or have them regurgitate it, we need to get

Gabi Fleury:

them engaged. And some one of the best ways to do that is

Gabi Fleury:

through interactive play. So that's kind of how I got into

Gabi Fleury:

that side field.

Dhruti Shah:

This is so amazing. I feel literally like, oh, my

Dhruti Shah:

gosh, this is all very, very interconnected in this way.

Dhruti Shah:

Like, how do you relax? How do you like? Are your neurons

Dhruti Shah:

constantly popping to each other? Like, honestly, what's

Dhruti Shah:

going on?

Gabi Fleury:

I don't do a lot of relaxing, I'll be honest, I

Gabi Fleury:

honestly find working on projects kind of relaxing. I

Gabi Fleury:

know. That's like the workaholic thing to say, but I do. But

Gabi Fleury:

yeah, I think I'm very lucky that I get to pursue a lot of

Gabi Fleury:

really interesting work.

Dhruti Shah:

But then also, how do you sustain yourself? Let's

Dhruti Shah:

say somebody's like, oh, this sounds super cool. I want to get

Dhruti Shah:

into as I say, this is not necessarily the most well paid

Dhruti Shah:

field that I'm in we will be pulled together. But no, how are

Dhruti Shah:

you sort of able to cope and be like, okay, I'm committed to

Dhruti Shah:

this, this is important. Is it things like grants; is it things

Dhruti Shah:

like having to do some side hustles? How does it actually

Dhruti Shah:

work in real life?

Gabi Fleury:

Yeah, it's actually kind of interesting. So in my

Gabi Fleury:

field, it does tend to be people from a higher socio-economic

Gabi Fleury:

strata to be able to deal with some of the things and it does

Gabi Fleury:

tend to be people who are not people of colour. So that is

Gabi Fleury:

pretty isolating as well. Going into the field I kind of knew I

Gabi Fleury:

was initially at a disadvantage because I couldn't pay to do six

Gabi Fleury:

weeks in Borneo. You know, just like doing field work. Because

Gabi Fleury:

there's a lot of pay to play opportunities out there where

Gabi Fleury:

you can get field work, but you'd have to pay for or they

Gabi Fleury:

wouldn't pay you. And then do unpaid internships, where I

Gabi Fleury:

didn't get anything would be difficult. I also knew I

Gabi Fleury:

couldn't pay to do anything. And there's also the years of

Gabi Fleury:

education, and there's huge barriers to conservation. So,

Gabi Fleury:

first barrier is you have to be lucky enough to even know what

Gabi Fleury:

conservation is, to even know that's a field you can do. And

Gabi Fleury:

then at that point, you know, say someone's interested in

Gabi Fleury:

conservation, you have to get through at least a master's

Gabi Fleury:

degree, which has to either come with funding, or you have to

Gabi Fleury:

come up with funding yourself. So this was a mix of good luck

Gabi Fleury:

and I think working really hard. So I was engaged at the right

Gabi Fleury:

time in my undergraduate career by the right person who kind of

Gabi Fleury:

led me in a path kind of towards what I'm doing now, in terms of

Gabi Fleury:

like formalising it. But also I had a full ride for my masters

Gabi Fleury:

because I had a rotary grant; they usually fund political

Gabi Fleury:

scientists, but I made the case that human welfare is inexorably

Gabi Fleury:

tied to wildlife and human-wildlife conflict would

Gabi Fleury:

fall under their purview. So by being able to do that, I was

Gabi Fleury:

able to get a global grant that funded my master's degree, but

Gabi Fleury:

hilariously only funded one year, so I had to find an

Gabi Fleury:

accelerated master's degree. So I did my master's degree in 14

Gabi Fleury:

months in Cape Town, South Africa, and got it fully paid

Gabi Fleury:

for. Luckily, once you have a PhD, or you get into a PhD

Gabi Fleury:

programme, they're usually fully funded, you don't get paid much.

Gabi Fleury:

And yeah, for equipment and stuff, it's, it's all grants. So

Gabi Fleury:

you become a really good grant writer, you get really good at

Gabi Fleury:

being able to sell your work, and being able to express you

Gabi Fleury:

know, the importance of what you're doing. So you can, you

Gabi Fleury:

know, buy camera traps and things like that. So I would say

Gabi Fleury:

that, and I say this to a lot of people who are interested in

Gabi Fleury:

getting into conservation, if it's something that really

Gabi Fleury:

drives you, if it's something that you'd like, you can't

Gabi Fleury:

imagine doing anything else, this is what you want to do, do

Gabi Fleury:

it. But no, it's hard. And it has to be worth it for you. It's

Gabi Fleury:

not something to do on a lark, because you think it sounds

Gabi Fleury:

cool. It's something that you need to be able to protect your

Gabi Fleury:

mental health and protect your time and protect you know, your

Gabi Fleury:

relationships, because if you let it, it will eat everything

Gabi Fleury:

in your life. Because it just, it's all consuming, right? And

Gabi Fleury:

you have to be very focused to be successful, because it is so

Gabi Fleury:

competitive. It's like trying to be an astronaut, like you need

Gabi Fleury:

to be able to have boundaries. And I think being able for me

Gabi Fleury:

carving out time for my relationships is important,

Gabi Fleury:

carving out time to do just fun things, like I say a cosplay,

Gabi Fleury:

nothing to do with anything I do. But you have to protect that

Gabi Fleury:

time. So I'd say that it is possible and to go for it if

Gabi Fleury:

it's someone's dream, but it's not just kind of like, oh, I

Gabi Fleury:

think I'll study animals. But I always say that, like if someone

Gabi Fleury:

wants to do it, they can find a way to do it. You just have to

Gabi Fleury:

be creative, and not just kind of sit and wait around for

Gabi Fleury:

opportunities. So I always see like, when near the whole thing,

Gabi Fleury:

like when a when the door closes like a window will open. It's

Gabi Fleury:

like forget that, you know, build a better door. Like don't

Gabi Fleury:

just wait for windows open, like build your own. Because you

Gabi Fleury:

know, the world's not gonna wait for you.

Dhruti Shah:

I love that I think yes, building a better door

Dhruti Shah:

that... Why didn't you get in, like I tell you where you can

Dhruti Shah:

make some extra money. It'll be your hustle, get on a T-shirt,

Dhruti Shah:

sell it. But it's also really weird if you just mentioned

Dhruti Shah:

Rotary. So I didn't know this before. But I have a Rotary

Dhruti Shah:

Peace Fellowship. And it's because I got a mid-career

Dhruti Shah:

professional development fellowship, funded by Rotary. So

Dhruti Shah:

I'm like, but it's also there that beecause we were doing

Dhruti Shah:

peace. And I started understanding more about sort of

Dhruti Shah:

peace and conflict and people that are in the field. That's

Dhruti Shah:

what triggered my interest in the human-wildlife like

Dhruti Shah:

environmental stuff. I was like, why are we not talking more

Dhruti Shah:

about the environment? Like what's going on here? That's so

Dhruti Shah:

weird, like all these little interconnections that are

Dhruti Shah:

happening? Is there anything I should be thinking about; that

Dhruti Shah:

you should be thinking about? Should we be thinking more or

Dhruti Shah:

thinking less?

Gabi Fleury:

Yeah, I think a big thing in conservation up and

Gabi Fleury:

coming is the importance of collaboration and the importance

Gabi Fleury:

of reducing egocentricity and focusing on the problems. And I

Gabi Fleury:

think that's in a lot of fields. So that's just something that I

Gabi Fleury:

try to think about is that as I'm building my own career, you

Gabi Fleury:

know, how can I lend my skills to multidisciplinary projects?

Gabi Fleury:

How can I make connections with people who do other things? So

Gabi Fleury:

for example, this video game idea that I did, it was a human

Gabi Fleury:

wildlife conflict video game; we designed three mini games around

Gabi Fleury:

human wildlife conflict. And it was literally me and a software

Gabi Fleury:

engineer friend who did it for free. And we did it over a year.

Gabi Fleury:

And we did in PowerPoint in free Unity game engine, because we

Gabi Fleury:

were poor. We did that. And then in terms of beta testing it we

Gabi Fleury:

literally dry emailed somebody I really respected and said, would

Gabi Fleury:

you test this in your environment education programme

Gabi Fleury:

in Mozambique? And luckily, she said yes. And that helped us

Gabi Fleury:

refine the game. And then we're able to publish a paper off it.

Gabi Fleury:

So like, it's one of those things where, you know, we kind

Gabi Fleury:

of came from nothing. And we were just like, this would be

Gabi Fleury:

cool. And let's spend a couple hours a week doing it. And it

Gabi Fleury:

was one of the hardest things I ever did, because the entire

Gabi Fleury:

thing had to have no text. We couldn't have any text because

Gabi Fleury:

of you know, language barriers. You walked down the street in

Gabi Fleury:

Africa, you hit like 15 different languages. And you

Gabi Fleury:

know, we didn't want there to be any literacy barriers or

Gabi Fleury:

anything like that or to be any complications. So, we had to

Gabi Fleury:

explain like what a trophic cascade is, is the thing we just

Gabi Fleury:

talked about, in like PowerPoint art. Which took like six months

Gabi Fleury:

of our lives, just like, literally, we would do like this

Gabi Fleury:

little video where it was all PowerPoint art. And we would

Gabi Fleury:

give it to our beta tester. And she would be like, okay, people

Gabi Fleury:

got tripped up here. So we'd have to take it back and be

Gabi Fleury:

like, okay, okay, how do we explain it better, until

Gabi Fleury:

literally, we did it until like the entire 42 people, not a

Gabi Fleury:

single person was confused.

Dhruti Shah:

That's kind it's like no lingual. But on the

Dhruti Shah:

other hand, it's multilingual, because of the fact that it's

Dhruti Shah:

able to sort of translate that way. I love it. I haven't seen

Dhruti Shah:

any love it. Again, years and years and years ago, I worked on

Dhruti Shah:

a project what's called what does freedom look like? And then

Dhruti Shah:

we had to create a comic. But it had to be wordless. Because it

Dhruti Shah:

had to go across all these language services. So we were

Dhruti Shah:

very lucky in that I was able to go and get a guy called Grant

Dhruti Shah:

Morrison, who was behind behind a lot of sort of superheroes.

Dhruti Shah:

Mandem, he knows his stuff far more than I know it, but he was

Dhruti Shah:

able to do it. And it was like, this is absolutely brilliant.

Dhruti Shah:

But it's, it's hard to be able to communicate something that

Dhruti Shah:

you may be, you know, talk about all the time and understand

Dhruti Shah:

quite well, but need to make sure that people understand it,

Dhruti Shah:

if they have never even come across the concept before.

Gabi Fleury:

And also understanding that other people,

Gabi Fleury:

they might not know exactly what you're doing, but they have

Gabi Fleury:

their own valuable skill sets. So I think something as

Gabi Fleury:

scientists we need to avoid, is being so caught up in thinking

Gabi Fleury:

that we know best and acknowledging that there's other

Gabi Fleury:

equally important skill sets that we don't have. And that's

Gabi Fleury:

why collaboration is so important. So like, for example,

Gabi Fleury:

like traditional ecological knowledge, there's so much

Gabi Fleury:

knowledge and communities that are essential for solving these

Gabi Fleury:

problems. They're not helplessly waiting for us to fix things.

Gabi Fleury:

You know, we're coming in from a different angle. So I think

Gabi Fleury:

reframing it and saying, you know, we're parachuting down and

Gabi Fleury:

we're saving the world. And you know, it's like, we're not, we

Gabi Fleury:

are part of a bigger team of people already working on these

Gabi Fleury:

things in their own countries. We're the specialists - we're

Gabi Fleury:

not running the show,

Dhruti Shah:

the wonderful Gabi Fleury, who puts together video

Dhruti Shah:

game designing, conservation, biology and more, and makes it

Dhruti Shah:

work. Do you have an interdisciplinary life? I'd love

Dhruti Shah:

to hear from you. And maybe we can chat on this podcast that

Dhruti Shah:

goes with my newsletter, which is called Have You Thought About

Dhruti Shah:

and can be found via www.dhrutishah.com. Thank you to

Dhruti Shah:

Rian Shah for the music for this podcast.