In Conversation: Dr.  M. Sanjayan, host of EARTH: A New Wild

Conservation biologist discusses his new PBS Series, the challenges of co-existing with wild animals, and the schism among conservationists these days.

Last night PBS debuted its newest nature special, EARTH: A New Wild. In the opening episode, the program’s host, M. Sanjayan, promises that this will be a genre-busting kind of environmental documentary. “My mission,” Sanjayan says, “is to tell you an untold story, where we humans are not separate from nature – we are part of it.” And indeed this isn’t just a Planet Earth knock off. Instead of focusing the camera on the planet’s myriad natural wonders, Sanjayan is more interested in exploring a thornier question: How can human civilization and wild nature coexist, especially in this worrisome new era of the Anthropocene?

Earlier this week I got the chance to geek out with Sanjayan, who, when not hosting globe-spanning television documentaries, works for the NGO Conservation International. We talked about his aspirations for the new program, why Americans have such an especially hard time living with bears and wolves, and the current tensions in the field of conservation biology.

You’ve titled your new PBS Series, “Earth: A New Wild.” So what exactly is it about the wild today that makes it new?

So, first of all, you should know the way that titles come up, I had very, very little to do with the title. At the end of the day it becomes this gigantic – many people get involved. They have to look at what’s been done before, and what’s been on television, etcetera. But the original working title for the show was, “Earth in the Age of Man.” So, the Anthropocene. When I think about the new wild, what I think about is a place that still feels, looks, tastes, acts wild – but along with the larger human presence within it. And if you want one example of it, it’s the Centennial Valley of Montana. The Serengeti plains would be [another] great example. These are places that look wild, but have had a human presence for a long time. And in some ways human presence has modified those landscapes and in some ways, today, they are fundamentally protecting that landscape, too.

photo of a man sitting in bamboo with a giant pandaCourtesy of Ami VitaleSanjayan and panda

You didn’t use the term, because it’s a little academic, but this really is the PBS nature special for the Anthropocene.

Yeah, I would be OK with that.

The first episode talks a lot about the challenges and opportunities of people co-existing with wild animals. I’m sure you saw the recent report about how there are so many more large carnivores – like bears and wolves – in Europe than there are in the Continental United States, in the Lower 48. I’m wondering: Why do you think we have such a hard time here in the US living among large animals, especially large carnivores?

Well, for us the real challenge has not been large carnivores, right now, but particularly grizzly bears, and particularly wolves. Take black bears – they have a far larger range and numbers today than in a long time, and surpass anything they have in Europe. Mountain lions, same thing. I will point out that in England, a wild cat, which is about the size of a domestic cat or a little bigger, is considered a threat. So the tolerances are different. In Eastern Europe they have large populations [of wildlife] that are coming back. They have the space to occupy.

I think the challenge of the wolf in the [American] West – I honestly think that that challenge will be overcome in the next decade to two decades. I think the trends are very encouraging. I think the challenge that we’ve had in the West is that people really don’t like being told what to do by someone far away, by people who they don’t think has a stake in their issues and their problems. I don’t think ranchers in the West genuinely believe that wolves are going to come knock on their door and steal their kids. But they [the wolves] are emblematic of the ways in which we – frankly, we environmentalists to some extent – have wanted to dictate terms. At the end of the day, I firmly believe that the only long-term, sustainable solution is if local people – those living closest to the issues and problems – embrace the solutions. And it might be a painful process. It might not be the way I want it all the time. But to be honest, that’s really the only way to build something that’s resilient.

So is that the takeaway from your tiger segment is Bangladesh? Or is there another cultural X-factor there?

I think there probably is a bit of a cultural thing, too. But the tiger, it’s a fantastic emblem. This thing really does kill people. One a week – one [person] a week dies in the Sundarbans! It’s the only place where we filmed … where we really had armed guards to protect us from the wildlife. Nothing else that we did – maybe the elephant stuff – came close.

So it’s not that those people love those tigers. Trust me, there’s plenty of tiger killing that happens. But there is, among a fairly large number of people, an understanding that the forest, and what lives in the forest, is important to their lives – and that that whole system protects them from the big storms that barrel up the Bay of Bengal. Those people haven’t lost that connection. It’s still there. If we can capitalize on that, then the tiger, the forest, have a chance to survive. If we don’t, and sort let it erode, ultimately the tiger will be gone, and the forest will be gone, and honestly those people won’t be any the richer. Frankly, they’ll be poorer.

And for a North American audience, who are probably a little bit more – or a lot more – disconnected from wild nature than people living at the edge of a forest in Bangladesh, that really is the main takeaway from this series, our interdependence on natural ecosystems? That’s what you’re hammering away at.

Yeah, our interdependence. And this notion that even today, even in our sophisticated way, we still need nature. Even with 7 billion of us, that nature still has a role to play. And when we turn our backs on it, it can really bite us in the ass. Sometimes in very unexpected ways.

The whole scene about the vultures: Here’s this thing, much maligned, you wouldn’t even notice its passing. [The people in India] didn’t notice its passing. Twenty million birds died, and for the most, people didn’t notice. And they sure as hell are noticing it now, with these gigantic, gigantic [cattle] carcass dumps. The one we filmed at, there are maybe 20,000 [cattle] bodies there. It’s an extraordinary place. India basically has the highest incidence of rabies [due to the population explosion of feral dogs who eat the carcasses.] So in that case it is literally coming back to bite us.

And there are lots of other examples like that throughout the series. When we undervalue nature, when we turn our backs on nature, it can have surprisingly powerful impacts on us.

I want to switch it up a little bit and ask you a question about your field specifically. In a 2011 interview in The Atlantic, you named Peter Kareiva and Michael Soulé as people who would be in your professional hall of fame. Given the current division, or some would say schism, among conservation biologists, that’s either a surprising pairing or a diplomatic one. I’m wondering: Are you using this show to kind of threat the needle between those two poles?

Aha! Very perceptive. [Laughs]

Look, if that was my pitch, I never would have managed to get this show made. It has to be bigger than these guys, it has to be bigger than all of us.

Sure, of course.

But let me put in this way: I think if Michael and Peter watched the show, each would find something to like. Because there is no doubt in this show that myself, and some of the other people that you meet, clearly love wildlife and love wild places. And there is also a very utilitarian aspect to it, when we’re with the Sami [in Scandinavia] or when we’re New York City, talking about rewilding in the harbor here.

So I know Peter’s going to watch it. He wrote me a note saying he’s going to get together with some colleagues to watch it. Michael doesn’t watch a lot of TV, but I’m going to send him the DVD. I think he’ll see things that he’ll like. And I think they’ll each see things that they don’t like that much, either, but that’s OK.

In the Episode Two, you meet with Alan Savory at his ranch in East Africa, and you talk about how to manage grasslands with domestic and wild animals. Managing ecosystems – do you think that there’s some landscapes that we shouldn’t intervene in or shouldn’t manage? Some places – I wouldn’t say ‘untouched’ – but they wouldn’t have deliberate human intention over them?

Yeah, without a doubt. Even Alan Savory admits that [his method] is not going to be good for all grasslands. It works for certain grasslands that have grown up with that kind of impact. You can’t cut down the South American rainforest and run cattle there, in any numbers, and think it’s going to bring back the rainforest. So there are some places that are really fragile and really rare, and they probably need a different kind of tending.

I’m not sure that I would agree that the action is to do nothing. Because even the action of doing nothing is doing something, if you know what I mean. Humans are pretty pervasive.

So I think some landscapes are better suited than others. I would agree with that.

I’m pressing hard to think about where. Maybe … I don’t know. You’d be hard pressed to know where you could do that. Because if the [nature preserve/wilderness] is too small, sometimes you have to have intensive management.

But we’re not talking about the exception to the rule. What I wanted to get across is the idea that grasslands have had – they are systems that have grown up with a lot of disturbance. That’s basically what makes them grasslands. And if we start seeing that, and start seeing how to use our animals to mimic wild nature, you can actually bring some of those grasslands functionality back. I think that’s a reasonable proposition.

I know – because I do it for a living – that there’s a lot of gloom and doom in environmental journalism …

And film making. Right now there are films out there that are extraordinarily depressing.

… Yeah, and filmmaking. At the same time, at a couple of moments I wondered if some of your stories weren’t willfully optimistic, and if it wasn’t an overcorrection. Were you worried at all about giving a false impression that everything is looking up in terms of the environment?

Yeah, I definitely can see that. I think that’s a fair observation. And maybe if you want to couch it as a criticism, I’ll take it.

Look, at the end of the day, I wanted to make a show that I want to watch, and that people want to watch. It’s like the simple, number one rule of filmmaking: It’s got to be entertaining, it’s got to be interesting, and it’s got to be fun. I cannot watch a lot of environmental programming. Because it really depresses me. It’s like there’s no point. You can’t even get to second base, your feet are just locked up, right?

As a filmmaker, you have to get eyeballs. So why don’t we start with pandas. Guess what? People love pandas. Am I being cynical? Come on, I’m living in the world. I want to make a film that, number one, people will to want to watch. And, number two, that will open people’s eyes to a different way of thinking and that will start a really great conversation. It’s a pretty simple goal. Goal one is that.

But we don’t shy away from hard parts. I don’t go and tell you the story about tigers without actually introducing you to a guy who was actually there when a tiger killed his dad. When we did the story, I was really surprised. I almost didn’t believe it. But I understand a little bit of what he was saying, and he really believed what he was telling me, [that he thought the tigers had a role to play.] This wasn’t coached.

Even with Jane [Goodall]. Here we are in Gombe [Stream National park in Tanzania], and Jane is not necessarily always optimistic. This is a place that she loves, and it’s a fragment of what it used to be. And then she tells me about the one chimp [from another troop] that made it through. This is incredible. And I was just with Jane this weekend, and she said that another chimp has come through as well – and probably two others. And they actually don’t know where they’re coming from. They just know they aren’t from Gombe. You can’t help – you cannot help – but be inspired by that pluck of that animal to make it through. You can’t help but be buoyed by it.

closeup photo of a vultureCourtesy of Joe LoncraineDuring the 1990s Vultures in Asia were being inadvertently poisoned by us and driven to the brink of extinction. Once considered low value and ugly – the vulture is now being re-appraised as a local hero.

So my point was: Don’t shy away from showing the bad stuff, but just use it as the beginning of the story, not inevitably as the end, as they typically go.

So when you get to see the water episode, for example, which I think is the most conservation-y one, we show the Aral Sea. This is the world’s fourth largest fresh water lake on the planet that disappeared, on our watch. Disappeared! The water line is 150 miles away from where it used to be. What’s left of the water cannot support anything other than brine shrimp. And once upon a time we took 10,000 tons of fish every year out of it. I am there. I am gobsmacked by what has happened. It’s incredible. It’s probably the largest single environmental disaster on the planet. But we use that as a launching point to then begin the discussion about the future of the Colorado River, and what the future might look like.

So, A – you got to entertain people, you got to get them excited and interested that they are going to see something really cool. And B – you have to use the bad stuff as a launching point to move yourself forward. That’s what we’re trying to do.

Finally, I’m sure that you love all of your children equally, but if you had to pick your favorite story, the one that you find yourself telling to people in conversations, what is it?

The panda story is a really good story. Because China is full of bad news – and it’s astonishing what they are trying to do. They are trying to put this cute, cuddly, iconic animal that doesn’t even really look real or wild, and put it back into the wild. And they pull it off. And we get front row seats to do it. I wasn’t that excited about doing the story. It completely flipped my mind once I got there, saw it, met the people involved, and the dedication of those involved. I was just blown away by director Zhang Hemin and what they’re doing. And the fact that they pull it off – that female panda that you see in the episode, she’s still out there, doing fine. In fact, two months ago they released three others. So that was a very surprising story.

The Colorado River – that whole journey was kind of eye-opening. Because it was about a choice that I didn’t know I was making, and it’s in my backyard almost. Those are the two that I keep going back to.

The subsequent episodes of EARTH: A New Wild will air on February 10, 11, 18 and 25. Check your local PBS station for exact broadcast times in your area.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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