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The Current Transcript for October 17, 2022

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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You're constantly grieving this idea of what could be. And with every negative pregnancy test that you get, there's this little part of you that just keeps dying over and over and over again.

MATT GALLOWAY: When Jen White and her husband decided they wanted to have a baby, they had no idea of the complicated road ahead of them or how common those complications are. The couple recorded their struggle with infertility to shine a light on a subject still wrapped in shame and secrecy. In 30 minutes, Jen and Neil are here to talk about turning a taboo topic into a compelling podcast and what they learnt about each other through a difficult process. Also this morning.

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Animals are just nonexistent in the legal framework of the International Criminal Court in any manner whatsoever, and to date they have been treated as mere objects.

MG: Species are in decline. We've seen it in the bird population, in the wild salmon, not running through the rivers of the Yukon. And scientists this week have said billions of snow crabs have disappeared from the waters around Alaska in an hour. The push to rethink our relationship with the natural world and what would be different if nature had legal rights and protections like humans do. We start, though, in China, where the president is solidifying his grip on power. The world is watching closely. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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What a third term for Xi Jinping means for China and the world

Guests: Sue-Lin Wong, Lynette Ong

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On our journey ahead, we must foster a firmer sense of purpose, fortitude and self-belief in the whole party and the Chinese people, so that we can not be swayed by balances, deterred by intimidation or cowed by pressure in from order. Let us harness our indomitable fighting spirit to open up new horizons for our cause.

MG: That's Chinese President Xi Jinping addressing the Communist Party Congress over the weekend in Beijing. Meetings like this happen every five years. It's a chance for the upper echelons of the party to come together, give speeches and award some powerful positions. It is also when Xi Jinping is widely expected to be reappointed for a precedent setting third term as party leader. This would further consolidate his power and control not over just the party, but over the entire country. Su-Lin Wang is the China correspondent for The Economist and the host of a new podcast about Xi Jinping. It's called The Prince. She's in Sydney, Australia. Sue-Lin Wong, hello.

SUE-LIN WONG: Hi. Great to be here.

MG: Great to have you here. We won't know until later this week, but it is widely expected that Xi Jinping will, as I mentioned, stay on as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. How significant would that be, do you think?

SUE-LIN WONG: It's a pretty significant move. So in China, traditionally, leaders have stayed for ten years and then they step down to make way for a new leader, Xi Jinping's ten years or this year. But he is widely expected to stay on for a third term and perhaps a fourth term and even the rest of his life. So this is really a breaking convention.

MG: Why do you think he wants to remain in that position?

SUE-LIN WONG: Xi Jinping is incredibly driven, incredibly ambitious, and he believes he is the right guy to be leading the Chinese Communist Party and leading China right now. And over the past ten years, what we've seen is he has consolidated a huge amount of power. So when he came in a decade ago, China was in crisis and the Chinese Communist Party was in crisis. Corruption was rampant. There were hundreds of thousands of protests. And, you know, people were genuinely asking whether the party would survive. And so see was actually given a mandate to try to bring the Communist Party under control by the mysterious party elders who appointed him the leader of the country. And he's done exactly that. And in fact, the party elders have gotten more than what they expected, because not only has he brought the Chinese Communist Party under control, he's used the party to seise control of China. And we've seen him develop these incredibly brutal and repressive censorship, surveillance and propaganda machines to seise control of all kinds of aspects of life in China. And as a result, over the past ten years, China has become a lot more repressive, a lot more closed, and a lot more authoritarian. And from Jinping's perspective, he's done as he set out to do, and he wants to stay on. Now, whether that's a good thing for the people of China, for the country and for the rest of the world is an entirely different matter. But from Camping's perspective, he's been very effective.

MG: Are you surprised at how China has changed under his leadership? Because there was the belief amongst some when he took power that he would steer the country to a more open form of of operation of living in China. And that, obviously, as you say, hasn't been the case.

SUE-LIN WONG: That's a very, very good point. So when you came to power ten years ago, there was all kinds of speculation about what kind of leader he would be. And many people looked to his father. His father was a founding father of the Chinese Communist Party and of the People's Republic and fought alongside Mao Zedong, but was actually considered quite open, quite liberal, a bit of a reformer. He was known to get on well with the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama liked him so much that he actually gave Xi Jinping's dad a watch that his dad wore for many decades. And then he was regarded as having pretty good relations with China's ethnic minorities and for opening up southern China during the opening a reform period in Chinese history. And so many people looked to Jinping's father and said, well, his dad seems pretty. This as he looks, dad seems pretty open. Maybe Jinping will be the same. But the mistake many people made was that that was only part of the picture of Ping's dad. And in fact, he was also incredibly dedicated to the Communist Party, incredibly dedicated to the Communist Revolution. And he had raised Jinping and his brothers and sisters to believe that they, too, were going to be revolutionaries and that he would continue the fight to make China bigger and stronger. So a lot of our analysis in the West was wrong ten years ago, and I think there are lessons to be learnt about how we try to understand China and the importance of deeply understanding China on its own terms.

MG: We heard just a little bit of the speech he made to the party Congress at the beginning of our conversation. And one of the things in that speech that he mentioned is that there would be no letup of the zero-covid policy. What is how he has handled the pandemic tell you about his leadership approach and where he wants to take this country?

SUE-LIN WONG: China is the only major country with this kind of policy. And what that shows us is that he really is obsessed with this desire for control. And at the beginning of the pandemic, you know, China really did save many, many lives because of its draconian lockdowns and other COVID policies. The thing is, you know, three years have passed and the rest of the world is moving on and trying to live with COVID. But keeping remains focussed on this policy, which you know, is very much connected to him as an individual. And he has come out publicly and said, you know, I personally am making the orders about Zero-Covid. It also reflects this nationalism because, you know, one of the fundamental problems is that China has not allowed foreign vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna in. And so Chinese people are not able to get vaccinated with these foreign vaccines, and that is being fuelled by this nationalism. So instead, Chinese people only can take less effective made in China vaccines. And that is also reflective of Xi Jinping's attitude towards patriotism and nationalism and is reflected across many, many different aspects of how he rules China.

MG: In the lead up to this huge meeting, there is these extraordinary scenes of very brief protests where people unfurled some banners over a bridge criticising Xi Jinping. What can you tell us about that?

SUE-LIN WONG: Yeah, they were incredibly extraordinary protest that we saw in Beijing and very, very rare. So you see him has developed these censorship and surveillance machines such that popular discontent very, very rarely bubbles to the top. And, you know, it's even less likely that people actually take action on the streets of Beijing, especially during a time like this where it's incredibly sensitive. The city is very lockdown. There are police everywhere because of this big, important party, Congress. But what that protest last week showed us was that, you know, there is some discontent, at least, and there are some people who are very unhappy with Jinping's rule and the fact he's very likely to stay on. And there are some very, very brave people who are still willing to protest at huge costs. The only other thing I would add on that, though, is it's very hard to say that that is representative of how people across China feel. And it's very hard actually to gauge how ordinary Chinese people feel because of the censorship machine. So Egypt has built.

MG: The expectation, as you say, is that he will stay on for a third term, but there is the potential that he could stay on beyond that, perhaps for life, as some leaders in past have. What would that mean for China?

SUE-LIN WONG: A China where Xi Jinping does not name a successor at this party. Congress and a China question could stay on for many, many more years. Is a China that can ultimately be a lot more fragile? You know, there have been a lot of studies showing that when leaders name successors, that's very, very good for continuity and that's very, very good for stability of a government and therefore of a country. And the fact that Xi Jinping is very likely not to do this is deeply concerning for the stability of China. And obviously, given how big and important China is, has all kinds of ripple effects across the world.

MG: Just before I let you go, the world is watching what's happening in China for obvious reasons. How well do you think the rest of the world understands this leader?

SUE-LIN WONG: So much of Chinese politics is a black box. And for the past nine months, I've been working on this eight episode podcast series on The Life and Times of Jinging, and it has been so tough because there's so little information out there about him. It's very, very dangerous for people in China to speak about him. He's one of the most sensitive topics in China. And as a result, there's just not that much information about him. But the reality is that, you know, the future of 1.4 billion people in China and perhaps world peace rest on the mind of this one man. So it has never been more important for us to try to understand him, try to understand the Chinese Communist Party, and try to understand China on their own terms. And then on top of that, we can do our analysis and be highly critical of what we see as this turn to authoritarianism in China led by Xi Jinping. But, you know, what is most important is that we first and foremost deeply try to understand c jinping, the man and his context and what drives him from his own perspective.

MG: Sue-Lin Wong, thank you for helping us do some of that. I appreciate it.

SUE-LIN WONG: Thank you so much.

MG: Take care. Bye bye. Bye bye. Sue-Lin Wong is a China correspondent for The Economist and the host of the new podcast, The Prince, which is about Xi Jinping. Lynette Ong is a professor of political science at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Her newest book is Outsourcing Repression Everyday State Power in Contemporary China. Lynette Ong morning to you.

LYNETTE ONG: Good morning and thank you for having me.

MG: Thanks for being here. Just briefly, how would you characterise China under Xi Jinping?

LYNETTE ONG: Increasingly repressive and increasingly authoritative and very tense relations with the United States and the West as a whole.

MG: And so, given that, how should the rest of the world be thinking about its relationship with China? If he is going to be the leader, if not for another term, then perhaps for life?

LYNETTE ONG: I think increasing complexity and uncertainty. So a lot of people have likened the relationship between the West and China as now the Cold War. But the danger of of this Cold War is actually quite different because as you could imagine, economically, we are very much intertwined. Trade trade dependency between China and the West is is very high. There's a lot of people, the people and cultural exchanges that were not seen in the Cold War. So, you know, if the relationship worsened, there is no economic decoupling because everyone is going to lose out. Businesses will lobby, but political rhetoric is also going going up high emotions are high, whereas things on the ground really need China and the West to work together to collaborate in order to better the livelihoods of everybody.

MG: You know, the world is watching the war, and you are in Ukraine right now. And Russia, in its actions, have been shunned by many around the world. What's the state of China's relations with Russia right now?

LYNETTE ONG: So Xi Jinping has gone has gone out and stated affirmatively that they have got, you know, friendship without any conditions with Russia. But I think privately, a lot of Chinese policymakers will admit that they see Russia as a cousin, that they cannot really control in rhetoric. They have to say that, you know, we are with Russia simply because of, you know, east versus west. If China doesn't stand with Russia, China will become increasingly isolated. But rhetoric aside, I think China find Russia really a little bit of a you know, of a pain. You know, the war in Ukraine has got huge implications in terms of energy security. Destabilisation of the regions will also spill over to China and a lot of President Putin's behaviour. I don't think presidency will necessarily agree with.

MG: Square that because as you say, the relationship is friendship without conditions. But you say they also look at Russia a little bit as a pain. Is there the opportunity or the possibility that China would criticise Russia's actions in Ukraine?

LYNETTE ONG: Quite, quite unlikely. Quite unlikely. So because, you know, unless it goes terribly wrong, but, you know, the relationship between China and Russia is a little bit like China in North and North Korea. North Korea like Russia is is a difficult issue to resolve. But the West in the West also needs China's assistance to a large extent. If anyone is going to talk any sense, if there's even a remote possibility to Putin, Xi is probably the only option.

MG: How does that difficult relationship with Russia? Complicate China's relations with the United States.

LYNETTE ONG: I think China has been walking a very fine line since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. I think it will continue to do so. But I think China is also trying to to chart an independent course. I think try China's relations with the United States is is very complex, not only politically but economically is also increasingly strained. And the recent increased tensions in Taiwan actually doesn't doesn't help either.

MG: How volatile is that situation? I mean, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, was in Taiwan earlier this year. There's a Canadian trade delegation that was there this week, including a Canadian MP that met briefly with the Taiwanese president. How volatile is that situation in Taiwan right now?

LYNETTE ONG: My personal feeling is that Speaker Pelosi's visit to Taiwan has really increased the tension and making the issue a lot more volatile without offering a lot of solution. China has been saying things about peaceful reunification with Taiwan for a long time. But in the most recent white the white paper, it is also, I think, willing to dissociate peaceful with reunification, meaning that it might even consider even the has never ruled out the use of force. But if you look at the Taiwan issue, changing demographics in Taiwan will tell you that people in support of reunification is becoming a very small minority because they are all people who are, you know, who are probably not not going to be around in a decade or two. So if we let these issues just sit on it for another 20 years, no one, literally no one in Taiwan will be strongly supportive of that. People will want either the status quo or independence. And in 20 years time, we don't know what sort of region China will actually become. So it's not necessarily, I think, advantageous to the West or to Taiwan to increase the tension now.

MG: What about and just briefly, because we're almost out of time, but what about Canada? I mean, the Canadian government is in the midst of developing a new Indo-Pacific strategy. China would presumably be, if not at the centre, then a huge part of that. And yet Canada has had its own very real difficulties and tensions with China in the last several years. So how would you characterise the relationship between Canada and China?

LYNETTE ONG: You know, that's a great question because we always need to bring it home. I think since the release of the two Michaels people are not so anxious and anymore. But I don't think things have actually gone back to normal. People are very wary, actually more wary than before what sort of regime China is under Xi Jinping. I don't think, you know, business confidence has actually recovered all that much. Cultural and even educational exchanges, a lot of it has been put on the whole because we know that, you know, Xi Jinping might actually stay for life is becoming more and more authoritarian. People are very wary.

MG: Do you think there's the possibility of a thaw in the relations between Canada and China?

LYNETTE ONG: My sense is I think we will be lucky if things do not get worse.

MG: We would be lucky if things don't get worse.

LYNETTE ONG: Well, no, let me rephrase. I think I think it will it will be great if things stay the way it is, so it doesn't become any worse. But I have no not much faith of it getting any better in the next couple of years.

MG: Lynnette, we will leave it there. It's good to speak with you, as always. Thank you very much.

LYNETTE ONG: Thank you so much.

MG: Lynette Ong is a professor of political science at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, also the author of Outsourcing, Repression, Everyday State Power in Contemporary China. Your CBC News is next. And then.

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I felt this deeply huge sense of shame that my body really wasn't serving me properly, that I couldn't do what everyone else was doing. So what the heck was wrong with me?

MG: The thing that Jen White couldn't do was get pregnant. It was a secret that she and her husband Neal kept for two years, did not tell friends, did not tell family. Now they're telling it in a very public way. Coming up, they'll be here to tell us why they have decided to share their struggle with infertility publicly in a podcast and what they hope this conversation can do to help address the stigma around something that as many as one in six Canadians experience. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. We're back in six minutes. Stay with us.

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CBC podcast One in Six explores one couple’s journey with infertility

Guests: Jen White, Neil Hyde

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current.

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MG: Still to come, renewed calls for animals, trees and rivers to be granted the same legal rights as people in the face of serious threats to biodiversity. But first, the long and winding road of infertility. When they were having trouble getting pregnant. Jen Waite and Neil Hyde sought medical help. The couple tried the fertility treatment known as IUI, intrauterine insemination. Here they are, getting ready for their next round.

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JEN WHITE: It's the night before Iowa. Number six. Oh, yeah. So how are you feeling?

NEIL HYDE: Nervous. I guess. Excited. So what do you feel about it?

JEN WHITE: I guess it's a sense of dread, but also a sense of dread wrapped up with knowing that things probably won't change. So why am I putting myself through this again? Like, do I want it that badly? I don't know. I do. There are times I think I do. And there are other times when say, I have to walk into that clinic tomorrow morning when I'm not going to want to be there.

MG: There's a lot of stress there. But despite that, Jen and Neal try to stay positive. But the chance that they will be able to conceive a baby.

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NEIL HYDE: You got to be more of a uterus. Half full uterus half empty.

JEN WHITE: So that's why I could keep going back. Cause of your stupid jokes that I love so much.

NEIL HYDE: She said. She said, You smell fantastic.

MG: They're laughing. But their experience of infertility has been a difficult story, one with a lot of tears as well. Jen is a journalist at CBC News and St John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. Neil is a graphic designer, and Jen chronicled their story in a new CBC podcast. It's called One in Six. The podcast comes out this week. Jen and Neil. Good morning.

JEN WHITE: Good morning, Matt.

NEIL HYDE: Morning, Matt.

MG: The jokes. Can we just talk about the jokes for a second and what that has meant in terms of not just this moment but your relationship, Jen?

JEN WHITE: It's a really heavy thing to go through, infertility, and well, myself and Neil joke a lot, anyways. There's a lot of laughter in our relationship, but when I was really getting down about myself and about the whole situation, Neil was always there to provide the comic relief, and I think that's kind of how we dealt with it too. Write it helped carry us through something really heavy by making it a bit lighter.

NEIL HYDE: Yeah, I mean, a lot of this process, not much of it actually involves me doing things. So whatever I can do to help, you know, break the ice, just be there for Jen as much as possible and, you know, just work on some new Stand-Up material, I guess, while I'm at it.

MG: Big time. Well, well spent. I suppose these are the questions that I can ask. You were deeply personal questions, but this is a deeply personal issue, so we'll kind of leap into it. When did you realise, Jen, that having a baby with Neil was going to be a bit more difficult than you thought it would be?

JEN WHITE: We met later in life, so we were already into our thirties when we got married. So when we went on our honeymoon in 2016, that's when we decided we're ready for this. And honestly, I thought it'd be so easy. I just thought I figured I'd go off my birth control, there'd be a magic moment, and then we'd come home pregnant. But unfortunately, that never happened. And without fail, every single month following that, it was just disappointment. After disappointment. And soon after that we realised that we needed some help. So we eventually got a referral to the Newfoundland and Labrador fertility services here.

MG: One of the things that you talk about in the first episode of the podcast is struggling with the language to describe what was happening. Can you tell me a bit about that?

JEN WHITE: Well, it was just really strange at the time because like it was a point in my life when everyone around us was getting pregnant with ease. So it's like someone would sneeze and they'd be pregnant. So really, when it got to the point that we were trying and trying and trying and trying, and it just wasn't happening. It was just really hard to come up with the words to describe that things weren't happening. I felt this huge, deeply huge sense of shame that my body really wasn't serving me properly, that I couldn't do what everyone else was doing. So what the heck was wrong with me?

MG: Neil, how did you decide what to do next in the midst of that?

NEIL HYDE: Well, I mean, when we went to the fertility clinic first, there was a battery of tests and, you know, where it was diagnosed as unexplained infertility. It was kind of a double edged sword where, you know, it wasn't anything with with me wasn't anything specifically with Jane. It was just unexplained. So, you know, we still had hope. We could potentially still conceive a child. So, you know, I thought to be drink more carrot juice or, you know, cut down gluten or something and nothing. You know, the only real advice was, you know, relax, which is not the thing you tell anyone to do in this situation. So we consulted with our doctors and then we continue on with, with all the treatments here with IUI in the clinic.

MG: Jen, explain what IUI is.

JEN WHITE: Yeah. So it's intrauterine insemination. So what happens is that the days of the week just disappear. It turns into what day of your cycle? Day one, day to day three. So I would take hormone drugs towards the beginning that would help my follicles grow so the eggs are contained within it and then that would be monitored along the way with multiple appointments with doctors. So there would be multiple internal ultrasounds. And then when the follicles look good and ready, the doctor, you get a trigger shot and that kickstarts your ovulation and then it's a very timed process. So about 24 to 36 hours later, then Neil would go in, give a sample, they do it.

NEIL HYDE: It's not as exciting as it sounds.

JEN WHITE: They do. They do a treatment for the sample and then you would go in for the insemination procedure. So a nurse would then put sperm into a catheter that would then be shot up into my uterus. And the idea there is that the sperm, the eggs, they're close enough together, as they possibly can be, to try and help the magic along, try and make an embryo. And it's Matt, as you can imagine, it's not very romantic.

MG: And full of mean anticipation and suspense and drama and stress as well.

NEIL HYDE: Yeah, it's it's a constant roller coaster. Every month. You're full of excitement and encouragement and hope and then crashing down, and then you've got to kind of pick it up. Again. And decide if you want to do it again. And then just keep going on that ride.

JEN WHITE: And then so after the insemination, there's what many other infertility patients will know as the dreaded two week wait. So that's kind of when you're sitting around waiting, wondering if this thing actually took and this is what it actually sounds like at the end of one of those cycles after I peed on a stick. So here's a scene from one in six.

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NEIL HYDE: Oh, wow. This isn't just oh, this is exciting. I saw a couple of steps to the bathroom. Well, there it is. Old pink monster.

JEN WHITE: Do you want to flip it over this time?

NEIL HYDE: Oh, wow.

JEN WHITE: Okay.

NEIL HYDE: Okay. And boom. One is not pregnant. So we have single line hobbies here. A little puppy dog to console us. Yep. One single line seems pretty.

JEN WHITE: It seems for any definitive shape.

NEIL HYDE: It's not.

JEN WHITE: Like a.

NEIL HYDE: Very tablet, like a weathervane or pressure roller coaster, too. Well, it's one. Yes. It's too bad.

JEN WHITE: It's so stupid.

NEIL HYDE: Well, baby. We did integrate.

JEN WHITE: I don't want to do it again. Be. The root.

NEIL HYDE: Yeah. It kind of sucks a lot. Like a ton.

JEN WHITE: Yeah.

MG: Neil, what's it like to listen to that again?

NEIL HYDE: You know, I mean, it's traumatic. It's such a horrible thing to go through every month. And for me, I was trying to keep it together, but inside it was crushing. But I'm just it was just trying to be there for them and keep our spirits up that the next time or our next steps will be will be a better outcome. I had the benefit of not being full of all these hormones and drugs that Jen was full of at the time. So that's another part of all of this. But we're that was our sixth try is usually they say the make or break. So where that was negative then we had some really, really big decisions to make of of what our next steps were going to be.

JEN WHITE: And honestly, like, I've heard this tape in editing a thousand times now and I still cry every single time I hear it. It still makes me really emotional. So you can hear this shift in my voice how like it kind of starts to sink in. I think I mostly kept it together while we were recording, and then it wasn't until we turned that recorder off that I just absolutely lost it. It was it was soul crushing. It was one of the worst days of my life.

MG: That's just one of I mean, I talked about the intimacy of this podcast. This is one of those really intimate moments that you capture. There's another one. And this involves you, Neil, giving Jen a needle.

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JEN WHITE: Okay. Deep breath.

NEIL HYDE: Deep breath. Two of us. Yeah. I'll take a deep breath, too.

JEN WHITE: Okay.

NEIL HYDE: Going in three, two, one. Medicine. Slowly going in. One, two, three. LG guns. Nice.

MG: Neil, tell me about giving your partner a needle.

NEIL HYDE: Not a thing that I expected when we started the fertility journey that I'd be also a field medick at times. Yet Jen was extremely needle phobic and so consulted with nurses and doctors and probably popped up a few YouTube videos and became extremely proficient at it in my mind. But to me, it was it was such a blessing in one way that I could be that much more part of our journey and what we were going through. I was really proud that I could do it with Jen, and I did not pass out at any point.

MG: I was gonna say, Were you nervous? And too?

NEIL HYDE: Yes, extremely nervous. But I kept it together.

JEN WHITE: You didn't tell me that.

NEIL HYDE: Well, here we go.

MG: And YouTube videos, who knew.

NEIL HYDE: Everything there, yeah.

MG: I mean, it speaks to the physical toll that treatment like this takes on your body. Can you tell me about that?

JEN WHITE: Well, bluntly, it really sucks. You just feel like a big pincushion at times with all those needles. Yeah. Neil had quite the job to find a spot on my stomach where you could put them in, going around the bruises and everything. And there were things like the hormones would cause weight gain and some mood swings. And overall, it's kind of really hard to explain, but it's like I didn't feel like myself at all. And it took me years afterwards to actually start to come down and feel normal in my body again. And of course, because of all the hormones, there were moments of just crying for no reason. And it helped once we started opening up to people, because before I'm sure they had no idea what was going on. I just must have seemed like an unhinged person.

MG: Well, as it was unfolding, Neil, how many people knew about what you both were going through?

NEIL HYDE: It progressed like my my attitude is more tell the world and we'll all work on this together. So, you know, it was called family, friends, some co-workers. You know, we kept a close to our chest. But, you know, Jen was really kind of rein in me in on that.

JEN WHITE: I told him he wasn't allowed to tell anybody. We were taking the secret to the grave for the first year and a half. I think I was pretty adamant just going back to the idea that I felt there was it was like something was wrong with me. Right.

MG: In the podcast, you say that you felt a little bit broken.

JEN WHITE: Yeah. Like my body was betraying me, and I didn't know how to fix it. And as the as the hour journey went along, I tried more and more things just so desperate there. There are things that people try, like acupuncture and yoga. And I gave up gluten. I gave up caffeine. I know that was hard.

NEIL HYDE: Giving up, gave it up with her. That was a rough, rough period.

JEN WHITE: It's kind of that was a wonderful show of caring, though.

MG: When did you tell family? When did you I mean, you talk to your mother about this. When did you tell your mom?

JEN WHITE: I did, but I kept it from her for a long time as well, mostly because I could barely say the words out loud that I was struggling. So there was this one time at Thanksgiving we hosted my family and some friends came over with their children. And there was this moment that my mom was there with this little girl, and they were just playing along and it was just so sweet and it absolutely broke me. It was like a stake through the heart. And I later spoke to my mom about it. So take a listen.

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JEN WHITE: I remember coming into the dining room and you were talking to her. I had to walk away because it was just it was too much. I was completely overwhelmed. And it made me really sad because I was always worried that I could never give you a granddaughter like that. Do you remember that moment?

JEN'S MOM: I remember talking to the little girl. I didn't realise you were feeling like that. I remember you walking away and you know what is. Is I was thinking about you, but I wasn't thinking that you were thinking about me like that. Right now you're going to make me cry.

JEN'S MOM: So when I did finally talk to my mom about our fertility issues, she was just an absolute incredible source of support. And we did do a lot of crying that day. And that's when she opened up to me, too, that how she had trouble conceiving me. So unfortunately, infertility seems to run in her family.

MG: The title of this podcast speaks to that. It's One in Six. What does that mean?

JEN'S MOM: Infertility affects one in six Canadian couples. And the World Health Organisation actually estimates that it affects up to 186 million people across the globe. And it's no one is talking about it. So once we started opening up to our family and friends, I thought they would be completely surprised by our news. But I was the one in awe because no one was shocked and they started sharing their stories and it was people we knew. And how did we not know this was going on? So that's why we finally decided to turn on the recorder.

NEIL HYDE: Our goal with the podcast is get more people talking and to make social environments a bit more safe to be, you know, there's a lot of weddings and a lot of other gatherings we went to and we were like really worried about going because people are going to ask, Oh, when are you going to have children? When is your turn? And it's none of your business. But also, you know, you don't know what we're going through. So, you know, it's to get that out there that everybody is going through it or knows somebody who's gone through statistically.

MG: This is your story, but it's the story of other people as well. And you speak with other couples who are struggling to get pregnant. They use IUI and then the next step, which is IVF, in vitro fertilisation. Have a listen to Leah Stoltz, who also lives in St John's.

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LEAH: After my fourth IUI, the doctor told me I should just do IVF. And I said, Well, I can't afford IVF. And they told me that if you can't afford IVF, you can't afford a baby, which is crazy.

REPORTER: How did that make you feel?

LEAH: Pretty awful and angry as well, because, you know, nobody needs to have a lump sum of $20,000 just to have the baby.

MG: Jen, $20,000, is that a typical cost for treatment?

JEN WHITE: Yeah, though it depends on a few factors. So for people here in Newfoundland and Labrador, it's a little more complicated because we're one of two provinces that doesn't have an IVF clinic and P.E.I. is the other one. So for someone like me to get fertility treatments, you actually have to factor in travel costs and accommodations for a couple of weeks somewhere else. And that's on top of that already pretty hefty price tag from the IVF procedure itself. So that usually starts at about ten grand or more depending on the clinic. And there are other add ons for the procedure as well. So for us it was estimated at around 15 grand a cycle.

MG: So in the course of this, what were the discussions that you had around $15,000 and I mean eventually and we hear this in the podcast, you fly to Calgary for further treatments.

NEIL HYDE: So yeah, we were thinking bank robbery, investing in crypto, selling candles, that kind of thing.

JEN WHITE: Not winning the lottery and the lotto.

NEIL HYDE: But for us, we were lucky to have support from friends and family and we went into debt as well, of course. But it's so, so heartbreaking that some people can't go the next steps. You know, we overcame it. We were lucky.

JEN WHITE: We made it work.

MG: You made it work.

NEIL HYDE: We made it work. You made it work without robbing a bank. Or selling candles.

MG: Jenn, I want to play one other conversation that you had with another couple. Tell me a little bit about Kelsey Pargeter and Julia Collins.

JEN WHITE: Well, they've been together for a decade and for the past two years now, they've been trying to start a family together. And as a same sex couple, they have to go through the fertility clinic here to conceive. And they're facing issues right now, partly due to a waitlist for treatments at the clinic and partly due to some other medical issues that Kelsey's having. So she's got a biological clock, Matt, that she says right now is practically screaming at her. And just like myself and Neil, they're finding themselves surrounded by friends who are having babies when they just can't.

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KELSEY: Unfortunately, it's at the point now where every Facebook announcement, every announcement of, hey, we're we're expecting this. I'm so happy for you. I'm so glad you get what you want and holy crap. I am so sad for myself. I'm just so sad and it's really difficult to explain. The, the complicated nature of. Well, really wanting to be a good person and wanting to be happy for people and feeling like there's a part of you that's at war with that and feeling like a part of you is is actually angry at people's happiness and, like, slipping into bitterness sometimes. Well, why not me? You know, not why them? Because love, love that for them. But sometimes I'm like, well, like, isn't it our turn?

MG: Neil, did you ever experience that bitterness?

NEIL HYDE: Exactly the same feelings as Kelsey and Julia. We have, you know, lots of friends and family who've had children, and it's really conflicting. You're so happy and excited for these people. But, you know, you die a little inside at every 'we're pregnant' announcement or 'expecting soon' and birth announcement. It's just so, so hard to be happy for these people and then inside to be, you know, being destroyed. The worst, I mean, for us really is, you know, Mother's Day, Father's Day, back to school, period. You know, we just try to stay offline because and just it's so it's so crappy because it's so happy. Moments like these people are having the best times of our lives. And it's it's so amazing. But then for us, it's is just constant reminder of of how, you know, we're failing at what we're trying to do.

MG: Jen Is that why you describe part of this process as like grieving?

KELSEY: Yeah, I learnt that in speaking with a therapist early on in the podcast process. It's like something clicked. I was like, Yes, this is exactly what I've been feeling. So she calls it complicated bereavement. So it's you're constantly grieving this idea of what could be so your future of being a mom, you having this person in your life. And with every negative pregnancy test that you get, there's this little part of you that just keeps dying over and over and over again. So you're grieving an idea and your hopes and your dreams and what your future could hold. But somehow having to come to terms with the possibility of like, hey, this might not happen for me, like this might not be in the cards, that we have a baby together and that's okay. That's a difficult thing to accept. I mean, we could be the fun aunt and uncle. I wouldn't be opposed to that. We're pretty fun. But you really need time to let yourself come to terms with that, if that's where you are in your journey, that's a big that's a big pill to swallow.

MG: How has that changed your relationship?

KELSEY: I think it's made it stronger. I think we're some of the lucky ones because our foundation was so strong to begin with. I could really see that if there was any kind of cracks at all in the foundation, that they were just going to show more and more and more as this process goes on, because it is so difficult. And really it was once we turned the recorder on, it was this tool that actually helped us learn how to communicate. Like I started finding the words of how to tell people that we were having fertility issues. Like there was a time I could not say that word out loud. Yeah.

NEIL HYDE: Yeah. Instead of texting, Hey, supper's ready. We, you know, we. We talked a lot more. No, it's not that we didn't talk before, but we, you know, you really think about the words and, you know, we were, you know, staring at each other and looking at each other the whole time we were doing it. So it really did recording and it really helped bond us even tighter.

JEN WHITE: And also I find it really funny because Neil, because he was cracking jokes most of the time and I was in the depths of despair. It was interesting when I would ask him questions about how he's feeling and he would tell me, and then I would think like, Oh my gosh, I would have known this otherwise. Yes, I wouldn't have known that you were anxious and worried and nervous this whole time because you put up such a strong front for me that I literally had no idea until you said it into the microphone. A rock, strong rock.

MG: With feelings.

JEN WHITE: With feelings.

NEIL HYDE: Rock, feelings, rock.

MG: All right. So we don't want to I don't want to be the spoiler, but people are going to want to know what happened.

JEN WHITE: I can tell you that it's eight episodes so that Matt, it does come to a conclusion. There are a lot of ups and downs along the way. It was never a sure. But that's that's one thing that when we did tell some people about our journey, when we'd say we were taking next steps, they got so excited and my heart would break because with IUD, it's only a 12 to 14% chance, and with IVF it's only 30% chance.

NEIL HYDE: So but it's better than zero.

JEN WHITE: It's better than zero. There is hope out there. So I just hope people can connect to us sharing our story.

MG: You know, that people will be thankful that you both were willing to to open yourselves up and share this.

JEN WHITE: I hope we can be good company for for every other one in six out there.

MG: Thank you both. And we will listen. I've heard the first episode. I can't wait to hear episode two. Thank you both.

JEN WHITE: Thank you so much.

NEIL HYDE: Thanks so much, Matt.

MG: Jen White and her husband Neil Hyde live in St John's, Newfoundland. Jones, a producer at CBC News. Her new podcast is called One in Six. You can find it as of tomorrow on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. One in Six is a very powerful statistic. And as you heard, these are really personal, intimate stories, but they are stories that go wider than you could imagine and that people in the past have been and still are reluctant to share. If you feel comfortable. And. You are part of that story. We'd love to hear from you. Your reaction to what Jen and Neil went through and what perhaps you are living through right now. You can email us thecurrent@cbc.ca Coming up after your regional update, a new report by the WWF found that nearly two thirds of all wildlife has disappeared in the last 50 years. We'll hear about the human driven loss of biodiversity and how that's fuelling calls for legal rights to be given to nature. That conversation in 90 seconds. My name's Matt Galloway. This is the current.

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The push to protect nature and wildlife with enshrined legal rights

Guests: James Snider, Andrea Reid, Grant Wilson

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. It is a stark report from the World Wildlife Fund. Wildlife populations are plummeting around the globe. The WWF research found a global species loss of nearly 70% from 1970 through 2018. Human exploitation, pollution and climate change mainly to blame. James Snider is vice president of Science, Knowledge and Innovation for World Wildlife Fund Canada. James, good morning.

JAMES SNIDER: Hi, Matt. Good morning.

MG: In some ways, this is a familiar story. We know and we talked about this on the programme that bird species are declining. I was in the Yukon. We talked about the salmon population declining just in the last week or so. This report came out about the billion or so Alaskan snow crab that seem to have vanished in the context of that. Why is a report like this so significant?

JAMES SNIDER: Well, the emerging science and now the, you know, very clear cut science is that this is a global trend. And the science is very clear that biodiversity loss is real, it's happening. And now the urgency for action is now. We're seeing global trends, no matter where we are in the world, really, that there is an average decline in vertebrate populations, whether it's our amphibians, our reptiles, our mammal species on average, those populations are declining. So for me is the urgency of the moment. And that's especially true to the lead up of the Convention on Biological Diversity that's happening here in Canada, in Montreal in December.

MG: And so if I were to ask geographically where in the world this is is being seen the most acutely? I mean, you say that this is a global trend, but are there specific areas where this is more pronounced?

JAMES SNIDER: Yes. In particular, in Latin America and the Caribbean zone, we've seen an average decline in vertebrate populations, so some poor looking invertebrates. But of course, in this biodiverse world of Latin America and the Caribbean zone, we've seen a 94% average decline in those populations in the period of study nearly 50 years. So that's really a jaw dropping figure in terms of what is absolutely a globally significant area in terms of biodiversity. The other important trend, of course, I would want to highlight is that of freshwater species. Freshwater species globally have seen an average decline of 83% in that same period of time. So we know in particular there are some parts of the world and different groups of species that are faring particularly worse.

MG: Specifically, which species would we be talking about? I mean, again, for people just to wrap their heads around it, give us some examples.

JAMES SNIDER: Well, you know, certainly here in Canada, you know, species that we know that are of concern would be the declines in freshwater salmon, species of sturgeon, you know, which is really like a prehistoric species in many ways. So these are culturally important species, ecologically important species and ones that we are watching decline in our lifetimes. In in the moment we are seeing declines in those species. And so I think that that's of critical concern is not only is this a global conservation issue, it's a Canadian conservation issue. This is something that is real and is happening on our watch.

MG: And when you see I mean, just again, the idea of stressing the fact that it's in our lifetimes, why is that important?

JAMES SNIDER: Well, I think if we are watching, some would say mass extinction events, one that's significant on geological timescales. And we are the only generation now that really has the opportunity to act, to stop and reverse that trend. That's what's significant to me is how quickly this change can happen. But if we enable the right policies and programmes, if we can mobilise the right resources, we can in fact make a difference to stop and reverse these trends.

MG: I ran through at the beginning of our conversation just some of the factors that are contributing to this. Tell us more about that and the role that human activity and the climate crisis are playing in all of this.

JAMES SNIDER: Well, what is striking for me in particular is that it's it's a multitude of factors now. In particular, the loss of habitat, the degradation and fragmentation of our ecosystems, our conversion of forests and wetlands and grasslands for our own human use. So that, of course, is the number one driver. And those those human impacts are also a significant driver of greenhouse gas emissions. Right. So we now see already off the top the connection between the drivers of biodiversity loss and the drivers of a change in climate. But in addition to land conversion, we see pollution. We see now the climate change factor itself. Now interwoven are cascading effects and overuse, in some cases, overexploitation of species. The direct use of those species in parts of the world and some groups of species is in it is an issue, but it's the cumulative effects, the cumulative domino effect of how these factors come together. That is of particular concern to me because it means our solutions need to be increasingly more complex. Can't simply pull a single string any longer. We need to have a whole of society approach to really address these underlying underlying drivers of biodiversity loss.

MG: Is your sense and this goes back to the first question that I asked you, which is about the fact that in some ways we know this. But is your sense that that this is breaking through? There's a lot of news, but also there's a lot of news that tells us that that this is bad. And you could imagine that people would become numb in some ways to that. Is this breaking through to people? Are people aware of the scale of what you're talking about?

JAMES SNIDER: I think there is a growing acknowledgement of the problem in our common awareness in terms of, yes, biodiversity loss is real. It's happening in our lifetimes, it's happening here in Canada in terms of the urgency and magnitude of change that's required, some would say, a transformational societal shift in terms of how we value and think of nature and our relationship to it. I think we're only on the cusp of that. And that scale of change, that urgency of change is for me, what matters now is to bring together that collective consciousness, to say now is the opportunity, and we do have opportunities to implement solutions in the moment today, not five years from now, not ten years from now. We can't afford that. We don't have that time.

MG: Want to talk about the solutions in a moment. Let me just bring one more voice into our conversation. Andrea Reid is an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia's Institute for Oceans and Fisheries. She contributed to this report. She's a citizen of the Nisga's nation. Andrea, good morning to you.

ANDREA REID: [Unintelligilbe], good morning.

MG: In this report, you wrote a chapter titled Indigenous Leadership Is Key to Taking Care of Our Living Planet. Tell me more about that and what we broadly could learn from Indigenous leadership in this matter.

ANDREA REID: Well for so long, indigenous peoples across this country and around the world have been taking care of lands and waters in ways that have sustained indigenous populations for four millennia. And we see evidence of that playing out in Canada, where in Canada, Brazil, Australia, vertebrate biodiversity on indigenous lands equals or should or surpasses that that's found within formerly protected areas. There's recognition that there's so much that we can learn from indigenous ways of being and knowing. And this is this chapter is really a call to open our eyes to what we could learn from Indigenous leadership in governance and in research within management and our actual action and practises on the ground.

MG: James was saying that this is happening in our lifetime, in real time. We're seeing this unfold right now. So on the West Coast where you are. What have you seen in terms of the declining populations of species, but also the impact on communities there?

ANDREA REID: Yeah. I think for me, it just really hits home that it is it is so real when we talk about, you know, an index, the Living Planet Report index, that's an average change of monitored populations of vertebrates. That sounds pretty, pretty abstract. And what that really means for people also sounds pretty abstract. But in a lot of my work, I've, I've gotten to speak with elders across fishing systems, across salmon peoples here in British Columbia. And in talking to nearly 50 of those elders about the changes that they've experienced in their lifetime since roughly the same period since 1970, in their change in access to salmon, we see a parallel reporting where they are accessing salmon on the scale of one sixth that they used to be able to. And so this is you know, this is an important loss of food, but profoundly, it's so much more than food because it's connected to our languages, our stories, our ceremonies, our practises, our laws. And so the loss of salmon is one that's really felt. This is a really culturally significant fish. And the impacts of declining access in freshwater systems has has huge consequences for us.

MG: Earlier this month, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada called it the federal government's lack of progress, particularly in failing to protect endangered aquatic species, fishery and oceans. Canada is also being accused of falling short when it comes to protecting those species. What do you want the government to do with the urgency that James is speaking about and that you're speaking of the.

ANDREA REID: I think we need to make this a very real priority. For so long, we've been trying to, as a as a country, trying to promote, you know, conservation narratives alongside economic ones. And often those priorities, you know, they they work in opposition of one another in certain circumstances. And so we need to be really creative in the solutions that we bring forward. But we're not really willing to consider a lot of conservation oriented practise and thinking at any kind of economic cost. And so that's setting us up in a really tricky position for me. I, I really want Indigenous sovereignty to be recognised for, you know, land back and fish back to be part of this conversation and how we take care of our lands, our waters, our fish, because these are, there are knowledge systems, there are relationships that have been built across generations that could really lend a tremendous amount of insight into doing things in a way that they that they once were that allowed these populations to really thrive.

MG: What does that mean, fish back? We've heard land back and it's become a rallying cry, but also a point of discussion about what that would mean in terms of indigenous sovereignty. What does Fishback mean?

ANDREA REID: Yeah, this is a concept, but I mean, we hear we hear land back a lot. Absolutely. And at a recent international gathering of indigenous peoples that I got to co-host with some colleagues on Musqueam Territory, we talked a lot about this concept of fish back in the Canadian context, the Indian Act, the Fisheries Act, they came into play alongside the Canadian Constitution and fundamentally removed indigenous peoples access to fishing, be it for food, social and ceremonial purposes or commercial ones. And these are rights that have been handed back in a really piecemeal way. But it effectively means that indigenous peoples are no longer the, you know, the sovereign governance. Looking over these these fish, it's been taken away kind of wholesale. And so it's a call for the restoration of of that care of that sovereignty over the fish that that we so care for.

MG: James Snider, you mentioned the biodiversity conference, the UN biodiversity conference that will be held in Montreal in December. This is about halting biodiversity loss. So what would you want specifically? What would you want to come out of that that might change the narrative globally, but also here in Canada?

JAMES SNIDER: Well, in particular, I think we've had a strong conversation here domestically in Canada related to all of our protected areas. And the government of Canada has committed to 25% protection by 2025 towards 30% protection by 2030. But I think that's also the broad scale recognition that protected areas alone isn't going to be the silver bullet in many ways to the problem that we're seeing in terms of loss of biodiversity, that we also need to bring in broad scale restoration activities, excuse me, including in those degraded ecosystems where we do see species at risk, in particular our management. And I would say that relationship between our forests, our wetlands and grasslands in terms of how we cultivate, in some cases care for that those resources into the future and ensuring that we can do so in a more sustainable way. But ultimately, for the meeting upcoming in Montreal and the Convention on Biological Diversity, I think we also need to see a rights based approach, one that would absolutely bring forward the strength of indigenous peoples in terms of empowering indigenous rights and priorities to ensure that we really deliver an equitable and just future through our conservation actions, both Canada, in Canada and around the world.

MG: Andrea, we're just about out of time, but in a brief moment, are you optimistic it's you can hear a report like this and you can imagine people put their head back under the covers because it's so bleak. Are you optimistic that there is not just the will but the creativity to try to, if not turn this around, then address it in a meaningful way?

ANDREA REID: Well, I think that because we hold, you know, organisms like salmon. So dear salmon peoples are going to be really willing to do so much for salmon. And so for that, that that gives me lots of hope that we're going to work really hard to make things better. But I agree, this is a challenging time. And we need to think about how we can take action as a collective that really protects, you know, so-called nature with people as part of it. We are not separate from it. We need policies and practises that really embrace the whole of these systems and that don't exclude people from the conversation of how we take care of the world around us.

MG: We're going to talk more about that right now. It's good to have you both on the programme. Thank you very much.

ANDREA REID: Thank you. Thank you.

MG: James Snider is Vice President of Science, Knowledge and Innovation for World Wildlife Fund Canada. Andrea Reid is an assistant professor with the University of British Columbia's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and a citizen of the Nisga'a Nation. The decline of biodiversity has researchers, as you heard, looking at all options to turn this around, and that includes extending legal rights to nature. Grant Wilson is an environmental lawyer and the executive director for the Earth Law Centre. Good morning to you. Good morning. What does that mean, extending legal rights to nature?

GRANT WILSON: Well, currently nature is defined as human property under the law and as property, we typically encourage our corporation to maximise profits at its expense. And this is one of the reasons we see massive biodiversity loss across the world. Actually, banks invest $2.6 trillion every year and the primary drivers of biodiversity loss. And so there's a movement to recognise that nature shouldn't be treated as just our property, but instead should have basic fundamental rights, just as humans have rights. And just as for better or worse, corporations have rights. And this is a movement that in the last ten years has taken us across the globe with recognition of the rights of nature at some level of government now existing in 20 countries worldwide.

MG: At its heart is the issue of environmental personhood. Can you explain what that means?

GRANT WILSON: Yes. So currently humans are people under the law and people are afforded basic protections a right to exist, a right to life, a right to liberty. But as property nature has none of these protections. So the rights of nature seeks to, in many cases, extend personhood or rights based protections to rivers, forests, lakes and mountains. And, you know, of course, these entities cannot speak for themselves in the traditional sense. And so what happens is that a lot of these governments are creating legal guardianship bodies that essentially give a voice to the natural world through human guardians or other mechanisms.

MG: Well, what would the rights be that nature would be afforded?

GRANT WILSON: I think a right to merely exist is important, also a right to restoration. There's this shortcoming of our current legal system in which we sort of allow nature to perpetually decline. We're never actually regenerate in nature to health, but sort of allowing it to exist in this grey area between existence and collapse and a right to restoration for a river would mean that we have to start looking at ways to restore salmon populations to allow for natural flows. As one example, and I think this would allow us to have new legal tools to address many of the causes of biodiversity collapse that we're witnessing.

MG: A word that is thrown around in this context to describe what's going on. And and I guess to kind of put a fine point on the need for those rights is ecocide. What is is there a legal definition of ecocide?

GRANT WILSON: There is a legal definition of ecocide emerging. So just a tiny bit of background. There's a global movement to make what is called ecocide, an international crime. And this would fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, along with other horrible, atrocious claim crimes like genocide and war crimes and ecocide is basically massive environmental destruction. It's a crime against the Earth itself, something like the wide scale deforestation of the Amazon and the resulting biodiversity loss. And there is a emerging definition. There was an expert panel of legal experts who two years ago spent a lot of time coming up with a proposed definition of ecocide. And basically it would be severe or widespread harms to the environment and would give us a tool to prosecute the worst offenders of environmental harms.

MG: Is there any government or corporation that has been held to account using that definition?

GRANT WILSON: There are examples. So, you know, Guatemala in 2016 upheld a conviction against a palm oil corporation for committing ecocide and for causing the massive contamination of a river called the Passion River after a pesticide caused a massive fish killing the river. Now, this was a national eco side laws, and there's various countries that have national ecocide laws. And actually many of these were after the Vietnam War in reaction to the use of Agent Orange, which had a devastating effect in the context of warfare there. But what hasn't happened yet is International Criminal Court prosecution of ecocide as a crime, and there is a movement to make that happen.

MG: What about the idea of granting those rights to nature? I mean, are there examples that you have seen where where those rights have been granted?

GRANT WILSON: It's really incredible. You know, in 2008, Ecuador became the first country to recognise the rights of nature in its constitution. And this was this huge transformative moment for the movement. But for a lot of years after that, the courts were really inconsistent in enforcing the rights of nature and figuring out what it meant. What does it mean for a river or a species or a forest to have rights? But in the last few years, there's been this series of landmark court decisions coming out of Ecuador enforcing the right. It's of nature and it's really clear and powerful way. And one of those is with an ecosystem called Los Citrus Cloud Forest, where basically there was a constitutional court case of a forest versus an Ecuadorian state owned mining company, low citrus cloud forest versus the mining company. And the forest won in court. And the constitutional court said this forest has a right to exist, to be restored. And it cancelled 100 state owned mining concessions because it would have violated the rights of this forest. And this is just one example of many. There's cases in Bangladesh and Colombia, a landmark win for the rights of Mar Menor, a saltwater lagoon in Spain and even in the United States. Communities and indigenous peoples are recognising the rights of nature in some places.

MG: I guess I just wonder what you're up against because both James and Andrea hinted at this. There's a lot of money that's at stake, whether you're talking about rivers or forests or species in terms of the exploitation of those resources, the extraction of those resources. And if you impose a moratorium, there is a cost. I mean, the moratorium might be done for the right reasons, but there's a cost on those who would be benefiting from the use of those resources. So how seriously are governments actually taking this? And what are you up against in trying to get them to take it more seriously, given the economic concerns?

GRANT WILSON: Certainly there is a cost. But this is not anti or Brit or anti-human in any way. In fact, humans are part of nature. And really the rights of nature is about framing humans as being part of this larger ecosystem. So in many ways it's about our own rights as well because we are part of nature. Now, I think for corporations, you know, we can still take we still need to build products. We still need to have household goods, but we need to not just take from nature, but also have a relationship of reciprocity and regeneration with the natural world. And this is something that indigenous peoples across the world have always understood that we can take, but we have to give back as well. And we want to work with corporations to instil this mindset, this framework of giving back to nature within the activities that they do. And there's actually many ways you can do that. We have programmes to work with companies, to work with people who are taking from the planet now to figure out how to give nature a voice within their own frameworks. You can look to what Patagonia did recently to give its shares to nature is just one example of how companies can act responsibly in harmony with the natural world, and rights of nature can be part of that.

MG: And it really is, though, like a philosophical change in many ways in terms of rethinking our relationship with nature.

GRANT WILSON: Oh, 100%. When you look at every movement for rights, you know, the abolishment of slavery and women's rights and civil rights and gay rights. You know, there was this side. There was a legal movement and people fighting in the courts. And then there was this other side. There was a social movement. And as new entities are rights, there's this new respect and understanding and care for that entity that might have been lacking in society before. And we've seen that for every rights based movement, and I think we're hopefully going to see that for nature and its rights as well.

MG: Grant, thank you very much.

GRANT WILSON: Thank you.

MG: Grant Wilson, an environmental lawyer and the executive director of the Earth Law Centre. He was in Durango, Colorado. That is the current for this Monday cuz. Up next on CBC Radio One and talking about the scale of the biodiversity crisis and how much has been lost in the last 50 years. Five decades ago, Marvin Gaye wrote about mourning the destruction of the environment. Marvin, as ever, ahead of his time. We'll leave you with a little bit of Marvin Gaye this morning. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

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