National Geographic Live Event: Charlie Hamilton James

An example of Mr. James' incredible work -
Courtesy charliehamiltonjames.com

Tonight I had the amazing opportunity to attend a National Geographic Live Event featuring Charlie Hamilton James. Not only was it an extremely captivating event, but it was also so impactful.

Mr. James is a National Geographic photographer. He travels the world and captures amazing images of people, animals, and wildlife, and one of his noted specialties is the underwater photography of freshwater-dwelling animals. However, while his images were simply spectacular, the most interesting part of his presentation for me was his exploration into the people of the Amazon.

Manu National Park - Courtesy charliehamiltonjames.com

By nature of his job, Mr. James is exposed to some of the most special parts of the natural world. After photographing the Manu National Park in Peru, one of the most biodiverse places on the planet, Mr. James was approached to personally purchase a plot of land adjacent to the Park in order to protect it from illegal logging. However, on further inspection, but after purchasing the land, Mr. James discovered illegal coca farming (the plant used to make cocaine) and illegal logging happening on his property itself. He got to know the people doing the illegal logging, particularly one man named Elias, who was known to be the worst of the worst. By actually talking to Elias, Mr. James found out that Elias had a disabled five-year-old daughter and no other way to provide for his family.

Damage to the Amazon by illegal gold mining -
Courtesy charliehamiltonjames.com

This gave Mr. James a dilemma. On one hand, Elias was not only breaking the law but damaging the environment but on the other, if Mr. James were to kick Elias off the land, it would be incredibly inhumane. In order to come to a decision, Mr. James set out to meet more people of the Amazon, including a shaman, an isolated tribe who had had first contact with the outside world only two weeks prior, a farmer burning down the rainforest in order to farm cattle, and workers mining gold with mercury.

Throughout his journey, Mr. James had one recurring conclusion that really stuck with me: the people he met, although constantly villainized, are good people. No person wants to be doing back-breaking work mining for gold using harmful chemicals and not even make a profit. They are forced into these jobs. They do not hate the rainforest. In fact, they were more connected and dependent on it than anyone else.

People of a tribe Mr. James stayed with in Manu National Park -
Courtesy charliehamiltonjames.com

On this note, Mr. James began to discuss the elitism of conservation. Conservation is looking quite far ahead in the future, and the ability to plan that far ahead is a luxury few have. One cannot reasonably ask a farmer struggling to feed his children to stop using his resources (the rainforest) in pursuit of some lofty ideal.

With this idea, I made a connection to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. To me, the most important aspect of the SDG plan is that each goal cannot be accomplished without the others. I saw the interconnectedness of some major world issues in Mr. James's story. Extreme poverty is causing huge environmental harm, and to address environmental harm, you have to address poverty.

One of my favorite pictures of the presentation -
Courtesy charliehamiltonjames.com

Mr. James attempted to solve the problem on his own piece of land in a very similar way. He didn't evict Elias and his family, and he gave Elias a job helping to rebuild the rainforest on the property. However, after about two years, the plan failed. At this point, his official talk ended, but there was still a Q&A section with the audience.

In the seven or so questions, I was blown away by how many times Mr. James was asked to give a solution to some facet of what he was discussing, and each time he would say, "I don't know." Mr. James's presentation concluded on a purposefully unresolved note. His plan was not successful and he doesn't have all the answers.

I think the reason people kept asking these questions and the subconscious reason behind climate change denial are quite similar. The idea that our current behavior is unsustainable and we could be irreversibly damaging the Earth is frightening. We just want someone to have a plan, a solution, or at least some answers about what we can do to hold on to. If people like Mr. James don't have the answers after all of his hands-on experience, who possibly could?

How I'm going to feel doing my homework after I finish this
blog post! - Courtesy charliehamiltonjames.com

For me, though, the feeling of discomfort and lack of a happy ending to Mr. James's story with Elias made for the most effective part of his presentation. I left tonight so motivated and impassioned about the issues that I am now just itching to take action. I was so excited about it that I'm writing my blog post the very same night I attended, which says A LOT.

Thank you to Mr. Caragher for making this possible and for whoever bought our tickets (GIP? Poly?). As I was leaving tonight, I heard so many students saying this was their favorite GIP event ever, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to hear Mr. James speak!


Further exploration:
http://charliehamiltonjames.com/#our-story
The BBC show following his adventures after buying the rainforest: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0465vqh/episodes/guide