Every Second Breath Project-Stories from the Frontlines: Emmy-Award Winning Filmmakers Cynthia Abbott & Andrea Leland from Petaluma, CA

Storytelling has the power to transform how we see our oceans and inspire meaningful action. Two visionary filmmakers, Cynthia Abbott and Andrea Leland, join us to share how they're using documentary filmmaking to spotlight both the crisis facing our marine environments and the everyday heroes working to save them. Their Emmy-winning documentary "Three Ocean Advocates" introduces us to remarkable individuals making a difference: Dick Ogg, a fisherman developing innovative methods to prevent whale entanglement; Tess Felix, an artist transforming beach plastic into stunning portraits; and Barbara Kritz, who unintentionally captured the devastating decline of Caribbean coral reefs through her underwater photography. The conversation takes a deep dive into Cynthia's latest project, "The Abalone Chronicles," which explores the critical endangerment of red abalone along the Northern California coast. Through the eyes of 3 distinct characters—a shell collector, a Yurok tribal regalia maker, and a diver working to restore kelp forests—viewers witness the interconnected challenges facing our coastal ecosystems. Rather than overwhelming viewers with environmental doom, Abbott and Leland spotlight solutions and provide concrete calls to action. Become an ocean advocate! Visit everysecondbreathproject.org to watch these inspiring films,

Planet Centric Media (non-profit)
Media for a Healthier Planet: Elevating The Interconnectedness of Life & Value of Natural Resources.

Mendonoma Whale & Seal Study
Founded by Scott & Tree Mercer to document the occurrence, diversity, & behavior of marine mammals.

Sea Storm Studios, Inc.
An audio/visual production company in the Sea Ranch, CA (US)

Foreign Policy's The Catch Podcast
As the fishmeal industry grows, local communities’ food security suffers, communities are impacted.

Flukes International Whale Tours
Multi-day marine mammal education, research and conservation tours to exotic places with Zack Klyver

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Resilient Earth Podcast
• 1:53 Meeting Filmmakers Cynthia and Andrea
• 5:10 Three Ocean Advocates: Project Overview
• 13:35 Coral Reef Deterioration in St. John
• 22:07 Filmmakers' Backgrounds and Journeys
• 36:15 The Abalone Chronicles: New Project
• 45:45 Sea Otter Reintroduction Challenges
• 50:40 Positive Actions and Filmmaker's Process
• 56:15 Closing Thoughts and Final Comments

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:10

Welcome to the Resilient Earth Podcast, where we talk with speakers from the United States and around the world about the critical issues facing our planet and the positive actions people are taking, from the tiniest of actions to the grandest of gestures, so that we can continue to thrive and survive for generations to come. I'm Leanne Lindsay, producer and host, along with co-hosts and co-producers Scott and Tree Mercer of Mindenoma, whale and Seal Study, located on the South Mendocino and North Sonoma coasts. The music for this podcast is by Eric Alleman, an international composer, pianist and writer living in the Sea Ranch. Discover more of his music, animations, ballet, stage and film work at ericalamondcom. You can find Resilient Earth on Spotify, apple and Amazon Podcasts, iheart Radio, youtube, soundcloud and wherever you find your podcasts.

Speaker 2: 1:53

Today, scott Tree and I are talking with Sonoma County filmmakers Cynthia Abbott and Andrea Leland, creators of the Emmy award-winning Three Ocean Advocates Inspiring Change and a new film in the works called the Abalone Chronicles. Cynthia is an award-winning independent producer-director of short-form environmental films. She believes the power of storytelling can change our collective vision of the ocean and create a new vision for the ocean's future, protected and thriving. Perfect for the format we have here at Resilient Earth Radio and Podcast. She's an experienced cinematographer, editor and producer who has worked in Burma and Thailand. She has spent her adult life near the ocean in California and Hawaii and is witness to its environmental demise. Compelled to take action, she produces films on environmental issues to raise awareness and move people to take action.

Speaker 2: 2:53

Andrea is a retired producer-director and has produced and directed award-winning documentaries focusing on Caribbean cultures, which won numerous awards and were screened at museums, conferences and festivals throughout Europe, latin America and the United States. Residing on St John in the US Virgin Islands for over 25 plus years, she has seen firsthand the urgency of creating films about the ocean crises. Find out more about them and their films at everysecondbreathprojectorg. Every second breath comes from our oceans. So that's everysecondbreathprojectorg oceans. So that's every second breath projectorg. I'm Leanne Lindsay, a filmmaker and podcast producer, and we'll get into that conversation with Cynthia and Andrea right after a word from our sponsors.

Speaker 4: 3:57

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Speaker 3: 4:15

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Speaker 2: 5:22

Welcome Cynthia and Andrea to the Resilient Earth Radio and Podcast. It's good to see you both again. Thank you, yes, and thanks again to my co-hosts and co-producers, scott and Tree Mercer of Mendenoma, whale and Seal Study. Good morning, good morning everyone. And we met you both actually through the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival a few years back and then a couple of times. Cynthia and I have also seen each other and had conversations at the International Ocean Film Festival in San Francisco ever since seeing. That first documentary that I saw and shared with Tree, who drove down with me to Sebastopol, was the Three Ocean Advocates that you both worked on. Give us a bit about your background and how you came about making that particular film, then we'll get into what you're working on today.

Speaker 5: 6:21

All right, let's start with Three Ocean Advocates.

Speaker 5: 6:24

This is a project that Andrea and I have been working on for several years and it started when we met at a mixer, a film mixer in Petaluma.

Speaker 5: 6:34

We both are residents of Petaluma, california, which is about 50 miles north of San Francisco, and we discovered we were both documentary filmmakers and Andrea was living part-time in St John Virgin Islands and I've always been lived close to the ocean and have a passion for it, and I had had this idea of doing a series of shorts on people who have a love and passion for the ocean and who want to share their stories in a positive way.

Speaker 5: 7:05

They're not scientists or politicians, they're like everyday people who are taking actions. The goal is to inspire audiences to realize they too can do something to help mitigate some of the issues that we're having, many of the issues that we're having with the environment and especially the ocean. Sometimes with some documentaries they're kind of hitting you over the head with so many negative facts and figures and you kind of walk away going what can I do? And we actually have call to action and action items at the end of the films. Have call to action and action items at the end of the films and it's just to inform, educate and encourage people to learn about the ocean and the environment and to take some action.

Speaker 2: 8:00

We don't have to sit back. Yes, it's what inspired us to create this podcast was to talk about the things that are critical issues facing our planet. But what are some of the positive actions people are taking and what can people do Like? What can our guests suggest they might do? Because it gets frustrating. There are so many things that are happening in our world. It tends to get very depressing and then people stop and they feel like, well, what can I do? So that's why we were just so inspired by seeing your film and, andrea, I met you there as well. I think it was the opening night party for one of the documentary film festivals down there.

Speaker 1: 8:39

Possibly, yeah, st John Virgin Islands during Sebastopol's Film Festival, because I had a house there for 25 years and have lived there half the year Not so much anymore. It's a little hard to get there from California. So one of the segments in Three Ocean Advocates for your listeners to learn about is there's actually three segments. One is about Dick Ogg, a fisherman who is working to mitigate the problems with entanglement of whales. That's one. And then there's Tess Felix, who collects plastics from the beaches near where she lives in Stinson Beach and she makes these most incredible figures and people out of these plastic like portraits and they look just like the photographs, are just beautiful. And then get up close and you see all the garbage that has been collected on the beach. So it's pretty fascinating.

Speaker 1: 9:51

When I was in the islands, worked with a woman, barbara Kritz, who was photographing the underwater coral and fishes for 10 years and she actually was documenting it during the time of the bleaching and the changing of the coral and I'm so sad to say I was just there in March and unfortunately the hard coral is mostly dead. Occasionally you'll see a brain coral. We had huge amounts of fire coral and it was all gone. It's like very sad. Oh, that's crushing. Yeah, it's pretty crushing. But I did see a lot of people all over the world, but also in St John, trying to regenerate coral and replant it in the ocean. And they're taking the surviving hard corals and using that coral to duplicate, clone, actually replant. I don't know how much success they've had. Maybe you might know Also. I see you shaking your head because it turns out that they put it back in the ocean, which has the same problems where they took the coral from. So we'll see. You know, you have to have hope that that is going to succeed at some point.

Speaker 2: 11:30

Here's a quick update on coral restoration programs in the US Virgin Islands. The St John's Island Complex focuses on coral research and restoration projects. Coral research and restoration projects, including the 100K Corals Initiative, aiming to plant 100,000 corals over the next decade. Their mission statement says that sustainability must be at the heart of any development to ensure the long-term viability of our limited resources. Their four guiding principles state that. Number one all developments must be low impact and sensitive to the nature of the islands. Number two encourage the use of eco-solutions to promote sustainability and consider the natural surroundings and native biodiversity of the islands. Number three preserve the island heritage and conserve or rejuvenate important natural and historical sites and features. And number four leverage on the educational values of the islands to cultivate responsible environmental stewardship. There are also the Marine Protected Areas, the MPAs. The Sisters Islands Marine Park was established in 2014 to protect the reef ecosystem, and plans are underway to expand marine park designations around the southern islands.

Speaker 2: 13:07

Now, according to NOAA, the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, conservation and restoration efforts are underway to address the challenges facing the reefs of St John and other areas of the US Virgin Islands, but with funding and staffing severely slashed by this current Trump administration. Who knows if or when that will ever happen. Such seriously stupid short-sightedness hurts us all and the planet in the long run. Now, as for monitoring and research on corals, the St John's Island National Marine Laboratory plays a key role in monitoring reef health and conducting research to improve restoration techniques. They have discovered some adaptable corals. These are corals in the lower reef slopes which have shown adaptability to light limitation from rising sea levels. So, in summary, coral reefs around St John's Island are under great stress from environmental and human-induced factors. However, ongoing conservation, restoration and research efforts, coupled with some corals' inherent resilience, does offer some hope for the future of these important marine ecosystems, for the future of these important marine ecosystems At the end of 2024,.

Speaker 2: 14:53

We did an episode about this with Dr Carly Kinkle of the Marine Biology Lab at the University of Southern California. It's called Coral Reefs Worldwide A Deep Dive into Disaster and Rescue. That's Resilient Earth Radio and Podcast episode number 19 from December 28, 2024. Now back to the conversation with filmmakers Cynthia Abbott and Andrea Leland, creators of the Emmy award-winning Three Ocean Advocates Inspiring Change, and Cynthia is going to be talking in just a bit about a new film she has in the works, called the abalone chronicles. You can find out more at every second breath projectorg. That's every second breathprojectorg.

Speaker 1: 15:47

You know, you have to have hope, though we have some pretty brilliant scientists and we have to assume that that will happen eventually.

Speaker 2: 15:58

Tell us a bit more about your background, Andrea. I would like to actually understand both of your backgrounds and what got you into the filmmaking world in the first place.

Speaker 1: 16:09

So I have an MFA from the Art Institute in Chicago where I lived for 45 years. Now I live in California. I love it here, beautiful, and when I graduated I do paintings. But I was always interested in anthropology and filmmaking. I would be the person at home shooting all of the Thanksgiving dinners and the kids and all that kind of stuff. So I eventually started to traveling through the Caribbean because it was closer to Chicago in terms of the place to go in the winter months. Plus, it fed me artistically the environment.

Speaker 1: 16:58

And then I got involved in working with indigenous communities in the Caribbean. Working with Indigenous communities in the Caribbean. So I've worked with the Garifuna community in St Vincent and Belize. I worked in Haiti, made a film about voodoo as a traditional ancestral worshipping culture. I've worked in St John documenting Indigenous music in St John, documenting Indigenous music. So mostly I was working with Indigenous communities in the Caribbean. And when I met Cynthia here in Petaluma and she told me about wanting to work on ocean-related environmental issues, it was right up my alley. Even though I hadn't done environment films, I was familiar with making films and distributing films because I'm a member of New Day Films Social Issue Documentary Distribution Cooperative. So when she mentioned about working on the ocean, I said I'm in.

Speaker 6: 18:10

When were you in St John's? You there in the 90s, by any chance.

Speaker 1: 18:15

Yes.

Speaker 6: 18:16

Did you ever run into John and Ginger Garrison?

Speaker 1: 18:19

No.

Speaker 6: 18:20

They had a chart about the Bahari. Oh, okay, no.

Speaker 1: 18:23

They had a chart about the.

Speaker 6: 18:23

Bahari. Oh okay, ginger was a coral reef biologist scientist and John was by association. He was the captain of the Bahari. They did a lot of work there on St John's.

Speaker 1: 18:34

No, I hadn't heard of them. Did they leave any information? How would I know about what work they've done?

Speaker 6: 18:45

Well, they moved over to Florida. Last time I spoke to them they're always like one jump ahead of me. I catch their names on something when I get in touch with that place. No, they moved over to somewhere else. Well, ginger did a lot of work with the National Park Service. Well, they both did. Ginger did a lot of diving with people snorkeling around the reefs Just a lot of work with that. Change the subject a bit.

Speaker 6: 19:05

We had a funny encounter with people from Petaluma yesterday. They'd come up this way and were trying to get out of here without going back down the coast. The wife looked like she was in a state of panic. I think they were hoping they could evolve wings and fly back. They wanted to go north, to go south. They wanted to keep driving north to get back to Petaluma and Tree convinced them that wasn't going to happen. They were really looking for another way back and when they found out, like a lot of people do, that there's mountains behind us and an ocean in front of us and a scary road on both sides you mentioned Petaluma I was thinking I wonder if they ever got home.

Speaker 2: 19:44

Yeah, people always ask is there a straighter route out of here?

Speaker 6: 19:49

Or a tunnel that goes through.

Speaker 2: 19:50

Right. So, Cynthia, tell us about your background and how you actually got into Petaluma and into filmmaking.

Speaker 5: 20:00

Well, it's been a long journey. I think it started with my first Brownie camera my father gave me when I was a child and took an interest in photography. Then I've always been a visual person and I want to convey what I want to say visually. Always been a visual person and want to convey what I want to say visually, and I started studying film in my early 20s and in those days it was 16 millimeter film that I learned on and in those days you had a reel of film that lasted three minutes and before you had to take it out and replace it with another three minute reel of film and then send it off to the lab to get developed and then you'd see whatever you filmed at least a week later, if you were lucky.

Speaker 5: 20:48

And my first film when I was studying filmmaking was actually On the Ocean the Myth of El Nino and El Nino is a warm current that we get several times a year here in Northern California, so we have a warming ocean occurrence every three to four years and during that period I was fascinated by the subject because we have severe weather, our storms are more severe, we have a drought and that also goes into the interior of the United States. That was my first film I realized. Oh well, that was in a sense on climate change, although El Nino's natural occurring phenomena, but the weather that we experience, we get that anyway here in California, but not to the degree that we do now. So then I took a hiatus for about 25 years in filmmaking. I did some filmmaking in Burma, where I was living for a few years, and then Thailand, and then I, like I said, I took a 25 year hiatus. During that period I continued to concentrate my attention on the environment, study it, and I was just watching it deteriorate and towards the end.

Speaker 5: 22:02

I just go. I don't know what I'm going to do. I want to do something to be part of the solution, and I realized that I could do that through film, through storytelling. So that was my plan. And then, whoops, everything had turned to digital. So I had to retrain in digital the camera as well as the editing programs, which I did. And then I started making shorts. I like shorts. They don't have a big market, but to me it's attainable to do financially as well, as people's attention span is getting shorter, so you can get a message across with a short to, hopefully, more people, although we're finding that difficult to do.

Speaker 2: 22:50

Attention spans have gotten really short.

Speaker 5: 22:53

Yeah, Well, our shorts are not that short. They're not clips. They're about 10 minutes, which is still a short. Yeah, I mean, when you look at the social media shorts, they're two minutes or one minute and they're very quick.

Speaker 2: 23:06

But isn't this how the Three Ocean Advocates came together? Was because each was a short? Yeah they did.

Speaker 5: 23:12

They were each shorts and then we presented one of them to the local PBS station here in the North Bay, North Bay PBS and they said, oh, do you have more? Because we have a perfect spot on our programming where a half hour show would fit in. So we decided to put the three together. We made a half hour show with three ocean advocates so they can be screened as individual pieces or as the 30 to 27 minute piece.

Speaker 1: 23:44

On the website. Every Second Breath there's another 10 minute piece about Mark Nolan, who is a teacher in San Mateo I believe San Mateo and he takes kids to the ocean to show them the tide pools. Yeah, so he does that. Plus, he's also part of the Banana Slugs, which is a musical group that sings about environment to the kids, so like through these fabulous funny performances, they dress up in costumes of crabs and octopus and they really entertain kids about the environment. That short is on our website every second.

Speaker 7: 24:34

Yeah, I got to watch that. I watched it in preparing for this podcast today and I was really, really impressed. Just the enthusiasm and the inspiration from that short, and that's why one of my questions was do you think you might make a full-length documentary on the intertidal zone, which is so fascinating?

Speaker 5: 24:57

Great job. Full-length documentaries just not in the future. I like to stay with shorts Because they're more attainable and budget-wise. They're more affordable to create. They do take a long time. These shorts have taken from start to finish from the idea. These shorts have taken from start to finish from the idea, at least a year. Sure, just because the way we shoot and camera and weather conditions and finding a subject. They're shorts, but they do take time.

Speaker 2: 25:28

Many times I've interviewed producers, directors, filmmakers at the Mendocino Film Festival. For many years I did that, and how many times I'd hear people say well, I've been working on this for 22 years or 10 years, and personally I've been working on one for a decade now, as of 2025, and it's still ongoing. But I too have a connection with the two of you because as a little girl, I was the one that just loved cameras Any of those little disposable cameras I got my hands on, I was taking pictures and I was writing voluminously in all kinds of notebooks that I kept. And then at 16, I took black and white photography in dark room in Aspen where I was living Aspen, colorado and I was working right after that at the local rock station, album oriented rock station. But we started a little TV studio and guess who became the film editor, but me working with the reel to reel tape and editing in the commercials my first editing experience.

Speaker 2: 26:47

But I moved from Colorado to San Mateo, of all things, and went to the San Mateo College and then I got into the tech industry for the next two decades, but I did a lot of writing in that time frame, but I'd gotten away from where I really wanted to go was telling stories through either audio or visual, and I've done a lot of shorts. I taught myself through YouTube how to use Adobe Premiere and several other editing programs, but that's how I learned. I didn't have an MFA, but it was just sort of life experience. I always wanted that MFA, though.

Speaker 6: 27:27

Yeah, we were watching Tom Hanks' film series the Americas and last night we watched it was probably the last sequence of it was the Making of the Americans and anybody who thought that filmmaking is glamorous and catered and luxurious straightened out last night. Show people on the top of trees just as a huge lightning storm would go through, and there's physical labor and hardships. I can see why you want to keep some of them short.

Speaker 2: 27:58

You have hollywood behind you andrea, you started to say something yeah, I had a couple things to say about filmmaking.

Speaker 1: 28:06

First of all, I have five films in distribution, one of which is three ocean advocates. I've been making films for over 30 years and every time I make a film I say that's it, no more films, I'm never going to do another film. And then a subject comes up that just needs amplification, and that's what Cynthia and I were talking about. We don't go in with a script. We find the stories that need amplification, and so we listen to the people that we're documenting, which is very different than a narrative film where you go in with the script. Here we collect the information, we process it and then we craft a film from the point of view of the person that we're working with. So it's very stimulating, it's wonderful, but it's exhausting to go through the whole process.

Speaker 2: 29:14

That's the way I work, too, from an actually journalistic standpoint as well Just what is the story? And I listen and I can see things that need amplification, need to raise awareness, and that's what we do here on the podcast, too. I just love that approach, but it is, and can be, exhausting, right, cynthia?

Speaker 5: 29:35

Well, when you're doing a film on the ocean, you are always out in the weather. You don't know what you're going to face, because I think all our films well, except the interviews we can control because they can be indoors but everything else you know. Is it going to rain, is there going to be a windstorm, is it going to be too hot? You're just weathered by the end of a day's shoot. That part's not easy at all, but it is invigorating and it's always beautiful to be by the ocean. I mean, there can't be a bad day on the ocean. They're all different and gorgeous.

Speaker 2: 30:09

I think Scott and Tree can attest to that, being out on the bluffs watching the whales and seals and all the other marine life.

Speaker 7: 30:16

No, two days are alike. You just never know what you will find. And as we drive to Point Arena Lighthouse and we pass an area and we're looking at the ocean, I was, oh wow, this is so nice and calm here, not too much wind. By the time we get to the lighthouse, five miles away, we've got wind blowing at us and white caps covering the ocean totally different. It's just hard to know what we will find so interesting.

Speaker 1: 30:46

I was in St John just after the hurricane of 2017 and that you see the destructive power of hurricanes and the ocean and that's hard to see, but we forget about it because we don't see it. I saw it firsthand and I think that had a significant impact on the coral as well.

Speaker 6: 31:13

Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, for sure. We worked there in the winters. When I was there four winters and, um, there was one year after a hurricane had gone through we went back to an area to snorkel on it and the reef looked like somebody taking some big bulldozers. Yeah, she tried to bring the whole reef up on the beach, wow, but it just looked like bulldozers gone through the area.

Speaker 1: 31:36

Yeah, these huge, huge coral heads that are completely toppled over.

Speaker 2: 31:43

Yeah, 2017 was also when we had those big fires up here in Northern California and we have a ranch over by Willits it's part of the original home of Seabiscuit, where Seabiscuit the racehorse retired the documentary I've been working on but the fires came over Ridgewood Ranch and onto our ranch and it went to Potter Valley. It was all up and down here. So that's destruction a lot of people see visually, but they don't see often what happens in the ocean, you know. And one thing I wanted to mention too about filmmaking that documentary I've been working on. It was outside a lot because we were filming horses and we were doing this filming on these children in this equine assisted therapy program. So we had to coordinate with all these families and their children and the appointments that they had for medical and their school. So I totally get that part. But we always had to deal with the weather, we had to reschedule some shoots, and so it's part of the package.

Speaker 5: 32:52

Well, I just want to add how different the stories change too as you're filming, because when we first started our first film with um mark nolan, it was going to be this positive story about children and music and exploring the tide pools and education, and it was right. Um, it was back, I think in 2016, and sea star wasting disease hit and all the sea stars died, from Mexico all the way up to Alaska. Suddenly that became part of the story, a very depressing part of the story, but that was nothing we had anticipated when we originally started. Finding him as a character and a lot of people who have seen the film that's what they remember, because it's a very stark piece of information and that was just something in front of our eyes. It was very rapid.

Speaker 5: 33:46

It only took a couple years to destroy most of the sea stars and it ended up also in our films and that is happening with most of them. Like with Barbara Kreitz, she started out just was documenting the sea life of the Caribbean. She wasn't documenting the destruction of the coral, but she was doing a cat, the different colored fish, and it explains in the film how she was doing that color fish and it explains in the film how she was doing that, but in the course of those 10 years she was filming, she ended up documenting the coral leaching yeah, as well, as the hurricane came through, and all of these climate events are taking place so rapidly right in front of us.

Speaker 5: 34:31

as we're making these little short films that maybe take a year or two, there's a benefit for the two-year time length that one may take, because then we're documenting the change as well.

Speaker 2: 34:44

It was amazing to see the library she had of all those photographs.

Speaker 7: 34:48

Impressive.

Speaker 1: 34:50

Yeah, yeah, it's a wonderful resource if you're going snorkeling. What is that fish, you know? So, yeah, it's amazing, and she just did it on her own. So you know you're talking about actions you can take. That's certainly an action that benefits many people, Right?

Speaker 2: 35:16

Something positive that you could contribute and do, and it was back in what, 2014? When that heat blob or the big heat event happened off our coast which may have contributed to that sea star wasting disease, but it also helped to obliterate a lot of the kelp along our coast which you talk about, and another documentary filmmaker and an associate of hers created that Sequoias of the Sea about the loss of kelp along the coast. Well, that's the environment, that's the home for lots of marine life, and abalone and I used to actually, in the late 80s, die for abalone right off Sea Ranch, right off of Little River, Van Damme area, and that's what got me interested in the next project you're doing. You know the abalone chronicles. Can you give us a little overview of how you get started on that and what it's covering as far as the stories related to it?

Speaker 5: 36:20

Yeah, I was actually going to do a film on sound in the ocean and I researched it for over I don't know a year, year and a half, and I couldn't find a character to tell the story.

Speaker 5: 36:33

So I was um I always follow what's going on in the oceans here in the north pacific and there was a workshop being given on the sea otters being reintroduced to the north coast because they had become extinct here, and I went to one of the workshops with I think it was Noah, and I met this man there who was an abalone diver, and I found him very interesting with some of the questions he was asking and he had a great voice.

Speaker 5: 37:09

I went, huh, this is a film. You know what he's talking about. The abalone was, and I wasn't too clear of what was going on with the abalone. I knew there was a moratorium and that, um, but now I know a lot more about abalone, so it intrigued me of the story of the abalone and what was going on there, and reintroduction to the sea otters here, too, has some impact on abalone. So the more I learned, it just seemed like this mollusk with a beautiful shell would make an interesting story, and I started out with the diver who has this. Let me go back. There's a moratorium now since, I think, 2018, on diving, because these red abalone in our area are critically endangered.

Speaker 5: 38:01

So they're trying to restore them by no more fishing and they're focusing too on poaching and hopefully at some point there'll be enough abalone to open up the dive season, but right now there isn't. And you mentioned the blob, that heat wave which killed the kelp which is part of their abalone's diet, the main part of their diet, and so without the oh and then related to that is the sea star wasting disease which wiped out the sunflower star, which is the main predator to the purple sea urchin which feast on kelp. So any remaining kelp has been destroyed and eaten and there's just no check and balance on these sea urchins. And so the kelp there's been a 95% loss on that which is the bull kelp I'm talking about. They get eaten by these purple sea urchins. Tide pools now, or the intertidal zone, are just this urchin barren. There's nothing there except thousands and thousands and thousands of these now very hungry purple sea urchins because they don't have any more food so they go dormant.

Speaker 5: 39:19

So I have three characters who are telling this story about the demise of the abalone, and it's all related to climate change. That's the elephant in the room all the time. There's the one who's a diver who collects all the washed up shells on the beach, and he started a relationship with a Yurok tribal ceremonial regalia maker and they were having a shortage of abalone shells. And now the Yuroks have used the abalone in their culture for thousands and thousands of years and there's this danger of them losing, you know, one of their cultural keystone species, of their cultural keystone species. So she has a very interesting story about how it's affecting them culturally with the loss of the abalone.

Speaker 5: 40:09

And then I have another character, eric, who's a diver also, but he also spearfishes and he could no longer dive for abalone and also there was nothing to hunt as a hunter hunter. And so he mobilized a group of other divers who are trying to restore the kelp in a local cove by removing these purple sea urchins and giving them maybe an area where they can restore. And these three characters have wonderful stories. They're very interesting. They explain the situation really well, how it's personally affecting them and what they're doing to help.

Speaker 2: 40:51

Yeah, I'm encouraged by these different organizations and people that gather along our coast. I attended one just recently in the Casper Cove by Mendocino of the Watermen Alliance. That are a set of divers that are going out to remove and destroy the excess purple urchin. But there's also the Noyo Center for Marine Science that's working with other organizations and the indigenous tribes in the area to pull them out and fatten them up and get them into restaurants and other places like that. And there are organizations that are growing abalone to reintroduce into the ocean. In fact, there are several organizations that are involved in Pacific Coast abalone reintroduction and they include the following Pacific Coast abalone reintroduction and they include the following NOAA Fisheries, and that is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Noaa Fisheries is a key leader in abalone conservation, heading the White Abalone Recovery Program and partnering with institutions to breed, raise and reintroduce abalone. The Aquarium of the Pacific is a founding partner of the White Abalone Recovery Program and they are involved in breeding and releasing young abalone. They also raise public awareness through an exhibit. Uc Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory oversees the white abalone captive breeding program and has increased production since 2012. The Bay Foundation is a major partner in kelp and abalone restoration in Southern California, they are involved in breeding and research as well. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife collaborates on recovery efforts, including collecting broodstock and monitoring. They are also developing a red abalone recovery plan. Powa Marine Research Group works on field methods to restore white abalone populations, and the Cultured Abalone Farm leads captive production of juvenile red abalone used as a proxy for white abalone in restoration. University of California Santa Cruz conducted a pilot study to move black abalone for restoration. University of California Santa Barbara is a partner in the captive breeding program, and the Orange County Coast Keeper works to protect water quality and restore abalone habitats. Redondo Beach Sea Lab partnered on developing methods for green abalone propagation and rearing. Cabrillo Marine Aquarium participates in the White Abalone Captive Breeding Program as well, and up in Washington State, puget Sound Restoration Fund is restoring living marine habitat and species using structure-forming species, which include Olympia oysters and bull kelp, and habitat-enhancing species like the pinto abalone. These species are critical to the food web too, and maintain the living marine architecture that supports the marine ecosystems in Puget Sound and beyond. Restoration of these core elements has ripple effects, restoring function and providing direct and indirect support to fish and marine mammals throughout the food web. Abalone populations have significantly declined due to factors like overfishing, habitat loss, disease and warming waters and we are talking climate change. These organizations that I've just mentioned are working together, though, to help restore healthy populations.

Speaker 2: 44:53

Now back to our conversation with Cynthia Abbott and Andrea Leland, filmmakers, creators of the Emmy Award-winning Three Ocean Advocates, inspiring Change and a new film in the works called the Abalone Chronicles, on which Cynthia is working. I'm Leanne Lindsay, a filmmaker and podcast producer, along with my co-creators and co-hosts and co-producers, scott and Tree Mercer of the Mendenoma Whale and Seal Study. You're listening to Resilient Earth Radio and Podcast, and I wanted to mention, too, scott gives talks on sea otters and had studied them a lot, so I wanted you to comment on that. A little bit about what Cynthia said, scott.

Speaker 6: 45:51

Yeah, there isn't the biomass or the variation in the area to support sea otters. We'll see kelp for a few weeks and then we don't see it for a few weeks and then we don't see it. And you know, we're out every day looking or pulled in somewhere and we'll see a raft of kelp and then a few weeks later it's gone, not just from a storm or it's just disappeared. This business about reintroducing them, people who know that we don't have the conditions here for it, are the ones I see as slated as speakers somewhere, and I'm just wondering why they really have to know that we don't have the system here to support them. The films that we did see a few years ago that the divers were taking of the bottom well, they're just calling it the Urchin Barrens, and there were hardly any fish skittering around either, because there's just nothing there. The studies that people like Dr Jim Estes from Santa Cruz did years ago, coming down from Alaska to the Washington and Oregon coasts they showed that the abundance of different species increased 80% once the sea otters were reintroduced. But they were reintroduced into an area they could live in, even the indigenous people who were a little nervous at first about sea otters coming in, because they had a clam industry going on, realized that the clams were much more abundant once the otters came in and were established in an area. So they weren't opposed to it, they were just a little bit nervous about it.

Speaker 6: 47:16

I always get that question, no matter what talk we give here. If it's on finback whales, somebody will say, what about sea otter reintroduction? And you feel like saying, what about it? It's just not going to happen, there's just nothing here for them to live on or in. It was down in Monterey Bay when I was a student and what I remember is it's like looking at a rainforest. If you were in an airplane and there were otters wrapped up in the kelp, you know, like spaghetti on a fork, and the mothers would swim over with the pups on their bellies and chests and they'd anchor themselves there, wrap the pup in it and you just you need all that. We just don't have it.

Speaker 5: 47:52

Yeah, if there's no kelp, and there's no sea life there what are they?

Speaker 5: 47:57

going to eat. They eat abalone as well as crabs, and if it's not there, how will they survive? So it might be premature to try to reintroduce them. They were here, I think, until the mid-1700s or 1800s, and then the fur trade is what wiped them out when I am right now. I just sent all the footage and a rough script to our editor, Maya Pichotto, who's just incredible. I have to give credit to our film crew, which is the Understory, and that's Fabian Aguirre. They're an amazing team and they do beautiful cinematography and they make the subjects, our characters, our interviewees so comfortable. I can't praise them more. And then, on this film, I worked with Beyond your Story, and then also a new cinematographer, AJ Michon, and he also is an incredible cinematographer.

Speaker 2: 48:55

It was the cinematography and the editing which really got me. When I saw your film there at the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival. Was that beautiful cinematography and the editing was so well done.

Speaker 5: 49:09

They make a film, right? Yeah, I think a film's made in the editing room, so I've always had Maya on board for this. Once I get a rough, then I'll be going back out into the fundraising mode to complete the film. Because I'd like to include animation in this film and also some sound design, because part of the abalone story is the ceremonies that the yurok have, with the beautiful sound and prayers of the abalone clicking together, which makes a song, and in that song is prayer and it's just so beautiful and I want to give that as much emphasis as I can audio is so important yes, yes, it is this, and the audio in this film is important.

Speaker 5: 50:00

Yeah, then I'll be out in um doing some fundraising to get to final stage of, uh, the film, which I'm very excited about. It's going to be very moving some moving stories, an emotional story, listening to the people tell their stories and their connection to the ocean, and then also you know the destruction that's going on. But it's also going to be inspiring because people are taking positive actions and that's the theme of Every Second Breath Project. I want to add the word project because that's our website, it's everysecondbreathprojectorg, if listeners want to go and look at some of the footage that we have, and then there are two films that you can view entirely some of the footage that we have, and then there are two films that you can view entirely. Or there's a link to Canopy, which then you can view the film through your local library or rent through New Day Films, which is for the educational market.

Speaker 1: 50:54

Actually there's a 14-day rental. Any individual can rent the film, not just educational, also museums, institutions. I want to add something also about taking action. Dick Ogg called me yesterday because he knew I was going to be talking with you talking with you and he wanted people to know that he's very excited because they came up with a way of putting together the crab pots on the bottom of the ocean together, with no upward ropes, and instead there's like a link or something at the head of one of these crab pots that they can go down with the grappling hook and pull up all the crab pots at one time. He was very excited about it. He was saying that the fishermen were working together with him on this, that it's not very expensive, it's cost effective, it's something that the fishermen came up with themselves. So he's hopeful that the crab season will open next spring, when it's supposed to, rather than being delayed. So that's the message from Dick Ock and that's the action that was taken by the fishermen.

Speaker 2: 52:28

And there's another type of ropeless gear too that Scott and Tria have been following. That you brought to my attention, zach Cliver and others. Rick Rales was it Rick Rales.

Speaker 6: 52:39

He may be the one who came up with the idea first for a ropeless gear.

Speaker 2: 52:45

It's. Gps oriented, but also with these balloons that can expand and make the pots rise.

Speaker 1: 52:52

Yeah, what Dick was saying is that sometimes some of those are very expensive.

Speaker 2: 52:59

Exactly.

Speaker 1: 53:00

Solutions for the fishermen, and they can't afford it, actually. But this other way that he was talking about is much more affordable. Not that he's discounting any other form of rope plus crab pots, but this is to add to the.

Speaker 2: 53:23

I've always said there needs to be some kind of subsidies from the government or from foundations who want to help support the fishing industry, because it is expensive to make any change like that.

Speaker 6: 53:34

Did Dick mention how crabbers find their gear the next day when they come back to check it Without a vertical line and a buoy? How are they locating where their trawls are? I didn't ask that.

Speaker 2: 53:46

Well, I want to point out right now, too, that back to this website of yours, every Second Breath Project. If there are people out there that would like to help support you now, cynthia, there's a way to donate. There's a donate button on your website.

Speaker 5: 54:02

Yes, there is, and we have a fiscal sponsor Center for Independent Documentary, so any donations are tax deductible and goes through this umbrella. So we are nonprofit and our website, as I mentioned, is everysecondprojectorg and there's a write-up, and Abalone Chronicles also has its own page so you can get more information about the story that's developing in the editing room right now that is wonderful.

Speaker 2: 54:34

I'm so looking forward to seeing this short film. How long will it be, do you think?

Speaker 5: 54:39

well, I'm going to be vague. It's going to be 14 or 28 minutes long depends on the editing room right. 14 seems to be a magic number for a short short and then, or a maximum of a short and then 28, because I would like it to be broadcast on public television. It's a good amount of time to educate and put into like schools. We have an excellent study guide on the Three Ocean Advocates. It is on the website also and it can be downloaded for free there for teachers to use in the classroom.

Speaker 7: 55:15

Are schools made aware that these study guides exist because they are so valuable? Cynthia.

Speaker 1: 55:21

Yeah, on New Day site we distribute to educational market, there's a link to the study guide and you can download the study guide whether or not you buy the film. So yeah, it's definitely available.

Speaker 7: 55:39

That's wonderful. Who created them?

Speaker 5: 55:41

That was done by Jennifer Stock, who is an educational specialist with the Fairlawn and Cordell Bank Marine Sanctuaries. She did it independently she is an ocean education specialist, I see. They're very informative.

Speaker 2: 55:59

I also want to give a pitch real quick for public television and public radio that they need your support.

Speaker 1: 56:06

I wanted to say thank you for doing what you do. I've looked at your podcast and I have a lot to explore, so thank you for inviting us and thank you for your work. We appreciate that.

Speaker 5: 56:22

Yes, Thank you so much for having us on. Don't lose hope, Ben. We just have to find something that you're passionate about and dive in and take action. It doesn't have to be in the ocean anything, because whatever happens in the ocean is land-based, like all the plastic that flows into the ocean and the CO2 that the ocean is absorbing. So our actions count.

Speaker 2: 56:48

I want to also thank both Scott and Tree for all of their hard, dedicated work, not just on this podcast, but the work that they do through Mindenoma, whale and Seal Study. They dedicate their lives to studying the oceans and gathering the data that's so important for other scientific organizations. So, all of you, thank you so much, and, andrea, thank you for joining us and thank you for your kind words too. Thanks.

Speaker 7: 57:15

Thank you both so very much, really. Thank you for your time. A great conversation today.

Speaker 2: 57:30

Thanks for listening to the Resilient Earth podcast, where we talk about critical issues and positive actions for our planet. Resilient Earth is produced by Planet Centric Media, a 501c3 nonprofit, and Seastorm Studios Inc, located on the rugged North Sonoma coast of Northern California. Hosts and co-producers Scott and Tree Mercer of Mindenoma, whale and Seal Study, located on the South Mendocino and North Sonoma coasts. The music for this podcast is by Eric Alleman, an international composer, pianist and writer living in the Sea Ranch. Discover more of his music, animations, ballet, stage and film work at ericalamancom. You can find Resilient Earth on Spotify, apple and Amazon Podcasts, iheartradio, youtube, soundcloud and wherever you find your podcasts. Please support us by subscribing or donating to our cause.