Goodtrepreneur
Good people with good ideas for a better world
The podcast for people interested in ideas, innovation and creativity to create a better world.
Speaks to the creators of brands, nonprofits, communities and more whose core purpose is to to help solve an environmental or social problem.
A must-listen for anyone thinking of starting a purpose-led organisation or simply wanting to enjoy some good news in the world of sustainability.
Goodtrepreneur
The art of making the environment fun. Natalie Kyriaciou on changing systems and inspiring hearts and minds to open up to the wonders of our home planet. Episode 2.
It has been said that all change starts with mindset.
And that to solve the environmental challenges of this world, we first need to people to believe that the environment does matter, a better world is possible, and all those excuses for why renewable energy or protection of our wild places can't happen are just that excuses.
Natalie Kyriacou is making it her life's work to just that. Her latest creation is 'Nature's Last Dance', a book that adventures into the wonders of our planet and makes the environmental fascinating and fun.
This special episode:
🐵 Starts with an underwear-stealing Orangutan and gets wilder from there
🚢 Takes you on a ride from Borneo to Costa Rica to explore how systems change is essential if we want environmental change
🐋 Uses the words ‘whale poo’ at least twice
🌳 Sees our guest getting stuck up a tree with her whole family
💪 Has a whole lot of depth too as we discuss topics like the importance of women and children to the environmental movement, how everyone everywhere can play a role in making the world we want, and what it takes to stay positive in a sometimes challenging world.
Want to know more? Here's what AI had to say after we gave it a listen:
Meet Natalie Kiriakou, an environmentalist whose journey began when an orangutan named Miko stole her underwear in the jungles of Borneo. That unexpected encounter sparked a career dedicated to reimagining our relationship with the natural world – not through dry statistics or corporate jargon, but through captivating storytelling that makes environmentalism fascinating again.
Natalie's approach is refreshingly different. Rather than focusing on isolated solutions like tree planting (though important), she challenges the underlying systems that perpetuate environmental harm. "If we made these systems up, we can change them," she explains, highlighting Costa Rica's remarkable transformation from a war-torn nation to an ecological paradise through deliberate systems change. By abolishing their military and redirecting funds to education and environmental protection, Costa Rica demonstrates what's possible when we dare to reimagine our priorities.
Her upcoming book "Nature's Last Dance" weaves quirky tales – from Australia's failed war against emus to the climate-regulating powers of whale poo – into profound insights about our interconnectedness with nature. It's her rebellion against the tedium that often surrounds environmental discussions, offering instead a love letter to our planet that's as entertaining as it is enlightening. Natalie also highlights the disproportionate impact of climate disasters on women, especially Indigenous women and women of colour, while emphasizing their crucial role in creating lasting solutions.
Despite the overwhelming nature of global environmental challenges, Natalie finds hope in connection – with nature, community, and the countless individuals quietly working to make a difference. Her philosophy is beautifully simple: "At the end of the day, my goal is pretty simple: to live a life that creates more good than harm." This begins with small actions – how we treat the barista, whether we smile at strangers, if we stop to help an injured bird – and grows into larger commitments to community and planet.
Discover "Nature's Last Dance" is now available at all bookstores. Connect with Natalie at nataliekyriacou.com and join her mission to make environmentalism engaging, accessible, and genuinely inspiring once again.
Goodtrepreneur is the podcast about good people with good ideas for a better world.
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I'm gonna change this world today, make those bad things go away, hey.
Ben:Hello, testing Excellent. When world-renowned environmentalist Gus Speth retired after over 50 years fighting for the future of our home planet, he famously said I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and climate change. I was wrong the top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy.
Ben:It's a quote that's always stuck with me, because, while most of us tend to think the first step to solving social and environmental problems is to create a new product or a movement, there are those who realise that for all those good ideas to work, we first need to create the mindset that the environment does matter. A better world is possible, and all those excuses for why renewable energy or protection of our wild places can't happen are just that excuses. Natalie Kiriakou is one such wise soul. She spent over a decade inspiring people, young and old, about the importance of respecting our home planet and breaking down complex issues into easy, fun, actionable concepts to open minds, warm hearts and bring more people to the cause. She's been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia, named a top 30 innovator by the Australian, is one of Forbes' 30 most notable people under 30 and one of the world's top 50 leading conservationists, and she's still found time to be with us here today. Welcome, natalie.
Natalie:Thank you very much for having me.
Ben:I believe your career as an environmentalist began in Borneo and involves an orangutan. Is this true?
Natalie:It is true, it's a funny, strange story. I spent a few months living in the jungles of Borneo. My intent was to write my first article on palm oil and the impact it was having on orangutan populations, and I was working at an orangutan rehabilitation center, which was incredible. But one of my first introductions to the orangutan was when I stepped into my bedroom and looked outside and saw an orangutan sitting on my balcony, perched on the edge, holding my underwear. So he'd pulled them off, this little makeshift clothesline that I'd made, and was just sifting through my clothes, and I went outside and I tried to snatch my underwear back off him and we got in this little tug of war contest. And then they're quite stubborn and manipulative and incredibly intelligent and beautiful. But he grabbed the underwear and then he put them over his head, so they were dangling around his neck, and then he ran back into the jungles with my underwear and he actually he kept returning to steal things from me and I never saw the underwear again.
Natalie:But his name was Miko and he was orphaned. So his mother had been killed in the forest to make way for palm oil plantations, leaving him fending for himself. So the orangutan rehabilitation centre brought him in with the hope that they could treat him, help him thrive and then return him to the jungle. The problem was it's really hard to reintroduce orangutans back to the jungle, especially once they've had a taste for the human lifestyle, where they're getting fed every day and you know you're getting a lot of enrichment. So occasionally Miko would come in and steal things from humans and then wander back into the jungles.
Natalie:But it was that experience in Borneo that really helped me better understand that delicate balance between humans and wildlife and also livelihoods all of the people and communities that relied on palm oil. So I went into Borneo thinking, you know, anybody that has any role in producing palm oil is evil, and I was just so wrong about that, and so I wanted to find ways to talk about how we can empower communities, respect communities, but also educate the world on wildlife and environmental issues and engage people in these issues, and so that experience with the orangutan was one of my most memorable and formative experiences that really shaped the trajectory of my career.
Ben:It's like nature reaching out to you asking for a bit of help.
Natalie:Yeah,
Ben:And possibly the whole outfit, miko Murph, came back well. So, like I said in the intro, I think it's fair to say that most people, when presented with the sort of aha moment that you were, attempted to think how can I help this orangutan? But then that grows to how can I help this orangutan? But then that grows to how can I help all orangutans? And then that grows to the realization that to help all orangutans you need to solve the palm oil problem. And then you realize that some people rely on palm oil to survive. So what's actually needed is a solution that's good for people and orangutans. And suddenly it becomes a question of how can we rethink the root causes and deeper systems, whether economic, social or political, that drive this harm. To begin with, would you say that's what your work is all about.
Natalie:Yeah, absolutely so. A lot of my work isn't really focused on creating a specific solution to one particular problem. It's more about challenging or trying to shift the underlying systems that I see as perpetuating harm. So that means challenging cultural and social norms, challenging the way that we have built our political systems and our economies. So if you think about tree planting, for example, it's all well and good to plant a tree, but if you're planting a tree within an economic system that rewards deforestation and within a political system that gives outsized influence to extractive industries, or a cultural system that encourages us to take more than we need, then it's not really going to work. You can only plant so many trees, but we need to actually be changing the underlying systems that sort of create harm. And where does that begin? Well, I mean you can tackle it from all angles. I think we can look to other, draw inspiration from other countries.
Natalie:I think I mean for me, I started with education and communication and trying to encourage people to make a difference in a way that resonated with them most. So, for example, if you're a, it depends on what your job is. So if you're a media buyer or you're a farmer or you work in politics you are all. You can have impact in different ways. So if you're a media buyer, maybe you can influence how the media is reporting on things. Or if you work in politics, maybe you can start advocating for policies that actually encourage greater transparency in politics.
Natalie:Why are politicians are allowed to lie, for example? Or why can't we see exactly where funding is coming from during election time? Can we talk more? Can we have more awareness on what the government is subsidising and what they're not subsidising? So it's trying to change these underlying mechanisms, and I think it's about pointing the right people in the right direction. But also I think we need to be talking about the role of social media as well, and media and this polarisation that is increasing around the world. We might go on social media and yell at somebody for having an opinion that's different to us, whereas I would see that as contributing to a problem. I think that we need to be thinking when we're having these conversations okay, what am I actually achieving here? Is yelling at somebody on social media helpful, or could I engage them in a respectful conversation to try to understand the way that they think? So the way I think about things is that. What is this going to achieve and what's the underlying problem here?
Ben:rather than just putting a bandaid on a hemorrhaging wound, so there's a couple of threads in what you've said there. One is it doesn't matter what you do there's a role for you, whether it's you're a journalist and you can talk about this stuff, or it's in your job and you can talk about it at work, or whether it's just how you act on social media. The other one that I think is a core theme is that, fundamentally, change starts with mindset and if people can't see that need, then they're never going to change the things that flow on from that mindset.
Natalie:Yeah, absolutely, and it can feel overwhelming. But think about your own community. Take it at a smaller level. If you are in your community and say, for example, there's a park that you love and that your community loves and it's going to get demolished or they're going to build something on it, that could be you care about your community, you care about that park. That could be an opportunity for you to connect with your neighbours and work with and start petitioning the local council to keep that park or to plant native trees or native plants in your neighbourhood. It can be as simple as that, just community members coming together to protect their own community and to help their own community thrive. It doesn't have to be huge. It's just about talking with your neighbours and seeing ways that you can make your own patch a little bit better.
Ben:Start small. Everything's big, start small.
Natalie:Yeah, I think it often does. Like Wangari Matai, she's the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize and she started the green tree movement. And it all started from just planting trees and it ended up getting picked up by the UN and now billions of trees have been planted in her honour and she sort of mobilised this community of millions of people from around the world to plant trees. She just started by planting a few trees, that's all it took.
Ben:From little things big things grow.
Natalie:Yeah.
Ben:One of the challenges I often find with change is painting the picture of what you're trying to achieve. What good can look like. I think often we as humans struggle with imagination to see what's possible. We're caught in. Why not, rather than what's possible, help paint a picture for the listeners Like what does this world look like when you start to change these economic, social, political systems?
Natalie:Yeah. So the way that when I talk about systems and we talk about politics and cultural systems and economic systems, we made all of these up. They're human constructs. If we made them up, we can change them. So there's this perception that they're just inevitable and this is how things work and that's the way it is. No, it's like cash. We made these things up. They're not physics, we just made them up, and so I think that we need to be more imaginative. We can construct a different sort of future. We can change these systems. We just need the will, and Costa Rica is a great example of this.
Natalie:So in the late 1940s, costa Rica had just gotten out of a really bloody civil war. It was a country that was beset with violence, like much of Latin America at the time, and their leader, after the Civil War, walked up to the military, the army headquarters, and put a hammer through the building and said the military is now abolished. He then redirected all of the funds into education and the environment. Because of that, the country went from low levels of literacy to having the highest levels of literacy in Latin America. Then they made all of these sweeping changes through Costa Rica. They started incentivising farmers to protect nature rather than extract from it, and so they paid them for their forest stewardship. They made education free, healthcare free. They are now known as a country of peace and nature. It is embedded in their culture and with a great sense of pride and they had, I think 70% of their forests had been destroyed by the 50s. Today, I think, they're at about 70% of their forests have been replenished. They are run entirely on renewable energy and the leader of the country who put a gavel through the building, he had a daughter and a son. His son went on to be a president in later years. They're a beloved family and his daughter went on and she's now known as Christiana Figueres, who is the most towering figure in the environmental movement around the world, the biggest champion of the environment, and she's also the architect of the Paris Agreement. So pretty impressive family.
Natalie:And they turned Costa Rica into a country that was riddled with violence to one of peace and nature, and you can feel it when you're there. It is um, they're. They get huge amounts of revenue now because people want to go over there and see nature. We've all heard of the sloths in Costa Rica. Bird watchers flock to bird watchers flock to Costa Rica, pardon the pun and it is because they undertook this massive systems change. It wasn't just ad hoc fixes here and there and putting a bandaid on a hemorrhage. It was. Let's rethink how we spend our money in this country. Let's rethink our entire political systems. Let's rethink how we incentivise business in this country. Let's rethink education and culture and healthcare. It was every single system, so that's how it's done.
Ben:It sounds to me like it might start with questioning what do we actually value?
Natalie:Yeah.
Ben:I mean, if you look at that, you go. A lot of those are going. Do we value A or B? Everything is a choice. You can do anything, you can't do everything, as they say. But I find it in very interesting that point where you say that people flock to that country birdwatchers and others because it shows that once you do have that imagination, you do create it. You realize there's so many people who want that world, yeah, yet don't know how to make it happen. So I guess, starting with imagination, would you say that's a big part of it.
Natalie:Huge part, and also realizing that people want to feel proud of where they're from, and so the Costa Ricans I met. There was such pride in their country, and it's the same way that we might feel where we think about the Great Barrier Reef and the pride we have that when we think about koalas and kangaroos and when people talk about how amazing Australia is because we have all of these amazing species or, you know, the Harbour Bridge, whatever it is, there's a sense of pride like, oh, that's something that we have that's special to us. Or when they talk about the Australian sense of humour. So can we draw on that sense of pride to turn it into something that's impactful?
Ben:I'm going to bring that down a level too, because I can't agree with you more. The national pride in these things is amazing, and you think of every country, and sure they show their buildings, but they also show their the nature is often one of the main things.
Ben:Go look at a tourism australia ad right opera house and nature yeah, come and see these things and hug a koala yes yeah, but can that be brought to a company or an organization level where you use the same sense of pride in how that company is doing less harm or preferably doing some good to engage companies and organizations to be more environmentally sensitive and rethink their systems?
Natalie:Yeah, of course there's really great examples of that too, If you compare a company like Amazon to a company like Patagonia. Amazon is not known as a company whose workforce is happy. It is not, at the moment, known as somewhere where people really want to work in the factories or work because there is not a sense of pride in what they are doing and what they are associated with. Patagonia, by contrast, is seen as a desirable company. Their founder committed all of his wealth towards nature. They have run huge campaigns where they've outlined the harm that the fashion industry does to nature, and so they get a huge amount of interest and applicants and a sense of pride in their workforce. The same happened with Canva. Canva had massive investments into nature. They also encouraged their workforce to ride their bikes to work, and their commitment to the environment meant that they went from having few applicants to having thousands and thousands of applicants each year. So I think you can create that sense of pride when your workforce knows that you are a company that is doing good, Even when you're an employee and you get to go to work and you believe in what you do, you believe that what you are doing is good for the world, you show up better and you have more pride in that.
Natalie:So businesses can do that and they can do that by one actually just understanding the impacts on nature. If you're a shipping company, have you got any technology that you know prevents you from colliding with humpback whales? Or you know, if you're a fashion company, where are you extracting your goods from? Is that harming the environment in some way or is it causing any human rights violations you can look at? So I think the first step is understanding but also acting on that. How do you invest in nature? Do you lobby government? If you do lobby government, is it in a way that is to the advantage of the general public and the environment? So there's a huge amount of things to do and they're quite simple. I just think the problem is that businesses often get caught up in how they report on things and in compliance, and they tend to delay action.
Ben:I wonder also if there's the temptation of short-term profit over long-term gain.
Natalie:Yes, big time. And that again is a systems problem, because we look at how governments run, politicians run, everything is based on an election cycle, so they are looking at everything short-term. How can we win the next election, how can we get through, you know, the next three, four years, whatever you know, depending on the country. So we're sort of wired short term in our political and economic systems and that's why I would encourage systems change where we actually look at these cultures and systems and say, why are we thinking about the economy and saying, okay, no, we can't do this because the economy doesn't allow it. Shouldn't the economy be to the benefit of humanity? Isn't that why we built it? Like, we built the economy to be of benefit to humanity, but it's not. It's not working. So rather than tweaking all of humanity, can't we tweak the way the economy works?
Ben:Sounds so simple. Now, your first book, nature's Last Dance, is launching on August 26th and, in your own words, it aims to radically alter how people think about nature, civilization and extinction. That is a big goal. Can you tell me more about the book, why it's a good idea and the impact you're hoping it will make?
Natalie:It's a big book. It's essentially about the way that nature drives our culture, our society, our politics, our economics and the entirety of human civilization. But it's told through a range of quite quirky tales. So why Australia went to war with an emu and lost that war. How female scientists studying the clitorises of great apes and snakes has upended everything we thought we knew about Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. It has also uncovered gender bias.
Natalie:It talks about how Mars, incorporated, is entirely dependent on one tiny little insect for its profits. It talks about this movement to grant rights to legal rights to nature. So it's quite a big, sweeping book and my aim was to try to make the environment and nature mainstream and cool and interesting and accessible and fun, and that's sort of been the aim throughout my career. But I've really I've probably committed a number of sins, but I have tried to appeal to everybody. I truly believe there is a story in there for everybody, because we all rely on nature, we all love nature, we just don't know it. So whether you are a farmer or if you're a wine grower, you depend on nature. If you're interested in buying a house and you're worrying about the rising insurance costs, that's a nature problem that's a climate change problem. So it was trying to show the myriad of ways that nature has changed our lives, and so the book talks about, you know, the Roman empire and how empires have fallen by nature.
Natalie:It talks about how we had a deputy prime minister that tried to give herpes to fish and that defines the political relationship with nature. There are wild stories. This is a non-fiction book, but I guess truth is stranger than fiction. So I've really gone, used every strange, tragic, joyful story that I possibly could and linked that to a broader, systemic environmental issue and then offered solutions and I've highlighted, you know, amazing companies around the world that are doing cool things, people that have built movements, really inspiring organizations. So there's a whole lot in there and it was basically it's my love letter and my rebellion, my hope that I can sort of cut through. I think we've made the environment really tedious, and so I'm trying to change that with this book.
Ben:It's not a tedious book it does not sound tedious in the slightest. It sounds like fascinating. I mean that that in itself is such a conversation. I'm always reminded by the Attenborough quote we think of ourselves as apart from nature, but we need to realize we are a part of nature, and it sounds like that's your goal to get people to realize that everywhere you don't look, nature is there, driving pretty much your entire existence Fascinatingly.
Ben:I love what you just said. Then you know we get hit by environmentalism as being quite serious and, let's be honest, kind of boring sometimes, and you're making environmentalism fascinating and fun. Is that possible? Is it important? Is it essential?
Natalie:Yeah, it is fundamentally cool and so interesting. We've made it boring, but it's not boring. I mean you think about planet Earth and David Attenborough and how incredible nature is. Or you think about zoos and how children flock to zoos because they want to see wildlife. The environment and nature is just the most astonishing thing. But the way that we talk about it now has just made people check out.
Natalie:But if you think about any, I mean I would challenge people to name one hobby that they have or one thing they do that doesn't involve nature in some way, and it would be impossible, because you breathe because of nature. But if you think about if you're a surfer, or if you're a hiker or you just enjoy, if you would like going on safari in Africa, or if you like fishing, whatever it might be, all of our greatest joys are from nature. You build a house that came from the forest, like it's. Everything we do has some relationship with nature, because we are part of it. So I sought to find stories that would make it more relatable for people, so that a farmer could read this and say, oh yeah, that is really cool. Or using the Great Emu War to explain the concept of the theory of evolution, so why the emu was fittest. So it sort of explains survival of the fittest and why the army wasn't fitter than an emu. But so that's what I've tried to do. You use these really interesting tales to say actually even everything we think we know about ourselves today and how we have evolved and how we came to be on the planet and how men and women interact. That is all based on the theory of evolution that Charles Darwin got from some bugs and birds.
Natalie:So it's I think one of the problems and I'm sorry if this is offensive is businesses and, to a larger degree, economists have a way of taking something fundamentally cool and then making it really, really tedious. I admire that businesses have been talking more about the environment, but they turned it into you know, costs and risks and interdependencies and climate mitigation and all, and it is people check out. The majority of people check out when they hear that. So I'm thinking why are we not talking about whale poo? Whale poo is a climate change solution. Let's talk about whales and how just their day-to-day lives is actually regulating the climate. So there's fun ways to talk about it. It doesn't need to be boring.
Ben:It sounds to me very much like you've enjoyed writing it too, Like writing a book is an enormous undertaking. It takes hours and hours and hours of sitting there, not to mention the research, to go and find what sounds like some of the most interesting stories I've ever heard in environmentalism. Tell me about the process. Where do you begin? I mean, first of all, how do you decide? Right, my goal is to make nature engaging, get people to reconnect, make it fun. You've decided this is what you want to do. Change mindsets. What makes you say I'm going to write a book? And then, how does that happen?
Natalie:Yeah, I mean, I never say this about things I do, but I think it's a really good book and I tried so hard. It's almost embarrassing how hard I tried. It was a mammoth undertaking I have. I've got it'd be close to a thousand references. It's heavily, heavily researched, but what I'm most proud of myself for is that I've used that research.
Natalie:The hardest part was then turning it into something fun. So I was like going through minutes of meetings between geologists and figuring out how I could make that riveting and weird. So it was a really, really big book, but I felt that I wanted to write the sort of book that I would have wanted to read when I was starting my career and I just felt it was important. I think this stuff is both interesting and important. I genuinely perhaps naively think it could change the world if people read it, or at least change mindsets. But my process was chaos. So I've been working in this space for years and years and I always collect stories and I have the privilege of being able to meet with fascinating people in the environmental sector who come from all walks of life and are doing all manner of things to protect species and protect the environment and protect communities, so I get to talk to them all the time. So there's been this long process of just collecting stories, not for this book necessarily, just because I find stories interesting and I find them a better way to communicate. And so then when I decided I was going to write the book, so I put everything into this book, like everything you don't need to read anything else. It's got. Everything I know is in this book. There's no sequel required, that's it.
Natalie:But my process was I interviewed people, I was obsessed, I didn't sleep, nothing else mattered, I was just writing and it was really, really challenging. But it was the greatest joy of my life and I happy cried through the entire process. I remember even sending it to a publisher. I sent it to some, we sent it to some publishers and they all came back immediately and all wanted it. And I bawled my eyes out even in the meetings Like I just I was so happy and so excited and just couldn't believe it. So, yeah, it was writing this book. I mean, when people read it they'll know it's. You can tell when someone gives a shit.
Natalie:And yeah, I really gave a shit about this book, yeah, and I've sent it out to a few people so leading scientists, as well as media personalities and authors, to just get endorsements and see what they think. And it's been the reception has been really positive so far and what I'm really excited about is that it was being really positive from people from really different fields. So I had so I had well Christiana Figueres, for example. So I had, well, christiana Figueres, for example. She really liked it, she endorsed it. And then I had Leslie Hughes, you know, renowned climate scientist in Australia.
Natalie:I had Peter Fitzsimons, who is a prolific writer and presenter. I've had Claire Stevens from Mamma Mia. I've had people Tracy Spicer people, bob Brown, I've had people that embedded in the environmental sector, people that are looking at it from the scientific view and from a political view, but also people that aren't interested or find the environment boring, as you said. Like those people liked it too. And so, yeah, and that's that was my dream. So my dream's already been accomplished, because I got a group of people who all I had somebody I've had, you know, senior business people look at it and read it and really like it. So I just wanted people from different walks of life to be able to read this and connect with it and for it to be accessible, and so far, I think I've achieved that in a very small pool of people. How long did it take you to write? One year.
Ben:One year. That's actually reasonably quick for a book of that scale.
Natalie:It was all constant, though, so I put other work aside and it was just writing and I was a little bit insane. But, that being said, I did have a lot of background work on this, so just the years of collecting research, and I've done this every day for years and years.
Ben:I live and breathe it, so, yeah, there was a lot of material to draw from that that can make things longer sometimes yes, yes, yes yeah, wonderful, so we now know that you actually write, like writing books, in a kind of happy and crying at the same time sort of way.
Natalie:Yes.
Ben:What's another thing people are surprised by when they find out about?
Natalie:you Surprising I mean an offensive number of people when they meet me. I think they, you know, when you see LinkedIn and you sort of present yourself in a certain way, and so they tell me they thought that I would be a wanker and so I would like to say I'm not, and that sometimes surprises people. I don't know, I feel like it's.
Natalie:Tall poppy syndrome maybe yeah, but I don't like I'm not even that tall, it's just I don't know. Maybe you know, when you like have your sort of wanky LinkedIn profile and you're like, yeah, I did this and it was awesome, and then people think that I'm a wanker, and so that's one thing that surprises them.
Natalie:Um that's a positive surprise but I mean that's like, I mean some people probably maybe they do think others think I am a wanker, but um, no, but I mean the thing that probably surprises me how close I am with my family, that's, I mean a lot of people, because of the family. My family and I, we're this sort of family that we want to live in a commune together, like my mom and dad and my sister and brother-in-law, and the dogs and kids we would live. If it was cool. I would still live with my parents. We all live in different states and we meet up every fortnight and do family activities together. We chat constantly. We're so, so close, so yeah, and we do weird things. We chat constantly. We're so, so close, so yeah, and we do weird things.
Natalie:I will go camping and my whole family got stuck in a tree together on one trip. So Stuck, yeah, we all. I tried to climb a tree. I got stuck. They didn't believe, and I'm I think I'm very good at climbing trees, but I told them that it was a particularly hard tree to climb and get down from. They didn't believe me. So, one by one, they all also tried and all got stuck. How did you get down? We ended up just climbing down eventually, but it took quite a long time Called fire brigade. No, there was no fire brigades. Now I can't even remember how we got down Now. I just remember sitting there laughing.
Ben:Anyway, that's Sounds like an interesting family holiday. That could be the next book. Now back to the serious stuff. It's environmental.
Natalie:I go off track. Maybe that's something surprising.
Ben:Well, that'll make for a good book. One of the things you've spoken about widely is the importance of nature to children. Young people today, aged eight to 18, spend as much as nine hours a day staring at screens. I know that's my life, but less than 10 minutes a day enjoying play in nature. That seems like a problem both for the kids but also the future of the planet if children aren't interacting with it and valuing nature.
Natalie:Yeah, I think it's a really big problem. It's something that scares me quite a bit. It's something that I think more and more parents and schools and governments are aware of and trying to counter. But major technology companies they are incentivised to get kids hooked on these devices, Not just little kids, big kids too yeah big kids too, exactly.
Natalie:So I am worried about that. My hope and some of my suggestions in the past have been to try to help kids find the joy in nature and being outdoors. So, for example and I talk about this a lot in my book citizen science so if you've got a kid using a phone a lot, is there a way to transition them off it or use an app that is for good? So there's apps where kids can go into the backyard and take photos of you know, different bugs or different animals they see, and that actually helps scientists. And so we have there's amazing citizen scientists that are as young as, you know, grade four that have contributed their photos. That has actually led to academic and scientific reports in Australia and they've been featured in the news for it and all sorts of things.
Natalie:So this sort of citizen science, where everyday people are going around and just recording their observations of nature, has been absolutely imperative to the conservation of nature. So I think it's about showing kids these opportunities for them to both engage with the outside world, engage with the natural world, but also contribute to really important groundbreaking science. I think that's really fun, you know getting outside, but I mean there needs to be sort of restrictions on phones, and I don't know, parents and adults, we're not very good at doing that because we're also addicted to our phones, so I don't know what the answer is yet, but I do know that kids that spend more time in nature are certainly happier and healthier than kids that spend their days staring at a screen.
Ben:Now you've actually tried using technology to get kids off technology. Yes, ironically, in 2016, you launched an award-winning app called World of the Wild that encouraged children to build their own wildlife sanctuary, then rescue, feed, provide medical care for animals, including some of the world's most endangered species. What was the thinking behind that?
Natalie:Yeah, it was a very, very different time. So, as you said, it was over 10 years ago and I'd returned from Borneo with Miko the orangutan that stole my underwear, and, I guess, overcome by how preoccupied the world seemed to be with what I perceived to be frivolous things like Angry Birds, the app and I thought, gosh, don't people know that we're in this environmental crisis and there's species around the world going extinct? So I wanted to find a way to engage people in these issues that I thought were important. But I thought we needed to find a fun way to do that. And I thought, while all these kids are so addicted to games like Angry Birds, wouldn't it be great if they had a game that they felt they actually were doing or where they were actually doing good in the world? And so I created World of the Wild, which is essentially like the Sims, but kids could rescue wildlife, build their own world, clean up oil spills, but each action that they took in the app reflected a real life scenario, and then that supported the charity, so each animal represented a particular charity. So Miko the orangutan was actually in the app and he represented Borneo orangutan survival. So the app supported all of these charities. Kids could compete in pop quizzes with each other and the pop quizzes were all about, you know, learning cool facts about wildlife and the environment. So the hope was to move kids away from games like Angry Birds and towards social good, with the hope that that might spike their curiosity, I guess in nature.
Natalie:But, as you said, the years passed and things started to change and the rate and change of technology was overwhelming and I did begin to question whether I was contributing to a system that was further addicting kids, and I still don't know the answer. So I started playing around with okay, well, could we make this like you know, the Pokemon game where? Or a citizen science app where I'm encouraging? You know, kids use the app, but it's encouraging them to go outside, and I didn't really know what the answer was. So, you know, years ago I took the app offline.
Natalie:I still think it's a great app, it's a great idea, but now I have pivoted a little bit and I'm trying to focus on how can we get people more involved in their communities. How can we get more people to look up from their phone and say hi to their neighbor or help somebody with their groceries, or go to their local park and chat to somebody or, yeah, just be grounded in nature, community people around them, you know, look up and see the birds, that sort of thing. I think that's where happiness and well-being lies. Connection yeah that's fascinating.
Ben:It shows you've come on a journey of trying different things and in that sense you've engaged children and now adults and obviously with all your work it runs across both. Do you find it's easier to engage children than adults? Is it time to give up on adults and go for the young generation, or is there hope for everyone?
Natalie:There's hope for everyone. We need to engage everybody. Adults, I think we need to be careful, because I've met a few people that sort of say, oh, thank God for the next generation, they'll solve all these problems. No, actually we are. As adults, we are the last remaining generation that can do something to stop this crisis, so it is up to us as well. Adults play an outsized responsibility. It is still, you know, adults or older generations that are running countries and you know businesses, so they have a massive responsibility.
Natalie:In my personal experience I have, working with kids has been a great joy. I've found them to be somewhat easier to engage with. One, because they're curious. Two, because it challenges me to talk about these issues in a way that young people can engage with and that's fun. And three, because they simplify complex things in a really wonderful way. So I could go into a big business and they'll be talking about.
Natalie:You know, let's talk about natural capital, which is nature, or let's talk about interdependencies and risks and all of that sort of thing. Kids keep it quite simple and I think that allows for more impact, and also they're really great at brainstorming and ideation. So I've sat down with kids and they've come up with incredible ideas for how we can use AI to reduce collisions between wildlife and cars, and so I like the way that children think. I love the passion. I love that they haven't yet beaten down by the world or told that they have to lose their curiosity or their childlike ways. I think those qualities we should try to emulate as adults. I think that the sort of curiosity and compassion and quirky way of thinking is a beautiful thing, so I love working with kids for that reason.
Ben:Have you been able to translate that some of that like reopen that curiosity and simplicity in adults? Do you find that's a way into adults when they're dealing in natural capital and risks and opportunities and things?
Natalie:Yeah, I think so, and it was probably part of the reason that I started writing this book. So I think this book will probably be my biggest piece of work that actually actively tries to do that. But it was inspired by my interactions both when I worked in corporate and the nonprofit sector and also, just you know, on social media. I was finding that people were coming to me a lot and saying we really like the way that you talk about nature and that you sort of demystify it or make it really fun and quirky, and so, you know, I would do posts about why boardrooms need to be talking about whale poo and why sharks are good for your profit margin, or you know those sort of things. And so I had a nice reception and I could just see that there was this need. I was hearing it everywhere. There's this need for us to be able to communicate these issues and also the opportunities for business and for people to make a difference in ways that isn't boring.
Ben:So once again, creativity and inspiration and helping people see beyond their everyday, yeah.
Natalie:And using case studies. There's so many fun stories and case studies of people that are doing incredible things around In England. There's the poo bus. Please explain.
Natalie:And this is an environmental initiative where they've powered a bus based on human waste, and that's ridiculous, but also it's talking. Now we can use that to start talking about the circular economy and how we might be able to reuse and rethink other waste. You know how the fashion industry can rethink, how you know we don't need. Do we need to be pulling everything from the ground, or can we reuse it when we're creating our wind turbines or any renewables? Rather than just continuously pulling from mines, can we reuse things? And so we can use the poo bus as an entry point to talk about circular economy and how we can reduce our consumption.
Natalie:Power of creativity and power of stories. Yeah, exactly.
Ben:Which I really often think, thought of as children's things. Right, Stories are for kids. Creativity is what kids do between lessons. We don't think of it for adults, but it's exactly the same thing.
Natalie:Yeah, adults need it because they're checking out, and if adults were really interested and engaged we would be doing more. Because we're not doing enough. We are failing young people at the moment, and ourselves. So hopefully, by making it more interesting, weaving in these stories showing people that there are countries, there are cultures, there are communities, there are businesses that have actually demonstrated a better way forward, hopefully those stories resonate.
Ben:So we've talked about children, but you're not just a champion for children and environment, you're also a champion for women more broadly, not just women in the environment too. Can you tell me a bit about that and how you see these two issues as being connected?
Natalie:Yeah, so women, especially Indigenous women and women of colour, they face disproportionate risks in the face of climate change and nature destruction. So they're faced in environmental crisis, whether it's some sort of climate disaster or tornado or bushfire, whatever it may, they face increased risks of displacement, of violence, of sexual and domestic abuse, of trafficking. So when climate disaster strikes, for example, women and children are 14 times more likely to die than men. So there was a case, a tsunami in India, where four times as many women were killed than men for no other reason than men were taught how to swim and climb trees, as children and women weren't, so they couldn't get themselves to safety. There's other risks, like women not having access to their own bank account often not in all countries, but in a lot of countries or women being the primary caretakers for children, and so they are tasked with getting the kids to safety, which may slow them down. So there is a whole bunch of risks that is very specific to women, based on, I guess, pre-existing gender biases that we need to talk about. So that's something I'm really passionate about making sure that women are involved in decision-making when it comes to environmental policy. So when we talk about sort of how women are impacted by environmental disaster. They're also really key to overcoming it and they're key to peace agreements. So there was a study done by the UN that said women who were involved in brokering peace agreements meant that the peace agreements were 35% more likely to last at least 15 years.
Natalie:So I think and what we're seeing now is when you have, you know, majority of governments around the world, majority of businesses around the world, are led by men and we don't have as many women at the decision-making table, and that's a huge oversight. We need women at these decision-making tables to be able to talk about their own unique experiences. And also, women are often the pillars of community. They mobilize people, they bring people together. So if you're not including them in these conversations or these decisions, then you're not able to effectively address a disaster or the cleanup of a disaster. So I do a range of things working with women. I sit on the, I'm a board director at Care Australia, whose primary focus is supporting women and girls, particularly in times of crisis, and I'm also a delegate to the W20, which is part of the G20. And my focus is on women and climate change.
Ben:Are you finding? You're getting?
Natalie:traction? Well it's. I mean, it's always a very, very slow process. So it's around 75% of the world's economies we're talking about so major governments, trying to get them to shift their policies and behaviours. We are getting traction in that people are actively acknowledging and setting action plans for gender and climate. But, as we've spoken about before, sometimes action plans are just that. So we need to see if there's follow through.
Ben:You need some action to go with the plan.
Natalie:Yes, yes.
Ben:So let me take stock of that. You've mentioned non-profit corporate government and UN, wherever that fits in there. You've developed games, you've been an educator, you're now an author. Which sector or approach have you found offers the most effective way to create change?
Natalie:Well, this is why I have worked across quite a few, because I don't think there is one single sector that can do it alone. We need to be working across entire systems. They all need to be doing something and they all need to be collaborating better. So I mean, I'm particularly drawn to the non-profit sector. I'm frustrated. There's these wonderful people who are really trying, really care about the world, and they are heavily underpaid, under-resourced and under-supported by government. They do not have the same access to government that many big businesses do. So I am drawn to them and to supporting them. But everybody has a role to play In terms of impact. If we just got the world's 10 biggest companies to completely change their trajectory on environmental damage, that would be world changing. You're thinking of all the supply chains that they control. So no, it's really hard to. It's really hard to focus just on one, but I would say non-profits. I mean, government sets the rules, so if government wanted to, they could legislate these things.
Ben:But business and people and non-profits influence government.
Natalie:Yeah, yeah, so it's somewhat of a circle, but there's an outsized I think there's also outsized influence. So a corporation is going to have much more influence over government than you or I, or than a non-profit. So, yeah, that's why I try to work a little bit across all of them.
Ben:If you had a magic wand, what would you change right now?
Natalie:I would invest if I had a magic wand, gosh or a blank check If you had a blank check or a magic wand.
Natalie:There are so many things to be done. First of all, I would stop subsidising fossil fuels. The government subsidises over $10 billion to fossil fuel companies. I would stop the development of new fossil fuel sites. I would invest adequately in nature, in wildlife, things like. I mean, it's quite embarrassing that Australia is famous for its koala and that koala is going extinct, where, I mean, we have the rare distinction of being one of the only countries in the world whose most prized animal and tourist attraction is going extinct. So I would want to be funneling huge amounts of money into that and making the case that this isn't just about protecting a koala. This is about protecting communities and humanity as well. Everything is connected. So if one thing in an ecosystem teeters, so does everything else, including us. So investment in nature and stronger policies around nature, particularly around how we subsidise extractive industries and also reforming our environmental laws. And also we are someone. We need to change our economy too. So if somebody needs to get to that, I'm probably not the best person.
Natalie:Ken Henry is actually doing some great work there.
Ben:You've brought some good ideas to life, the book being the latest, and the app Are there? Any of these started but abandoned along the way?
Natalie:Yeah, I mean I fear I've been kooky enough in this podcast, but there was one. I had an idea for ugly animals. So we have a there's a thing called charismatic megafauna. So they're like the pandas and elephants and lions. They're the species that people really love. They get all the attention, but we have a crisis of ecosystems. We have a crisis of insects, you know, going extinct. We have a crisis of really, you know, hideous looking fish that are incredibly important for ecosystems, but they don't get the front cover of magazines like pandas do, and so I wanted to raise awareness for ugly animals that are crucial for ecosystems. The shark is one that is a, you know, much maligned but incredibly plays an incredibly important role in the ocean, an ocean that we rely on to survive. Bats are another one. People associate them with vampires, and so I had an idea to create, basically, tinder for ugly animals. So my aim was to find an ugly animal. So just one more example actually.
Natalie:So the vulture in India. Vultures started plummeting towards extinction in India and nobody could figure out why, and then they realized it was because vets had been giving livestock this particular type of medication, and when the livestock died, vultures would eat the carcass, so it was poisoning the vultures. Anyway, their vulture populations dropped by 99%, and then the government figured out what was happening. Vets started changing their medication. By that time it was too late. Half a million people in India died as a result of the vulture population declined and it cost the government, I think, something like $11 billion. And that is because vultures are nature's cleanup crew. They stop the outbreak of deadly diseases. By eating carcasses they prevent outbreaks of rabies, and so when they weren't around anymore, diseases were spreading throughout India, and so now they have. You know, the populations are on the increase again, but that's just one example of why we need to give more attention to ugly animals, anyway.
Natalie:So I wanted to create Tinder for ugly animals, where I would use an ugly animal like a vulture, and it would look like a Tinder profile for the animal and it would state you know what it was and you know its hobbies and things like that, and I would match that animal with a high profile person. So, for example, I had a picture of a blobfish and I would match that with Prime Minister Albanese and the hope was that Prime Minister Albanese would then. The hope was that Prime Minister Albanese would then reshare it that he matched with the blobfish and then raise awareness for the blobfish, and you know it would be his fun. So his Tinder match page would be with the blobfish, would also be a fundraiser for the blobfish. So that was my idea. I mean I still might launch it one day, but it was a bit of a gimmicky awareness-raising thing, with the hope of directing attention towards ugly animals that play an incredibly vital role in our world, but also giving them some funding too.
Ben:Fun and funding. I want to turn back to you and just what keeps you going so in 2016, you said two of the biggest challenges to success are feeling overwhelmed by the global atrocities that are occurring around the world, and feeling insecure and being riddled with self-doubt. But I have learned to welcome these challenges and stay true to my beliefs. I wouldn't say the world's got any less overwhelming in recent times, so has that changed for you, or is it still true? And what are the places you find hope in?
Natalie:Yeah, the world, oh God, it's gotten so much worse, even since I said that I still get really overwhelmed, especially in the last year, Even after writing my book. Writing my book, I felt a great sense of hope. And then things changed in the world. New leaders were elected and I really, really struggled to feel hope. I didn't know. I still don't know where we're headed. But I mean, I'm still here and I wouldn't be here if I didn't have hope. I wouldn't be here promoting my book if I didn't think we could still make a difference.
Natalie:So I'm also really privileged that I get to talk to people every day who are some of the most incredible, kind, wonderful people making a real difference in the world. So I am exposed to a lot of really positive stories. There are so many people who actually just go about their jobs. It's not on social media, they just go about their jobs quietly, changing the world really, and it's everything. So I get hope from even if it's going to a small cafe in a country town. You meet people who are just kind and generous and treat people well. Or I talk to scientists who have been, you know, spending years studying something so the world can understand birds better, or talking to conservationists who are up all night, you know, trying to solve a key environmental challenge. So those things give me a lot of hope.
Natalie:But also I'm just, I'm very determined. I mean because, if this so what we're talking about essentially is whether we think this is the end of civilization. I don't think that yet. I think that we're a really unique species in that we're probably the only species on earth that actually argues over whether we should keep our own planet habitable. So I'm continuing to argue that, yes, we should keep it habitable, even though we probably don't deserve it. This is how we do it. So I still have hope. I'm digging deep right now. I think we're at probably one of the worst moments in history. But also, everybody I talk to is they're really wonderful people. It just so happens that there are some people in really powerful positions making terrible decisions that aren't in the best interests of communities or the planet, and they get a lot of attention. But I think most people, everyday people, they care about their community, they care about their kids, they want to do good in the world, and so I like to think about and focus on that.
Ben:Wonderful. I feel the same way. I find the same hope. I've got one last quote from you. At the end of the day, my goal is pretty simple to live a life that creates more good than harm. So I imagine there's quite a lot of people could relate to that. So how does someone out there thinking the same thing take a walk in your shoes and become the next Natalie?
Natalie:Well, I'm not sure if they should want to be the next Natalie. I'm quite underwhelming, I think. Just being a good person, staying true to yourself, don't be a wanker, it's not hard. Work smart and hard to try to make the world a better place. It's really simple.
Natalie:But my focus has been on the little things how you show up on a day-to-day basis. When you go to a coffee store in the morning, how do you treat the barista? Do you talk to the staff? When you walk down the street, do you smile at people? When you're walking down the beach, do you pick up litter? It's not hard. You can pick up someone else's litter. They're small habits. Can you donate to organizations, even if it's $2 a week? So it's those tiny things. How you talk to your neighbor, how you make people feel, how you show up for others. That's really, really important and for me, you do those things on a daily basis and they become a habit and then you can increase your ambition on them.
Natalie:You want to do more. You want to connect with your community more. Maybe you want to start a movement with your community. You want to pick up more rubbish. You want to donate more. You want to start your own initiative, whatever it might be, but I think it just starts with the simple I just. I want to donate more.
Natalie:You want to start your own initiative, whatever it might be, but I think it just starts with the simple I just.
Natalie:I want to be somebody that I'm proud of, that my parents are proud of. I want to be somebody that treats others with kindness and respect. I want to be somebody that can stop in the street and chat to a stranger and learn about their life. So I really do think that the easiest starting point is to just try to open your eyes to the world around you, or your community around you, and connect with them and try to be the best version of yourself in your daily interactions. Because the best version of yourself isn't just you know what sort of company you start. It's how you actually treat the person at the post office, or how you treat the waitstaff, or how you show up for your friends or your family, how you treat a dog on the street, whether you see an injured bird on the road and you stop to call someone. You know that can help them. So it's those little things. Start there and I think you'll find your way.
Ben:Fantastic. Thank you. You've been amazing to talk to. Before you go, let's find some places to send the listeners to. Where can they get your book?
Natalie:Oh yes, please buy my book. Actually, if you can buy multiple copies, that would be really helpful. So you can look up. Even if you just Google Nature's Last Dance, it will come up. You can get it from all stores, independent bookstores, you can get it from Gertrude and Alice. You can get it from Amazon, barnes, noble, all of those places. My website is nataliekiriakoucom.
Ben:Do you want to spell that out for them?
Natalie:N-A-T-A-L-I-E-K-Y-R-I-A-C-O-U, and I'm also on LinkedIn same spelling of the name and Instagram is nat underscore, Kiriakou so. But all of the details are on my website and I should pop up if you Google. Nature's Last Dance, which is my book. Wonderful Thank you very much. Thank you so much. I'm going to change this world today.
Ben:Make those bad things go away.
