There Will Be Dancing
Courage, care, and climate leadership worth dancing for.
There Will Be Dancing is a podcast from Women’s Environmental Leadership Australia (WELA), amplifying the voices and leadership of women and gender-diverse changemakers working for our climate and environment.
Taking its name from the idea that movements for change must leave room for joy, the podcast weaves together personal stories, creative contributions, and thoughtful conversations to show that leadership can be hopeful, collaborative, and deeply human.
Across each episode, you’ll hear from experienced leaders and emerging voices challenging outdated norms and creating new pathways for climate and environmental action.
There Will Be Dancing
Under the Sea with Yolanda Waters
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What would it take to make the climate movement as diverse as the country it's trying to protect — and what are we missing if we don't?
In this episode of There Will Be Dancing, Victoria, Odette and Sanaya sit down with special guest Yolanda Waters — founder of Divers for Climate Action, PhD researcher in marine social science and a rising voice at the intersection of ocean conservation, climate communication and cultural inclusion.
Yolanda's path to ocean advocacy began not with a lifelong love of the sea, but with a reckoning: standing on a tourist boat at the Great Barrier Reef, unable to answer the big questions visitors kept asking her. That frustration — and one very honest rant on the internet — sparked the community that became Divers for Climate.
Together, they explore what it really means to communicate climate change with nuance in a world that demands a 30-second reel, why Australia's climate movement is missing one in three Australians, and how bridging the gap between marine conservation and climate action could change everything. They also dig into the very real, very messy experience of building an organisation from scratch — and why Yolanda says it makes her PhD look easy.
This episode also features a deeply moving contribution from Bianca McNeair - a meditation on grief, country, and the profound responsibility of listening, told through the experience of a group of Malgana women monitoring nesting loggerhead turtles.
We hope this conversation leaves you feeling connected to our oceans, to each other, and to the many different ways there are to show up for this work.
Connect with Yolanda on Instagram @yolandaleewaters and @diversforclimate. Learn about the Divers for Climate Summer of Solidarity crowd fundraiser that aims to raise the capital to support a delegation of divers and tourism operators to Parliament in 2026.
Connect with Bianca on Linkedin and Instagram
Our Hosts:
- Victoria McKenzie-McHarg (CEO, WELA) - A strategic leader with decades of experience in climate and environmental advocacy.
- Odette Barry (Founder, Odette & Co) - A storyteller and PR expert teaching changemakers how to tell their story.
- Sanaya Khisty (Head of Strategy and Government Relations, 5B) - A policy and advocacy leader working in clean tech on climate solutions.
Follow us on socials (@therewillbedancingpod):
Want to learn more about WELA? Visit wela.org.au and find us on Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook
This episode is proudly supported by Women's Agenda, helping to amplify essential conversations at the intersection of environment, gender, and leadership.
Welcome to There Will Be Dancing, a podcast that amplifies the voices of women and gender-diverse change makers protecting our environment and climate. I'm your host, Victoria Mackenzie McCart, and I'm joined by co-hosts Jeff Barry and Samatica Kisting. Early 20th century political activist Emma Goldman once said, if I can't dance, I don't want to be part of revolution. And we use this to remind ourselves and you, our dealers, that embracing joy amidst the turbulence of change making takes real courage and commitment. So let's have some fun. We acknowledge and pay our respects to the traditional custodians and storytellers of these labs. And pay special recognition for the Bundle of Nations and Wundering County where this podcast is created. This podcast is by Women's Environmental Leadership Australia. And our thanks to Women's Agenda for supporting these essential conversations about the environment, gender, and leadership. The theme of our episode today is leadership for our oceans. And this I think came up as a theme early on because A, it's been a huge year for our oceans and it's a very topical discussion at the moment. But also it's a theme that doesn't get enough visibility. We forget just how important this is. So I'm really excited to hear from hear from our guests today.
SPEAKER_01It's funny that you say that, Vic, because I really don't know very much at all about our oceans. And I remember going to a talk many years ago and hearing that when we talk about the the number of degrees warming, we're actually talking about that as an ocean temperature, not on land. And so the degree warming on land is far higher than it is when we're talking about 1.5 or 2 degrees. Um and that really for me cemented how important oceans are. But I really just don't know that much. So I'm very excited to talk to Yolanda today.
SPEAKER_04Whereas I don't I think you live by the ocean, don't you?
SPEAKER_03I I I live by the ocean, but like funny story, growing up I hated the beach. Like hated it. I hated sand, I hated seaweed, jellyfish, everything about it. And it really was a very late-in-life awakening to just letting go of those fears and actually connecting with the absolute joy and beauty. Low-key, I went on a school camp, total acknowledgement of a privilege, up on the barrier reef, and we had to go snorkeling every day. And I use the word had because that's how it felt for me. I was terrified of the fish and the clams and everything. We had to do a nighttime dive with just the beam of your torch, and it's probably the scariest experience of my life. Whereas now there's nothing I enjoy more than a dip in the ocean, and I still am absolutely terrified when I do my bay swim.
SPEAKER_01The nighttime dive is the reason that I didn't get my masters of open water. It was the one dive I didn't do because I was just too scared.
SPEAKER_03It's terrifying. It is genuinely terrifying. I feel like there's a very unique subset of humans that can reconcile those fears. I just w am so fascinated by cave divers and those um guys that did the rescue of the young children in the cave. I I reckon I've re watched like six different documentaries on that. Like I cannot get enough of the level of terror that they are okay with.
SPEAKER_04Well, our next guest may well be one of these people who is very down with this. Um, we are about to welcome onto the show Yolanda Waters, who is the founder of Divers for Climate. So very much in the dive world. And let's make sure we ask her about whether this underwater nighttime diving gig is where she's at. Um, Yolanda has spent her twenties as an advocate, a champion, and an educator for the oceans. She got her PhD just recently in marine social science and has created this fabulous new nonprofit, Divers for Climate. She's not only helped facilitate the ever-growing contingent of climate activists in the diving world, but also helped carve out a space for women and women of colour environmentalists, encouraging them to use their voice. And we are thrilled to be welcoming Yolanda onto the show today to talk about our ocean. Hi, Yolanda. It's wonderful to have you on the show. Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. We have met before. We've had the pleasure of working together through Weller, and I know you're an alum of one of our programs, and I have seen you speak at one of our events. And if you ever get the chance to see Yolanda speaking, I recommend it. Definitely next level. But I don't think you have met um my co-hosts, Sanaya and Odette. It's lovely to meet you.
SPEAKER_03I feel like we've been stalking the bejesus out of you online. So I'm having a low-key love affair with your social media content.
SPEAKER_04You have become a really powerful voice for our oceans um through your work in the last couple of years. But how did you start into this space? How did you find that connection and love for our oceans and realize that you had a voice to be sharing here?
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you for saying that. Um that means a lot because it's been a journey. But yeah, I guess my journey with the ocean has been a long one. I I think people expect me to say, like, oh, I just have been in love with the ocean since I was a child. Um, but I actually hated the ocean growing up, hated it. I grew up on the Central Coast, so like an hour and north of Sydney. Um grew up going to beaches, but just was scared of like everything. Everything sharks, sand, seaweed, fish, waves, all the things. There's like photos of me on family holidays just looking so upset. Because I was like, I do not want it, did not make me go in the ocean. And so yeah, it actually wasn't until after I finished my first my undergraduate degree, which was not had absolutely nothing to do with the oceans um at all. My stepmother and my dad were like, why don't you go go do something totally different? Go live in Cairns, go, why don't you go see the Great Barrier Reef? And I was like, well, you know what? I've got why not? And so I did. I moved up up here um and I started working out on the boats. I started doing my dive master traineeship um and just being out on the reef every single day, and it was the best time of my entire life, and it's uh I still don't even have words to describe it. It was just like you get to see this place every day, so you get to see the best of it. It's just such a different spirit up here, and I think that really started my connection with the ocean.
SPEAKER_03Can I ask a really really dumb question here? There's there's no dumb questions when you say working on the boats, what does that mean? Because like I'm embarrassed to admit that like I'm a really big below deck fan, and I'm just wondering, are we talking?
SPEAKER_02Like below deck. Like, are you reality drama similar to be honest? It's like but below deck, but like the the hostile version. Think of it that way. Um it's like working on the the the day trips and some liverboards out here, so just like the tourist boats that take you out to the Great Barrier Reef. So they take some between an hour and a half to two hours to get out there. Um so yeah, just working on the day boats um and showing people the reef for the first time. Everything I've done since then, like seven years ago, has come from this experience. You're interacting with strangers from around the world every day, and they have a lot of questions about the reef because they've seen it in the news. Um, and they're huge questions, like what's happening to the Great Bear Reef? Is there a future for the Great Bear Reef? And I just struggled with that conversation a lot, and I found myself giving answers that I wasn't happy with. Like, it's gonna be okay, just don't throw rubbish in the water, don't touch things, it'll be fine. But like me having you know general climate anxiety, I was like, that's the wrong, that's that that can't, there has to be a better conversation. Um, and so I kind of started going down that rabbit hole, and that's taken me on all kinds of journeys.
SPEAKER_04One of those journeys was towards actually starting your own not-for-profit, and you founded Divers for Climate. Why did you see that that was needed?
SPEAKER_02Divers for Climate, it started as a cry for help because I was really struggling with these conversations and wasn't really finding anyone who could help with answers. Like I did my instructor course, and there's a whole conservation component. And I was like, Oh, how do we talk about climate change? And they I just didn't clearly remember them being like, Oh, we don't, you know, it's not really for us to say. Like, it's not really what we do. We focus on what we can do physically on the dive sites like restoration, cleanup, turtle conservation. And I was like, Yeah, but I've got hundreds of people asking about climate change every day. How do I do that? And it just there just wasn't an answer. And then on the other side, I had friends in the climate world who really had never dealt with marine things before. So I was just kind of struggling bringing these two worlds together. And so there's this platform called Girls at Scuba, and I was friends with the girls that ran it, and it's not Nash Nash international platform for women who dive. Um, because it's a very male-dominated space. Um, and I asked, I was talking to them and I asked them if I could make a video because they had this conservation series. It's basically me ranting on the internet, so where all good things start. And I just had this chat about why is climate and marine so separate? Like, what is what is going on? Has anybody felt this before? And from that video, so many people reached out to be like, I've had the same problem. And we just started chatting, and that was Divus Reclimate, the first iteration of Divus Reclimate. We just kind of were like, oh, well, let's let's just let's just have the conversation that everyone seems to be too scared to have. And so we brought in speakers to be like, what are the intersections of marine conservation, climate action, and diving? Like what you know, what we all love and have in common.
SPEAKER_04It's so important to just show what one person asking a question is capable of creating.
SPEAKER_01And I love that it was started from a bunch of women who were talking about a passion that they loved. Like that's all good.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, pretty much these days. What is Divers for Climate um working on at the moment? Like, what does day-to-day look like for you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we started the year with like um getting a national survey done, the first ever survey that's been done of experiences of climate change underwater. We have a thousand people from across every state in Australia tell us about what they'd seen, how they'd felt, how it's impacted them, and what kind of action they'd like to see, which was really powerful to read through those responses, and we're gonna publish that soon. And we're just kind of working on building the story because like the narrative of the Great Barrier Reef and and oceans around Australia is they're all doomed. And while the trend might be negative for sure, that's not a narrative that really serves anyone. And from my my research background, like it's it's not a narrative that serves the Australian public either. It's it's not an inspiring narrative for action, it's just not working. The real conversation is so nuanced, but nuance doesn't sell, nuance doesn't happen in 30 seconds.
SPEAKER_03I feel like that's something that you've you've become really quite excellent at. And you know, I I think there's probably something that I see in these conversations very often is working with academics and the depth of nuance and then the challenge of delivering that to social media, but you've actually become quite savvy um at producing a 30-second reel. How do you navigate that frustration of spending months or years doing a PhD versus like perhaps reaching more people but at a lot less depth through a 30-second reel?
SPEAKER_02I actually got asked this the other day because I was at a conference and I was presenting basically I presented a talk saying that we have not yet figured out how to communicate marine crisis events, like coral bleaching, we have not figured it out. The algal bloom in South Australia, we well, it's new, but we're not even close to having a good message about it. Um, and somebody asked, like, okay, well, what's the best 30-second message? If you if you're working on a boat, you've got 30 seconds before you have to do something else. What is it? And I was like, that there is no perfect message. It's like communication's not a one-way transfer of knowledge that happens. Communication's a process and it's dynamic, and to try and think of it like that 30 seconds, your goal is to get the next two minutes. Like, is to get the next conversation, is to open up this safe space to explore difficult questions and topics because there's such fear around even opening the conversation for climate, particularly in tourism, that it's just been avoided. And it's not for a lack of concern, it's not for lack of passion, it's just this like it's so tricky. So if that 30 seconds can open something new, and that's what I find with social media, it's like breaking through some of that to be like, actually, it's fine to talk about, don't worry about it. And but obviously, social media misses a lot of that nuance, and I do always get comments that are like, oh, but what about this? And you're like, Well, what about it? Like, let's let's talk about it. Thank you for asking.
SPEAKER_03I always think about those 30-second moments, is that you have to publish 11,000 30-second moments so that you can go, oh, just go and watch that other video that I created on that particular topic.
SPEAKER_01You also mentioned that survey that you've just done of the dive community, and I'm wondering if you can share a bit about the results of that and whether it did touch on anything related to the tourism points that you mentioned.
SPEAKER_02So, really, really experienced bunch of divers from every state in the country, and the results were honestly it's really depressing. Um, but like pretty powerful. Like those people all provided a written response, like a qualitative, this is how this is what I've seen, this is how I've felt, this is how it's impacted me. Um, and they're just such profound stories, and I think stories that nobody would have ever heard before. And like, yes, people, coral bleachings it was a popular one and an obvious one because it's what everyone's is familiar with. But some of them, those underwater stories and the way people have watched their dive sites change are incredible, and not just like in terms of marine life, what's happening underwater, but like the days you can go out on a boat, the days that are safe to go out in a boat, um, after a flooding event, the visibility, the the safety concerns for like um what's in the water, um, and just like to really personal stories, like people who've made friends with anemones and octopuses and noticed their behaviors changing, or like tropical species being where they shouldn't, or just like I learned so much. I learned there'd been a whale shark found down near Bateman's Bay earlier this year, which I didn't know, which is very, very far off course for a whale shark. Um, but just what people are noticing in their in their local dive sites, sites that if you if you weren't in them every day, I mean, I I believe that these people know our oceans more than scientists do. Um, it's just such deep-lived experience, and I think it's so powerful to bring that to the surface, which is what we hope to do when we finally launch the results, when we finally finished writing the report.
SPEAKER_04With everything you've learned along that pathway, what are your thoughts on how we need to better improve climate conversations and support people to talk confidently about climate change?
SPEAKER_02People find it hard to talk about because people don't quite understand the solutions. And so we've kind of flipped the conversation now to be like, okay, okay, we know that it's changing, we know it's changing, and there's, but we don't know how it's how much it's gonna change. We don't know which of these many futures we're gonna go down. So the best thing we can do is prepare for all of them and to be open to the conversation, what if we go down this one? You know, what if we advocate for not the worst case scenario, but what happens if we do go down that way? And like, how can we be prepared and to be like, we don't have the solutions either, but we we know that we're all in a similar place, we're feeling the same way, and we love the same thing. So let's just go from there.
SPEAKER_04I think there's a real integrity in that. It's it's not easy. There aren't simple solutions and there aren't simple messages, and it is part of the challenge that we face in a world that wants everything to be social media ready, um, to be digestible, is the reality that this is complex work and it's it is very hard and it is emotional work. Um, and I think just recognizing that is really powerful.
SPEAKER_01I work in renewables, and I'm really curious about whether from all of your work, like have you had a conversation since doing your PhD and kind of putting into practice some of the things that you've learned that really sticks out in your mind about how you can change people's thinking or just connect with people differently?
SPEAKER_02The main finding was was that kind of what I just said before, like people don't they don't connect the problem to actions and they don't connect themselves to the bigger solution. Like there's just this huge missing piece between us that we call it the attitude action gap, and like this, and that's the majority of Australians at the moment, not just people on the reef, but the reef that that gap is quite profound because the passion and concern is quite profound. So much of the commons is not focused on helping people find their place in the solution, or just like connecting. Like, for example, up here on the Great Bay Reef, there's so much great conservation work going on, so many amazing projects, so much work to protect our local sites. Um, and it's really is heartbreaking to watch when there's so much effort put into those, and then a bleaching event comes through, and everyone's like, oh, but climate action, everything else doesn't matter, because then you kind of undermine a lot of that work that's been done. And so we're kind of trying to open up the conversation, like, how does all that work? And this is where we hope diverse the role that diabetes for climate can play. Can we bridge all those conversations about all the work that's being done? But meanwhile, all those folk know that if we don't get emissions in check, like that that really does have an impact on the work they're doing. So they all want this bigger picture solution as well. Generally, I do feel the conversations changing, and I feel them changing within some of the marine and climate spaces more broadly as well. Um, but it's just it's just slow, I suppose.
SPEAKER_01Yolanda, you've talked so so well and beautifully about the actual work that you are doing to create change, but you have also started an organization. So what has that been like? Because that is a pretty big thing to do.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say horrible, but that's a lie. Um, it's been a journey. I come from startup life.
SPEAKER_03Yolanda, I have big hard relate on the hecticness of it all.
SPEAKER_02How do you do it? I find myself every day being like, why, why, why am I doing this? Um, but then something good happens. You just get more resilient every day.
SPEAKER_03I remember someone saying to me um many moons ago, I'm in my tenth year, and I remember asking a friend who was further along the journey how they endured the chaos. And they said, Oh, it doesn't become any less of a roller coaster, you get better at riding it. And I've always sort of kept that in mind.
SPEAKER_02Honestly, I say this often and I joke, but I'm I'm dead serious. Like, it makes the PhD look easy. Like nothing prepares you for the the just like it's such a learning as you go, you throw it into the fire, all the skills, like yeah, like I think a lot of the steps of the setting up the organization, like from things like you know, governance and finance, which I've have zero experience in, um, to fundraising, which is a whole world that I just like money makes me cringe, but I'm starting to learn what you kinda need it. So, because we were volunteer run for until this year, so and now I'm like, oh now we need to keep finding it, and just learning the world of philanthropy and just all these different worlds um which require certain skills to navigate, and I just keep having my mind blown all the time, and then yeah, and just trying to, but also like to keep a foot on the ground and make sure we're doing the work and make sure we're still connecting genuinely with the people that we're trying to help represent. Um, it's just a lot of wearing, I'm sure you were all very familiar, wearing a lot of hats and trying to figure out. People always ask me, like, oh, what have you been up to? What are you doing? I'm like, I don't know. I have no idea. It's just like, yeah, going from thing to thing.
SPEAKER_04Of course we don't know. You're creating a new organization and it's it's in a whole new space dealing with a challenge we're not familiar with, and that is at a scale we're not familiar with. It's a big, it's a big thing you're taking on. It's um it's really impressive.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's it's it's not we're I think we're coming to a new chapter now that we've just got a whole a new board of directors, and we've just we've got our new strategic plan, which we hadn't had a strategic plan before, like it's been a whole year of kind of pulling that together. Um I guess because we really want to be still community-led, like our roots were community, and so we want to maintain that, and so just to to accurately represent people just takes a bit longer because it takes a lot more conversations and relationship building and trust building. It's really interesting because like the community world is something that I under I feel like I understand. But this, like, we're in the definitely in this next chapter now. I think we've got this little hurdle to go over, and then we're in the next, the next iteration of diabos for climate, which is really exciting but really terrifying at the same time because we're kind of yeah, always making sure we have that community piece, but knowing that we kind of have to start moving forward at some point. Um, and just yeah, it's just been an ongoing learning journey of feeling like I have no idea what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_01So I used to work in climate advocacy, and there are not that many people who look like us doing the work. So I'm just curious about how you've navigated. Interesting.
SPEAKER_02Um, yeah. Yeah. So my other role is with the Multicultural Leadership Initiative, and the whole um our whole mission is to build a climate movement that it actually reflects the diversity of Australia, because Australia, one in three Australians are cultural and linguistically diverse. The climate movement currently, I think the stat is 50% of all environmental organizations in Australia have no people of colour or indigenous people in their team or board, which is wild. For a country where one in three people are diverse to have nobody, that's not by accident, that's an active choice. And so knowing those stats makes me feel a bit better because I was I had been feeling like there's just cultural nuance that like there's just things that you pick up on that you're like, oh, that makes me feel a bit weird. But it's fine, it's fine, it's how the movement worked because I haven't I'm relatively new to. And climate policy and politics. And I'm just like, oh, it's just how it works. It's fine. But I'm slowly learning that it's not fine. And that actually my experience is that oh no. And like I've been running with MLI these cross-cultural training courses, which are for the climate movement. And we it is not an anti-racism course, it's not a diversity, equity, inclusion course. It's an open conversation about are we reaching a diversity of people? Because even if you know, forget that it's just a good thing to do, if we want to win on climate, like if we want to get the public, the majority public support to build the political wheel to act faster, you need that one in three of Australians, which means you need to be able to connect with them. And a lot of the movement is not currently. And so I've been having these courses with them to walk through like, okay, who are we reaching? Who aren't we reaching? Could we think about it differently? Like, like thinking about the federal election, uh, there's a really great example from Asian Australians for climate solutions. And, you know, some of the tactics the movement uses, like core flute signs in front of houses, that they they had um, they were asked to get a bunch of them translated, for example, and pop and ask ethnic households to put them in front of their houses because a lot of the electorates in the federal election were very multicultural. And the feedback that they presented at a at a talk that I went to, um, and I hope they don't mind me sharing this because I just found it a really great example of of how you don't do communications and engagement work. Um people didn't want translated signs in front of their houses because it puts a big red step on your door that you're asking you. And so they were like, so it's just like, and I see that in the movement all the time. And people think that, you know, oh, we just, you know, it's not our it's not our fault that that people of colour or indigenous people aren't coming to us or joining the teams. Like it's like, no, no, it's it's not by accident. Like, if you want to increase diversity in the movement, you do have to act, you have to choose to, um, because it's not the norm for the movement, and I see that deeply. I saw that I went to a few climate conferences recently, and it's just yeah, I think you know it when you're and I'm I'm half like usually I I shouldn't be a diversity token because I'm only half Chinese, like I'm half super white, Western Sydney. So if I'm a diversity token, we've got a problem. Um, yeah, I don't know. It's it's it's very funny thinking about it because I've never thought about culture, like my personal culture as relevant to my work, but I'm starting to. And um my mother actually now works in the movement, and her work is to engage uh first generation Chinese migrants in climate change. And now working with her, that has been a really eye-opening experience for what the movement could look like if we really embraced diversity.
SPEAKER_04I think it's so important to recognize this is work to be done, not just, oh well, we can bolt this on or ask someone to translate something, but recognize a movement that represents uh or achieves the scale of change need we need has to be inclusive of everybody. And we've got to create actively pathways and open opportunities for that kind of inclusion, which means listening to different perspectives and different approaches as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think it I I think the scary thing is I think what the fear is is that if you do it properly, it might mean changing the way we do everything. And I think people like, you know, there's such an urgency and everyone's undercapacity and and you know under resource that the idea of we may have to change our tactics is quite um unknowing. Um but it might be the case, you know, if we're to really get there, it might be we need to communicate differently, we might need to choose different tactics. The strategy might need to change, for example. Um it's the same with up here in Tourism on the Reef. Like, you know, it we we may have to change the way we totally talk about and communicate these things, which is gonna take effort, yes. And so I think there's a fear there to be like like I think I think people know that we do have to change. It's just like a there needs to be active energy invested into it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think there's actually in the conversations that I've been in about this point, there is a real there's a real tension between the dominant thinking that okay, we have to go really fast, and that means we just have to kind of do what we have been doing, but bigger and faster and at a larger scale. Um, we don't have time to shift tactics and to to try and bring in um new people into this movement because that takes a really long time. But I think the way that I've heard that is you're you're sacrificing the scale and the impact that you can have by having this become a mainstream movement. And totally agree with you. Like it it is, it's not a warm and fuzzy thing, it's a practicality point about achieving the objectives. Um, but I yeah, I I'm really interested in how your mum got involved in this work. Is it kind of through the work that you did or like tell us that story?
SPEAKER_02No, it was during the elections. I think there was a there was a need for someone who could communicate to an older Chinese audience. And I don't know if you're familiar with a lot of, I don't know if other migrant networks, I'm starting to understand a lot of them do, but there's a lot of invisible networks, particularly in the older generation of migrants. Like, if you're not in it, you'll never find it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And so they needed, they really needed someone who could speak the languages and really understand how those networks work because the Chinese community in Australia are so unbelievably connected. They know their friends from kindergarten, primary school, from all different countries, I mean, all different cities in China, and they've got associations for all these alumni, and that they're so deeply connected, but you'll never find those groups if you're not, if you're an out, if you're on the outside. So they really needed someone who was in there and willing to learn about climate. And I was like, I know someone who would probably be amazing at that. And so mum was was so quick to put her hand up and like the original deal I had to do, we had to talk to be like, okay, mum, if we're in a meeting together, I'm not your daughter, we have to be colleagues. And she was like, Oh, whatever, you can't say that. And then in the meeting, I was like, Oh mum, and she was like, It's Hazel, actually. And there's just moments like that. Where I'm like, oh, okay, okay, this is gonna be interesting. But she's actually nailing it, like she's been on this climate journey all year, and she's been bringing these workshops and conversations to her community, and she's part of the Guant, the Australian Guanjo Association, and she's making sure they now have climate workshops, and she's trying to get that climate part of the strategy, and she's kind of making those connections, and now she's extremely interested in the energy transition, the collaboration between Australia and China, and it's just like watching her go on this journey and realize that you can that that it makes me like believe so deeply that there's a room for there's so many ways to be involved in this movement, and it doesn't look like what I think what what I pictured it look like before coming into it. Um, so I'm super proud of her. Um, she now does public speaking. Um, she held an event with 400 people the other day. And I if anyone's ever been to a Chinese event, like culturally, there there's not really like a stop talking when someone else is talking. So with a room of 400 people, was was absolute chaos. Um, but beautiful. And she she talked about climate, and yeah, it's been really special to work with Mum. Um interesting at times, but mostly special. We've got to get her on the pod.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I feel like Hazel's gonna make an appearance one day, and power to you, Hazel. Thank you for all that you are doing. Yeah, she would love that. God, so Yolanda, we know that this is really hard work. Um, and celebrating the joy that we find along the way is an equally big part of the work we have to do, and it's a really central focus of this podcast. So, my one of my most important questions, Yolanda, do you dance? What is one of your favorite dancing moments? And if you don't dance, what is your version of dancing?
SPEAKER_02I love dancing. Um, yeah. I don't know if I want to reveal my favorite dancing audience. Um no, I've been trying to What is your favorite dancing? Um well, no, I've been trying to go to do dancing more lately because I realize how much it how good it makes you feel and actually just releases so much energy. Like, um, because it used to be my only way of kind of finding joy and releasing that kind of negative energy was to be in the water, um, which not being in the industry anymore is actually really hard to dive. Um, so kind of relying on that experience opportunity was kind of like meaning I was putting it off, um, which, you know, as you know, is it's great when you're in this kind of world. You do need those moments. And so I found dancing, so I'm really into reggaeton. I'm really bad bunny is the love of my life. Love that. Um, and so I'm trying to learn to do dance like that terribly. Um, but it's a lot of fun. So um, and eventually want to get into more Latin dancing. There's literally, if you go on my Instagram feed right now, it's like politics, politics, ocean, ocean, how'd it work? Yes, yes, I'm here for I'm terrible, but I I learned that you don't act that anyone can do it, doesn't matter on your body type, and so I'm determined.
SPEAKER_04Well, Gilanda, thank you so much for sharing your story, your experience, your love of our oceans, and your passion for this change-making work. Um, I can see we are going to be hearing a lot more from you in the years ahead and from Hazel. And I am just so appreciative for you sharing your story and um can't wait to see what comes next.
SPEAKER_02No, thank you for the conversation and um listening to my ramblings. Thank you so much. I have absolutely loved listening to you.
SPEAKER_03It's been an absolute joy, and I think um I think I just particularly loved that you you fostered a connection with the ocean because I could really relate to that, and I think a lot of people that I know can relate to not not feeling like they've got a connection with the nature, and so they avoid it when actually it can be fostered with time spent together.
SPEAKER_04Well, that was a blast. She's fantastic, hey. What did you what did you think?
SPEAKER_01I could listen to her talk forever about all of those things. I learned so much. Um, yeah, just the I loved the nuance that she's bringing to the work and the way that she is weaving in people who have been disengaged from this kind of work, even though it is directly related to their business, um, all of the tourism operators, and just re-engaging them through divers is so important.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I it it's such a it's such a tricky conflict, the interests of everyone that have to be considered and the transition away from industries that potentially are compromised, and uh I I just yeah, it it I think it really brings home how important that relational leadership style is and and the listening and the slowing down. Like all of this is just landing. I feel like I'm coming on this journey of understanding how important that communication style is, and that that was really pertinent in that conversation for me. Also loved learning more about that like Chinese cultural um aspect to community building and and and change making. And yeah, I'm very I'm very curious to lean in more. I felt like there was 11,000 more questions that we could have deep dived on there, but like hearing about Hazel stepping up in front of a crowd of 400 people, I was like, that that is so deeply cool. And I I want to know what her mum was doing beforehand, like what like what led her to this point? It's super cool.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, Hazel's Hazel's got power moves for sure, and I really I liked the way um that or really appreciated the way that Yolanda was talking about um some of the feedback, and I think Sanaya you touched on this as well, that there's often this conversation that we don't have time to do the inclusion work well and to change to listen deeply and to change strategies for all sorts of different communities and interests. I think the reality is we don't have time not to do this work. If we're gonna get on with this job and make a uh a new future that has that works for everybody, this is the game. If we're gonna bring communities with us, this work is the game. And we've had that same feedback at Weller um in working with uh women and gender diverse people and looking to create more inclusion for diverse communities and for First Nations women leaders. And it it astounds me uh that anyone would think this isn't where we've got really big and important work to do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because it's the basis of of of building a social movement and taking it to the mainstream. It is it is it is bizarre that it's even a conversation, really.
SPEAKER_03Sanaya, you raised that question about um people who look like us. Is there some reflections for you on what your experience has been there?
SPEAKER_01I think Yolanda's story of how she got into this work is a really good example of a way that you broaden out the perspectives and the work that's being done to build that chorus. Like she uh almost obscurely, like she wasn't she got into yes, her dad was a scuba instructor, but she got into her love of oceans down the piece, and it was from an entirely different community direction of talking about her passion with others that that started, and now look at her mum and the work that she's doing. So like that is a perfect example of the difference between coming to this work um as a volunteer in a unique kind of you're in your uni days, and you've come in as a volunteer and and you know that because a bunch of your friends have done that, like it's the same types of people that end up working in these roles, and they are really important and it's needed. Uh, but like we've said a bunch of times, if we're going to build the movement and have climate action be something that is on the minds of everybody, you need all of those perspectives.
SPEAKER_04I also just really appreciated her honesty about how hard it is to start things and actually starting new there is I I think that sometimes people think there's you look at the number of organizations and community groups out there and think, yeah, that that's great, I'll just get on with that then. Actually, it's really hard. There's a lot to learn. Uh, and it takes a lot of courage, and we do need all these different voices and angles and perspectives, and there is no single magic formula. I really appreciated her honesty about those challenges.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's such a different skill set from the one that you are using to create the change that you want. It is it's completely different.
SPEAKER_04Because this is a community podcast, every episode has a contribution from our broader community. And today we are hearing from Bianca McNear, who is a Malgana woman from Shark Bay in Western Australia, reading a reflection called The Malgana Turtle Women. Her work highlights and celebrates the importance of Aboriginal women in her own community and beyond. And this piece is a very powerful reflection about a group of Malgana women working together to aid nesting loggerhead turtles and a meditation on the power of listening to country and the community around us.
SPEAKER_00Yandani, my name is Bianca McNear. I'm a Malgana woman from Kathaguru, otherwise known as Shark Bay in Western Australia. I want to share a story with you that's special to me about strong, gentle women, about loss, deep listening, and responsibility to country. After losing my mum, I felt a huge void in my heart. Losing mum was like losing a part of myself. And also my cultural elder was gone. No one to ask for guidance, no one to remind me of days gone by and the proper mulginal way of doing things. Mum had always taught me to listen deeply to country and people. So I knew my country and community could help me fill that void. When the opportunity came about to join a volunteer program to monitor nesting longer head turtles, I knew this was my chance to create something special for myself, my daughters, and all Mulgan women. In my country, the men had become very dominant. I knew I didn't want to work that way. So I sought out Malgana women from as many different families as I could. Numbers were limited to six, but I was able to include at least four different families. I spent a few months organizing our team of turtle women. We were all really excited at the chance to see so many female turtles nesting together. And also just to be able to go across to Wurdoana for a week. It is very hot at Wurdoana. No electricity, no running water, but a beautiful old lighthouse keeper's cottage to camp in. Wurdowana is a very special place for Mulgan people and holds important stories. It's a very harsh place, but also just as beautiful. You can feel the energy of the old people there, a place for deep listening. Every day we would swim, walk, fish, cook, clean, and make shell crafts, and spin yarns about the family. Only to pass the time until night when we'd go down to the beach to see the big loggerhead turtles, the big girls. Mulgan women take our cultural responsibilities very seriously. We know we have to be careful and respectful. So it was an honor to see these beautiful big girls, glistening shells, fresh out of the water, sometimes with a glint of bioluminescent on their back. We had to be very quiet, with no lights on, and walking all in a line behind each other. The stealth skills my sister Odessa had when she was sneaking up on a turtle was second to none. Real ninja stuff. We were on the most westerly point of Western Australia, with nothing but the moon and the stars for light, listening to the waves gently creep into shore, while fifty or so big girls made their way up and down the beach. We took pleasure in watching them carefully dig their nests, gently drop in the eggs, and then ever so thoughtfully covering the nests and pat down the sand. As women, we felt we had fulfilled a responsibility that was missing for us and for the big girls. Somehow, we'd miss them, and they had missed us. Every hour or so, we would stop and silently marvel at the beauty all around us, the dome of stars all around us, the sparkle of the moon on the water, the contrast of the white carry shells in the sand. In those moments, we were home, we were with our nanas who had come before us, and our nanas yet to come, and all our family members who had passed. We felt as though we were the little turtle eggs left on the beach alone to navigate a cruel world of ghost crabs, seagulls, unforgiving tides, and then all that the ocean has in store. Left, but with so much care, love, and thoughtfulness. In that moment, we knew we'd been left with everything we needed to survive, to thrive in a world as big as the ocean, to be guided by the moon and the stars. We knew they were waiting for us. We'd follow in their footsteps, always listening, always caring, always strong, and never really alone. And one day we'll find them again. Somewhere up there in the stars, they waited for us. While we stood there staring at the stars, we saw the faces of our beautiful nanas, the lines on their faces we'd studied so often in our youth, they were as clear as the stars above. We stood in silence, listening, seeing, waiting. In these moments, we don't talk, we just listen. It wasn't until we got back to camp that someone said, You know, when we were standing there on beach three looking at the stars, did you see what I saw? And then the Discussions began. We all saw our nanas from all our families, and we knew our job was done and that we had to continue this work for all Mulgan women and especially the loggerhead turtle big girls. As the sun came up, we yarned away, remembering our nanas and the gentle strength that they'd instilled in all of us.
SPEAKER_04I think the thing that um jumps out to me is, you know, towards the start when she was talking about you come back to in times of loss, you come back to community and to country. And I think that that this story is just such evidence of what that provides. And it's true. And you know, in tough times when you don't know where to go next and you don't know how we're gonna create the change or do the things we need to do, you've always got to come back to community and come back to country, come back to nature, and that that holds you. You're never alone if you've got that holding you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I feel like I live and breathe for community and connection so that any time that I hear the importance of community validated in story for moving through difficult moments like grief and collapse or whatever, it's it's a real balm to validate it.
SPEAKER_01The way that she so beautifully puts the awe-inspiring moments that they were able to capture um in their memories. I just love the idea and the the the image of seeing the bioluminescence on the backs of the turtles. That like it's the most magical thing um to think about and to have experienced that with other Molginal women really is something that you can kind of hold on to as your step forward out of loss.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I think like also the image of the turtle eggs being left on the beach is just so intensely like intensely felt.
SPEAKER_01And it and and she beautifully captures um the essence of the oceans and from a different way to the way that Yolanda spoke to us about it. Um, but there's that common thread of being there to witness and care.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. A huge thank you to Bianca for sharing your story with us uh and inspiring us today. If you have enjoyed this podcast, then please join us again next time. And please subscribe, share, tell your friends and your family. The links are in the show notes. Um, and you can also find out more about uh Yolanda's work uh in her Instagram account and also in the show notes. So get in there and check it out. Thank you, thanks, hello. Thank you to be letting me. Thank you to be a big deal.