WEBVTT 00:00:13.422 --> 00:00:21.703 My story begins in Zimbabwe, with a brave park ranger named Orpheus and an injured buffalo. 00:00:21.703 --> 00:00:26.297 And Orpheus looked at the buffalo on the ground, and he looked at me, 00:00:26.297 --> 00:00:31.020 and as our eyes met there was an unspoken grief between the three of us. 00:00:31.020 --> 00:00:41.500 She was a beautifully wild and innocent creature and Orpheus lifted the muzzle of his rifle to her ear [gunshot]. 00:00:41.500 --> 00:00:46.620 At that moment, she started to give birth. 00:00:46.620 --> 00:00:51.239 As life slipped from the premature calf, we examined the injuries. 00:00:51.239 --> 00:00:55.143 Her back leg had been caught in an 8-strand wire snare. 00:00:55.143 --> 00:01:01.421 She had fought for freedom so hard and for so long that she had ripped he pelvis in half. 00:01:01.421 --> 00:01:04.897 Well, she was finally free. 00:01:04.897 --> 00:01:10.421 Ladies and gentlemen, today I feel a great sense of responsibility in speaking to you 00:01:10.421 --> 00:01:12.580 on behalf of those who never could. 00:01:12.580 --> 00:01:19.462 Their suffering is my grief. Is my motivation. 00:01:19.462 --> 00:01:25.581 Martin Luther King best summarizes my call to arms here today. He said: 00:01:25.581 --> 00:01:31.907 'There comes a time when one must take a position that's neither safe, nor politic, nor popular. 00:01:31.907 --> 00:01:37.260 But he must take that position because his conscience tells him that it's right.' 00:01:37.260 --> 00:01:42.572 Because his conscience tells him it is right. 00:01:42.572 --> 00:01:45.943 At the end of this talk I'm going to ask you all a question. 00:01:45.943 --> 00:01:50.783 That question is the only reason I travelled here today all the way from the African savannah. 00:01:50.783 --> 00:01:54.341 That question for me has cleansed my soul. 00:01:54.341 --> 00:01:58.661 How you answer that question will always be yours. 00:01:58.661 --> 00:02:02.061 I remember watching the movie The Wizard of Oz as a young kid, 00:02:02.061 --> 00:02:05.744 and I was never scared of the witch or the flying monkeys. 00:02:05.744 --> 00:02:10.581 My greatest fear was that I'd grow up like the lion, without courage. 00:02:10.581 --> 00:02:14.743 And I grew up always asking myself if I thought I'd be brave? 00:02:14.743 --> 00:02:21.380 Well, years after Dorothy had made her way back to Kansas, and the lion had found his courage, 00:02:21.380 --> 00:02:23.660 I walked into a tattoo parlour and had the words 00:02:23.660 --> 00:02:26.700 'Seek and Destroy' tattooed across my chest. 00:02:26.700 --> 00:02:29.989 And I thought that'd make me big and brave. 00:02:29.989 --> 00:02:33.539 But it would take me almost a decade to grow into those words. 00:02:33.539 --> 00:02:36.422 By the age of 20 I'd become a clearance diver in the navy. 00:02:36.422 --> 00:02:43.700 By 25, as a special operations sniper, I knew exactly how many clicks of elevation I needed on the scope of my rifle 00:02:43.700 --> 00:02:48.461 to take a headshot on a moving target from 700 metres away. 00:02:48.461 --> 00:02:52.702 I knew exactly how many grams of high explosives it takes to blast through a steel plate door 00:02:52.702 --> 00:02:57.073 from only a few metres away without blowing myself, or my team up behind me. 00:02:57.073 --> 00:03:01.907 and I knew that Baghdad was a shitty place, and when things go bang, 00:03:01.907 --> 00:03:04.906 well, people die. 00:03:04.906 --> 00:03:07.460 Back then, I had no idea what a conservationist did, 00:03:07.460 --> 00:03:11.621 other than hug trees and piss off large corporations. [audience laughter] 00:03:11.621 --> 00:03:12.742 I knew they had dreadlocks. 00:03:12.742 --> 00:03:14.861 I knew they smoked dope. 00:03:14.861 --> 00:03:19.323 I didn't really give a shit about the environment. And why should I? 00:03:19.323 --> 00:03:23.821 I was the idiot who used to speed up in his car just trying to hit birds on the road. 00:03:23.821 --> 00:03:26.990 My life was a world away from conservation. 00:03:26.990 --> 00:03:29.317 I'd just spent nine years doing things in real life most people 00:03:29.317 --> 00:03:32.943 wouldn't dream of trying on a playstation. 00:03:32.943 --> 00:03:39.820 Well, after 12 tours to Iraq as a so-called 'mercenary', the skills I had were good for one thing: 00:03:39.820 --> 00:03:43.150 I was programmed to destroy. 00:03:43.150 --> 00:03:49.233 Looking back now, on everything I've done and the places I've been, 00:03:49.233 --> 00:03:53.542 in my heart I've only ever performed one true act of bravery. 00:03:53.542 --> 00:03:59.102 And that was a simple choice of deciding 'Yes' or deciding 'No'. But it was that one act 00:03:59.102 --> 00:04:01.780 which defines me completely and ensures there'll 00:04:01.780 --> 00:04:06.381 never be separation between who I am, and what I do. 00:04:06.381 --> 00:04:08.981 When I finally left Iraq behind me I was lost. 00:04:08.981 --> 00:04:12.102 Yeah, I felt...ahh...I just had no idea where i was going 00:04:12.102 --> 00:04:18.102 in life or where I was meant to be and I arrived in Africa at the beginning of 2009. I was aged 29 at the time. 00:04:18.102 --> 00:04:23.740 Somehow, I always knew I'd find a purpose amongst chaos, and that's exactly what happened. 00:04:23.740 --> 00:04:29.540 I'd no idea though, I'd find it in a remote part of the Zimbabwe bush. 00:04:29.540 --> 00:04:32.234 We were patrolling along, and the vultures circled in the air 00:04:32.234 --> 00:04:37.317 and as we got closer the stench of death hung there, in the air like a thick, dark veil 00:04:37.317 --> 00:04:40.863 and sucked the oxygen out of your lungs. 00:04:40.863 --> 00:04:48.661 And as we got closer there was a great bull elephant, resting on its side, with its face cut away. 00:04:48.661 --> 00:04:52.937 And the world around me stopped. 00:04:52.937 --> 00:04:56.458 I was consumed by a deep and overwhelming sadness. 00:04:56.458 --> 00:05:00.400 Seeing innocent creatures killed like this hit me in a way like nothing before. 00:05:00.400 --> 00:05:03.702 I'd actually poached as a teenager and they're memories I'll take to the grave. 00:05:03.702 --> 00:05:05.857 Time had changed me though; 00:05:05.857 --> 00:05:08.582 something inside wasn't the same. 00:05:08.582 --> 00:05:12.581 And it's never gonna be again. 00:05:12.581 --> 00:05:18.400 I asked myself: 'Does that elephant need its face 00:05:18.400 --> 00:05:21.316 more than some guy in Asia needs a tusk on his desk?' 00:05:21.316 --> 00:05:23.983 Well of course it bloody does, that was irrelevant. 00:05:23.983 --> 00:05:27.541 All that mattered there and then was: 00:05:27.541 --> 00:05:33.220 'Would I be brave enough to give up everything in my life to try and stop the suffering of animals?' 00:05:33.220 --> 00:05:36.383 This was the one true defining moment of my life. 00:05:36.383 --> 00:05:38.341 Yes? Or No? 00:05:38.341 --> 00:05:42.620 I contacted my family the next day and began selling all my houses. 00:05:42.620 --> 00:05:46.182 These are assets a well-advised mercenary quickly acquires with the proceeds of war. 00:05:46.182 --> 00:05:51.861 My life savings have since been used to found and grow the International Anti-Poaching Foundation. 00:05:51.861 --> 00:05:56.941 The IAPF is a direct-action, law-enforcement organisation. 00:05:56.941 --> 00:06:01.067 From drone technology to an international qualification for rangers, 00:06:01.067 --> 00:06:04.060 we're battling each and every day to bring military solutions 00:06:04.060 --> 00:06:07.022 to conservation's thin green line. 00:06:07.022 --> 00:06:09.381 Now my story may be slightly unique, 00:06:09.381 --> 99:59:59.999 but I'm not going to use it to talk to you today about the organisation I run. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In what probably could have been a pretty good fund-raiser. [audience laughter] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Remember, today is about the question I'm going to ask you at the end. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Because it's impossible for me to get up here and talk about just saving wildlife when I know 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the problem of animal welfare is much broader throughout society. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A few years after I saw that elephant I woke up very early one morning. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I already knew the answer to the question I was about to ask myself, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but it was the first time I had put it into words: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Does a cow value its life more than I enjoy a barbecue? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 See, I'd been guilty all this time of what is termed 'speciesism'. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Speciesism is very much the same as racism or sexism. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It involves the allocation of a different set of values, rights or special considerations to individuals, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 based solely on who or what they are. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The realisation of the flexible morality I'd used 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to suit my everyday conveniences made me sick in the stomach. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 See, I'd loved blaming parts of Asia for their insatiable demand for ivory and rhino horn, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the way the region's booming economic growth 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is dramatically increasing the illegal wildlife trade. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When I woke up that morning though I realised 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 even though I'd dedicated my life to saving animals, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in my mind I was no better than a poacher, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or the guy in Asia with a tusk on his desk. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 As this 'over-consumptive meat-eater' I'd referred to some animals as 'beasts'. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 when in reality I'd been the beast. Destructively obedient, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a slave to my habits, a cold shoulder to my conscience. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We've all had contact with pets or other animals in our lives. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we can't deny our understanding of the feelings that each animal has. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The ability to suffer pain or loneliness. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And to fear. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Like us also, each animal has the ability to express contentment, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to build family structures, and a want of satisfying basic instincts and desires. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For many of us though, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that's as far as we allow our imagination to explore 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 before the truth inconveniences our habits. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The disconnect that exists between consuming a product 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the reality it takes to bring that product to market is a phenomenon to itself. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Animals are treated like commodities and referred to as property. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We call it murder to kill a human being yet create legal 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and illegal industries out of what would be regarded as torture 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 if humans were involved. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and we pay people to do things to animals 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that none of us would engage in personally. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Just because we don't see it up close 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 does not mean we are not responsible. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Peter Singer, the man who popularised the term 'speciesism' wrote: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 'Although there may be differences between animals and humans 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they each share the ability to suffer. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And we must give equal consideration to that suffering. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Any position that allows similar cases to be treated in a dissimilar fashion 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 fails to qualify as an acceptable moral theory.' 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Around the world this year 65 billion animals will be killed in factory farms. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 How many animals' lives is one human's life worth? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A meat-eater in this room will consume, on average, 8000 animals in their lifetime. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Ocean pollution, global warming and deforestation are 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 driving us towards the next great mass-extinction 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the meat industry is the greatest negative factor in all of these phenomenon. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The illegal trafficking of wildlife now ranks as one of the largest criminal industries in the world. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's up there with drugs, guns and human trafficking. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The ability to stop this devastation 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 lies in the willingness of an international community 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to step in and preserve a dying global treasure. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Experimentation on animals: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If animals are so like us that we can substitute using them instead of humans 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 then surely they have the very same attributes that mean they deserve to be protected from harm? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Whether we're talking about factory farming, live export, poaching, the fur trade, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 logically it's all on the same playing field to me. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Suffering is suffering, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and murder is murder. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And the more helpless the victim, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the more horrific the crime. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Now next time you think an animal lover is too emotional, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 too passionate, or even a little crazy, please remember 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we see things through a different lens. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So in a few days, my son is going to be born. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I find myself wondering: 'What kind of a world is he entering?' 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Are we going to be the generation that defines our failure as a species? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I believe our generation will be judged 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 by our moral courage to protect what's right. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that every worthwhile action requires a level of sacrifice 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Well I now offer myself, without reservation, to animals. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And when I strip away all the material belongings around me, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I see that I too, am an animal. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We're family. Together on one planet. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And of the five million species on that planet, only one 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 has the power to determine what level of suffering is acceptable 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for all other sentient beings to endure. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Whether it's eating less meat, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 contributing to the fight against poaching, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or speaking up for the voiceless, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we all have choices. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And small changes in our lives 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 mean big changes in others. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So now back to the beginning. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 My reason for being here is my question for you: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Next time you have an opportunity to make a difference for animals, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 will you be brave enough? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Yes or no?