Modern Warrior: Damien Mander at TEDxSydney
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0:13 - 0:22My story begins in Zimbabwe, with a brave park ranger named Orpheus and an injured buffalo.
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0:23 - 0:26And Orpheus looked at the buffalo on the ground, and he looked at me,
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0:26 - 0:31and as our eyes met there was an unspoken grief between the three of us.
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0:31 - 0:41She was a beautifully wild and innocent creature and Orpheus lifted the muzzle of his rifle to her ear [gunshot].
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0:42 - 0:46And at that moment, she started to give birth.
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0:47 - 0:51As life slipped from the premature calf, we examined the injuries.
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0:51 - 0:55Her back leg had been caught in an 8-strand wire snare.
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0:55 - 1:01She had fought for freedom so hard and for so long that she had ripped her pelvis in half.
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1:02 - 1:05Well, she was finally free.
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1:05 - 1:10Ladies and gentlemen, today I feel a great sense of responsibility in speaking to you
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1:10 - 1:13on behalf of those who never could.
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1:14 - 1:18Their suffering is my grief. Is my motivation.
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1:21 - 1:26Martin Luther King best summarizes my call to arms here today. He said:
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1:26 - 1:32'There comes a time when one must take a position that's neither safe, nor politic, nor popular.
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1:32 - 1:37But he must take that position because his conscience tells him that it's right.'
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1:38 - 1:42Because his conscience tells him it is right.
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1:43 - 1:46At the end of this talk I'm going to ask you all a question.
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1:46 - 1:51That question is the only reason I travelled here today all the way from the African savannah.
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1:51 - 1:54That question for me has cleansed my soul.
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1:54 - 1:59How you answer that question will always be yours.
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1:59 - 2:02I remember watching the movie The Wizard of Oz as a young kid,
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2:02 - 2:06and I was never scared of the witch or the flying monkeys.
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2:06 - 2:11My greatest fear was that I'd grow up like the lion, without courage.
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2:11 - 2:15And I grew up always asking myself if I thought I'd be brave?
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2:16 - 2:21Well, years after Dorothy had made her way back to Kansas, and the lion had found his courage,
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2:21 - 2:24I walked into a tattoo parlour and had the words
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2:24 - 2:27'Seek and Destroy' tattooed across my chest.
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2:27 - 2:30And I thought that'd make me big and brave.
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2:30 - 2:34But it would take me almost a decade to grow into those words.
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2:34 - 2:36By the age of 20 I'd become a clearance diver in the navy.
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2:37 - 2:44By 25, as a special operations sniper, I knew exactly how many clicks of elevation I needed on the scope of my rifle
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2:44 - 2:48to take a headshot on a moving target from 700 metres away.
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2:49 - 2:53I knew exactly how many grams of high explosives it takes to blast through a steel plate door
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2:53 - 2:57from only a few metres away without blowing myself, or my team up behind me.
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2:58 - 3:02and I knew that Baghdad was a shitty place, and when things go bang,
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3:02 - 3:04well, people die.
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3:05 - 3:07Back then, I had no idea what a conservationist did,
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3:07 - 3:11other than hug trees and piss off large corporations. [audience laughter]
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3:12 - 3:13I knew they had dreadlocks.
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3:13 - 3:15I knew they smoked dope.
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3:16 - 3:19I didn't really give a shit about the environment. And why should I?
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3:20 - 3:24I was the idiot who used to speed up in his car just trying to hit birds on the road.
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3:24 - 3:27My life was a world away from conservation.
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3:27 - 3:29I'd just spent nine years doing things in real life
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3:29 - 3:33most people wouldn't dream of trying on a playstation.
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3:34 - 3:40Well, after 12 tours to Iraq as a so-called 'mercenary', the skills I had were good for one thing:
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3:40 - 3:43I was programmed to destroy.
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3:44 - 3:49Looking back now, on everything I've done and the places I've been,
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3:49 - 3:53in my heart I've only ever performed one true act of bravery.
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3:54 - 3:59And that was a simple choice of deciding 'Yes' or deciding 'No'. But it was that one act
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3:59 - 4:02which defines me completely and ensures there'll
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4:02 - 4:06never be separation between who I am, and what I do.
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4:07 - 4:09When I finally left Iraq behind me I was lost.
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4:09 - 4:12Yeah, I felt...ahh...I just had no idea where I was going
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4:12 - 4:18in 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.
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4:19 - 4:24Somehow, I always knew I'd find a purpose amongst chaos, and that's exactly what happened.
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4:24 - 4:29I'd no idea though, I'd find it in a remote part of the Zimbabwe bush.
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4:30 - 4:32And we were patrolling along, and the vultures circled in the air
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4:32 - 4:37and as we got closer the stench of death hung there, in the air like a thick, dark veil
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4:38 - 4:41and sucked the oxygen out of your lungs.
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4:41 - 4:49And as we got closer there was a great bull elephant, resting on its side, with its face cut away.
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4:49 - 4:52And the world around me stopped.
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4:53 - 4:56I was consumed by a deep and overwhelming sadness.
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4:56 - 5:00Seeing innocent creatures killed like this hit me in a way like nothing before.
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5:00 - 5:04I'd actually poached as a teenager and they're memories I'll take to the grave.
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5:04 - 5:06Time had changed me though;
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5:07 - 5:09something inside wasn't the same.
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5:10 - 5:12And it's never gonna be again.
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5:13 - 5:18I asked myself: 'Does that elephant need its face
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5:18 - 5:21more than some guy in Asia needs a tusk on his desk?'
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5:21 - 5:24Well of course it bloody does, that was irrelevant.
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5:24 - 5:27All that mattered there and then was:
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5:28 - 5:33'Would I be brave enough to give up everything in my life to try and stop the suffering of animals?'
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5:33 - 5:35This was the one true defining moment of my life.
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5:36 - 5:37Yes? Or No?
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5:39 - 5:43I contacted my family the next day and began selling all my houses.
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5:43 - 5:46These are assets a well-advised mercenary quickly acquires with the proceeds of war.
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5:47 - 5:52My life savings have since been used to found and grow the International Anti-Poaching Foundation.
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5:52 - 5:57The IAPF is a direct-action, law-enforcement organisation.
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5:57 - 6:01From drone technology to an international qualification for rangers,
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6:01 - 6:04we're battling each and every day to bring military solutions
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6:04 - 6:07to conservation's thin green line.
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6:08 - 6:10Now my story may be slightly unique,
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6:11 - 6:16but I'm not going to use it to talk to you today about the organisation I run.
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6:16 - 6:22In what probably could have been a pretty good fund-raiser. [audience laughter]
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6:27 - 6:32Remember, today is about the question I'm going to ask you at the end.
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6:33 - 6:36Because it's impossible for me to get up here and talk about just saving wildlife when I know
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6:36 - 6:42the problem of animal welfare is much broader throughout society.
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6:44 - 6:47A few years after I saw that elephant I woke up very early one morning.
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6:47 - 6:50I already knew the answer to the question I was about to ask myself,
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6:50 - 6:54but it was the first time I had put it into words:
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6:56 - 7:00Does a cow value its life more than I enjoy a barbecue?
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7:05 - 7:08See, I'd been guilty all this time of what is termed 'speciesism'.
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7:08 - 7:12Speciesism is very much the same as racism or sexism.
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7:12 - 7:18It involves the allocation of a different set of values, rights or special considerations to individuals,
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7:18 - 7:20based solely on who or what they are.
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7:21 - 7:24The realisation of the flexible morality I'd used
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7:24 - 7:28to suit my everyday conveniences made me sick in the stomach.
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7:28 - 7:32See, I'd loved blaming parts of Asia for their insatiable demand for ivory and rhino horn,
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7:32 - 7:35and the way the region's booming economic growth
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7:35 - 7:38is dramatically increasing the illegal wildlife trade.
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7:39 - 7:41When I woke up that morning though I realised
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7:41 - 7:44even though I'd dedicated my life to saving animals,
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7:45 - 7:48in my mind I was no better than a poacher,
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7:48 - 7:50or the guy in Asia with a tusk on his desk.
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7:52 - 7:58As this 'over-consumptive meat-eater' I'd referred to some animals as 'beasts'.
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7:59 - 8:04When in reality I'd been the beast. Destructively obedient,
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8:04 - 8:09a slave to my habits, a cold shoulder to my conscience.
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8:10 - 8:13We've all had contact with pets or other animals in our lives.
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8:13 - 8:16We can't deny our understanding of the feelings that each animal has.
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8:17 - 8:19The ability to suffer pain or loneliness.
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8:20 - 8:21And to fear.
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8:21 - 8:26Like us also, each animal has the ability to express contentment,
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8:26 - 8:31to build family structures, and want of satisfying basic instincts and desires.
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8:32 - 8:33For many of us though,
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8:33 - 8:36that's as far as we allow our imagination to explore
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8:36 - 8:40before the truth inconveniences our habits.
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8:41 - 8:43The disconnect that exists between consuming a product
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8:43 - 8:47and the reality it takes to bring that product to market is a phenomenon to itself.
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8:47 - 8:51Animals are treated like commodities and referred to as property.
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8:51 - 8:53We call it murder to kill a human being yet create legal
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8:53 - 8:57and illegal industries out of what would be regarded as torture
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8:57 - 8:58if humans were involved.
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8:58 - 9:00And we pay people to do things to animals
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9:00 - 9:03that none of us would engage in personally.
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9:04 - 9:06Just because we don't see it up close
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9:06 - 9:09does not mean we are not responsible.
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9:09 - 9:13Peter Singer, the man who popularised the term 'speciesism' wrote:
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9:14 - 9:18'Although there may be differences between animals and humans
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9:18 - 9:20they each share the ability to suffer.
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9:21 - 9:24And we must give equal consideration to that suffering.
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9:25 - 9:29Any position that allows similar cases to be treated in a dissimilar fashion
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9:29 - 9:33fails to qualify as an acceptable moral theory.'
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9:34 - 9:40Around the world this year 65 billion animals will be killed in factory farms.
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9:41 - 9:44How many animals' lives is one human's life worth?
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9:45 - 9:50A meat-eater in this room will consume, on average, 8000 animals in their lifetime.
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9:52 - 9:54Ocean pollution, global warming and deforestation
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9:54 - 9:56are driving us towards the next great mass-extinction
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9:56 - 10:01and the meat industry is the greatest negative factor in all of these phenomenon.
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10:02 - 10:06The illegal trafficking of wildlife now ranks as one of the largest criminal industries in the world.
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10:06 - 10:09It's up there with drugs, guns and human trafficking.
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10:10 - 10:12The ability to stop this devastation
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10:12 - 10:14lies in the willingness of an international community
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10:14 - 10:18to step in and preserve a dying global treasure.
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10:19 - 10:21Experimentation on animals:
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10:21 - 10:25If animals are so like us that we can substitute using them instead of humans
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10:25 - 10:30then surely they have the very same attributes that mean they deserve to be protected from harm?
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10:32 - 10:37Whether we're talking about factory farming, live export, poaching, the fur trade,
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10:37 - 10:40logically it's all on the same playing field to me.
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10:41 - 10:43Suffering is suffering,
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10:43 - 10:45and murder is murder.
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10:45 - 10:47And the more helpless the victim,
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10:47 - 10:50the more horrific the crime.
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10:50 - 10:54Now next time you think an animal lover is too emotional,
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10:55 - 10:58too passionate, or even a little crazy, please remember
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10:58 - 11:00we see things through a different lens.
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11:03 - 11:05So in a few days, my son is going to be born.
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11:06 - 11:10I find myself wondering: 'What kind of a world is he entering?'
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11:10 - 11:14Are we going to be the generation that defines our failure as a species?
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11:15 - 11:17I believe our generation will be judged
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11:17 - 11:20by our moral courage to protect what's right.
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11:21 - 11:26And that every worthwhile action requires a level of sacrifice.
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11:26 - 11:30Well I now offer myself, without reservation, to animals.
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11:31 - 11:35And when I strip away all the material belongings around me,
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11:36 - 11:38I see that I too, am an animal.
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11:39 - 11:42We're family. Together on one planet.
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11:43 - 11:45And of the five million species on that planet,
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11:45 - 11:49only one has the power to determine what level of suffering is acceptable
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11:49 - 11:53for all other sentient beings to endure.
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11:54 - 11:55Whether it's eating less meat,
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11:56 - 11:58contributing to the fight against poaching,
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11:58 - 11:59or speaking up for the voiceless,
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11:59 - 12:01we all have choices.
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12:01 - 12:02And small changes in our lives
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12:03 - 12:05mean big changes in others.
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12:06 - 12:08So now back to the beginning.
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12:08 - 12:11My reason for being here is my question for you:
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12:12 - 12:17Next time you have an opportunity to make a difference for animals,
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12:17 - 12:19will you be brave enough?
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12:19 - 12:20Yes or no?
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12:20 - 12:30Thank you very much
- Title:
- Modern Warrior: Damien Mander at TEDxSydney
- Description:
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Thirty-three year old Damien Mander served as a special operations sniper and clearance diver for Australia. Whilst deployed in Iraq he project managed the Iraq Special Police Training Academy, overseeing training of up to 700 cadets at one time. Following three years on the frontline of the Iraq war he departed in 2008 with no new direction in life. A trip to Africa left him face-to-face with the horrors that the world's wildlife is dealing with. Liquidating all personal assets acquired from 12 tours of duty, he founded the International Anti-Poaching Foundation. The organisation focuses on ranger training, operations and integrating modern technology into conservation.
Today, the Australian is a soldier-turned-environmental activist. He is outspoken about conservation and the nature of our priorities in an uncertain world. Damien's work has featured in National Geographic Magazine, 60 Minutes, Animal Planet, Al Jazeera, Voice of America, Forbes, Sunday Times, & Good Weekend Magazine.
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 12:34
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for Modern Warrior: Damien Mander at TEDxSydney | ||
Helene Batt edited English subtitles for Modern Warrior: Damien Mander at TEDxSydney | ||
Helene Batt edited English subtitles for Modern Warrior: Damien Mander at TEDxSydney | ||
Jane Roffe approved English subtitles for Modern Warrior: Damien Mander at TEDxSydney | ||
Jane Roffe edited English subtitles for Modern Warrior: Damien Mander at TEDxSydney | ||
Jane Roffe edited English subtitles for Modern Warrior: Damien Mander at TEDxSydney | ||
Daniel Barreto commented on English subtitles for Modern Warrior: Damien Mander at TEDxSydney | ||
Sallyanne Craig commented on English subtitles for Modern Warrior: Damien Mander at TEDxSydney |
Sallyanne Craig
Dear Tatjana and Dear Approver,
I wasn't able to access this revision yesterday before it was sent for approval so my apologies about sending four small but VERY important corrections (and one not important one!).
1.02 Please reinstate 'Well' at the beginning of the sentence: Well she was finally free. This idiomatic use of the word forms an important link between the buffalo's terrible history, and what had to happen to set her free. It is a very resonant word for those for whom English is the first language.
1.26 There was a note attached to the transcript regarding this - I'm not sure what happened to it. Please reinstate 'politic' for political'. It is common, especially in Australia, to mistakenly use 'political' (pertaining to government) when actually 'politic' is meant (seemingly judicious or sensible under the circumstances). This is a direct quote from Martin Luther King and also very important to the meaning when it comes up for other translations. Ivana Korom, Jane Roffe and Damien Mander have all given prior approval to make this change.
3.03 Please reinstate 'well, people die.' Here, this idiomatic use of the word 'well' is the equivalent of a shoulder-shrug or throwing one's hands up in despair because nothing one does can change the outcome... Damien says 'well' although Tatjana you may have heard it as 'or'.
12.01Please reinstate "And' at the beginning of the sentence ie 'And small changes in our lives...' Again this is an important linking use of the word - what has gone before (your choices) will directly and profoundly change the future (the lives of others).
Only one other very minor change. I'd put playstation in lower case as it now in common use as the generic name for any kind of gaming console. I've no objection to using the brand name if you prefer, but it appears as PlayStation.
My thanks and best wishes to both of you. Please know I'd not trouble you if I did not believe these corrections vital to the talk.
Warmest, Sallyanne
Daniel Barreto
Hi everyone. I’m trying to find out how things work here. My intention is to prepare the Portuguese-Brazilian Subtitles. I just downloaded de English ones and I’m working on it. Do I need to register in any specific area here? Tks!