Notes From The Field Blog by Kristen Weiss, Project Coyote Public Engagement Coordinator, based on an interview with Suparna Vashisht, Project Coyote Advisory Board Member
Suparna Vashisht is a turtle rescuing, reusable grocery bag carrying, nonprofit leading, former corporate executive and all-around sustainability crusader. She is motivated by the idea that “everything connects to everything else,” a quote attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci—and similar to Da Vinci, Suparna could be considered a Renaissance woman.
For more than two decades, she has focused on driving social change through sustainability and conservation initiatives, including as an Advisory Board Member for Project Coyote. Suparna has wielded her marketing and communications prowess to help nonprofits like ours hone messaging to reach target audiences, improve fundraising, and increase conservation outcomes.
I spoke with Suparna less than 24 hours after she had weathered a tsunami warning in Maui, originating from the 8.8 magnitude megathrust earthquake that rocked Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on July 29th. Fortunately, Hawaii was spared any noticeable damage, and Suparna said the event turned out to be rather anticlimatic. Still, it was a reminder that humans and nature are intimately connected, and that the choices we make now will affect the severity of disasters in the future. Continuing to burn fossil fuels, for example, will worsen the effects of climate change, leading to rising sea levels and therefore more dangerous tsunamis.
For Suparna, advocacy around climate, wildlife conservation, and human health and wellbeing are all interconnected, and action in each of these areas is necessary to achieve sustainability. Her own entry point into environmentalism was as a volunteer for the Sierra Club’s sustainable land use committee.
“That was the early days of green building design,” Suparna said. “The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating system was pretty new, and I was responsible for evaluating LEED building standards and how Sierra wanted to promote them. I learned that buildings are one of the top five contributors to global emissions worldwide. That blew my mind!”
Indeed, buildings are responsible for roughly 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions, both through construction materials and building operations (heating, cooling, lighting, etc).
“Before that, when I thought of conservation, I would think of wildlife in Africa, or marine ecosystems, things like that,” explains Suparna. “I wasn’t thinking as much about human activities. And so my work at Sierra Club helped me see the connection between sustainability and conservation, and that each of us can do things in our daily life that ends up helping and promoting and protecting wildlife.”
Suparna says that the longer she worked with organizations like Sierra Club, the more she was able to recognize the deep connections between conservation and sustainability issues. She also began to see that individual actions had as important a role to play in moving the needle on sustainability as did actions at corporate and government levels.
According to Suparna, “We as individuals have the power to elect the kind of people who will make decisions to support protecting our land and oceans. Also, as consumers, we can vote with our wallet. We can buy things that are made sustainably. For example, a lot of folks won’t buy products made with palm oil because they’ve become aware that virgin forests in places like Indonesia are being destroyed to expand palm oil plantations, which is threatening species like the endangered orangutan. Companies have often changed their practices because consumers have organized and voted with their wallets. Sierra Club and Greenpeace have mobilized tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of their members to vote with their dollars in this way. All these little individual decisions can have really big ripple effects.”
One huge thing that Suparna believes needs to change is the emphasis on quarterly results and quarterly and year-on-year growth. “This perspective is not sustainable or possible in a world where natural resources are limited,” she emphasizes. “Water, healthy soil, forests, minerals and metals are all finite. According to many credible organizations, we’ve already harvested many of these beyond healthy limits. For more than 10 years, the UN has been floating the idea of replacing GDP as a measure of prosperity with a metric that includes the health of the environment since human health is dependent on a healthy, thriving environment. In fact it’s estimated that half of the world’s GDP is dependent on nature. Think water for data centers or bees for growing fruits and vegetables.”
There has not yet been world-wide adoption of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting urged by the UN. However, there are several companies that are registered as B corps, B for benefit, meaning these companies are legally required to not just turn a profit but also show how they are benefiting the environment and the community or society. By supporting these companies we can change the behavior of other companies. We need more or all companies to be B corps so that they have a legal obligation to not just increase shareholder value but also support and protect the environment and the society.
With her background in brand management and marketing, Suparna is always thinking about which messages will best resonate with a target audience when advocating for change. “Each target audience has different motivations, and you have to tap into those motivations,” she says. “The same message does not work for everyone.”
She provided the example of parents, who might not be motivated by environmental reasons to switch to, say, organic milk and produce, but would make the switch if they learned that organic products are likely to contain less harmful chemicals and antibiotics that could negatively affect children’s growth and development. In Suparna’s experience, many people are willing to make lifestyle changes if they know it will improve their own and their family’s immediate health.
The health angle is one that Suparna focuses on often in the nonprofit organization she founded, Project Reuse, which partners with food outlets in Maui to implement practical reuse solutions for replacing disposable foodware.
“Plastic is of course creating havoc in the ocean and in the soil,” she says. “But people are most galvanized by facts related directly to our health and that of our children. I talk about how we are ingesting the equivalent of something like a credit card worth of microplastics every week, and these plastics contain chemicals known to be harmful to human health. Even though plastic also affects the health of our planet, it can be harder for people to connect to that message than to the fact that their own health is at risk in the short term.”
By focusing on health, explains Suparna, you can encourage people to reduce the amount of plastic they use, which ultimately helps reduce the amount of plastic that pollutes the ocean and soil, or that harms wildlife. “Millions of seabirds and marine mammals die every year due to plastic in the ocean, so that’s what motivates me to promote reuse and a reduction in single-use plastics. A bonus is that it also saves taxpayer money by reducing how much we send to the landfill.”
When she isn’t leading campaigns for Project Reuse or volunteering with Project Coyote and other conservation nonprofits, Suparna can often be found diving and snorkeling in the waters around Maui. She volunteers with the Maui Ocean Center’s Marine Institute sea turtle rescue team, which rescues and rehabilitates turtles who have been injured by fishing line, boat strikes, or other impacts. The ocean is her happy place, though she is equally drawn to wildlife and wild places on land—which is what drew her to Project Coyote.
“People sometimes ask me why I would work on trying to save animals when there are so many other problems in the world—there are people who desperately need food, healthcare, or access to education,” Suparna told me. “It’s a very valid question. But I don’t think of it as an either-or issue. There are so many challenges in the world that need smart, passionate people to work on them. And we all should do what we are best at.”
She continued, “I do think, though, that we need more people to work on protecting wild lands and wild animals, because only 3% of all global philanthropy goes to the environment. I was shocked when I learned this. I don’t understand it. I mean, all of us understand that we need clean air to breathe. We need clean water. We need clean rivers and oceans. And yet 97% of philanthropy goes to anything but the environment. So, when people ask me, ‘Why are you working to save the tiger? Or the coyote?’ Then I say it’s because I’m trying to make up for the fact that only 3 percent of all philanthropy goes to the environment.”
Suparna explained that ocean philanthropy is included in that 3%, so only about 1% of global philanthropy goes to ocean conservation, even though the ocean covers more than two thirds of our planet.
“It produces 50% of the air we breathe,” she says, “and it provides so many other ecosystem services: coral reefs protect against storms and big waves, and the ocean provides a livelihood for people through fishing and tourism. The economic benefits are immeasurable, at least in the billions of dollars. We need more people putting their effort and money into environmental protection.”
According to Suparna, evidence shows that when we put adequate energy and resources into effective conservation, we witness high rates of success. She points to the astounding recovery of California condors, wolves in Yellowstone, and sea turtles in Hawaii as examples of how conservation can support rapid recovery under the right conditions.
“With wolves, their situation is still very tenuous,” she says. “But if you spoke to somebody who used to go to Yellowstone 30 years ago, they would not have seen a single wolf. They had been wiped out for decades. Now, there’s a relatively healthy population. I think it’s important to stay focused on the work we still need to do to protect wildlife, but it is equally important every now and then to look back and acknowledge how much progress we’ve made, how far we’ve come.”
Suparna is heartened by the gradual shift she’s witnessed in people’s attitudes towards wild carnivores in particular, including coyotes. “When I go on NextDoor,” she says, “I see more people talking about how to help coyotes who are injured or who have mange. I hardly ever see folks anymore saying they want to get coyotes out of their neighborhood. That’s a big change. So sometimes these efforts take time, they take effective communication, but eventually they have an impact.”
She has supported Project Coyote’s work for over ten years now, both as a regular donor and as an Advisory Board Member. “Project Coyote speaks up for the underdogs,” says Suparna. “Coyotes are persecuted through no fault of their own, and somebody needs to stand up for them. That’s what drew me to this work.”
She explained that advocating for wild carnivore conservation can be particularly challenging because of the fear and misunderstandings that often surround these species. “If you show them the data and science around why they are an important part of the ecosystem, and the services they render, that can make a very compelling case,” says Suparna. “I think Project Coyote’s messaging has been effective by showing why coyotes and other wild carnivores are such important members of our ecological communities.”
I asked her what she thought was something we can each do immediately to make a huge difference for wildlife and the environment. “Reduce consumption!” she replied. “The US is about 5% of the world population and uses 25% of its resources. Think about things you buy. Do you really need it? And for the things that you do need to buy, choose the option that is least disruptive to the environment. For example food that has not been grown with pesticides and fertilizers, or a product that does not come from clear-cutting forests.”
As Suparna says—everything is connected. Reducing our reliance on single-use plastics, signing petitions to end wolf hunts, saving injured turtles, investing in renewable energy, and supporting ethical companies all have an important role to play in creating a healthier, more sustainable world. Suparna’s personal and professional journey is inspiring, and is a great example of the ripple effect she described when one person’s actions impact countless others around them, creating a wave of positive change. We are grateful that she is part of our pack!
