Letting Nature Run Wild
by Ben Horton
Expedition Granted Competitor

Last night I went to an ILCP award dinner to honor James Balog, a conservation photographer who has found a way to truly use imagery to its full potential. There were perhaps 30 of the worlds greatest conservation photographers and other scientists that we all know by name, like Jane Goodall and Sylvia Earle. When I'm surrounded by these people sitting at the same table two things happen. First, I feel a great sense of pride to be sitting with people who have accomplished so much. Second, I realize that I still have a long way to go before I'm REALLY sitting at the same table as these people. In times like this, I just sit back and shut up.

Somehow I ended up sitting next to Sylvia Earle this morning on my flight back from Mexico. For those of you who don't know who she is, she is a legendary marine biologist, and an explorer at National Geographic. She is probably one of the most powerful voices in marine conservation that we have right now. Talking with Dr. Earle, who is so passionate about her cause, made me consider my own goals, and why I'm a part of this competition.

This competition isn't about winning or losing. (That's what I'm supposed to say right? Cause I'm losing.)

For me, and I think for Trip, this is about getting our projects, and the fact that we do projects like these, out into the public eye. Don't get me wrong, I'm not throwing in the towel. I'm going to fight for every little percent of the vote that I can get, because to me, each percentage point on either side of the competition means that we have reached someone with our cause.

When I see my vote rise a few percent points, I see that as a new person coming to the website reading about our projects. This is the main reason we are doing the projects in the first place, right? To show humanity the things that need saving, or protection, because it is humanity itself that is doing the damage.

Somebody is out there buying elephant ivory still, and there are still millions of sharks killed just for their fins, because somebody is paying $400 a pound for the mythological properties the fins supposedly have.

The feeling I have felt slowly forming inside me, is that for some reason people have gotten the idea in their heads that we are the stewards of the planet, the caretakers, that the planet is ours. For some that means that we can take what we want from it, and for others it means that we must do our best to manage it. I wouldn't say it is a revelation, perhaps more of a way of looking at things, but I have come to the conclusion that we are mostly incorrect in thinking this. We need to let nature be nature. We need to have places where the human hand is removed from the equation.

We need to create places where the natural world can be what it is, wild, unrestricted, and unbridled. We also need to make sure it stays that way. That's why I am fighting so hard, not to win this competition, but to get as many people as possible to come to the website and vote. To use it as an excuse to promote the efforts that Trip and I are making to do some good for the natural world. To pick up the torch that people like Sylvia Earle have been carrying for so long.

I have a feeling that if I can reach enough people, this marine reserve I'm trying to help create will be actualized. When this protection is in place, it will be somewhere that we can let nature run wild, unrestricted, and unbridled.