Love Nature & Respect Life - Surface Time with Stephanie

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S1 Ep5: Sharon Kwok on Love Nature & Respect Life

Fri, 08 Jul 2022 11:30:00 +0800

I sat down with Sharon Kwok for a cuppa as she was fresh off the boat from Raja Ampat and en route back to Hong Kong. Sharon is an artist well-known in Hong Kong public broadcasting and cinematic fields. As a conservationist, she unapologetically leverages her connections with public and private sectors to support her marine and wildlife conservation works and to influence changes. Her passion and commitment to marine and wildlife conservation is infectious. It is totally cool to catch this bug.

Connect with Sharon

W: https://www.aquameridian.org/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/AquaMeridianHK

IG: https://www.instagram.com/sharon_kwok_aquameridian/

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S1 Ep3: Margaret Murphy on Plastic Pollution & Climate Emergency

Fri, 24 Jun 2022 11:30:00 +0800

Surface Time with my dear friend Margaret Murphy, who is a scientist, trained in zoology and toxicology and now works in the space of science policies in Washington DC, the epic centre of US politics. Although she claims to be a reluctant diver, her scientist-curiosity has always kept her entertained and fascinated by the marine diversity. I probed for her view on plastic pollution and vegetarianism, and I genuinely love how she shared a well-balanced and objective executive summary of these complex topics. In short, if we want to live a life where our blue planet remains a beautiful place or even better, we need to do our part in dealing with climate emergency, starting from right now.

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S2 Ep2: Emma Dabbadie getting up close and personal with Microbiome

Wed, 14 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0800

During the Surface Time today, I had the joy of catching up with a dear friend, Emma Dabbadie, who has been living in Cape Town, South Africa for some time, in pursuit of her marine science research and discoveries. When we spoke, she was fresh off the scientific schooner called Tara from an expedition along the West Africa coast, as part of the Mission Microbiome, where they are uncovering the benefits of the ocean microbiome and the interactions with the climate and pollution. Hopefully, her research will lead to some magical ways of reversing the climate emergency and global warming.

To Learn more about Fondation Tara Ocean

W: https://fondationtaraocean.org/en/home/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/fondationtaraocean/

Photo credits ©Maéva Bardy - Fondation Tara Ocean (IG:

https://www.instagram.com/maevabardy/)

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W: https://beneaththesurface.media/

S3 Ep1: Carrie Miller & Chris Taylor : A Diver's Guide to the World

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0800

Carrie Miller and Chris Taylor, the wife-husband team who have written a book called “A Diver’s Guide to the World”, published by National Geographic. The book is out in the U.S. on 6 December 2022. Before the chat, I was given a preview to one of the chapters. Immediately, I could see that this book is written with the special and purposeful intentions. It reads more like a story book, rather than the typical guidebook. Yet I can also sense the emotions about the place and experiences embedded in between the lines. There are definitely more stories to be uncovered.

Connect with

FB: https://www.facebook.com/beneaththesurfacemedia

IG: https://www.instagram.com/beneaththesurfacemedia/

E: team@beneaththesurface.media

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S3 Ep2: Matt Reed & David Joyce : Business Relationship like a Marriage

Tue, 13 Dec 2022 07:00:00 +0800

During the Surface Time today, I spoke with David Joyce and Matt Reed of Evolution Dive Resort in Malapascua, Philippines. So, for all shark-loving divers, Malapascua is the place to go for sightings of thresher sharks. It is a remote island with limited resources. Tourism, especially, scuba diving plays a significant role in the livelihood of the island.

When David and Matt first established Evolution, it was never meant to be just another dive resort. Their sweat and tears have earned not only the accolade of being a 5-Star Dive Resort rightfully, but also a special mention in the National Geographic book “A Diver’s Guide to the World” by Carrie Miller and Chris Taylor. Here is “what”, “how” and “why” it is one of my favourite dive resorts in Philippines.

Having listened to their stories, it has further validated my belief that the making of a great business is more than about making money. While making money is still a priority, it is equally important to incorporate personal values and life philosophy into the business.

In doing so, it creates circular benefits, like the butterfly effect, spreading the feel-good factor across to all the stakeholders. We as the travellers and scuba divers visit the island, which helps to improve local economy. The island residents get to enjoy better quality of life and, therefore, continue to making the effort to protect the environment. In turns, the environment and ecosystem above and beneath the surface bounce back and continue to thrive. And circle back to us, scuba divers, get to enjoy the healthy marine environment, warm connections with the residents, making more new memories. In other words, it’s karma – what goes out there will come back to you; and often in multiples.

By the way, the Craic House does take the hospitality very seriously. You must experience it yourself.

Connect with Evolution in Malapascua

W: https://evolution.com.ph/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/evolutiondivingmalapascua/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/evolutiondivingmalapascua/

E: Info@evolution.com.ph

T: +63 917 631 2179

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S2 Ep3: Gary Stokes on Ocean CSI

Wed, 21 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0800

During the Surface Time today, I caught up with Gary Stokes in Discovery Bay of Hong Kong. He is a veteran crew member of Sea Shepherd until they left Asia. He then founded OceansAsia to continue with the “intelligence-based” conservation work in the region. He and his team have been investigating and exposing the bad guys who have committed wildlife crimes and seeing justice done.

He has given us some insight to how he and his team have been creating the impact, raising awareness and seeing sustainable and constructive changes to our environment. It is in a way, a thank-less job, which mission can only be achieved by integrity and commitment to do good. Ironically, we do wish him all the best that he will be out of this job sooner rather than later.

Connect with OceansAsia

W: www.oceansasia.org/

FB: www.facebook.com/oceansasia.org

IG: www.instagram.com/oceansasia/

E: gary@oceansasia.org

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S3 Ep5: Sam Shu Qin & David Jones on Diving Against Debris in Singapore

Tue, 03 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0800

During the Surface Time today, I spoke with Sam Shu Qin (founder of Our Singapore Reefs) and David Jones (from Jackson Square Aviation) about their collaboration in the project, Dive Against Debris in 2022. It started off with David’s shower idea about doing something that can help to protect the coastal underwater environment, by engaging local community and leveraging available resources from his company. Little did he know at the time, there are already some unsung heroes, like Our Singapore Reefs and The Submersibles, doing the dirty work of sea clean-up.

Sam and her co-founding partners are marine biologist, specialising in coral restorations in Singapore Reefs. So they have the first-hand experiences of watching how the health of the reefs, especially corals, is damaged by waste. Waste that cannot be managed because they were created and thrown away into the water mostly by inconsiderate people.

I participated the costal clean-up with them. After we cleaned ourselves up nicely, we sat down to look at the data collected by Sam and her team just in 2022. This is like the end-of year performance review.

There are so many takeaways from this chat. First, although diving in Singapore water is like diving in miso soup, the biodiversity is truly incredible. Yet it is so vulnerable. In order to improve the ecosystem, it requires a lot of resources, especially, manpower, financial support and time. The collaborations between Our Singapore Reefs, The Submersibles and Jackson Square Aviation has started to set the changes on course. It is important to continue the momentum in order to maintain the sustainability.

And the most obvious and powerful force would be the Corporate (especially multinational ones). They have the resources to help drive the changes. When setting the ESG policies and guidelines (ESG standards for environmental, social and governance), the focus and emphasis should be on what we can do to create a positive and sustainable impact. Whether it is on the environment, the community or even the way we conduct our business. A wholistic approach should be taken in order to define your stance. As a company, other than making a donation, make your most valuable assets available. That is: your employees.

Naturally, as an employee, if you too like David tend to sprout ideas during shower, it would be good to explore these shower ideas before writing-off as fleeting thoughts. You’ll never know what the outcome will look like until you take the first step and follow through.

Connect with Our Singapore Reefs

FB: https://www.facebook.com/oursingaporereefs

IG: https://www.instagram.com/oursingaporereefs/

Connect with The Submersibles

W: https://www.thesubmersibles.com

FB: https://www.facebook.com/submersibles

IG: https://www.instagram.com/thesubmersibles/

WhatsApp: +65 8013 8445

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FB: https://www.facebook.com/AdrianaBasquesPhotography

S4 Ep8: Adriana Basques on Creating Transferrable Life Experiences

Tue, 07 May 2024 00:00:00 +0800

Adriana Basques, a corporate executive turned wildlife photographer. She has been using her camera to document moments of her encounters of beautiful creatures both on land and underwater. In fact, her photography specialty is split landscape photo – where top part is the land and bottom part is underwater. This allows her to share with everyone the wonders and beauties of this fragile blue planet. Through her work, she gives people a greater understanding and appreciation for the conservation.

Perhaps it’s her Brazilian gene plus many other charms. Her passion for life is highly contagious. She is living her life fully and creating transferrable life experiences.

A passionate campaigner in raising conservation awareness through her photography and teasing everyone’s curiosity with the wonders and beauties of this blue planet. And as a passionate advocate and mentor for women empowerment, she is influencing the new standard of behaviour, inside and outside the corporate world.

On the note of women leadership, I have observed that the mentality has been shifting constructively. There is still a huge gap to close. And to narrow or even close this gap, it is down to each of us to raise the quality of our own self-awareness, self-confidence and self-compassion. This is part of the journey of creating transferrable life experiences. So what would you say to these questions:

“What moves me?”

“What drives me?”

From there, you should be able to start connecting the dots from the past to present and from present to future.

Connect with Adriana Basques

W: https://adrianabasques.com

IG: https://www.instagram.com/basques/

E: info@adrianabasques.com

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