39 HEADLINE #WATERHEROES WATER HEROES Q. At what point, as a kid, did you start to realize you were part of something bigger? Was there a turning point where you said, "I want my life to focus on advocating for the environment”? Philippe: Yeah. Well, the best part of my job is that I'm able to travel, see the world, explore, and learn new things. And it really goes back to when I was about 16 years old and I had an opportunity to go on an expedition to Papua New Guinea. I was in the southeastern part of the island, diving on a liveaboard with a researcher, Dr. Eugenie Clark, for two weeks. The trip was just spectacular. Here we were in this incredible, remote part of the world and we were doing research on a couple of new fish species that Eugenie had discovered. And I was thinking to myself, "My God, you can make a living doing this. You're traveling and you're seeing these amazing places- why would I want to do anything else?" That was the turning point for me. I was hooked. Q. Once you started to show interest in that side of your family's life, did they encourage you to keep going? Philippe: Well, my grandfather passed away when I was 17, a little less than a year after that experience in Papua New Guinea. And so he was certainly an important part of the inspiration leading up to that point, but by then it was my mother who encouraged me to keep moving forward in this world. She inspired me and pushed me forward to pursue my dreams. We had family, friends and people who'd known my father and grandfather and they provided opportunities for me to start getting involved in research. But, I went off to university and it wasn't until I got out of school and moved to Florida to work with an oceanographic institution that I got back on this path. I knew I needed to do something to honor this legacy and that’s when EarthEcho was born. Q. Tell me a little bit more about EarthEcho and how it's different from other environmental organizations. Philippe: From its inception, EarthEcho was a response to a problem. I looked around at the environmental movement and realized there was already a duplication of effort. There were many groups out there focused on conservation. And, in many ways, we're not really a conservation organization. While that’s an essential tenet to EarthEcho, we're more of an environmental education organization. There were a lot of conservation groups out there doing good work, but few offered a strategy for youth. If you look at the big NGOs (non-government organizations) like the WWF or the Ocean Conservancy, they have virtually no youth strategy to speak of. And that was a problem for me and I recognized it was a need. We don't like to duplicate effort, that's a very important part of the organization, and our philosophy, and our culture. Without a youth strategy, I don’t believe the environmental movement has a strategy. My grandfather was a big proponent of young people and recognized they are truly the trendsetters of society and have tremendous influence on the corporate world and even their parents. EarthEcho is unique because we leverage the history and the connection with the Cousteau legacy, but drive change by youth engagement. A young Philippe Cousteau Jr. with his grandfather, Jacques-Yves Cousteau.