Hang tight while we fetch the video data and transcripts. This only takes a moment.
Connecting to YouTube player…
Fetching transcript data…
We’ll display the transcript, summary, and all view options as soon as everything loads.
Next steps
Loading transcript tools…
Falling in Love With a Unicorn | AMI VITALE | TEDxBergamo | TEDx Talks | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Falling in Love With a Unicorn | AMI VITALE | TEDxBergamo
Skip watching entire videos - get the full transcript, search for keywords, and copy with one click.
Share:
Video Transcript
Video Summary
Summary
Core Theme
Photography and storytelling, initially a tool for personal empowerment, evolved into a powerful means to amplify marginalized voices and foster global understanding, ultimately highlighting the interconnectedness of humanity and the natural world, and the urgent need for conservation.
Translator: Amanda Chu Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
As a child,
I was painfully shy, gawky, awkward,
really afraid of this world,
and my parents tried to do everything to give me a little more confidence.
They thought maybe by putting me in front of a camera
and perhaps dressing me up as a lion
might somehow give me courage.
Well, I never got my courage from that.
But I discovered where I got my courage was behind the camera.
The second I had it in my hands, I felt like Superwoman.
I almost felt like I had these hidden powers
because I kind of became invisible,
because it took the attention away from myself
and allowed me to focus on others.
And it literally allowed me to dive into situations
I never would have had the confidence to do.
This is in Bangladesh,
where I was telling the story about people migrating
because of rising waters.
And photography and storytelling
has really allowed me to immerse myself in these stories.
The more incredible thing I discovered
as I got further along in my career
was not that the camera and photography was a tool for my own self-empowerment;
the more incredible thing is that it really has the ability
to amplify other people's voices.
It is this powerful tool
that can connect us and help us to understand one another
across communities and cultures and even countries.
It's such a powerful tool.
And I was 26 when I began.
I began by covering the worst conflicts unfolding across the planet
for the first decade of my career.
You know, I began in Europe and Asia, the Middle East, Africa,
places you have heard of, like Afghanistan,
others, like Angola, which was already in its 26th year of a brutal conflict.
Four million people were displaced, and the world had forgotten.
I spent four years in Kashmir.
Kashmir is perched between India and Pakistan,
and since the 15th century, they called it "Paradise on Earth."
It's also been described today
in the Guinness Book of World Records
as the most militarized and longest-pending conflict
in the world.
This is Gaza during the second intifada.
And just the same thing across all of these conflicts
was that they were all equally nasty, equally brutish,
and my job was to show that brutality.
But what's slowly started emerging for me,
conflict after conflict,
was that "Was I at best telling one half the story
and at worst maybe even a lie?"
Because there is so much more than just the horror of it.
You know, if we take the time to lift that veil,
we realize we have so much more in common with one another
across this planet.
And if you dig beyond those headlines, this universal truth emerges,
and that is, you know, we are all connected to one another.
The other really important discovery
after covering, you know, so much of the horrors of the world for a decade:
I started to realize
every single one of them was always connected to the natural world;
ultimately, they depended on nature for their outcome.
And I realized, you know,
it's important to not just talk about humanity
but really make that connection.
You know, my stories today, I use nature as the foil,
but they're really a story about humanity,
about all of us, our planet, where we're going.
And I remember the exact moment when I made that discovery.
It was on a cold snowy day in December of 2009,
in the Dvůr Králové Zoo in the Czech Republic.
It was there I met this rhino named Sudan.
And when I was sitting there
with this gentle, hulking creature in front of me,
I felt like I had just seen a unicorn.
He was otherworldly, larger than life.
l just looked at him and understood immediately
this is a sentient, ancient creature
that has been roaming - as a species -
roaming this planet for millions of years.
And at one time,
there were probably hundreds of thousands of them
on this planet,
but on that day, there were just eight of them,
all in zoos.
That's it.
And the reason I was there
was because they were moving four of them
from the Dvůr Králové Zoo back to Africa.
It sounds like a scene from a Disney cartoon, right?
The truth is it was a desperate, last-ditch effort
to save the entire species from extinction.
And this is what we imagine:
wildlife roaming the open plains of Africa.
But this is what it looks like today:
they have to be guarded around the clock by heavily militarized men
because the value of those horns are worth more than gold right now.
The reason is some people believe
that there's medicinal powers in that horn,
that it'll treat illnesses.
But the truth is
it's exactly the same material which is in our fingertips and hair.
It's simply keratin.
It has no medicinal values.
But that's why that they are going extinct right now.
And this is what extinction looks like.
We're witnessing it on our watch every day.
And if the current trajectory of killing continues,
it will be more than just the elephant shown here, and rhinos,
but whole hosts of other species we don't even talk about.
And losing these keystone species ultimately impacts all of us,
all of humanity.
You know, this planet is complex, and it's evolved over millions of years.
It's this beautiful ecosystem,
and when you take one piece of it out, it's going to impact everyone.
And so much needed attention has been focused on the poaching crisis,
but very little has been said
about the people on the front lines of that poaching crisis.
The indigenous communities,
they really hold the key to saving what's left
because the people living alongside of them
are their greatest protectors.
[Inaudible] sleeping with three orphaned baby black rhinos,
another species, at Lewa Wildlife Conservancy.
And these people,
when they understand
that the wildlife is worth so much more to them alive than dead,
they become the greatest protectors.
And it's so hard to imagine but just 70 years ago,
this was the best terrain.
You know, it had densely populated areas of rhinos
and all these species.
But today,
Africans don't even get to experience the wildlife in their own backyard.
Many of them have never even seen a rhino.
And this is at Lewa Wildlife Conservancy,
where a group of Samburu warriors are seeing a rhino for the first time.
And they had the same reaction that I did;
it was like having a unicorn in front of them.
Most of them had never even seen a photo of them.
They were so excited they were asking a million questions,
and they thought that their skin would be soft like their cows.
And they had a dream,
they wanted to bring these rhinos back to the landscape that they came from,
where they've been locally extinct for 30 years.
And heir dream came true!
They brought 11 rhinos
from parts of Kenya where they were doing really well,
and they brought them -
this animal has just been darted, it's not injured -
and they sawed off the horns, which also did not hurt them,
but it just made them less valuable to potential poachers,
and then, they set them free in a brand new conservancy
called Sera Wildlife Conservancy.
And the amazing thing is the first thing after that rhino was let out,
the first thing all those Samburu guys did -
they went running and looking at the soil.
And I said, "What are you doing?"
They said "Ah, we read the soil like you all read maps.
You see, we can tell where the rhino are going.
We can see if poachers are coming into the area."
They became their greatest protectors.
And I'm really happy to share with you
that they already have three babies in a short time.
And not just that - nature is so resilient -
you bring back those keystone species, and everything thrives.
So, a whole host of other animals have returned.
And these are the stories that I think motivate action.
This is Kamara and Kilifi,
an orphan rhino he raised since he was one day old.
I believe it's really important to absolutely talk about the challenges,
but we also have to give hope,
and there are solutions.
Now, I want to flash back to almost exactly a year ago, today.
I got a call from my friends at Ol Pejeta Wildlife Conservancy.
And they said, "Hurry! Sudan is about to die."
And when I got there,
he was surrounded by everybody that loved him.
And what struck me was how quiet it was.
All you could hear was the rain,
one go-away-bird chirping,
and the quiet muffled sobs of the men who loved him.
They spend more time with these animals than they do with their own children,
and they really felt like they had just lost a family member.
I hope witnessing the end of an entire species
is something I never have to experience again.
Because on a planet of seven billion people,
we have to start seeing ourselves as part of nature,
not separate from it.
You know, really, saving these species is actually about saving ourselves.
And I hope Sudan's death is our wake up call.
Now, I want to tell a story about Oliver.
I was at the zoo two weeks ago,
and I met Oliver, who is a young man now.
He is 25.
And his family was from Vietnam.
They immigrated to the Czech Republic.
And he grew up in a forest, far away from the city.
And he got a great job for an ad agency, made his parents very proud.
He is making good money.
And then,
when he saw that photo a year ago
and heard the news that this rhino passed away,
something struck him in his heart.
And he knew he had to change his life.
He called the zoo and asked for a job,
much to the sheer horror of his parents.
They worked really hard
to give him this opportunity to get a good job.
And they thought that he was crazy,
and so did the people at the zoo.
They get these calls all the time,
and they said, "Sure, you can have a one-month internship,"
never imagining that he would get much beyond that.
But ...
Oliver is working there today and loves his job.
And the most amazing thing about it
is that not only did he transform his own life -
you know, when you fall in love with something,
everyone around you wants to understand -
he finally brought his parents to go and meet these black rhinos at the zoo,
and they actually understand Oliver now.
And Oliver, just two days ago, sent me this photo.
He's like, "You won't believe it.
I found my dad watching these nature documentaries,
something he never would have had any interest in before.
So look, planet Earth is the only home we have.
And we have poked some big holes in our shared life raft.
But, you know,
I think we do not have to condemn future generations to eternal poverty.
They, too, can enjoy the incredible diversity
that we live with today,
from, you know, glaciers to deserts, from elephants to ants.
It all matters.
What happens next is in all of our hands.
We all have the capacity to go out and make this a priority.
We all can use our voices.
Just like Oliver was the messenger to his parents -
the messenger matters just as much as the message itself -
so all of us can and do have a role to play.
I believe it first starts by falling in love
because once you fall in love with this planet,
it gives you the courage to go out and make a difference.
But I'm not naïve.
I know it's not just about falling in love.
That's not going to be what saves us.
What's going to save us
is really realizing the wonder of this world
because once you understand wonder, you can reimagine a different future,
you can reimagine a world graced by rhinos.
And the other thing wonder does -
wonder make us realize how connected we all are
and that every choice we make does have a profound impact.
Once you take that first brave step
and allow yourself to fall in love and experience wonder,
everything changes.
There is no going back.
And I hope that all of you can do that too.
It happened to a few of us that met a rhino named Sudan.
Thank you so much.
(Applause)
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
