Recorded at Borneo’s Danum Valley field station, this episode features Dr. Martha Ledger, an Earth Observation Scientist and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hong Kong. From a childhood fascination with maps to detecting penguin colonies from space, Martha shares her journey into remote sensing and why fieldwork is crucial for validating satellite data. We dive into the often-held view of Earth Observation data as the gold standard for business and government decision-making — but Martha is on a mission to ensure it’s always paired with ground-truthed, field-validated data to ensure responsible inferences.

Together, we explore how Earth Observation tackles urgent environmental and social issues, from monitoring carbon loss in tropical peatlands to mapping forced labor risks. Martha also discusses the role of AI in managing vast datasets, the environmental footprint of satellites, and her vision for a more open and connected future in science.

In this episode, I speak with global change and tropical conservation biologist Professor Tim Bonebrake, recorded in the primary tropical rainforest at Danum Valley Conservation Area, Malaysian Borneo. Now Director of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Hong Kong, Tim shares how childhood adventures in national parks sparked a lifelong passion for biodiversity.

With over 20 years of experience in the field researching birds, butterflies, pangolins and tropical ecosystems, Tim reflects on the challenges of studying global change, especially the urgent need for more biodiversity data from the tropics. He also shares what gives him hope:from emerging technologies like computer vision-assisted species identification, to the energy of collaborating with curious, committed people working toward the same conservation goals: for people, planet, and profit.

We also discuss his new book, Crime andPangolins: Conservation and Public Health Lessons from a Mammalian MurderMystery, a true crime-inspired exploration of public health linked to wildlife trade of pangolins, what are the conservation issues and how do we address them?

Explore Tim’s work at https://tropicalconslab.com.

In this episode, marine biologist Dr Julio A Díaz shares his fascinating research into sponge taxonomy. Currently based at the Museum of Evolution, Uppsala University, he reflects on what drew him to describing new species, the challenges he’s encountered in the field, and what gives him hope for the future of marine biodiversity. We explore why ocean conservation must be grounded in evidence, the urgent need for continued exploration, and why protecting our oceans matters, for people, planet, and profit.