【TED演讲】野生生物之美——以及保护它的艺术呼吁

中英文字幕

This is a painting called "Palisades." It shows what once used to live up along the Hudson River, north of New York City.

这是一幅名为 《帕利塞兹》 （Palisades）的画。它展示了曾经生活于 纽约市北部哈德逊河沿岸的生物。

I actually built it to help fund a new park in Guatemala.

 我当时创作它其实是为了 资助危地马拉的新公园。

If you and I were to take a walk through that site right now, we would see some of these plants and animals, but a lot of them would be missing.

 如果你和我现在去那个地方走一走， 我们会看到画中的一些动植物， 但大多数却已不见了踪影。

And to be honest, we wouldn't notice.

 说实话，我们并没太在意。

Gradual change is really hard to notice over time.

 随着时间推移，缓慢的改变 真的很难被注意到。

My artistic practice is an investigation into humanity's relationship with nature, both what we have, but also what we've lost.

我的艺术实践是调查人类与自然的关系， 既包括我们现在拥有的， 也包括我们已经失去的。

A painting like this one called "Understory" begins with a rubric and a database, not with drawings.

 像这样一幅名为《林下叶层》 （understory）的画 是从标准和数据库开始创作的， 而非一开始就落笔。

The rubric is the rule of the painting.

 标准是一幅画的规则。

For this one it is these are new species, and the database is built out of a sampling of plants and animals that fit that rubric.

 对于这幅画来说，这些是新物种， 数据库是根据符合该标准的 动植物样本建立的。

It took me about four months of research, probably two or three months of drawing and another six months of painting to complete "Understory."

 我花了大约四个月的研究、 大概两三个月的起草， 和六个月的上色 才完成这幅《林下叶层》。

Most of my complicated, complex paintings take roughly a year on average.

 我的大多数复杂、繁复的画作 平均需要约一年的时间完成。

These works are my form of activism.

这些作品是我行动主义的呈现。

When I want to research a bird, I go to a natural history museum, and this is exactly what I see.

 当我想研究一只鸟时， 我会去自然历史博物馆， 而这正是我所看到的。

It is a box of specimens, or also called study skins.

 它是一盒标本，也称为样本皮肤。

This happens to be a bird called paradise parrots.

 这恰好是一只叫天堂鹦鹉的鸟。

They used to live in Australia.

 它们曾经住在澳大利亚。

They are now extinct.

 它们现在已经灭绝了。

Specimens have an amazing value.

 标本具有惊人的价值。

They are ...

 它们有——

They are two things.

两种价值。

One, they are a genetic library of traits.

 第一，它们是遗传特征的基因库。

And at the same time, they carry within their feathers and their skin and their scales a lot of environmental data that we can use.

 同时，它们的羽毛、皮肤和鳞片中 有许多可供使用的环境的数据。

When I check out the specimen, I do drawings of it, I do color studies of it, I do measurements, I take my own measurements and photographs.

 当我检查标本时，我会给它画素描， 我对它进行色彩研究，进行测量， 我自己进行测量和拍照。

And I do all this work because I really want to be able to depict them accurately,

 我之所以做这些工作，是因为 我真的希望能够准确地描绘它们，

and I want them to be remembered correctly and as if they are living, not just a dried skin.

 我希望它们能被正确地记住， 就好像它们还活着一样， 而不是只剩下脱水的皮肤。

This painting is called "Canopy," and it is an exploration of species that have just been discovered.

这幅画名为 《林冠》（Canopy）， 它是对于刚发现的物种的探索。

Every single living thing you see in it, every little moss, every insect, each and every thing is new to Western science.

 你在里面看到的每一个生物， 每一个小苔藓，每一个昆虫， 每一个生物对西方科学来说都是新的。

I say new to Western science because it has certainly not just evolved, and it is not new to the people who live with it.

 我之所以说它们对西方科学是新的， 是因为它们肯定不是刚刚进化出来的。这些生物对于和它们共同生活的人来说 并不新鲜。

They probably have their own name for it.

 那些人很可能 对这些生物有自己的命名。

But it is new to Western science.

 但这对西方科学来说是新的。

That newness can carry some risk.

 这种新颖性可能会带来一些风险。 

There are collectors who love to have a new species.

 有些收藏家喜欢拥有新物种。

I call this painting "Trade" because it is about black market trade and wildlife.

我称这幅画为《贸易》（Trade）， 因为它是关于 黑市贸易和野生动植物的。

Each of these things is taken out of nature and sold somewhere, either legally or not legally.

 所有这些生物都是从自然界中夺取出来， 然后在某个地方出售， 无论是合法的还是非合法的。

Both novelty and rarity have this awful way of driving prices straight up.

 糟糕的是， 新颖性和稀有性都会推动价格上涨。

There are plenty of regulations about the sale of wildlife.

 有很多关于野生动物买卖的规章制度，

There's lots legal protections in place, but they just are inefficient because there is such a drive for wildlife purchase.

 也有很多法律保护措施， 但它们都不够有效， 因为人们那样热衷于购买野生动物。

Imagine all of the wild places there are in the world, the million acres, all of the markets in the world, all of the dark web.

 想象一下世界上所有的野生区域， 数百万亩的土地， 世界上所有的市场， 所有的暗网。

There are just never enough boots on the ground to save wildlife.

 人的力量永远不足以拯救野生动物。

It's a big drain on all of nature.

 这是对整个大自然的巨大消耗。

Humanity has a way of taking what we want and what we need, but we have never really learned or gotten good at putting it back.

 我们人类总有办法拿走 想要的和需要的东西， 但是我们从来没有 真正学到或擅长于把它放回去。 

We're like kids or toddlers, maybe.

 也许我们就像孩子或幼儿。

This painting called "Back" is about our hope that nature is resilient.

这幅名为《溯洄》（Back）的画 是关于我们对于 大自然具有复原能力的期望。

Everything in this painting falls into one of two categories: it was either thought extinct and then re-found by pure luck or very hard work,

 这幅画中的每个生物 都属于这两个类别之一：要么是曾经被认为已经灭绝， 然后靠纯粹的运气 或非常艰苦的工作重新找回来的；

or it was on the very brink of extinction and was hauled back with some sometimes pretty extensive interventions.

 要么是正处于灭绝的边缘， 被一些有时相当大规模的干预措施 拖回来的。

So on the upper right, there's a Mauritius kestrel.

 在右上角，有一只毛里求斯红隼鸟。

It's a white bird.

 这是一只白色的鸟。

It went down to actually four individual birds.

 事实上，它的数量曾减少到四只。

It took an amazing amount of effort on the part of a handful of people really to get it to breed again.

 有几个人花了相当多的精力 才让它真正再次繁殖。

These were not so lucky.

而这些生物没那么幸运。

Everything in this painting is extinct.

 这幅画中的所有生物都灭绝了。

Every grass, every egg represents a bird that's extinct.

 每棵草，每个代表着一种鸟类的蛋。

I don't mean that they're extinct just here or there.

 我的意思不是指 它们只在某个地方灭绝了，

They're really gone from the world.

 它们真的从世界上消失了。

You may be able to tell that I studied the Dutch still life masters.

 你也许能看出 我研究过荷兰的静物画大师。

That was very much on purpose.

 我在很大程度上是故意的。

And I did it because some of their paintings are between 400 and 500 years old now.

 我之所以这样做，是因为他们的一些画 现在已经有 400 到 500 年的历史了。 

Why are they still here?

 它们为什么还在这里？

They're really beautiful.

 因为它们真的很美。

That's a great kind of insurance.

 这是一种很好的保险。

And they also were made very, very well.

 而且它们也被做得非常非常好。

Just the materialism is really strong.

 唯物主义真的很强大。 

So I have borrowed a bunch of their techniques, most of their materials.

 因此，我借用了他们的许多技术， 和他们大部分的材料。

And I marry that with modern science so that I can share with future generations some of our understanding of what's happening to our biodiversity right now.

 然后我将其与现代科学相结合， 这样我就可以与子孙后代分享 我们对目前生物多样性变化的一些理解。

Like what's struggling, what's thriving, what's doomed.

 比如，正在挣扎的、 蓬勃发展、注定要失败的东西。 

The paintings are kind of like an environmental snapshot, a picture in time.

 这些画有点像环境的快照， 像一幅时间图画。

Or maybe better, like a message in a bottle.

 或许更好，像一条装在瓶子里的消息。

With luck, these paintings can talk to the future.

 运气好的话，这些画可以和未来交流。

This is a detail from "Gone." On your left, there's a bird that I showed you as a specimen, the paradise parrot from Australia, gone.

这是画作《消逝》（Gone）中的一个细节图。在你的左边， 有一只我给你们作为标本展示过的鸟， 那只来自澳大利亚的天堂鹦鹉， 已经消失了。

In the middle is a passenger pigeon, which is extinct, despite the fact that there were millions upon millions of them.

 在中间是一只客鸽，已经灭绝了， 尽管曾经有过数以百万计的客鸽。

They used to darken the skies of this part of America, the Midwest.

 曾经它们多到遮天蔽日， 覆盖整个美国中西部。 

The yellow-headed bird on the right is a Carolina parakeet that used to raucously fill the skies of the southeast of the US.

 在右边的黄头鸟 是一只卡罗来纳长尾小鹦鹉， 它曾经喧闹地翱翔在美国东南部的天空。 

This was the first painting I did of extinct species.

 这是我第一幅关于灭绝物种的画。

So it's kind of "Gone 1." But I really, really don't want to have to paint "Gone" 2, 3, 4 or 5.

 所以它有点像《消逝 1 》（Gone 1 ）。但我真的不想画它的续集 2、 3 、 4 或 5 。

When I started college, I thought we were in the middle of an environmental crisis, and we were.

当我刚上大学时， 我以为我们正处于环境危机之中， 事实的确如此。

Audubon thought we were in the middle of a crisis, an environmental crisis, in the 1840s.

 奥杜邦（Audubon）认为， 在 19 世纪 40 年代， 我们正处于一个危机之中， 一个环境危机。

I don't think either he or I could have possibly imagined the amount of cumulative destruction of nature we would see within our lifetime,

 我认为他或我都无法想象 我们一生中 会看到多少自然遭受的累积破坏，

within each of our lifetimes.

 不论在我的还是他的一生中。

The depth of our disruption of nature is so extensive now and so global, that we are, of course, affecting the systems that govern the water,

 现在，我们对自然的破坏程度如此之大， 而且是全球性的。我们正在影响那些控制 水、

the weather, the soil, the oceans, the climate, all of them.

天气、土壤、 海洋、气候等的系统。

These are the very systems that we rely on for our survival and that nature relies on for its survival.

 这些系统正是我们赖以生存的， 也是大自然赖以生存。

I think of my paintings as alarm clocks in a way.

从某种意义上说，我将我的画视作闹钟，

They are reminders of what's at stake.

 它们提醒着人们危在旦夕的东西。

The only real problem is we keep pushing the snooze button.

 唯一真正的问题是 我们在不断地按下贪睡按钮。

I plan to keep documenting, in paint, biodiversity that's at risk, making a record of it and advocating for biodiversity as I can.

 我计划继续用画作 记录那些岌岌可危的生物多样性， 记录下来， 并且尽我所能地倡导生物多样性。

But what's probably more important is what is the next message that gets carried through these paintings into the future?

 但更重要的可能是， 通过这些画我们希望传递到未来的 下一个信息是什么？

It's humanity collectively that will decide that message.

人类将共同决定这一信息。 

I've thought it could be: well, too bad, these are the ghosts, these are what we lost.

 我想它可能会是：哎，太糟糕了，这些是鬼魂， 这些是我们失去的。

But it would be much better if that message was, this was the moment we started to take action where we really tried to save life on this planet,

 但是，事情会好很多， 如果我们能传递这段信息：这是我们开始采取行动的一刻， 我们真正努力拯救这个星球上的生命，

including our own.

 包括我们自己的生命。

Thank you.

谢谢。

(Applause)

（掌声）

Thank you.

谢谢。