>> The wild conservation Society, which oversees New York City's zoos and aquariums has a new president.

For the first time, the president is a woman.

Monica Medina is bringing her experience to New York where she will be leading the charge to protect our oceans, coastline and air, and ensuring the city's zoos are a valuable educational resource.

Joining us now as part of our peril and promise special reporting is Monica Medina.

Monica served as the U.S. assistant secretary of state for oceans and interim national -- and international environment affairs.

Welcome to MetroFocus.

It is a delight to have you here, congratulations for your new position.

Monica: Thank you for talking about all the work we do in New York and around the world.

We are thrilled to tell your audience about it.

I am filled to be in this organization at this moment.

Jack: I want to get into some of the projects you are involved with, but I want your thoughts on being the first woman to run this organization.

Monica: I am grateful for getting the opportunity to be the first woman.

We have had a woman chair of our bold -- of our board.

Women are stepping up into rules they had not taken before, or and more.

-- more and more.

Women and children are often the ones who are most affected by environmental problems, climate change, biodiversity loss.

Women spend billions of hours every year hauling water because they cannot -- they do not have it nearby.

They lose the opportunity to be educated or to have time to take care of their families just because of the environmental issues.

It is great for me to be here helping to lead an organization that is trying to solve those problems.

Jack: You mentioned some of the problems.

Give us a list of what you are seeing as of major conservation issues the world is confronting.

Monica: Everyone has heard about climate change.

In New York we experienced it firsthand with the smoke from fires thousands of Myers away.

Impacting our health and sending us indoors.

On top of that.

We are losing biodiversity at an alarming rate.

We as a world came together to set an ambitious target on that, to conserve or protect 30% of the planet.

That is a lot.

By 2030.

If we do that, we will protect our health, make our lives more wonderful from being in the environment, we will also benefit our economies.

They are built in large part on a healthy clean environment.

That is a huge one that the world has taken on.

We have also taken on the plastic pollution challenge.

Our lives are dominated by plastic items that we don't always need for single uses.

There is a huge amount of plastic pollution in the environment, it is in us, it has gotten into our bloodstream's because of its impact on the natural world.

It has become a part of the food chain.

The world has come together and decided to negotiate a global agreement on ending plastic pollution by 2040.

Those are two enormous challenges we are taking on.

Jack: Let's talk about the organization and what it is doing.

I mentioned in the introduction, locally involved in New York, though zoos and the aquarium.

But also around the world, give us a sense of some of the geographic areas where the organization is working.

Monica: Of course here in New York we love -- one of the things I love the most about starting this job was the sound of schoolchildren enjoying our parks in New York.

I went to the aquarium, I have been all over the rocks zoo, the Central Park zoo, they are wonderful.

They are fantastic places to spark the love of the natural world.

You don't have to be a biologist or become a marine ecologist, you don't have to become -- you don't have to do this for a living in order to love the environment and take actions in your daily life.

If we teach young people about the important things they can do to conserve the environment, that is a huge mission.

Here we are in this enormous power center where we can garner the best of what we have to offer in the U.S., to help countries all over the world conserve their environments.

As we know from the pandemic, we are very closely related to each other on this planet.

It is a smaller world when a pandemic can start somewhere halfway around the world and impact everyone on the planet.

That is because we are not respecting the boundaries we need and protecting enough nature so wild animals can stay where they are, and won't impact us with their viruses.

We have seen it more and more, bird flu, Ebola, the Covid pandemic, we know that the work we do on health could not be more important.

It dovetails well with the work we are doing for I/O diversity and climate.

If we conserve the right places around the world, we can prevent the pandemics that have been harmful to us.

We can conserve biodiversity to give ourselves a clean planet for generations and solve the climate crisis.

Jack: You mentioned before that the smoke situation we had, a very graphic and dramatic illustration of the fact we are indeed interconnected.

That is important.

Let's talk about local projects.

Give us a sense of what you are doing, the Hudson Canyon project?

What is it about and what are you doing to protect it?

Monica: It is an incredible place 100 miles off our coast line.

It is directly tied to the New York City area.

Before the ice melted, the Hudson River went all the way out 100 miles to the shelf break where the water drops off.

That is one of the most rich areas in the ocean because that is where the nutrients build up.

It is seven Empire State buildings deep and seven miles wide.

It is a full of incredible biodiversity, Sharks and Wales, amazing coral, it is one of the richest areas.

We have not protected nearly enough of our Atlantic Seascape.

It is wonderful in the New York area to be promoting and hopefully the federal government will provide protection for this area off the New York seascape.

Jack: I grew up on the ocean, I worked as a lifeguard, I lived near the ocean, we have always been concerned about the quality of the ocean.

But I suspect someone might be watching, and thinking that is 100 miles off the coast, it impact does that have on me?

Why should I be worried about it?

Monica: Like we care about having the Grand Canyon preserved and protected for future generations as a legacy and an important way that we can conserve our environment.

We need healthy oceans.

The ocean provides every other breath we take as human beings.

And a ton of food for people all up and down this coastline.

If we conserve these areas, especially as the ocean gets warmer, the Atlantic Ocean right now it's warmer than it has been in recent memory, since scientists have been taking measurements.

It is a really important thing for us to conserve places so that as they are stressed, there are places that can rebound.

The fish spill out, when you have a place like that that is so fertile, the fish spill out and it helps to conserve important parts of our tourism economy and fisheries and coastal economies.

Jack: For us to recognize that, we are all interconnected, all of this is important.

There is so much we could talk about, let me come back to something you mentioned before.

That is what can we do as individuals?

We have the organizations, the federal government, but what can each of us do to help in terms of preserving and protecting our environment for the rest of our lives and the lives of those who come behind us?

Monica: The broad answer is think for future generations, think about your actions and how they will impact your children and grandchildren.

Being able to look for sustainably produced products, whether it is fish that come from the ocean, or looking to cut down the amount of plastic in your life, going to the store and buying detergent in a paper carton and recycle it.

We all need to demand a more responsive recycling and circular economy.

Particularly as we build this new economy around renewable energy, we need to be as consumers asking for companies to take those back from our cell phones, and use them again so we don't have to constantly go back and dig up the minerals it takes.

Think about how when we purchase things at the grocery store, we look for local products, they have not been shipped as far.

We look for sustainable farmers who are using fewer pesticides and fewer chemicals to stimulate the growth.

There is lots of things we can do from buying cage free eggs two things in paper cartons, to using plastic carry bags to use over again.

Jack: You can, small efforts can make a big difference.

The Y live conservation Society does wonderful work, we are fortunate to have them and they are fortunate to have you.

Monica Medina as their new president.

Thank you so much for spending time with us, we will talk with you down the road as you continue this quest.

Good luck and you be well.

Monica: Thank you so much for having me today.

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