Ami Vitale
M. Sanjayan, the lead scientist for The Nature Conservancy, at Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park.
I FLY a lot. And honestly, flying now is a means to an end, although I used to enjoy it. It’s not that I hate it or am paranoid. It’s just that it’s a chore.
Q. How often do you fly for business?
A. Once or twice a week, mostly domestic, but also international about once a month.
Q. What’s your least favorite airport?
A. I hate to say it and know I will get criticized, but it’s
Q. Of all the places you’ve been, what’s the best?
A. East Africa. It’s where humans evolved, and it always feels like a homecoming to me. The temperature, the way it looks, the gestalt rekindles a cellular memory that when I’m there I’m in my ancestral home. I think it’s where humans really belong.
Q. What’s your secret airport vice?
A. I catch up on TV shows that I can’t watch at any other time. I’ve watched entire seasons of “Breaking Bad,”
As the lead scientist for the Nature Conservancy, I am fully aware of the ramifications of flying and its effect on the environment, but sometimes I have to do it. I do always ask myself the question: When I get to my destination, what can I deliver? In other words, is it really important for me to be someplace?
If not, I’m not going to go. I don’t go to meetings, conferences or events unless if I have a very specific role. And then, of course, there’s a personal toll. Flying can be tough on the body and spirit, even if you take good care of yourself.
I love seeing kids take their first flight. It can be so cool to fly as a kid, even today with all the hassle and limited service.
The first time I got to fly was as a 5-year-old on a KLM DC-8 from Colombo in Sri Lanka to Amsterdam. It was a huge thrill. My dad gave me the window seat and I stayed awake for as long as I could, following our path over darkened Asia and then Europe.
As I remember it, the food was fantastic. It was served in a tray that was partitioned into little quadrants. We ate with forks and knives, not with our hands as we did at home in Sri Lanka. Cheese was wrapped in foil, chocolate came in a Delft blue wrapper with a windmill stamped on it, and the juice wasn’t straight from an orange but a box. It was such a big deal to eat like a Westerner.
Since I often travel to remote locations, I rarely carry luggage. I want everything I need close at hand and I hate having to wait and guess whether my luggage will make it. If I really need something I don’t have, I can usually buy it locally. Occasionally, I don’t have a choice because a trip may be too long or too complicated for me to avoid taking my own gear. One time, I was particularly thankful that I put a red jersey in my carry-on.
A few years ago in Alaska, I was stranded with a Discovery Channel crew. We were on a sandy island on the Tana River in the gigantic Wrangell-St. Elias wilderness. The river was running ragged with heavy glacial melt and our rafts were no match for the white water.
We were drenched and miserable. To perhaps catch a passing plane’s attention, I actually wrote a message out on the sand beach with a big stick, just like you see in the movies. When I did see a plane coming, I whirled my red jersey over my head to catch the eye of the bush pilot.
The plane came in very low, the pilot read the message in the sand about our need for help, and then he tossed out a radio and a note, wrapped in his rain jacket. It was amazing. We used the radio to talk to him, and then we arranged a pickup.
The funny thing was that when I was writing out the message in the sand, which gave our GPS coordinates and pickup date, everyone who was with me had advice about what I should say, how big the letters should be, how to make it visible and so on. I mean, really?
Flagging down flying aircraft while you’re on an island is not as common as hailing a cab in rush hour. But everyone had an opinion.
As a scientist, I have to replicate experiments. This is one I don’t really want to repeat ever again.
Frequent Flier: An Environmentalist Weighs the Fallout of Flying
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Frequent Flier: An Environmentalist Weighs the Fallout of Flying
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Frequent Flier: An Environmentalist Weighs the Fallout of Flying
