Community Spotlight: Haitian Marine Biologist & Goldman Prize Winner Jean Wiener

By Enya Fang, 2024 Future Blue Youth Council member

During our 2024 term, FBYC members had the opportunity to meet several accomplished environmental activists, including Brian Skerry, Isaias Hernandez (known by his moniker Queer Brown Vegan), and Jean Wiener. Upon hearing about Jean’s unique background in marine grassroots research in our April monthly meeting, I was immediately interested in knowing more about his work and emailed him to set up a separate interview. I hope readers take away what I learned in our conversation—that climate action is truly multifaceted and can be accessible regardless of where you come from.

Below is our transcribed conversation.

Jean: I spent as much time in the water as I could. Again, I was one of those kids who got yelled at when it was time to go home. And I just realized that there were so many problems, so many issues going on with the 80s marine environment that somebody needed to do something because nobody was doing anything. And since it was the love of my life, I’d like to call it, I decided to start the foundation and get in there and start looking for projects and activities to get people interested in protecting what’s probably our most important resource on a small Caribbean island. It’s been an incredible ride. I never thought I’d get this far with this much recognition – that’s not what I was doing it for, of course; I think we’ve helped probably several tens of thousands of people through education and livelihoods and I plan on continuing that for as long as I can.

Enya: That’s amazing. That’s truly amazing. So the follow-up question I have then is about the foundation that you mentioned starting. What is your favourite part about the work that you do?

Jean: Two parts. First, I’ve been lucky to meet a lot of incredible people along the way. I’ve met everyone from presidents and prime ministers to fishermen, you know, in their dugout canoes. And believe it or not the fishermen in their dugout canoes are my favorite. I like talking with them, joking around with them, trying to get them on board and understanding that there’s certain things which need to be done if they’re going to continue to make their livelihoods from the ocean. How we can protect it and make it better for everyone. That’s the interpersonal aspect with the people we work with. Then also, I love being in the field: being in the mangrove forest, scuba diving, all of that type of work, seeing coral reefs and seeing the wildlife and the fish around the reefs. All of that. The part I hate the most is the desk work. There’s unfortunately a lot of that. You have to write up the reports. You have to do some of the accounting, you have to do all types of reporting for the donors and for the people who are giving you this opportunity.

Enya: You’re a scientist, not like a business person.

Jean: Exactly.

Enya: I’m curious, do you do most of the work by yourself or do you have a team of people and a database of resources to access? Or maybe the better question is how did you find and/or create the resources necessary for you to be able to build your foundation?

Jean: For probably the first 10 years I was alone with a fisherman from one of the local communities. And he’s still with me, working on a lot of these activities after 32 years. But we have a problem in Haiti in that sciences are not really high up in the educational process. Environmental sciences, even less. And under that, coastal and marine sciences are non-existent. Teaching that is…there is nothing related to coastal and marine sciences in the educational system in Haiti. So what I’ve had to do is find good people, good scientists – usually agronomists – but those who are willing and able to learn and to, you know, kind of change their subject matter and hopefully keep them long enough to be able to teach them a little bit at least about the marine environment. So we do not have, you know, anyone really who can help us in terms of marine biology. I’m pretty much the only marine biologist in the country. People often ask “Well, why don’t you try to get people from even Martinique or Guadeloupe who at least speak French?”, but most who speak French don’t speak Creole. It’s hard to find a marine biologist who speaks Creole. And then it’s even harder to find a marine biologist who speaks fish Creole. It’s really difficult to be able to find someone who understands the fishermen, understands Creole, you know, that is willing to live in Haiti. That’s been one of our biggest problems, finding the human resources to be able to do our work. We’ve had conversations with different teachers and professors from other universities who said maybe we can start a marine biology program in some of the universities in Haiti but, I’m also the one who would also have to teach the class (laughs). I have one individual, actually, who we managed to send to university in Florida, and he’s studying marine biology there. Hopefully he’ll return, but I don’t blame him if he doesn’t, considering the situation in Haiti.

Enya: Are you still based in Haiti yourself?

Jean: I’m generally based in Haiti. The situation right now has me stuck in Washington, but I go back and forth usually between Washington and Haiti. But all of my work is in and for Haiti.

Enya: I only know about Haiti what everyone else in the world knows about Haiti — maybe a bit more because I’ve done some readings — which is not much at all. So my question for you is: what does the future of conservation and sustainability look like for Haiti and what should it look like, do you think?

Jean: The current situation is, of course, pretty bad. We’ve become the poster child of what not to do with your environment in the Western Hemisphere, at least. There’s the overfishing, the deforestation, the poverty, and all of the things which that entails. Basically, no matter how you look at it, if your environment is in bad shape, your country is in bad shape. So there’s a myriad of issues that need to be taken care of. Unfortunately, when people are in economic hardship, the environment pays the price. They start going after resources in unsustainable ways, like overfishing and cutting down trees for fuel. So when you have as much property as there is in Haiti, it’s very, very difficult to try to break out of that downward spiral. In terms of where it could be or should be… I don’t see things changing very much in the next few years in terms of legal pressures on the environment. The government is incapable, at any level, of enforcing any laws or in general pushing forward an agenda of protecting and managing resources because there is such need. So oftentimes, things are backwards. In most countries, the government supports the civil sector – CSOs, the civil society organizations – and provides them with support to be able to do what they can’t do. In Haiti, it’s pretty much backwards now. We, as an NGO, are the ones who are supporting certain government agencies to be able to do their job. But we work our way through it. Again, because I was born and raised there, I know what we’re dealing with. We know who we’re dealing with and we know how to deal with it. So it is what it is.

Enya: In the research that you have done and the work you’ve done building your foundation, could you describe the singular thing that you’re most proud of?

Jean: I think it’s the fact that we’ve helped so many people over the years. There are so many people wherever we go that count on us for all types of things, whether it be for educational purposes, for alternative income-generating purposes, or even for planting mangroves.

Enya: You’re a better employer than the Haitian government.

Jean: Well, by far, at least we pay. The Haitian government…I think there are people who haven’t been paid in months or even a couple of years sometimes. So being able to help people is a big part of what we’re proud of, as well as our reputation and the credibility that we’ve achieved. We’re known to be serious and we’re known to be a credible organization, not only in Haiti but globally.

Enya: I know that you have two kids but one thing about our organization is that it mostly appeals to people who might not have grown up around knowledge in this field. So my final question is for our audience reading this. What would be a message that you have for them?

Jean: I tell a lot of people, even if you are not necessarily a scientist or in the environmental field, everything related to you is the environment. This planet, at least for now, is the only one we’ve got and you really need to be aware of it. You need to be aware that it is limited and we cannot waste it. Even if you think you’re not involved in environmental issues, you are. If you drive a car, if you throw away a cell phone, if you clean up a beach, if you even go to the beach, you’re involved in the environment no matter what. Whether you want to be or not, there’s no escaping it. So the best thing to do is to take care of it.

Enya: I know I said that was the last question, but there’s a fun one we like to end these interviews with. If you were reborn as something that’s part of nature, what would you be?

Jean: In this day and age, I would be afraid to be an animal. I think I would like to be a mountain, far away from the ocean actually, because that’s pretty much as far away from what I’m doing now as I can be. And being a mountain would give me the ability to see everything from a new point of view.