How Maya Higa Is Inspiring Millions to Take Action for Earth
This week on Nature Breaking, we’re teaming up with conservationist and content creator Maya Higa to kick off WWF’s annual Give an Hour for Earth campaign. Maya is a Twitch streamer and YouTuber whose online community contributed tens of thousands of hours to our campaign last year.
Host Seth Larson interviews Maya about her journey from growing up on a farm to becoming a zookeeper, falconer, livestreamer, and founder of Alveus Sanctuary – a wildlife rehabilitation facility. She explains how digital platforms can be powerful tools for environmental education, what she’s learned about inspiring young audiences, and why she believes small, everyday actions—done by many—can drive massive change.
Maya and Seth also break down their top recommendations for this year’s Give an Hour for Earth activities, from simple trash cleanups to thoughtful grocery shopping, wildlife rehabilitation volunteering, and even livestream fundraising for conservation. Whether you’re looking for hands‑on ways to help the planet or a dose of hope in the face of big environmental challenges, this episode is full of inspiration.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Seth Larson: Welcome to Nature Breaking, a podcast produced by World Wildlife Fund. I'm Seth Larson. And today we're kicking off WWF's Give an Hour for Earth campaign with a special guest: Maya Higa, a Twitch streamer and YouTuber, who also founded the Alveus Sanctuary, a wildlife sanctuary and education center based in Texas.
Each year during the weeks leading up to and through Earth Day, WWF asks our supporters to Give an Hour for Earth. What originated as Earth Hour has grown into a full month's worth of action for our planet. Participants can find a wide array of activities to pick from on our website, from picking up trash in their neighborhood to reducing food waste in their homes. And they can then log their actions in our online Hour Bank. Last year, WWF supporters logged over 127,000 hours of positive action for Earth. That's more than 14 years worth of impact.
Maya and her online community played a big role last year, contributing tens of thousands of hours to our overall effort. And Maya even documented her own Give an Hour activity picking up trash around a waterway located between two shopping centers. Today, Maya and I are going to talk about how streaming can be a powerful tool to inspire positive change, where her passion for nature comes from, and lastly, we'll share our top three recommendations for actions that people can take for this year's Give an Hour for Earth campaign.
If you feel inspired, please visit wwf.earth/Giveanhour/podcast to get started.
Before we dive in, please take a moment to like and subscribe to Nature Breaking on your podcast app of choice. We're on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, PocketCasts, Overcast, and more. And you can find all our videos on WWF's YouTube channel: youtube.com/@WorldWildlifeFund. Thanks for listening.
Alright, Maya Higa, welcome to Nature Breaking. It's awesome to have you here today.
Maya Higa: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.
Seth Larson: I mentioned in my intro that you wear a few hats. You're a streamer, you're a YouTuber, and you're the founder of the Alveus Sanctuary. All super cool stuff. As just sort of a little housekeeping, I wanted to ask you to define what it means to be a streamer, because that's a secondhand term to a lot of people, but it's a relatively new profession, and I think there may be some people watching or listening who are like, what is that?
Maya Higa: Right?
Seth Larson: Maybe I've heard that term, but I'm not sure what it means. So can you just tell us what it means to be a streamer and kind of what your day-to-day is like?
Maya Higa: Totally. Yeah. So I stream on Twitch.
Seth Larson: Mm-hmm.
Maya Higa: And Twitch is a social media platform that's a live broadcasting platform.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: So I'll do long form content where I'm going live doing whatever. People play video games on Twitch. Traditionally, it's a gaming platform.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: So there's a lot of playing video games live on Twitch. There's cooking, there's singing, there's hiking, there's crafting. Everything.
Seth Larson: Mm-hmm.
Maya Higa: So people do it all and they just, they do it all live. And so it's social media, it's just live broadcasting.
Seth Larson: Yeah. And you have this passion for nature, and I want to ask you where that came from, but also talk about how you found this really cool way of melding these passions in your life of being a streamer, but you care so much about nature and you found this really cool way to have those two things complement each other and amplify each other and drive progress for causes you care about. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Maya Higa: Yes, totally. Can I tell you the whole story?
Seth Larson: Please!
Maya Higa: Like the origin story.
Seth Larson: Yes, bring us into the whole origin story. Yeah.
Maya Higa: Okay, great. I grew up on a farm, so I've always been in love with animals. Like I've always had animals in my life. And then when I went off to college, because I moved away from the farm and there weren't animals everywhere, I missed them. And so I went off and I got a job as a zookeeper. So my college job was zookeeping.
Seth Larson: Oh, cool.
Maya Higa: And part of that job was outreach education.
Seth Larson: Mm-hmm.
Maya Higa: So I would put on a safari outfit, I would go to schools and birthday parties and events and stuff like that and teach kids about the animals in person, and I loved doing that.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: It was like the coolest job ever, especially for a college student. And so in 2019, I started streaming on Twitch because I heard that you could make money doing that.
Seth Larson: Sure.
Maya Higa: Like I heard that people would send you tips, like cash...
Seth Larson: Mm-hmm.
Maya Higa: ...to livestream. And I really like singing. And so I went live on Twitch and I was just doing guitar covers on my bed, like in college. And I would have like 10 viewers at a time, you know, 10 people watching at a time, 20 people maybe. And because I was a zookeeper, I was a falconer as well. So a lot of balls in the air right now. But I was a zookeeper, I was a falconer, and I was streaming music on Twitch. And so I was rehabilitating this red-tailed hawk in college.
Seth Larson: Okay.
Maya Higa: So I had him.
Seth Larson: How does one come to be rehabilitating a red-tailed hawk?
Maya Higa: Great question. So I, when I was zookeeping, I was taking care of a lot of birds of prey and my supervisor was a master falconer, and so I wanted to learn how to fly birds and I was sponsored by her. And she taught me everything about birds of prey and how to fly those birds and how to rehab them and how to hunt with them and all of those things. So I became an apprentice falconer in California in 2018, I think.
Seth Larson: Wow. Okay.
Maya Higa: So yeah, really into birds of prey at the same time that I was a zookeeper. That was my main focus. And so I was doing these guitar covers on stream and I naturally would just talk about my job. Because you talk about life, 'cause you're live and you're yapping, right?
Seth Larson: You've got a lot of time to fill.
Maya Higa: Yes, exactly. A lot of dead air because there's no one else there.
Seth Larson: Mm-hmm.
Maya Higa: It's just you talking into space. So I was talking about zookeeping and falconry. And then one of my viewers didn't believe that I was a falconer and didn't believe that there was this hawk in my backyard...
Seth Larson: Uh huh.
Maya Higa: ...that I was rehabilitating. Like he thought I was telling a story or something. And I couldn't have that. So I put my glove, my falconry glove on, and I went outside and I got the bird and I brought the bird inside. And I was talking about him and doing kind of my zookeeper spiel about this bird and what I was doing, and someone took a short video of that moment and put it on Reddit and it went viral on Reddit.
Seth Larson: Huh.
Maya Higa: And so my streaming career began out of Reddit virality.
Seth Larson: Yep.
Maya Higa: And I realized really quickly people were falling in love with this bird and learning so much from me about this bird. And I was doing my zookeeping job, but I didn't have to bring the animal anywhere. And I was reaching way more people in way more places without having to bring the animal anywhere. And I thought that's a really cool model.
Seth Larson: Absolutely.
Maya Higa: So that was in 2019. And then in 2021, I founded Alveus Sanctuary, which is a non-profit 501(c)(3) animal sanctuary and conservation education center where we rescue animals from all over the place. We've got some, some permanently injured wildlife, some confiscated illegal pets, and they come to Alveus for sanctuary. And then they also are there to help me teach people about our natural world, about their wild counterparts, about the things that are affecting our climate and our planet and endangered species. And so I'm just doing, I'm doing my zookeeping job. Just virtually.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: Yeah.
Seth Larson: So I went, I watched a bunch of the videos you've done over time. I'm curious what type of content you found resonates the most with your audience? I love the tiny mic interviews that you did...
Maya Higa: Thank you.
Seth Larson: ...with animals, you've taken a lot of creative approaches, but I'm sure there's a science to that. So what have you done that kind of has broken through the most?
Maya Higa: Yeah. There, there is a science to that. We call it hiding the broccoli at Alveus, which a lot of parents out there will definitely understand.
Seth Larson: Mm-hmm.
Maya Higa: We have to tuck education into fun, engaging content that's curated for younger people. So my demographic is an 18 to 25 year olds.
Seth Larson: Mm-hmm.
Maya Higa: And they're not biologists and they're not ecologists and they're not inherently interested in the natural world, generally speaking. So we have to hook 'em.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: And so the tiny mic series is by far the most successful series I've had. That's a, it's a series of YouTube videos that's accumulated over 50 million views.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: And...
Seth Larson: You literally had a tiny mic...
Maya Higa: Yes.
Seth Larson: ...that you would hold up to the animals and, ask them questions, but in doing so share educational tips and facts and backstories and all that.
Maya Higa: Yes. Yeah. So it's a microphone that's like the size of a toothpick and it was like $10 and I filmed it off my iPhone. And I went to that zoo that I was working at and I would, yeah, I would just ask the animals these silly questions. And I think doing the fun content like that has made me a way better educator because I think it makes me really relatable. I think it's important to do the fun stuff because before, before social media and before we had these influencers doing all this, the best examples that we had of conservationists, who are still the best examples of conservationists, are people like Steve Irwin and Jane Goodall and David Attenborough. Incredible icons, legends, also people that it's really hard to relate ourselves to.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: And it feels like something that maybe other people go off and do in these incredible places.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: And doesn't feel so accessible. But at Alveus, and for me, I'm just a normal person and I livestream myself going to get coffee and I make silly videos and I livestream myself with when my voice is cracking, singing bad guitar covers. You know, I'm just like a normal person. And so I think it, it helps other people think that they can be a conservationist too.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: You know and be a part of it.
Seth Larson: Yeah. I love it.
Maya Higa: Yeah.
Seth Larson: Maya, I wanna get in a moment into some of the work you've been doing with us to help promote the annual Give an Hour for Earth...
Maya Higa: Yes.
Seth Larson: ...campaign that WWF does. But before we turn to that, I did just want to ask if there's anything else you can tell us about Alveus Sanctuary and the work you've done there so far, but also kind of what your ambitions are there going forward?
Maya Higa: Yes. So Alveus Sanctuary has been around since 2021, so it's still very new, but we are moving very fast. So we just acquired the property next door. So we went from 15 to 30-acre facility and we're building the Alveus Research and Recovery Institute right now. So it's a new facility and the goal is species recovery and advancing conservation technology. So we're starting with the recovery of critically endangered wolves.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: So Mexican gray wolves and red wolves are two critically endangered species of wolves. There's less than 300 Mexican gray wolves and less than 30 red wolves right now in the wild. And so one of the ways people are helping to support those populations is with captive breeding programs.
Seth Larson: Sure.
Maya Higa: So we're developing a new facility out at Alveus where we do this captive breeding so that we can take these wolves and reintroduce them into the wild.
Seth Larson: Wow.
Maya Higa: And crazy, so exciting dream conservation work, you know, and it'll be really cool and we'll break ground over the next couple years on that.
And same thing, so we're not open to the public. Everyone's just consuming all of this stuff via video and livestreams. But they're, they care so much about those animals. And so my, my dream, my goal is that they care about these wolves at our facility, and then they can follow their journey into the wild and care about them there too. So I think it really brings the viewers to where it matters the most.
Seth Larson: It's absolutely wonderful and thank you for the work you're doing there, it's super cool.
Maya Higa: Yeah, I'm so excited. Of course.
Seth Larson: So turning now to Give an Hour for Earth, this is WWF's big annual campaign we do every year. It started off as Earth Hour and has morphed into this whole month of really an opportunity for everyone to dig in and get their hands dirty and find a way to make a difference for the planet just by donating an hour of their time. And you participated last year, not only as an individual, but also engaging your audience and really motivating them to take action as well. Your viewers and followers donated thousands of hours to our campaign last year, so we really appreciate that. And like I said, you yourself, you filmed yourself doing a trash cleanup...
Maya Higa: Mm-hmm.
Seth Larson: ...at a waterway between, I think it was between a couple of...
Maya Higa: Yeah.
Seth Larson: ...like strip malls.
Maya Higa: Yes.
Seth Larson: And I, first of all, I encourage everyone to go watch that video. It's super fun.
Maya Higa: Thank you.
Seth Larson: But I loved A: just seeing the difference you made and how much trash you picked up. You got a lot of trash bags filled. But also you made this great point of talking about how it can be really easy to feel helpless in the face of big crises like climate change and nature loss, and just the sheer volume of pollution that we see in our world, and what can I, as an individual do that's really going to solve that problem? But you brought it down to the perspective of the fish in the waterway around where you were picking up the trash. And how even though you didn't solve the world's pollution problem that day, for the fish in that little waterway that made all the difference in the world. They've got a clean ecosystem to live in now.
Maya Higa: Mm-hmm.
Seth Larson: And I wanted to just ask you to reflect a little bit more on that mindset and why you think it's important for people to find hope in the small actions that we can all take every day.
Maya Higa: Yeah. I'm glad you watched that video. Thank you for watching that.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: Yeah. It was a little vlog that I put out. I think one of the things that's most important to me and important to all you guys here too is stewardship. It's one of my core values is just leaving things better than I found it. You know, the world and our ecosystems and also people that I'm around and everything. And so for me, doing something like a trash cleanup feels really powerful. Sometimes what you need to get out of that hopeless spiral and the existential spiral that we all have, in regard to conservation is seeing an impact.
Seth Larson: Mm-hmm.
Maya Higa: Like seeing something tangible. That's why I think trash cleanups are really fun.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: And really great. It's so satisfying. Take a before picture you clean up the trash, you look at it after and you, you think, man, I did that.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: That's awesome. And in that specific instance, there were these tiny little fish, I don't know what kind of fish they were. Little tiny gray fish. And they were in this pool that was kind of separated from the rest of the waterway.
Seth Larson: Mm-hmm.
Maya Higa: And when the water level comes up, they will leave. But...
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: ...when they're young, they're in this pool. And there was so much trash in this pool, and for me it took a few seconds, like maybe 30 seconds to clean the trash out of that. And it's exactly what you just said. I think, no, I'm not changing the world by picking up these, you know, dozen chip bags or something in this pool. But to those fish that is literally their whole world. And that matters at the end of the day. And you can walk away from that thinking, I left that better than I found it. And those fish maybe are still alive because of me even. And that's so cool and exciting that we can help in so many ways, in so many small ways. And there are so many of us.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: There are so many of us. I say this when it comes to the choices that you make in what you're eating too. It's so important that so many of us are just a few percentage points better.
Seth Larson: Mm-hmm.
Maya Higa: Not some of us being a hundred percent better. None of us can do that. But if we all do a little bit, it's going to go a long way.
Seth Larson: Yeah. I think setting attainable goals is so important and like no one's perfect. I try to remember to bring my reusable grocery bags to the grocery store all the time, but sometimes I forget.
Maya Higa: Me too.
Seth Larson: I think everyone needs to give themselves some grace, but yeah, stay motivated to get those few percentage points better.
Maya Higa: Exactly.
Seth Larson: In the spirit of that and trying to create even more momentum for Give an Hour for Earth this year, you and I wanted to have a little fun and share our top three suggestions for ways that people can take action to give an hour for earth this year. We will just take turns going back and forth...
Maya Higa: Okay.
Seth Larson: ...and we're going to share our top three suggestions for folks. So, Maya, do you want to get us started? And what's your number three thing that you want people to do?
Maya Higa: Yes. I'm going to start with trash cleanups because, everyone can do it from anywhere. It's so satisfying to see something, to see a tangible impact. And trash grabbers are so fun to use. Everybody loves a trash grabber. It's fun to pick stuff up.
Seth Larson: Yep.
Maya Higa: Like it's, and it's like, it's fun to do with your friends and it gets you outside. And so I love, I love that one. I love a trash cleanup.
Seth Larson: Yeah, that's a great one.
Maya Higa: So my number three is to create art from recycled plastic or other things that might be going in the trash.
Seth Larson: This is honestly, especially good if you have kids at home or if you've got nieces and nephews that you wanna have some fun with. My son had an activity his kindergarten year last year in school where his classroom collected items from around their house and had to bring it into school. And they had designated time of creating art projects and thinking about how they could repurpose these different items.
Maya Higa: Aw.
Seth Larson: And he now will not let us throw out anything, whether... not in the recycling, not in the trash... if he thinks it can be made into something artistic. So whether it's a water bottle...
Maya Higa: That's awesome.
Seth Larson: ...or even paper products like Kleenex boxes and paper towel rolls. He's always got all these bright ideas for how he can repurpose these things. So for any parents out there, anyone who gets to interact with kids a lot, yeah. Find those pieces of plastic or pieces of trash that might be going into a landfill and figure out a way to like give them a second life. Maya, what's your number two activity that you think people should do?
Maya Higa: My number two is to volunteer to wildlife rehab center. A lot of people don't even know that these exist.
Seth Larson: Oh, mm-hmm.
Maya Higa: But I was a wildlife rehabber for a few years, and wildlife rehab is so, it's one of those things that feels really productive and feels really tangible too. Because generally all of the animals that are coming into rehab, whether it's a raccoon or a hawk or an opossum or a squirrel or any of those things, a lot of times they come into the rehab center because of some damage that was done by humans, right?
Seth Larson: Mm-hmm.
Maya Higa: They were hit by a car. They flew into a window, they were bit by a dog.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: Any of those things. And so wildlife rehab centers are able to take these animals and undo that damage that humans have done, and that feels really, really good. And they need a lot of help, and so it's a really fun way to get involved with wildlife in a really ethical, really responsible way. So check those out.
Seth Larson: That's a great idea. I love that.
Maya Higa: Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of fun.
Seth Larson: Alright. My number two activity is for people to take policy activism into their own hands.
Maya Higa: Yes.
Seth Larson: And reach out to their members of Congress and ask them to support two important pieces of legislation that WWF is prioritizing this year. Both are around avoiding food waste. One is the Food Date Labeling Act. I think all of us have had the experience of, you know, picking up a can of beans from our pantry and being a little confused about the guidance it's giving us about whether it's still safe to eat or not.
Maya Higa: Yeah.
Seth Larson: There's a lot of different date labels that get assigned to different food products. There's not a lot of coherence or organization around it. And the Food Date Labeling Act would create more of a uniform national system for how things are labeled so that we all better understand whether it's time to throw something out or not. And in doing so, hopefully avoid throwing out things that are actually still perfectly usable. And then the other piece of legislation is called the No Time to Waste Act, which would increase federal support for a variety of activities that would, again, help reduce food loss and waste. So, go tell your members of Congress to support the Food Date Labeling Act and the No Time to Waste Act.
Maya Higa: Nice.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: Those are two really good ones.
Seth Larson: Yeah,
Maya Higa: I like that.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: Okay. My, my last one is also about food and it's next time you go grocery shopping, do a little bit of research on food labels.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: There's lots of really cool food labels out there that are helping with our natural world and with animal welfare.
Seth Larson: Mm-hmm.
Maya Higa: Promoting better stewardship of our planet and promoting better animal welfare. And they can be really fun to look for in stores. It's kind of like an Easter egg hunt. So next time you're shopping, just look at the brands that you're buying all the time and check the labels and see if it's something that's good for our planet. And if it's not find another staple product maybe, and do a little bit of research on that. So just thoughtful grocery shopping.
Seth Larson: Love that, yeah. One of the big things that we advocate for here is looking for that FSC logo on paper products.
Maya Higa: Yeah.
Seth Larson: It stands for Forest Stewardship Council, and it's basically just a stamp of approval letting you know that that product came from a source that wasn't deforested.
Maya Higa: Yeah, totally. Rainforest Alliance certified seal is another one. There's the RSPO-CSPO, which you guys are involved in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.
Seth Larson: Mm-hmm.
Maya Higa: Really cool to find in stores. And then Certified Humane on animal products...
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: ...is one that we also, we also advocate for.
Seth Larson: Love it.
Maya Higa: Yeah.
Seth Larson: Alright. My last activity that I want people to think about doing for this year's Give an Hour for Earth campaign is to be like Maya!
Maya Higa: Oh!
Seth Larson: And livestream for Earth. There are so many livestreamers out there, whether they have large followings like you, or they're just getting started and their livestreaming for their friends in high school or whatever. Use your voice and your microphone and talk to your audience about what you care about nature.
Maya Higa: Mm-hmm.
Seth Larson: And what you think people can do to make a difference, whether it's something big or small. I think using your platform, whatever it is, to encourage people, spread the words, spread some education is great use of your time. So be like Maya, livestream for Earth and let's all make a bigger difference for Earth this year.
Maya Higa: Love that. Also, just so you guys know, you do not have to have an animal sanctuary and be a full-blown conservationist...
Seth Larson: Mm-hmm.
Maya Higa: ...to support the earth through livestreaming. You can fundraise for World Wildlife Fund and other conservation NGOs while you're gaming.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: It doesn't even have to do with the planet.
Seth Larson: Yeah.
Maya Higa: But it's a really cool thing that everybody can do, so.
Seth Larson: Absolutely.
Maya Higa: Yeah.
Seth Larson: People can find all these activities and a lot more ideas for how to get involved in Give an Hour for Earth on our website. I'll include the link in our show notes for this episode. Maya, thank you for being here today. Thank you for everything you've done to spread the word about Give an Hour for Earth, and to partner with WWF and help advance our conservation mission. Thank you for everything you're doing at the Alveus Sanctuary and just really appreciate your partnership.
Maya Higa: Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. This was fun.
Seth Larson: Absolutely.
Thanks again to Maya for joining the show today. Her journey from growing up on a farm, to zookeeping in college, to spreading her conservation message online and then founding her own animal sanctuary is really amazing. She has a real knack for teaching others about nature in a way that's fun and engaging, ultimately inspiring. So I hope you take inspiration from her words and make a plan to Give an Hour for Earth this month. Please visit our website, wwf.earth/Giveanhour/podcast to find an activity that works best for you. There are dozens of activities to choose from, including those ones that Maya and I highlighted in our conversation today. So please click that link in the show notes and donate an hour of your time today. Thanks for listening and together let's keep building a more sustainable future.