Dayna Reggero, a documentarian who started her career at the University of West Florida, recently came back to talk to local students at the UWF Communications Department. She returned to the area while working on her Gulf Coast Love Story project. 

Reggero has made a name for herself by creating documentaries about environmental justice and climate change. While at UWF, she worked at a local zoo, where she got her foot in the door of the media by promoting conservation in newspapers and local television. 

See the full interview transcript below:

Dayna Reggero

I’m the director and founder of the Climate Listening Project. I have been an environmentalist for 25 years since attending the University of West Florida. I started working at the zoo and taking animals on TV. Then, about 15 years ago, I started going behind the camera.

I started the Climate Listening Project because I wanted to show the real stories, the real people impacted by climate change, and the real solutions that these folks were creating. I wanted to create a free, shareable, online accessible, impactful way to share climate stories.

I’ve had an opportunity to travel pretty much across the United States, listening to moms, doctors, and farmers. Then, I have traveled around the world, following birders across borders, even to Belize and Central America. I’ve been invited to the Paris climate talks to show my films and to travel and connect these stories with the Environmental Paper Network via 15 countries worldwide.

My work is grounded in listening and the love that happens when we allow each other to be our whole selves. My job is so much more about listening and caring for each other through truth-telling, which occurs as much as the end product of creating the films and short videos we make.

I will hire only one other person to accompany me, who will take care of the camera, the sound, the lighting, and just about every other aspect of filming. Besides directing, producing and listening, which is what I focus on. But having this small crew allows me to be intimate and to go into spaces like small doctor’s offices and to go into spaces where, you know, in communities, in fenceline polluted communities where they feel safe bringing us in and knowing who we are and that we’re there to listen.

The Climate Listening project and my listening work are about coming together to create hopeful solutions around climate and community. So I’m following the things that connect us, the things we need, the things we love, the children that the parents are all in this community connected to protect. The farmers are all connected by their love for the land and by their love of growing food. You know, these faith leaders who are all connected by their care for creation.

So I had the opportunity to listen to Republican members of Congress, to listen to priests or, you know, ranchers, birders that are, you know, prominent in the corporate world. Just, you know, people that you wouldn’t expect. It’s really because there is always a reason that folks are connected to this place. We are part of our planet. We are very much connected to this place, and we love this place.

The Gulf Coast has been more than ever before and has been a story focused on place. Most of my stories are connected by the children whose parents love the faith

people believe in. This story, the Gulf Coast story, is so much about a place that we all care about. We want to protect the beaches and the bayous of the Gulf Coast. We want to protect the waters, whether it’s because of the crab, the shrimp, the water sports, the tourism. We’re all connected by the love of this place.

So, I came to the Gulf Coast 25 years ago to attend the University of West Florida. For many years, I worked from Perdido, Pensacola, all the way to Port St Joe and Apalachicola, sharing stories of nature, of connection to conservation, and of this beautiful place that we call home.

In my heart, there is no other place in the world that is as special as northwest Florida. The coastal dune lakes are only a few places where such a rare phenomenon has happened, and I feel a unique energy there.

I’m so grateful to have found this place and the ideas that all started for me at the University of West Florida, where the former chair of the public relations Department had given me this painting of all these animals on the last day of school before I graduated. She said to me, I believe in you and this passion that you have for this work that you do, and please don’t stop.

There was a time in my life when I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do or who I would be. I remember calling her and saying, I will switch careers. I’m going to do something else. She said no. So I’m still here.

I just finished a new film called Gulf Coast Love Story. It’s a 25-minute short documentary that follows artists along the Gulf Coast. When I was looking at who should be the Gulf Coast’s connector. You know, I have doctors across America, farmers, moms, faith leaders, all these different folks I’ve followed through the years. I said, what is the Gulf Coast? It’s jazz, it’s blues, it’s the food, it’s the culture.

So I have a chef, a poet, and a wonderful new project that we started called Gulf Coast Murals. New murals have been created by painters from Corpus Christi to New Orleans. It’s been a really beautiful project, as well as a film that envisions the future that we want to see along the Gulf Coast that’s not liquid natural gas, that’s not petrochemicals.

My favorite part about the Gulf Coast love story film is how it ends with a poem. This poet, Ebony Stewart, is from Houston, Texas. She starts by talking about how the folks are superheroes working to protect the environment, fighting their traumas, and rising to be better people in this world.

The film moves from the viewer watching it and learning about the people along the Gulf to becoming one of those people. The poem is for the viewer because if you are sitting there watching Gulf Coast Love Story, you care.

That means you are a superhero, too. The Gulf Coast love story film is really for everybody along the Gulf Coast. It is a love story for all of us.