Hello again!
Another week, another month. It was a beautiful day today and I just got back from a hike around Deep Cove. There’s this trail that leads up to Quarry Rock, and if you keep going, you can go all the way to Lynn Valley and further on, Horseshoe Bay. It’s a gorgeous hike!
The view from Quarry Rock.
So, I realized I haven’t talked much about what made me want to get into the environmental sector in the first place. If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that I originally wanted to be an elementary school teacher and then changed my mind and switched from UBC to BCIT. But why?
Being “green” and “sustainable” and the topic of climate change has been a much-discussed topic over the past decade. Sometimes, when I tell people that I’m in a Renewable Resources program, or that I love the outdoors, they look at me funny. I’ve been called a hippie, a tree-hugger, or someone who doesn’t care about the economy very much. But I feel that I’m simply a person who wants to make a difference in the world.
Places like the Okanagan are sacred, and should be saved.
I was talking to one of my friends in the program the other day, and she was commenting on how reading the news can be a bit depressing. More endangered species that aren’t being protected, more land that is being destroyed for the sake of non-renewable resource extraction, more roadblocks to environmental protection from the government. But reading those articles never made me depressed. They make me angry – and determined to make a change, in any way I can.
Plus, wildlife is incredibly fascinating.
I don’t want to ruffle any feathers – obviously I think that money, jobs and the economy are important. But I don’t think there’s enough work being done on the other side to ensure that any potential impacts are mitigated. And that’s where I come in.
My ideal career would be one in habitat restoration. So many of our problems come from the fact that these animals simply don’t have any place to live. I’d like to restore wetlands, protect grasslands, or do some native plant restoration. I want to look back at my newly created marsh and think, hey cool, I made a home for the Oregon spotted frog.
Not only that, but I want to be a voice. I want people to know what’s going on, because burying our heads in the sand only makes things worse. I want to fight for the forests and the rivers and the burrowing owls that don’t have a voice, and I want other people to care about it as much as I do.
And that, my friends, is why I decided to go into FWR, and am continuing on with a degree in Ecological Restoration :)
Until next week,
Audrey