51 years ago Earth Day was founded. One of the largest grass roots movements in support of environmental protections. That day in 1970, an estimated 20 million people attended the festivities and marched in the streets demanding that our government do more to save our planet. 20 years later it rose to 200 million and today it is estimated that one billion people celebrate the Earth and will march in the streets for stronger environmental protections this April 22nd.
This Earth Day, after a year that tested us beyond measure, many of us are anxious, bored, over worked or worse, unemployed. We are ready to get out of the house. To help you celebrate the importance of this Earth Day we aren’t presenting a webinar to watch, a town hall meeting to attend or even a march. Today is for the Earth and we are asking you to step up and do something really radical. Something that could very well change your life or at least allow you to see your life and the planet from a different perspective. We are asking you to go outside. Take a hike through a forest, walk by a lake or alongside a river. Hug some trees and put your bare feet in the water. Experience the natural world in all of its glorious splendor.
Allow yourself to indulge in an old fashioned adventure. An adventure where you don’t know how long the trail is, or where the hike will lead you, where it ends, or what previous walkers, runners, bicyclists, or hikers thought about it as posted on social media or in the latest review ap. So please, have an adventure, unplug and go outside.
As you embrace nature and your own inner transformation, you’ll discover that your power—and responsibility—to change the world around you are far greater than you’ve known.
Watch the beautiful video above as your entry into the wild and then get out there. Just walk or hike or ride a bike. Find a park, nature preserves, a forest or some other place that is natural and free. Discover what you have missed, listen to the quiet and pay homage to the planet that sustains us.
Earth. This is your Day. We recognize you. We celebrate you.
Interspersed with exclusive video, Leslie will discuss the complexity of issues facing the recovery of bighorn sheep; how mountain lions are being culled for bighorn relocations into their historic ranges; and what the future might hold for healthy bighorn populations.
In her early twenties, Laura Coleman finds herself living in London, her life an endless loop of commuting and corporate meetings. Tired of tight tailored suits and lacking direction, she quits her job and sets out for South America. Two months into her three-month trip to Bolivia, Laura is tired, bloated, sunburnt, lonely, and ready to go home. But a flyer about an animal welfare charity encourages her to stick it out, and soon she is en route to “el parque” in the heart of the Amazon. Arriving at el parque, Laura finds an underfunded, understaffed, dilapidated camp, along with suicidal howler monkeys, megalomaniac pigs, toothless jaguars, and many more animals who had been abused and abandoned. She also meets a timid and moody puma named Wayra who she now has to learn how to “walk” outside of her enclosure. Within days, all Laura can think about is going home. But after several weeks of barely showering, being eaten alive by bugs, and doing work that pushes her to a physical and emotional exhaustion she’s never known, Laura deliberately misses her flight back to England and spends the next two years learning how to trust Wayra, as well as how to trust herself.
Laura Coleman (she/her) is a writer and an artist. She has lived and worked in Bolivia for over a decade, caring for rescued wild animals with the NGO Comunidad Inti Wara Yassi. This is the subject of her first book, a memoir, entitled THE PUMA YEARS. She is also the founder of ONCA, a Brighton (UK) based arts charity that bridges social and environmental justice issues with creativity, and she lives by the sea on the Isle of Eigg in Scotland with a dog called Nelo.
