Environmental Autobiography
When I was only a few months old, my mother brought me on my first trip to the mountains. We stayed with my grandfather (Papa) in our newly purchased, yet decades-old, hunting cabin that sat on a little hill in the Stanislaus National Forest. During my first night, I cried for hours over two ear infections and some minor hypothermia, but, more importantly, I was introduced to what would soon become my second home.
My papa spent his childhood in the same stretch of forest I spent mine. When he was growing up, he took interest in hunting, fishing, and working on the land. In his early teens, my papa and uncle started packing horses for the Kennedy Meadows Resort and Packstation. They were a couple of cowboys with deep-rooted knowledge of the trails, the horses, and the land. My papa’s dream was to own a cabin in the mountains he grew up in, but these were in short supply and high demand. Finally, almost fifty years later, he was able to purchase cabin 25 on Brightman Flat, only ten miles down the road from the pack station. My mother was pregnant with me at the time, so she was unable to make any trips to the cabin to see her father until after I was born. However, around the same time, my papa was diagnosed with ALS. He was only able to get two good summers out of the cabin before his passing, so my family trips there each summer were a way to appreciate the land for him.
As a young child, the cabin was only a place for fun. I ran up and down the mountains barefoot, bouncing back and forth between my friends’ cabins and the local store for ice cream. When the sun set, all the kids gathered around campfires, roasted marshmallows, and planned the next day’s adventures. The luxuries of the forest included the Eagle Creek swimming hole and the sweet, wild thimbleberries and gooseberries growing along the river. I could swim in the cold snowmelt all day snacking on wild fruit and homemade sandwiches. As I grew older, the cabin became less of a paradise and more of a wasteland. My friends stopped visiting, the creek rarely had water flowing through, and the berries were nonexistent. At the time, I interpreted these changes as a disinterest in nature, but, after becoming more politically active and engaged in my community during my first semester at college, I realized that my attitude was influenced by different factors altogether.
Retrospectively, I see how my childhood at the cabin has shaped my personal and professional interests. As climate change and environmental degradation worked their way to the top of my list of concerns, I realized than many of the aspects of my cabin I thought I disliked were actually changes brought on by a changing climate and ecosystem. Drought and limited snowfall dried up Eagle Creek and starved the wild berries. I took an interest in conservation, sustainability, and zero-waste practices. By my second semester in college, I had changed my major to environmental studies with a concentration in education. My dream was to educate others on the beauty of nature and wonders of the natural world. The beach, ocean, and forests yet again became my second home, and I still take every chance I can to venture out of the house and explore my planet.
A little over a year later, my priorities changed yet again, though this time more abruptly than the last. In August 2018, the Donnell Fire, one of the many devastating California wildfires that summer, burned through my forest and destroyed my cabin. Nothing in or around the cabin was salvageable. The whole hill was black and empty. Though the exact cause of the fire is unpublished, many cabin owners believe improper forest management and out-of-control prescribed burns played important roles in spreading the fire so quickly. After losing everything to the fire, my educational interests changed from inspiring love for nature to protection and conservation. I hope now to educate others on ecosystem and environmental management, conservation methods, and restoration.
Though my goals have changed significantly over the years, I have found outlets for my passion all over the Monterey Bay Area. Last year, I began volunteering for MEarth, an environmental literacy organization in Carmel. At the same time, I took interest in a California plant communities course and learned about native plant restoration. Through this course and my volunteer work, I started working with schoolchildren to restore native plant life and remove invasive species from our community. During one, two-hour event alone, the group I worked with removed around three hundred pounds of invasive species and planted around fifty new natives in the Carmel Dunes. I have also been employed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium in the guest experience department. My job allows me to talk with guests from all over the world and “inspire conservation of the ocean” as the aquarium’s mission states. I play a small part in a large organization striving for global change. Both of my new professional experiences have allowed me to use my passion for education and the environment in ways that support local and global change in conservation and environmental management.