Nicodemus Wilderness Project -- Global Registry of Apprentice Ecologists

Nature and animal conservation are very important global issues we are forced to deal with today, due to lack of care and respect for our environment. It is important to try and help these factors because they are part of our everyday lives, and affect us in every way possible. If we continue on the path weâ€™ve followed, we will not have an environment that can survive on its own for much longer, and several animals will suffer from detrimental care.
As a global issue, nature is one that is very important to me. I have had a passion for the outdoors since before I could walk. To watch the lack of care build up and accumulate to hurt our environment simply aggravates me. At school, we have a club Roots and Shoots, an organization dedicated to helping the environment and focuses on committing service hours to our surroundings. Through this organization, I have gone on several cleanups on beaches, islands, and other local areas. If everyone could just clean up after themselves in the first place, we would not have this problem. Realistically though, that wonâ€™t happen. So we just have to continue putting in time and effort to keep our Earth clean.
Over the summer, a companion and I contributed our time to the local environment. We spent 35 hours cleaning up local canals across the county. These canals ranged from commercial canals, to minute canals on golf courses. We walked around with our trash bags and picked up garbage along the sides as well as helping an animal who was stuck in debris. As well as on land cleaning, we hopped in canoes and made our ways into local mangroves. These canals were infested with plastic bottles, garbage bags and wrappers from food and drinks. By the time we had finished collecting this trash, we had an abundance of full trash bags filled to the brim with disgusting litter.
On our adventure, we encountered several strange and unusual animals and plants. One plant in particular that grabbed my eye was a willow-like bush. This bush was one that I have never seen before. It had a pungent smell and had beautiful purple flowers. Some animals we encountered were giant iguanas, a range of birds and several game fish.