becasteel24
Registered: March 2009
City/Town/Province: APO
Posts: 2
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As I have progressed through my high school career, I’ve come to love my temporary home, the small island of Okinawa, Japan. With its unique culture; from its peoples’ distinctive politeness to its intriguing traditions such as Okinawa Soba and its annual tug of war—one of the largest in the world, it has enabled me to see life differently than many others my age. Nonetheless, the thing that has captured me most was Okinawa’s environment; its oceans and seas with beautiful coral reefs and vast jungles.
Everywhere I turn, I see people neglect this environment that I’ve come to love. People throw their trash, such as metals and plastics, into Okinawa’s seas, polluting its water and killing its coral reefs and in turn, destroying the habitats of millions of species of marine life. People neglect the dire need to reuse, recycle, and reduce materials, contributing to the overflow of the few landfills on the island and in turn, polluting the soil. Carelessly, though often subconsciously, people are abusing Okinawa’s environment. As an individual in this community, I have come to realize that it is my responsibility that I do my part in sustaining the environment.
I have participated in various environmentally friendly functions and activities throughout my high school years such as beach clean-ups and recycling for my school. This has helped to show people that damage to the environment is not only repairable, but also preventable if the community can work together. Nonetheless, I believe that more important than what is done within organizations or groups is what you do outside of these organizations. I have seen, through an extensive research project and survey conducted by myself, that the reason people neglect the environment is not because they don’t care about the environment, but because they often just do not know that what they are doing is harmful. Therefore, I have made it my goal to inform about the environment and things people can do to prevent its degradation and to influence people both in and out of school that sustaining Okinawa’s environment should be as important to them as it is to me. From friends and family to someone on the street, I have shared my concern for the environment in hopes that in the future, someone can come to the beautiful island of Okinawa, Japan to enjoy and appreciate it as I have.
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