2 February 2024:
Ruth’s guest this week is Aeronwyn Schache, a ‘f2f (face to face) fundraiser’ with The Wilderness Society, affectionately known as TWS.
Part of her role with TWS has her working ‘in the streets’ filling in passersby about today’s pressing environmental issues along with the important role TWS plays and its history over the last 48 years of supporting the environment we live in. TWS stands at the forefront of Australia’s most historic environmental victories including the famous Franklin River campaign that stopped the River from becoming a hydro electric dam. Such a significant victory rocked political orthodoxy at the time, and sparked a nation-wide movement.
While studying Economics and data analytics at university, Aeronwyn found herself being drawn to live a more sustainable existence. She soon converted her degree to Ecological Economics and after graduating, spent the next couple of years exploring how best to apply these learnings.
Working with the Gould League in early childhood development gave her experience in teaching about the environment whilst increasing her knowledge. Becoming clearer about the work she wanted to do in the field led her to The Wilderness Society.
Join me for a fascinating conversation as we map the path and values that have led this next generation activist to devote her life to supporting the environmental health of our planet and all its residents.
“I firmly believe unity, communities, and radical self-love are acts of environmental activism. I look forward to expanding my skills in Environmentalism in the health and well-being space”.
Aeronwyn points to community based activities as key to delivering positive environmental outcomes. “It is communities that push democratic governments to prioritize nature in ways that voting simply doesn’t. We might vote for a particular party but it is communities that ensure they put in place species recovery plans, etc. (voting won't do that)”.
Aeronwyn also has a blog called Eco Eco Aus that showcases a couple of pieces which explore some economic topics. Although pretty quiet recently, she plans to pick up the speed in 2024. The link is ecoecoaus.blogspot.com
References:
-The Wilderness Society, founded in 1976, is completely independent. wilderness.org.au
-The Gould League, gould.org.au, is an independent not-for-profit organization celebrating 114 years of environmental and sustainability education.
Photo by Aeronwyn from a waterfall look-out at Dharawal Conservation Reserve in NSW.
Tune in to BEAM's radio program EarthChat each Friday on Seymour FM at 10am, repeated at 8am Saturday.
Return to this page for a link to the podcast after the program.
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