Here I am at the University of Leeds Student Union thanks to susthingsout, People & Planet, NUS and EAUC.
Students from universities all over the country have gathered together uniting as one with one common aim. That aim is to build up a wider sustainability and environmental network, with hope that one day we will be the voice of the next generation in order to make our future more sustainable.
Talking to students here at the conference they believe this too is the way forward. Jacob from Newcastle university is part of SCAN (Student Community Action) a sustaibability team who believe that:
“our impacts on the planet have implications”
Newcastle University, similar to Leeds University and my university the University of Worcester have common goals, they too have underdone litter picks and have student allotments. These are small important steps which the Vice Chancellor of Leeds: Alan Langlands, believes is…
“Hope, where society can live in harmony with the environment”
Alan Langlands Leeds research led approach is introducing new ways of thinking and improving sustainability. He gave examples such as supporting farmers in Africa by preserving agriculture and locally peat wetlands gave a glimpse of the range of research going on into making improvements. However, this paled in comparison to Crystal Lameman’s keynote address which was dramatic, tense, personal storytelling and full of depth. She gave all, even her tears in portraying her passion and strong belief about the future of the world inspired by her past, and her children and her heritage of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, a native Canadian. She gave us a passionate history into the frightening way her people were ‘robbed’ of their heritage which was the, Treaty 6. She went on to tell the audience about a second huge injustice which is Tar Sands and how the oil industry and government have decimated the landscape both above and below ground. Deftly articulating the extent of the damage of industrialization on her “homelands”.
Like Crystal, I agree, our inherited right is to live on this planet. We should aid our natural resources, by maintaining natural law, we should respect our mother nature by sustaining all life for our future generations with a:
” Open life and open heart”
It may just change somebody’s life.