Please Welcome one of our newest Volunteers, Amelia. She will be joining the Reforestation Project in Madagascar.
Amelia spent her youth split between the forests and farms of New Hampshire and the steep-hilled Shenandoah Valley. Always a lover of animals and the outdoors, Amelia has been an avid horseback rider since the age of nine. Her travels have taken her to work on horse farms in Spain, Wales, and France. During her undergraduate studies, Amelia spent six months in Ecuador. This time was divided between living in an indigenous Kichwa village and studying the impact of development on the country’s vast biodiversity and equally impressive cultural diversity. The up-close views of environmental degradation and the struggles of local people to provide for their families in the face of lost resources and economic necessity were at the core of Amelia’s decision to focus on environmental efforts that are based on community involvement.
Last summer, Amelia worked at the edge of Yellowstone National Park at an educational facility that housed rescued grizzly bears, wolves, and birds of prey. She spent her time working with visitors to the center and a summer recreation program to educate people about the Yellowstone ecosystem, keystone species, trophic cascades, and the role people have in reducing conflict with animals in the wild. A recent graduate of Grinnell College, Amelia is thrilled that her first move out of school will be working with Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership on their reforestation project. She is looking forward to dedicating herself to the hands-on conservation work and to learning as much as possible from the people she meets.
