My mother used to say, “No one is dominant on Earth, but everyone is meaningful.” I realize now, it is about two things: peace and the environment. My dream follows this idea. I want to help citizens of big cities live in harmony with nature and recognize that all creatures are equal and necessary for our common well-being.
I was born in the city of Dnipro, Ukraine, a green and beautiful country with a varied and picturesque landscape, from deep lakes and vast rivers to the Carpathian Mountains covered with forests. Still, I wondered why I did not encounter all the plants and animals I studied in my schoolbooks. Merely a hundred years ago, the waters of the river Dnipro were full of fish, while forests were rich with plants and animals. Currently, however, they are on the verge of extinction and were included in the Red Book.
For the last 40 years, my country has been active in manufacturing. People needed more money and energy, and they took all the resources from nature. As a result, we lost sight of our biodiversity in all its dimensions. It affected climate change while raising mortality and morbidity.
I am thinking about how we could stop the overconsumption and excessive production of things we do not actually need for a happy life. We can act together to frame more progressive and long-lasting approaches to how we use the resources around us. We can help animals and all living creatures recover after years of human dominance and economic expansion.
To meet the challenge of ecosystem pollution, and support existing species, we initiated an urban greening project. With my family and our friends, we create green districts across Dnipro to connect people better. We feed animals to get them closer to people and organize living zones in natural environments. The COVID-19 quarantine regime had helped us significantly, affecting not only human activity but also wildlife behavior. In May 2020, for the first time, I saw owls and squirrels in my district.
I am happy to become a public activist and engage children from my school and friends from TikTok in our initiatives. I hope that one day my dream of restoring nature in the industrial cities will come true, and millions of people will live in green places full of animals, all of which will see people as sources of safety, not invaders.
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