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From Appreciation
Maggie Reinbold, M.S., director of community engagement for San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, discusses ways to engage youth with wildlife conservation.
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The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. -DAVID ORR, PH.D., (AUTHOR, EDUCATOR, ENVIRONMENTALIST) FROM HIS BOOK EARTH IN MIND: ON EDUCATION, ENVIRONMENT, AND THE HUMAN PROSPECT
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e all have a role to play in realizing Dr. Orr’s vision of a world of dedicated peacemakers. For more than a hundred years, SDZWA educators have inspired passion for nature through transformative wildlife experiences for visitors of all ages and from all over the world. These pivotal experiences unfold each and every day on grounds at the Zoo and Safari Park, in our experiential learn-
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ing labs at the Beckman Center for Conservation Research, and through our captivating publications and innovative digital content. Our work is to help visitors understand and appreciate the value of plants and animals, the inextricable link between wildlife and human well-being, and their own vital role in preserving wildlife into the future. One critically important stakeholder group at the center of our efforts is local children, representing the next generation
8 / SAN DIEGO ZOO WILDLIFE ALLIANCE JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
of regional professionals, voters, consumers, teachers, parents, and community leaders. Our founder, Dr. Harry Wegeforth, knew something of the importance of this stakeholder group when he dedicated the Zoo to the children of San Diego back in 1916. Every year since, we have engaged many thousands of local schoolchildren with experiential learning opportunities on grounds, in area schools, and in adjacent communities. These children, to whom the Zoo was dedicated, will soon be stewards of the most biologically diverse region in the contiguous United States—the California Floristic Province, our very own biodiversity hotspot—with its extraordinary array of habitats and endemic wildlife. As we move into our second century of inspiring passion for nature, we deepen our
