Rev. Dirk Ficca

Executive Director, Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions

Today’s Date: December 18, 2007

1. What interaction with an animal and/or nature in your life has had the biggest impact on you?

My senior year in college I lived in a two-story apartment house that had had a fire. Consequently I spent a lot of time on the front porch studying, eating my meals, and just sitting. This gave me an appreciation the changes throughout the day - from dawn to noon to late afternoon to evening. The house was across from a park, and I watched the trees change as summer gave way to autumn and then into winter

2. Did you have a favorite place in the great outdoors during your childhood?

Summer camps at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

Now? The riverwalk in Melbourne, Australia. The mountain hike up Chipinque ecological park in Monterrey, Mexico.

3. As a former zookeeper, I would love to know what your favorite animal is and why?

I'm fascinated by gorillas, in part because of their size and strength, but also their intelligence and social life.

4. What do you think is the greatest environmental challenge facing us now, and what do you think will be the greatest challenge in the future?

Certainly climate change is the most dynamic and far-reaching environmental challenge at the moment. The need for clean water is already a crisis in many places in the world. Wars fought over oil today will be fought over water in the next decade.

5. If you could give one piece of advice regarding the environment and our natural resources, what would it be?

Find those one or two things in your own life that you can do to preserve the inhabitability of the planet. Use them as both a practical contribution to the future, but also as a spur to think more deeply and broadly about the ecological implications of everything that we do.