Barbara

Landscape Architect

Jul 23, 2009

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

grandparents in Germany lived within walking distance to the beach and a forest - we got to play in both unsupervised; father was military so we traveled overseas and I spent one year (9th grade) in a school in Germany (German school...not an Am. school); received a small zoo set (with the plastic zoo animals, cage bars, and plastic 'base' with circular path and moated cages...wanted to 'save the zoo world' because I thought it was a prison and the animals must be miserable...I was not quite 10 years old

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

then: the forest at my grandparents now: not sure....some evenings listening to the frogs and coyotes in the drainage 'creek' (ditch) behind our house

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

wolf...not sure. have always liked them and been fascinated by them...but having a cat now, I am very interested in cats...maybe my new 'favorite'

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?

getting people here to 'think beyond themselves' and making steps to drive less, buy locally...okay, a lot of those things we hear a lot about. I think that there is a lot of lip service about being green and yet when construction takes place, the same type of materials and thinking goes into the development of the facilities...and although cities say they want to be 'green' often the 'higer-ups' don't help the information trickle down to the folks that work in the 'bottom' ie maintenance. Our dependence on 'easy', quick, and 'happy'.

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

Start thinking beyond yourself. If we are trying to tell other countries what to do, we should model it: stop deforestation, destruction of wildlife habitat, etc. Sacrifice something for your kids and grandkids!