When I stop and think about how I came to serve with the LRCC through the White Mountain Trail Collective, it has been a ride that a lot of people may consider to be all over the place. I am a marine biologist and scientific SCUBA diver from Texas, and I am currently working on a Master’s degree in Exploration Science in Miami. So how did I wind up in New Hampshire of all places, working on maintaining hiking trails in a national forest? Some may say that I landed here out of necessity, but really this is what I have prayed for, even if it hasn’t looked the way that I thought it would.
I’ve always grown up with a love and appreciation for the natural world. Enjoying natural places is a form of worship for me, so of course I wish to be a good steward and conserve nature for others to experience in the future. This has led me to focus on the underwater world, a realm that I believe most people don’t consider enough and that has major impacts on the health of the rest of the globe. I knew that I wanted to explore this place further, so I applied to all sorts of marine-focused internships to fulfill my degree requirements for Miami. To my surprise, however, I was not accepted to any of them. This was disheartening, but I knew that all I needed was one opportunity (and one was really all I preferred, since I am wildly indecisive and didn’t want to have to choose between multiple). Eventually I was accepted to serve with the LRCC and the WTMC, a fully terrestrial position that I did not have nearly as much experience with. This lack of experience, however, may be exactly why I needed to come here.
Conservation in general, whether it be aquatic or on land, has some universal principles that can be applied anywhere. This includes taking into consideration public opinion and valuing a local community’s engagement and expertise, experiencing the place you are trying to conserve with your own eyes and body, and determining what makes a place worth protecting. Through serving with my literal boots on the ground, I have come to better understand these principles for myself. By doing the hard work of basic maintenance on hiking trails I know what goes into trail formation and what the most effective trails look like, and I have to think about how the typical person using these paths thinks and what motivates them to use them. This basic foundation, knowing how things work and how people use those things, is essential to all types of conservation work.
I have enjoyed being able to participate in service that allows more people to explore the natural world firsthand (and experiencing it for myself has been a plus too). People cannot love what they do not know, and the efforts that I am a part of make knowing beautiful places a reality for people. I am truly grateful that my experience here in New Hampshire is helping me to internalize this more solidly, and I am excited for a future career in which I can fully put these principles into practice.
Todd is a member of the White Mountain Trail Collective. He is a graduate student at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. Learn more about Todd here.