A Single Action Can Lead to Extraordinary Changes

This is a winning article of a writing contest among teams in the 2014 Bronze Program

A Single Action Can Lead to Extraordinary Changes

by  Jason Choi, Jody Jin, Jeffery Lam, Rachel Man, Joshua Xu, and Ryan Zou.

Bronze Team A, VISION YOUTH

Group photo after the lunch break

If you so happened to take a stroll at Littles Road Park on the morning of July 12, 2014, you probably would have passed by a group of young visioneers and their counsellors diligently pulling out dogweed and removing snails from leaves. This group of youth dedicated their Saturday morning to help rid the park of invasive species. Littles Road Park is known for its natural beauty and lush vegetation. However, invasive species are beginning to populate and damage this natural habitat. Young trees are dying from being strangled by the dogweed, and their leaves are home to the snails.

Now, you are probably thinking that this could never impact you, right? So what if the dogweed and snails destroy the plants? It’s not your problem, it’ll never harm you..

Everybody is working hard

Actually that’s wrong, it can. As we all know, vegetation produces oxygen and takes in carbon dioxide, which is beneficial to both plants and animals, including humans. If the dogweed strangles the trees, it will impact us and the entire ecosystem. The trees provide shelter to animals that make their homes in the park, and if destroyed, the animals will be unable to survive and this will be instrumental to the endangerment and extinction of biodiversity. This problem is also something that the Littles Road Park, along with Rouge Valley Conservation Park, is doing their best to protect. Therefore, invasive species can create a huge environmental detriment on Littles Road Park.

So what can we do to help? Maybe you can’t come to Littles Road Park and help dig out the dogweed and the snails; but you CAN change your own actions that impact the environment. These environmental changes, spreading from local problems to international issues, from something as small as invasive species to something as large as global warming, have emerged over the years since technology has improved and humans’ need for space began to expand rapidly. We had the power to start this revolutionary change, and now we have the power to save Earth’s environment as we learn to accommodate with the plants and animals. It all starts with one single voice deciding to be eco-friendly, and it has the ability to grow, and to move into an organization that works to save what little natural beauty we have left.

The Rouge Valley Conservation Park will soon become a national park for everyone to spend their spare time and enjoy the beauty of nature. The Friends of the Rouge Watershed are campaigning to add this beautiful patch of nature into the care of the government, as it resides right on the edge of the proposed area. If you would like to know more about and contribute to this cause, you can visit http://www.rougepark.ca or contact Friends of the Rouge Watershed.

The removed Dog Weeds by Visioneers

The Friends of the Rouge Watershed organized and led this great and wonderful event for these youth. After all, the youth of today are the future of tomorrow. So let’s start changing the world today.