The Environment – What’s in a name?

What’s in a name? Everything! The idea from Rotary International of considering environmental issues as a new area of focus isn’t new to some of us who are already focusing on our community environments.  What is new is calling it what it is – The Environment!

As President Barry Rassin noted: “The Environment isn’t one of Rotary’s six areas of focus, but it’s deeply intertwined with each of them.” 1. How true this is!

For many of us, cleaning trails, planting trees, looking after parks and wetlands or working on water projects such as we do here at the Rotary Club of Kitchener have been ongoing for many years yet these environmental hands-on projects have been hidden inside committees declared as Community or International Service projects when they are clearly about The Environment!

When volunteers from our community are searching google and our websites for ways to participate in local or global environmental projects it can sometimes be frustrating to find. I’ve chosen to be that Pink Flamingo with the conviction to try something new.  As President Elect, I’m advocating for a change on our website that will showcase “The Environment” in a new “Get Involved” section on the home page of our kitchenerrotary.ca site.

Not a radical change you say but one that renames our initiatives in a way that allows for easier understanding and access.

“About 95 percent of the people I’ve spoken with say it’s about time that Rotary talks about the environment. They say it’s about time that The Rotary Foundation Trustees look at helping us understand where the environment fits into the six areas of focus. People have been waiting a long time for this. We plant trees, but we don’t really have the larger conversation.” (Rotarian senior staff writer Diana Schoberg sat down with Barry Rassin to talk about why and how Rotarians should put the welfare of the planet on their agendas.)

This larger conversation starts with one word and for me that’s The “Environment”.

From Louise Gardiner, President Elect Rotary Kitchener