Dear Rotary Members,

I wanted to send my sincere appreciation for the Paul Harris Fellow award I received on Friday. I was not only surprised but very honored to receive the award, especially after talking with Connie after the Rotary meeting to learn more about the award and reasons for my nomination.

My work at the Pukaite Woods has been nothing short of rewarding. The positive impacts we are making restoring the woods and the people we have brought together thus far in the process make everything we do out there meaningful. It’s no exaggeration that we are facing issues unlike anything most of us living today have ever seen. If we don’t act accordingly and significantly our continuation of life as is may be drastically different. At this, I am referring to both the global health pandemic and lingering climate crisis.

In a news article written by the Savory Institute, an organization I follow quite closely, the COVID19 response was compared to that of the climate crisis. In general, we are more aware of the global health pandemic, of which the consequences we are currently feeling. The effects of our individual and collective behavior either hurting or helping the situation almost immediately. The climate crisis on the other hand, has a slower feedback loop. Our individual actions are just as critical, but their consequences play out along a longer timescale. One in which, us humans aren’t well adapted to responding to, even if the evidence is clear and in our best interest. It’s simple, we don’t see or experience the effects of our actions immediately enough to provoke a necessary and timely response.

In part, because of these lingering consequences and the need to act now, I find motivation to put my whole heart into the things I do. To put it simple, life is too short and unpredictable to live any other way. I am grateful that my work with OWLT and the MT Sunrise Rotary award me the opportunity to conduct my work in this way and am again, very honored for the recognition through the Paul Harris Fellow award.

Thank you and to all the exciting things to come of our work together.

Sincerely,

Christine Bohn