“The future doesn’t have to be about more stuff,” says Gina Nicholas. “It can be about sharing experiences with others.”
When the World Trade Center twin towers came down in a terrorist attack, Gina saw it as a sign that she should leave her corporate career to return home to the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan, surrounded by the cold waters of Lake Superior, and focus on preserving the natural lands she loved for future generations. Through this work, she met Helen Taylor, the Michigan director of the global Nature Conservancy, and their friendship grew out of conservation collaborations and a passion for preserving the natural world.
In the latest episode of the Make Meaning Podcast, Helen and Gina speak with host Lynne Golodner about finding shared values between industry and conservation, trading an extraction mentality for an evolution of awareness, and realizing that the common enemy is actually fragmentation and development, not nature vs. the corporate world.
In this episode, Lynne, Helen, and Gina discuss:
- The history of the Great Lakes region
- Caring for land and community
- How humans are a part of the natural world
- Removing politics from the conservation conversation
- Helping nature adapt to climate change
- How forests are natural climate solutions
- Making eco-tourism a career of the future
- What to do with century-old waste piles from copper mining
Coming up next on the Make Meaning Podcast:
Lynne interviews Nancy Marshall, founder, and CEO of Marshall Communications in Maine.
If you enjoyed this episode, you’ll like these other Make Meaning podcast episodes!
- Episode 101 – Margaret O’Gorman, Why bicycling through countries is the BEST way to learn local culture
- Episode 98 – Kehkashan Basu – How to make the world more sustainable
- Episode 81 – John Hartig – How to inspire future generations to care about conservation
- Episode 49 – Saving the Bees
- Episode 28 – The Greening of Detroit with Lionel Bradford
