education
In case you didn ’ t know , if you come across a snake in an undesirable area ( in your house or nearby ), you can ring the police who will send out a snake catcher . Once the snake is safely with the catcher , it will be taken to KFBG to be checked . The specialists at KFBG will catalog the snake , give it a health check , determine the species and do their best to get the creature back into the wild quickly and safely . According to Liz and Aiko , it ’ s always best to try to release snakes within three days as they can survive without food or water in that short period .
Another fantastic project KFBG has been involved with is the worldwide CNC that usually runs in April each year . This is a four-day event where the general public can go out and take photos of wildlife and upload them to the project website . It ’ s a wonderful introduction to biodiversity mapping and provides helpful data for a snapshot of a given area . Amazingly , in 2019 , Hong Kong recorded the second highest number of different species of all the participating cities in the world . KFBG encouraged visitors to take part in the efforts to identify species .
How else can you get involved ? The best advice we were given is just to get out there . See what you can find by looking in your immediate area or check out your nearest country park if you ’ re up for an adventure .
What about young people who want to explore more opportunities or are interested in a career centered around wildlife ? Liz studied biology as she always knew she wanted to work with animals in some form or another . She recommends looking into environmental biology and physical geography and finding an area you love . Liz worked as an ecologist in Britain for about 12 years before moving to Hong Kong . After her studies in Life Science , Aiko did post-graduate work in Conservation Science . When she was younger , Aiko read a Jane Goodall book and decided to pursue her dreams to work with animals . She did volunteer work with various organisations and worked for the Ocean Park environmental education department . They both love their work and find it very exciting .
Circling back to our conversation with Kamakshi and Ben , it ’ s clear to see the future is in good hands . There is hope for our planet after all . It just takes some appreciation of what we stand to lose . Kamakshi : I have this concept that I like to live by . If you ’ re advocating for social issues , you just have to convince people to change their mindset , but if you ' re advocating for environmental issues you have to get people to change their lifestyle . If you really want to protect the environment , you have to change your lifestyle and even how you perceive the world . This is easier to grasp if there ’ s something pushing you that has a personal connection to a statistic or some information which affects you directly . If you see some data saying that carbon emissions are terrible and this impacts the air you breathe , it logically makes sense for you to take action . You might decide to stop using private transportation and instead rely on public transportation because you have a personal connection .
Another motivator is a real love and appreciation of the environment . I think this is probably what we have so we act out of love and see what we want to protect and save . Like us , maybe you discover something that ' s going to push you because you ' ve seen these beautiful things and you don ' t want to lose them . But for some , action comes out of fear . Maybe you ’ ve experienced or observed
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