I am a recent UBC graduate with a Bachelor's in natural resources conservation, and 10 years of experience working in environmental conservation. My experience is broad, including work in state governance, biodiversity research, environmental education, citizen science coordination, ethnobotanical practice, community climate resilience building, and traditional ecological knowledge conservation. I achieved this at a young age by having a direction early in life and completing my education largely online to enable me to work nearly full-time year-round since the age of fourteen. I have been grateful over the last several years to have been welcomed into remote and often indigenous communities around the world with unique ancestral knowledge systems relating to the environment. My work in these settings usually focuses on working with elders to create internal archives of this knowledge to ensure it can be passed to the next generations. It has also included various climate change resilience building projects and most recently training communities in basic tech and administrative skills so that they can organize their own projects independently from foreign NGOs.We live in a time where it can be difficult to feel hope for the future. I have found hope when working directly with communities and individuals who are deeply connected to their lands, waters, and creatures and who are dedicated to making real change within their communities and across their networks.