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The making of a pressure group

Ana Santos of the Climate Action Network weighs in on getting involved
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Some people are born movers and shakers. While many folks are content with armchair politics, others have an insatiable drive to roll up their sleeves and affect change. Ana Santos is one of those people. The Basque-born, Squamish-based volunteer spokesperson for the Squamish Climate Action Network has driven a countless number of initiatives in the Sea to Sky corridor in the two years the non-profit has been active, involving the public and municipal governments in various campaigns for environmental improvement. Santos has been passionate about ecosystems since her youth, but it was on a trip to British Columbia in the late nineties that she found her true paradise. Given a chance to move here from England, where she was working as a translator after getting a masters degree in English philology (a broad academic discipline spanning English language and linguistics and the literatures and cultures of English-speaking peoples), she applied and received her permanent residency, packed a bag along with her English bike and Spanish pots and pans, and moved to Squamish. That was 2004. Seven years later she and her group are making a big impact on Sea to Sky communities.

 

 

Pique : How did you end up in Squamish?

Ana Santos : As a home, I first considered both Vancouver and Whistler. I was put off by the big city feeling and the cost of living in Whistler. I picked up the map and looked for something in between. I found Squamish and I hit the jackpot - I love it and have lived here ever since, now as a Canadian citizen.

 

Pique : How did you first come to be involved with environmental issues?

Santos : While still in England, I enjoyed distance-learning programs on animal behaviour and wildlife management with the universities of British Columbia and Alaska. I started spending a lot of time as a volunteer with biologists and wildlife experts.

After I moved here, I often volunteered with organizations like the US Fish & Wildlife Service in Alaska. I still do that occasionally, but I changed paths after the summer of 2008, when I realized the huge impact we were having in the ecosystems and the wildlife that I was helping to study. It occurred to me then that it is our own species that's in need of management. Humans are the animals that interest me the least, but I thought it necessary to turn my focus to them - if we manage ourselves properly, everything else will be all right.

 

Pique: How did Squamish CAN get started?

Santos : It was created by accident, in a very spontaneous, unplanned manner.

I spent the summer of 2008 in the Pribilof Islands (to the north of the Aleutian Chain in Alaska), studying the impact of the (climate change-induced) loss of sea-ice on the nesting seabird species up there. What we found left me speechless - birds having to go twice the distance to find food, and chicks dying at unprecedented rates as a result of it. I had never heard of human-caused climate change; I thought I had to do something about it.

Back home, I stopped work for six months while I tried to educate myself on it and organized a movie and discussion series, which I presented at the Adventure Centre. I had never done anything like it and I was terrified, but it was an amazing experience, with a packed theatre every single week.

At the end of the series, people didn't want to go home. I got together with some of the regulars and, just like that, we created Squamish CAN, with all the different groups in it dedicated to the different subjects we had explored during the series. There were approximately 20 of us then; two years later, we have 174 registered members (but I bet this will be outdated by the time this goes to print).

 

Pique : What is the mandate of the organization?

Santos: Our mission statement reads: 'Squamish CAN strives to educate, support, and empower the community of Squamish by developing, promoting, and implementing effective strategies to reduce the impacts of climate change.' But the translator in me translates this very simply in my head to mean; 'we work to improve our community's quality of life.'

 

Pique : How is it funded?

Santos: Through the generosity of our community and other partners in the region. Everybody gives us a lot of support, often without even asking for it. I will not mention any supporters here because the list is so long I'd surely leave somebody out. Thanks to them, we can spend our time making things happen today, rather than baking and selling cookies so that we can make the money to make things happen tomorrow.

 

Pique : With so many issues, how does the organization select which ones to fight for?

Santos : We don't seem to spend a lot of time selecting issues. Individuals simply come up with ideas related to the subjects they are passionate about, and we put them into action. Sure, at times one issue may be more important than another and we may put the effort there, but it all seems to flow with a lot of ease, as if there was no much planning behind the workings of it all - it amazes me, to be honest.

 

Pique : How has the public responded to various campaigns?

Santos: From day one, we have enjoyed an incredibly positive response. It's almost like Squamish Climate Action Network could just as well be called Squamish Community Action Network because that is the way the group seems to have been received. We love it!

 

Pique : Do you think people perceive climate threat as real, or is it still somewhat esoteric to folks in the Sea to Sky corridor?

Santos: I'm not sure a real or unreal perception is the issue here. I think we just have so much to worry about in our personal lives and our immediate surroundings that it is difficult to see anything beyond that, even if everything is interrelated. So, for instance, it would be a waste of time for me to go around telling people about polar bears or sea birds dying due to climate change. Instead, I have to address the issues at the local level with the certainty that the positive results there will translate into benefits in the global sphere.

 

Pique : What issues do you think need to be better addressed in the Squamish/Whistler region?

Santos: Being aware and open to constant education and change will be key in the next few decades. We have some very big gaps to fill regarding transportation, waste reduction and food security but we could also do with picking up the pace in terms of efficient energy and construction alternatives and, while we are at it, we need to be acknowledging and celebrating our wonderful first-class local water.

 

Pique : What's the hardest part about what you do?

Santos: Public speaking. It's got just a little easier, but that has been my big hurdle, as I had never done it before. The movie series that resulted in the creation of Squamish CAN was for me like jumping into the deep part of a pool without being able to swim. Every week, I literally felt sick the day before the presentation from all the nerves, and then sick the day after from all the effort. It turned out to be a good diet; I lost a few pounds during that time.

 

Pique: What is the most rewarding part?

Santos : The ability to work with so many different types of people at so many different levels, experiencing with them the excitement brought about by the endless possibilities for change, and seeing our community empowered to take firm steps in very positive directions.

 

Pique : How do you incorporate what you've learned into your own lifestyle?

Santos: I haven't changed my lifestyle; I am simply not the same person. I have learned and grown so much through the process of working with Squamish CAN that I look back even just two or three years and I cannot recognize myself.

 

Pique : What changes do you see in the public that give you hope that the world cares?

Santos: Physical changes; the feeling of empowerment through action makes people feel confident, sure of themselves and of what they want - they smile more, they stand up and walk straight, gazes that used to be stuck to the ground are now directed straight ahead, certain of direction. Realizing that this transformation is possible, seeing it every day with my own eyes, tells me we are achieving our goal; better quality of life for all.

For more information on Squamish CAN go to www.squamishcan.net .