Even in a time where environmental catastrophes are crashing down all around us, the small but brave offerings of a handful of dedicated people help blaze a trail for the rest of us. A 69 year old Dutch woman has made a splash with her efforts to clean Dal Lake in Srinagar.
This woman has gone viral already with her fiercely sustained effort to paddle through the pristine waters in her shikara one bottle, wrapper and plastic bag at a time. Her intent is very straightforward and simple yet incredibly important: save the fragile lake environment one piece of rubbish at a time.
The woman is extraordinarily dedicated, she is a beautiful reminder that the love we have for the environment is boundless. Because she is not a local, perhaps she is showing us that our love of the environment is global and ageless.
Whereas most of us would complain about increasingly visible water pollution, she chooses to take action on the water pollution she can see, exemplifying how the changes the world needs can only begin through the actions of one person.
Cleaning up the environment on a daily basis, while small in the larger picture, has a lot of symbolism. She wants to show us that every little something counts when it comes to conservation of nature.
It’s not a cleaning up lakes story, It’s a story about starting a movement. Just imagine if many more people, both tourists and locals, followed suit – if every tourist, every local and every passerby took a second and pulled just one piece of plastic from the water? When you begin to accumulate what looks like very small efforts together, you can see that Dal Lake may indeed have a future.
In an age of gloom and dooms of the environmental sort, this unheralded Dutch change-maker represents another kind of story-full of hope, perseverance and action. She embodies the notion that sometimes real change is more than about big actions- it is often more about little actions revisited sometimes over and over again that make the biggest impact.
The Earth needs more of this sort of uncelebrated hero-the ones doing things not for the purpose of recognition but for the love of the planet. Let’s acknowledge, celebrate her, and inspire to act. After all, a cleaner and greener world begins with us.
