Personal Statement

I can track my relationship with the non-human world back to a young age. My first memories of my interactions with the natural environment happened almost every weekend. Being born in Cairns with rainforest covered mountains on one side and refreshing beaches on the other. These fundamental personal experiences of the natural world came through a number of means including picnicking to beaches and creeks, fishing, and family road trips. I have fond memories of playing hide and seek with my brother, sister, and cousins on a seasonally dried out creek using tall native grass as cover whilst looking in wonder at the immensely lush rainforest teeming with sounds, colours, and wildlife. As I mentioned, this was basically the norm for me up until

In 2010, I became a second semester enrolment into the course and university; I was still 17 at this time. I saw this as an opportunity to further my knowledge on the ever evolving matter with the hope that it would allow me to develop solutions to mediate the developing ecological crisis that we face today. I studied this degree whilst living completely separated from family and familiarized environments for about 2 and a half years. My time studying urban and regional planning had equipped me with theories and concepts that I see as having warranted presence in resolving the exponential impacts of today’s crisis; most significantly the urban design concept of New Urbanism and my introduction to the triple bottom line. However in this time there were a lot of external speed bumps that I had to face. These issues were a combination of most notably; financial hardship, mobility problems associated with having not been able obtain a license, and serious family health issues. The negative impacts on my physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing were stark enough to make me question where and what I wanted to be in life. I contributed at least some of the pressures I felt to the effects of modernity on my younger

It is the belief that aspects of the non-human world are only relevant and valued once they can serve a functional purpose to humans (McShane, 2007). McShane argues that this belief imposes limitations on the ethical decisions we as a civilisation have make in regards to environmental longevity. To put it into relation, I view modernity as a vehicle of which is driven by the existing presence of anthropocentric beliefs within a society. Therefore, it serves a major role in the perpetuation of the current ecological crisis. As we are increasingly becoming a populated globalised society where capitalistic and consumerist ideals are highly valued, this will presumably create unfathomable consequences on the non-human world in the future. This is where some of the incongruity felt towards Kenny’s discussion on distributive justice was drawn