Continued...Who Goes Here?

After learning that less than 5% of old-growth forest remains in North America, Hannah took action.  Her efforts began locally; she started the Eco-Justice Committee at Nova High School to lead the school towards more sustainable practices and to foster environmental awareness in the community.

The success of this effort gave Hannah the confidence to branch out to the greater community of Seattle. Using the leadership skills she gained in organizing the Eco-Justice Committee, Hannah started Seattle Rainforest Action Group (SeaRAG). 

While organizing, educating, and acting in defense of old-growth protection with SeaRAG, Hannah had also been moonlighting with Greenpeace as a volunteer.  This connection won Hannah the opportunity to take to the seas aboard the Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise as a deckhand and the “Kids for Forests” Campaign Coordinator.  Aboard the Arctic Sunrise, Hannah sailed from Panama to Southeast Alaska and then back down south to Mexico as part of the campaign to protect the Tongass National Forest.

Upon her return to Seattle, Hannah was hired as the campaign coordinator for the Rainforest Action Network(RAN). With SeaRAG and RAN she led a successful consumer democracy campaign against the Weyerhauser Corporation and their logging of old-growth forest.  For her work with SeaRAG she was awarded the Brower Youth Award, the nation’s most prestigious acknowledgement for young activists.

After wrapping up her work with SeaRAG, Hannah decided to postpone college for a year to work for the Heritage Forest Campaign.  A position that allowed her to continue to rub elbows with seasoned environmental activists and gain invaluable real-world experiences while she traveled the U.S. organizing meetings with governor’s offices and conservation groups to strategize about reinstating the Roadless Rule that was repealed in May of 2005.*

Hannah’s family connections and inherent desire to assist when needed recently led her to volunteer in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, as part of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.  Characteristically, this experience led Hannah to many revelations about herself and the state of the world.  She speaks passionately about the plight of the hurricane victims and her personal experience of working with displaced children in the makeshift schools created in the wake of Katrina.

Before beginning her studies at Sterling College this fall, Hannah’s toured parts of southeast Asia to soak in the sights and sounds of a exotic culture. One of the highlights of her journey was living in a treehouse in the Bokeo Reserve in Laos. This was part of an organization called The Gibbon Experience which is raising money to hire Laotian villagers to protect the Reserve and educate others about alternatives to slash and burn agriculture and poaching.

*The Roadless Rule was reinstated as federal policy in the Fall of 2006.

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