Hatter wrapping up month of ocean talk

By Jeremy Appel on September 25, 2018.

jappel@medicinehatnews.com @MHNJeremyAppel

Hatter Jasveen Brar has spent the month presenting a series of lectures on ocean health, which concludes at the end of this week.

“This is something I’m personally quite passionate about, especially after expeditions that I’ve done to both the Arctic and Antarctica,” said Brar, 23, a graduate from the environment, sustainability and society program at Dalhousie University in Halifax, and this year named one of Canada’s top 25 environmentalists under 25.

Her environmentalism stems from Brar’s days at Medicine Hat High School, but her expeditions from when she was in university really opened her eyes to the global impact of ocean health and climate change.

She’s often reminded of her time in Antarctica, when they were “at this very isolated island off the peninsula called Baily Head.”

The group saw a plastic water bottle among a rookery of penguins, which Brar characterized as a “really big shock.”

The lecture series is part of Ocean Bridge, a new program funded by the Government of Canada to promote ocean literacy.

The program selected 40 youth from across the country to volunteer their time to spread awareness of issues affecting the ocean.

The participants meet twice a year to work on collaborative projects, in addition to each working in their own community.

“Although we’re not coastal, landlocked communities across Canada do impact the ocean and they impact us as well,” said Brar.

Geographically, all waterways are connected, she explained.

“The South Saskatchewan River that goes through Medicine Hat connects all the way to Hudson’s Bay and we also connect through Milk River to the Gulf of Mexico,” Brar said.

The way we treat our rivers “does trickle down into other communities across North America and across the world,” she added.

One way people not living on either coast can do to protect the ocean is to reduce consumption of single-use plastics, Brar said, citing the movement to ban plastic straws as a concrete example.

“I think that should be extended to other plastics that we use,” she said.

Brar is moving to Australia in the new year to study international law at the University of Sydney.

She said there’s a close connection between international human rights and the environment.

“I don’t think it’s something a lot of people tend to connect,” Brar said. “It’s definitely going to be something we face in the future. There was a term coined at COP21 in Paris, where they started discussions on ‘climate change refugees.’

“It’s not going to be an issue that’s just isolated to those developing nations, but because so many places around the world are coastal — that’s how our cities were founded — it’s going to influence everybody … once we really start seeing the impacts of climate change.”

Those interested in seeing Brar speak can do so Wednesday for a “Power of Youth” talk and Friday for a celebratory event, both at the Redcliff Youth Centre.

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