A budding environmentalist and keen creative, 13-year-old Lola Rowe is passionate about protecting Australia's threatened species for future generations. We interviewed Lola to learn more about her passions and insights.
What inspired you to first become involved with Wild At Art?
I first entered because I was feeling the need to make change within my own capacity and to express myself through activism and art, my favourite combination of passions. Giving voice to the flora and fauna of Australia through art creates a pathway to reach people and make them feel for the environment.
Why is caring for nature and Australia’s threatened species important?
Australia is a very unique biodiversity hotspot, in other words, it’s home to a wide variety of plants and animals that live nowhere else on earth. So, protecting them is vital to the ecosystems around us.
How did you feel when taking part in Wild At Art? How did it help you care for threatened species?
We can’t help what we are not aware of, so the process of researching threatened species made me realise how many species need our help. This new awareness and understanding means I can make small changes, share my knowledge and hopefully inspire others to do the same.
If you’re not sure about entering Wild at Art, I’d say just go for it. You’ve got nothing to lose. You will learn something, you will challenge yourself, express yourself and best of all, no matter the outcome, you will have done your small part in raising awareness for the creatures and environment that need your help.
Anything else you’d like to mention?
Recently I’ve had the opportunity to participate in a 6-day Marine Education school holiday program with Marine Biologist Paul Sorensen through Dive Line, our local dive centre in Frankston, Victoria. Through this program, I have learnt how to scuba dive (a live long dream), participated in an invasive sea star and seaweed clean up (we collected over 2000 sea stars), contributed to an annual nudibranch (sea slug) census and began our entry for the 2025 National Geographic Sling Shot Challenge, which is a 1-minute video depicting youth groups around the world demonstrating how they can support the environment. If this is in your local area I highly recommend checking it out and I hope to see you there next time.
