Interviewer: Susan Hunt-Bradford
Interviewee: Ludivine Renaud
Meet nature educator and youth leader, Ludivine Renaud.
Last year, I received an article from a young woman named Ludivine about the overuse of refillable water bottles and how many of us end up with too many refillable bottles. From the very first sentence, I could tell she was someone extraordinary. At just 17 years old, she impressed me with her articulate writing, thoughtful insights, kindness, and deep environmental awareness— qualities well beyond her years. I knew immediately she was the perfect person to feature in this column. We arranged to meet, and I had the pleasure of asking her a few questions to learn more about her passion and perspective.
SHB: What is your occupation?
LR: I’m an assistant educator at the St. Louis Zoo. I’m working for the summer and may be staying on longer. Specifically, I work with Camp Kangazoo and Teen Camp.
SHB: You educate people about the zoo or particular animals?
LR: My job is to educate zoo guests about everything in our zoo and the animals we have here. I teach my campers about ecology and how they can take a week of summer camp and make a change in the world. And that looks like a lot of different things. Some years our theme focuses on palm oil and or deforestation. We talk about conservation in general.
SHB: It seems like you are very eco-conscious.
LR: I’m very passionate about sustainability and environmentalism. I care a lot about the planet, and I want to make it a better place. I want to help save the world.
SHB: Do you still do volunteer activities as well?
LR: Before I worked at the zoo, I was a volunteer for two years. I volunteered at a program called Zoo ALIVE which stands for Active Leaders In Volunteer Education. One of the bigger projects I helped with was #ByeToBags. We asked zoo guests to decrease their plastic consumption with single use plastics and give them alternatives if they sign a pledge to cut down on plastic bags. We would give them a free reusable bag, or free reusable straw, etc. My biggest activity was starting a recycling program at my school and I’m still a big part of that, even though I’ve graduated from STEAM Academy High School. The reason why I started that at my school was because no one was doing it. I think people take for granted that everyone knows how to recycle. I remember recycling as a kid and doing it at home. But so many kids don’t do that. They don’t have the opportunity to learn. I’m very passionate about environmental justice and recycling was the most basic thing I could start as a high schooler.
SHB: What’s your personal philosophy?
LR: My goal, I want to fight for environmental justice. I want to create spaces and opportunities for people who don’t have access to resources or to this knowledge. I think people really take for granted what everybody knows. Composting and when your trash gets picked up and where it goes. Everyone takes this for granted. And I live in Ferguson, and I might have knowledge of this but most people there don’t. It’s not really taught in schools, I want to help people, specifically teenagers and young adults who are interested in this and want to make a change. To quote Greta Thunberg, ‘our world is on fire and nobody else is going to save us.’
I think another big thing, my generation is fixing mistakes from generations way before us, but even when we die, the problems won’t be solved all of a sudden so we have to teach future generations how to take care of the planet, how to undo all of the mess from years and years before. One of my favorite parts about working for the St. Louis Zoo is that their mission is to create conservation leaders of tomorrow.
SHB: What about hobbies? Do you have time for hobbies?
LR: I find time. I’m a very crafty person. I love to crochet, and I’m very big into scrapbooking and I’m into theater. I’m a big supporter of the arts, and I love to travel.
SHB: Are you going to college?
LR: I’m going to the University of Missouri – St. Louis, Pierre Laclede Honors College. I am majoring in biology and natural resources.
SHB: Why help others?
LR: Why not help others. So many people get caught up in themselves, like “what is good for me?” Or even think that they are helping other people but eventually it becomes about themselves. For me other people helped me, so I want to help others. There are people out there who don’t have the access, and it is my duty as someone who is educated to provide that access in any way that I can. It makes me happy to know I’ve made someone happy or touched someone’s life in any way and it gives me hope for the future. That’s my motivation.
SHB: You just won’t know who you are going to affect positively. There are going to be so many people that don’t even realize that they are about to meet somebody that is going to change part of their lives. And you are not going to know and that’s ok. It’s cool to think I’m just doing my thing; I’m just doing something I believe in and it’s going to help somebody else.
SHB: What’s your personal goal in the future?
LR: I’m starting a Substack where I will be writing a series of articles and blog posts, and my goal is for it to be a place for young people who are curious about being eco-conscious. A place for them to learn how to do that safely in a way that is suitable for you as a young person. And why it’s important to do that. People at my school and my community that I can share it with, and they might say “that’s really something, maybe I’ll try this”. That’s my current goal that I’m working on but overall, I want environmental justice.
SHB: Who inspires you?
LR: I’ll give you a couple of people. 5 or 6 years ago, I was in 7th grade in my French classroom, and the teacher put on a video of Greta Thunberg talking at the United Nations Climate Change Conference and seeing a young girl, my age, standing up and speaking like that motivated me. The next couple of months I started making some changes. I think it was because she was a young girl, speaking to all these adults who didn’t have to listen to her but she was doing it anyway.
I think more recently when I started volunteering at the zoo it was motivational to see other people my age who care about this stuff. I have a friend, Ace. I’m going to put him as one of my inspirations. He started volunteering at the zoo a year before I did and he was really great. When I joined and I saw him touching all these lives I decided I want to be like that. I want to help kids learn that way.
Another one is Leah Thomas; she is also known as the Green Girl Leah. She is from St Louis and lives in LA and she wrote a book about intersectional environmentalism. That was really cool to see a person of color talking about prejudices in society and how that affects how people come to learn about different forms of sustainability and how that affects our planet. I don’t know any Hispanic women in this industry. And I work at a zoo where there are lots and lots of people. I see other women of color, but I don’t see any Spanish speakers. There is no one that looks like me and that is huge because there are women, there are some women of color, not many, but there are no one that looks like me. That’s really big. My hope is one day that someone that looks like me can look at say that there is someone who looks like me. Looking at history, it’s like who is going to be that person?
SHB: What does a normal day look like for you?
LR: On a typical weekday I go to the zoo from 7 in the morning until 5 pm and I work with campers and teach them all about conservation and the roles of zoos- especially what kids can do to help. I also have another job, I work at a frozen custard place, where I’m a shift leader. I work from 5:30 pm until 10:30pm and then I stay up and I write, and I read until 12 or 12:30 and then I do it all again. My weekends are writing and reading and going out with friends.
SHB: How long have you been inspiring others?
LR: I don’t know if I think of it like that but I could say since middle school when I first watched that video of Greta, the next week I started working with another student and we got rid of plastic straws at my school and spent a couple of months advocating and eventually getting vegan and vegetarian options on the menu. Then COVID-19 hit and for two years I spent time just having fun. I did musical theater, I did crafts, and all this environmental stuff was in the back of my mind and junior year kind of hit and I felt like I wasn’t accomplishing anything as a person. I still did stuff like I was my student voice representative for my district. I was doing things, I personally didn’t feel like I was accomplishing anything. Then I started volunteering at the zoo. And then in my senior year I started that recycling project at my school and that was huge for me. That project I did for myself. No one else at that school was doing anything like that, I was the only one. So that project was really for me and then once I did that and saw the change happening since there wasn’t a recycling culture at my school at all and now this program is being introduced to all the high schools in my district and kids are recycling. Which is the big thing for students to do and then take it home and recycle is big.
SHB: What have you learned in life about being a motivator?
LR: People are watching you whether it’s with good or bad intentions and everything you do matters. If you are going to be a motivator and inspirational you need to lead by example. And other people will follow. Maybe it’s only one, maybe it’s millions. But you have to be a good example if you are going to do it.
SHB: Is there a particular moment or memory that stands out for you?
LR: Yes, I just graduated a couple of weeks ago. A friend of mine I’ve known for 10 years Abi came up to me at graduation and said, “I just wanted to let you know you are the reason I’m going into environmental engineering”. I had no idea. I knew they wanted to be an engineer but not an environmental engineer and Abi said, “you talk about it so much and you are so passionate about it and I want to see what I can do to help.” And that just made me so happy to know that somebody felt inspired by me to maybe pursue that for the rest of their life.
SHB: Is there an achievement or contribution that you are proud of?
LR: I recently won the Student Environmental Action award from the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, for my work on the recycling project that I created for my school district. That’s pretty special to me because there are very few awards for environmental work, and even fewer for teens and young adults.
We need more people like Ludivine. I’m thankful I met her along the way. She is an amazing inspiration to me and many people, and she is already making a big difference.