Sustainability Fellow: Margot in Quito, Ecuador

Margot in Quito

¡Hola! My name is Margot, and I am an Environmental Studies major in the class of 2021. I will be studying abroad in Quito and San Cristobal (Galapagos) this spring. I am from Denver, Colorado, and I cannot wait to immerse myself in a new culture where my studies will come to life. As a Global Sustainability Fellow, I plan to explore how Ecuadoreans understand their relationship to natural resources. I am interested in comparing attitudes toward the environment and extraction in Quito and San Cristobal. In the Galapagos, development has been sacrificed in order to preserve the environment, while in Quito a proposal to eliminate a fuel subsidy led to mass unrest in October of 2019. Given that addressing climate change will require all of us to make sacrifices, I hope to learn more about how to balance human interests with environmental imperatives by studying these divergent communities.