Haymar Lim

Lizzy Russo:

•  What do you do for work?

Haymar Lim:

• Community engagement

  • Works with volunteers on restoration work with volunteers

  • Education, bird walks, works on projects with others

  • Conducts surveys

Lizzy Russo:

• How did you get involved in conservation?

Haymar Lim:

• Biology major in college, thought it sounded fun

• Learned academic science was not for them, thought the academic world was out of touch

• Needed to be work done to apply solutions, not just hard research

  • Knew that there was more prestige and glory in research and publishing

• Did hands-on conservation with Americorps, directly working with people!

• Do Spanish and bilingual bird walks

• Big needs to let people know what is happening with climate change

• Effecting most marginalized communities

  • Need community support and input in order to do restoration work

  • White-savior complex forcing restoration, ex California fires causing conflicts with native tribes

Lizzy Russo:

• What has your journey to success been like as an LGBTQ+ person?

Haymar Lim:

• Success is a complicated word, what is success in the es field? There is always work that has to be done

• Queer identity at odds with conservation, old white boys club

  • They are poc and trans

• They’ve worked in rural areas for conservation, confederate flags on survey sites

• Worried about danger

• Working with landowners it is tough to make those relationships

  • Working in the Bay Area has shifted their thinking

  • Wish there weren’t as many barriers to working in more spaces, pegged into 1 area

• Been able to learn and talk to people with other ideas

• Doing grassroots work has helped them learn more

• 2 sides: working in existing system and framework, procedures and working with gov and landowners, or ej side, fed up with the system and not top-down

• Not quite grassroots or gov with Audubon

• Identity makes it not quite as possible to work within the gov system

Lizzy Russo:

• Do you think it is important for more LGBTQ+ people to be involved in wildlife conservation? Why?

Haymar Lim:

• Conservation can’t work in the current system

• Queer people used to be treated as outsiders, and have different perspectives and attitudes

  •  No 1 group had all the good ideas

  • Queer people have introspection

• Queer Latinos are very outspoken-face social pressures from many angels

  • Can make many connections

• Need to involve all communities

  • All hands on deck, need all perspectives

• Need to work with people where they live, they care about their communities

• Need to reach out to all people so movement doesn’t die out, can’t go back to the old boys club

Lizzy Russo:

• Why do you think LGBTQ+ people have a connection to the environment?

Haymar Lim:

• Being treated differently

• Nature isn’t a monoculture, not a product of perfection, driven by diversity and imperfections

• Nature can be healing, and not have any social judgments

• Go into nature and be a part of it in your own way

• Cishets can’t claim nature as their own

• Nature is not binary, dogmatic, or heteronormative

• Nature has queerness all over it

Lizzy Russo:

• Do you have any suggestions for young LGBTQ+ people who are interested in pursuing conservation or environmental science?

Haymar Lim:

• Have it in their hearts

• Don’t be discouraged because of danger and cishet culture

• There is progress being made with the next waves of people, progress and strides

• Not easy but it is worth it

• Huge need for this work, need people doing the work, reward helping others

• Being comfortable in your identity will help and inspire others

• Look for other people you can work with

• Speak up, make noise, and work together

• Infrastructure to support people is being built

• Power in coming together

• Other statements

• Corporations cling on to wokeness, people in power are fickle, support when convenient

• Have to hold people accountable, now is the time to put foot in the door and hold people accountable