Last month I had the opportunity to attend the first Canadian Animal Law conference, which was held at Dalhousie’s Schulich School of Law. As the only member of the East Coast Environmental Law staff without formal legal training, I had initial reservations about being East Coast Environmental Law’s representative at the conference, as I anticipated that a great deal of the material would be over my head. In the end, I managed to banish these fears and dive wholeheartedly into the weekend.

Diversity is variety. Biodiversity is the variety of life.

Maintaining variety across all aspects of life is integral to ensuring healthy, robust, and resilient conditions for growth and continuity. Farming and agriculture, neighborhoods and communities, our diets, political candidates, classrooms and learning environments, forest flora and fauna: all these aspects of life rely on diversity for sustenance.