Grassroots Guardians: Coexistence and Community in Houston

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to our podcast brought to you by the International Wildlife Coexistence Network. Hi, I'm your host, Josh Adler. On this episode, we're diving into the heart of community activism and environmental conservation in Houston, Texas. Today, we're joined by two incredible organizers, Bob David and Dineshi Abhayarathna, who have dedicated themselves to preserving a beautiful 40 acre green area in their neighborhood. This lush, forested habitat is home to lots of wildlife, including a diverse range of migratory birds. But its under threat from development. Babindenishi have not only taken a stand to protect this land, but have also galvanized their entire community into a powerful force for conservation. In this episode, they share the inspiring story of their fight, the challenges theyve faced, the strategies theyve implemented, and their vision for a sustainable future. Whether you're interested in grassroots activism, environmental protection, or building stronger communities, you won't want to miss this conversation. On for the wild ones. [00:01:26] Speaker B: You two are based in Houston? [00:01:30] Speaker C: Houston, yeah, Houston, Texas. It's heating up here now. [00:01:33] Speaker D: Yeah, it's. Which is why it's important to have these forested green areas. Right. Keeping it cool. Funny enough, Bob and I went on a hot, humid Houston summer day, and it was so nice in there. The temperature just drops dramatically. It's cooler. It's a bit lower in elevation, too. Some of those things you don't realize until you actually go there. And I'm like, man, I spend more time in these woods during this summer. [00:01:59] Speaker C: Since we've been in there, what? It's been about a month now. And I literally drive over there, like every so often, just kind of walk around. I go down the wash, and I need a partner to go back in. Josh, it's beautiful in there. This green area that we're referring to is just right in our backyards, basically. And it's a good, I don't know, maybe 40 acres. [00:02:20] Speaker D: We have the entire ecosystem, right? Of things and critters, like all kinds of fungi and mushrooms and vultures and creatures and little woodcratters, swamp rabbits, this, that, and the other. I've seen all kinds of things. Opossums, beavers, you name it, you can find it. I've seen everything in that little backyard that you can see in a Texas wildlife park. I follow some of these on instagram and things like that. They're like, ah, look at the beautiful yellow warbler. My friend sent me a picture. I was like, in my backyard. Also in my backyard. Like, not trying to brag too much, but, yeah, that was also in our backyard. Bobcats. All these fun things, different types of owls. [00:02:57] Speaker B: This is 40 acres in your backyard, a forested, protected habitat. [00:03:04] Speaker C: It's not protected yet. That's the problem. It's land for sale, and it's divided. So you have in that 40 acres, I think there's at least. How many, Dinesh? Maybe three owners. [00:03:16] Speaker D: Yep. Yep. That's probably about right. Yeah. 20 acres is owned. That was kind of the original piece of land in question that this kind of kicked this whole thing off. And then there's a couple of other parcels alongside it that when you think about, hey, we want to protect this land, why don't we kind of broaden the scope and really make it a larger ecosystem? Right. Especially if it kind of makes sense and can all work together. [00:03:39] Speaker B: But it's still threatened in terms of its potential to be sold off? [00:03:43] Speaker D: Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's a hotspot. Yeah, it's a hot spot. So it's designated by Us fish and wildlife as freshwater, swamp, forest, wetlands. And it is something that I think across the US and within Texas as well, they're doing more to protect wetlands. Right. And recognize how important it is for migratory birds, all types of environments and habitats, and also to absorb all the water from different flooding issues, hurricanes, you name it. So it is designated as all these things. But funny enough, you can protect the wetlands but also cement completely over it. We were meeting with city officials about a different road that was being developed, and they were like, yeah, we're doing all these things to conserve the wetlands. I was like, I don't know what exactly those guidelines are, but you destroyed all the forest and you're building roads and you're reshaping it completely. So, I don't know, maybe it means that you're building, like, retention ponds. Maybe that's conserving the wetlands is building ponds and stuff in it. But in my guise, conserving wetlands mean protecting the land as it originally is as much as possible, and just not touching things if you can avoid it. Right. Trying to minimize impact. But I think different ideas of conserving land, because folks that have major projects are like, yeah, we're conserving the land. I was like, oh, this doesn't feel like conserving. [00:05:03] Speaker B: There are a lot of conflicting views about conservation management out there, particularly between different agencies, departments, different scales, between local and federal. So we can run into so many different issues. Why don't we back up a little bit, and why don't you go ahead and introduce yourselves and how you got involved in this project? [00:05:31] Speaker C: That's the fun part. Danish? You go ahead. [00:05:35] Speaker D: Yeah. Okay, I'll go first. My name is Dineshi Abhayratna. I am a long term resident of Missouri city, born and raised here, went to school here, primary, elementary, high school, and actually found myself having moved back quite recently after some cool wins in my career and being able to take some time off. Shortly after I arrived, this issue came out where we heard offhand about a developer building right behind my parents house. One of the big things that actually my startup was focused on, too, was how do we feed 8 billion people on this planet? We're growing at a very rapid pace. Our food system is not able to keep up with us in that same amount. How do we meet this need for additional protein, different alternative proteins, but also not ignore the fact that we can't do the same things that we do today to scale into the future. This felt the same way where it's, how are we building our cities? Right. What is our vision for the future? Because right now it's coming to a point of rapid scale urbanization of development. No bigger strategic plan, but more so piecemeal, fast approval of projects that don't really build, to saying, this is what Missouri City is going to be as a whole. This is what we're looking to build for our future. So when I heard about this project, when I got into the details of it, I was frankly shocked and really dismayed. And I felt the need to really step in, get involved, and to make sure that the forest that I grew up enjoying and playing in when I was a kid wasn't bulldozed down for future generations. I wanted the same little girls that live in our neighborhood today, right, to be able to go and see the fireflies out and see the bunnies and see the deers and experience that love for nature firsthand and have these enrichment activities and not just be boxed in by roads. And the only thing you do is stay on tv and on your phone, right? We were outside running around, getting dirt under our fingernails. And that's how the kids in our neighborhood act now, right? They also wander a little bit into the forest. It's a good exercise. It's fun to do. And I want to preserve that type of Missouri City for future residents to come and have a beautiful vision of this country. Kind of like John Muir did with Muir woods, right? These things are worth protecting. And Yosemite wouldn't have existed if he didn't fight. Right? If he didn't do the things he did. So this is our yosemite. It's a little smaller, but just as important. [00:07:53] Speaker B: I love the way you're talking right now. Exactly. [00:07:56] Speaker D: Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate it. We're doing our best. Bob and I are doing our best. We're two people, but we have the heart of an army. [00:08:03] Speaker C: She's awesome, Dinesh. We met with the onset of this scenario that unfolded in our neighborhood. She mentioned she's been here for so long, and my wife and I, we are new to the neighborhood. We're about two years in. We lived only ten minutes away for many years. And here we are, 2022, moving into this beautiful neighborhood. Everything is just gorgeous here. You have the deers coming through. We just found fireflies. Now. I haven't seen fireflies since I'm 50 now. I haven't seen fireflies since I was, like, ten years old. And now, for the first time in Texas, I'm starting to see fireflies here. It's such a beautiful neighborhood and community. And so this piece of land that we're speaking about, it was uninhabited for a long time. I think a little before or during the time when we were moving here, they cut a road through it. Right? They cut a road through it to make a pass. But they had a whole lot more in mind, which I didn't know. So the construction for this huge Fort Bend town center started. I kind of knew that it was coming, but somewhere, but I didn't know it was right on this corner that we're living in, which is not a bad thing. Right? The Fort Bend town center in general is not a bad thing. It brings fresh businesses to the area, and we're far enough away from that corner where it's going to affect us. But with this plan that they had to occupy this particular parcel of land that we're speaking about, they had just put this road through, and this portion of the land would have been Dinesh's backyard, literally. Right. This is where she's walked through the fence and go into this swath of land they were going to right there, put this six story hotel on that land with cottages and everything, essentially looking into Danish's backyard. That was a horrible idea. Fast forward. We're driving on that street that they cut through one night, and I see the application for rezoning. So immediately I took a picture of it and I research it again. We're new to the neighborhood, so I had no communication with anyone else in the neighborhood. But I've gone through a few of these city meetings enough to know that I needed to research this and then appear at one of the meetings, I went online and checked it out and the meeting came up. It was March. And we go there and I run into Denis and everyone else from the community that I didn't know. [00:10:40] Speaker B: This is March 7, 2024. [00:10:42] Speaker C: Yes. [00:10:42] Speaker B: So just a couple months ago. [00:10:44] Speaker C: Yeah, just a couple months ago. So we're in the city council planning and zoning meeting where the potential developer is there disclosing his plans and showing images. And you have this huge audience of irate tenants that I'm just meeting who we all feel the same. We didn't want this happening. And in these public meetings, you have public comments. So a lot of them take the mic and they explain their position and why they don't want this here. But the point is, from this meeting here on March 7, after that meeting, we all had a common goal to get rid of this development. Right? So we all team together as a community. There are 64 homes here. And I cannot say all because some people just don't participate, no matter what is going on. But the majority of us, we banded together with the HOA and we came up with a plan. Let's stay on top of this. We assigned people to certain tasks and we all took on what we were good at doing. Some folks would find email addresses and phone numbers of people like fish and wildlife leaders of the state of Texas, so we can email or call. And they would give it to the folks who wanted to let their voice be heard or was good at putting an email together. And it became a legit movement where we're calling and emailing everyone that we can. And this thing swole it swole into this huge snowball to the point where we got news media involved. We got a petition going over 1200 signatures, and ultimately they pulled it. The developers had rehashed the schematics and they were trying to appease us. So eventually we just said, you know what? No more communication with the developers because that doesn't look good. We shut them off. We stopped communication with them, and we only focused on the city. And before long, the developers pulled out. We got the good news that they pulled out about maybe five days before the final decision was to be made. But now the fight continues because it's open land. The owner has a lot of property here in Texas and he wants his money, he wants to get paid for it. And everyone should be able to get that. But we just don't want it to go into a rezoning or into the wrong developers hands to where something like what was proposed is at our doorsteps. [00:13:13] Speaker B: Again, I have two questions. One, why did you feel each of you, it was your responsibility to take action? Secondly, what about your organizing and movement that you built? Do you feel actually affected the developer to back away? What was it that helped you win? [00:13:34] Speaker D: So for me, in terms of why I felt compelled to do this, I've grown up in this community. For me, it was older folks, my parents, Miss Mary, the grandma that lives across the street from me. These folks matter so much to me. These are my community members. I don't see them every day. But when I see how distraught and how truly upset they were, right. I felt like it was my duty as the young community member. They protected. They uplifted when I was in high school. Right. They kept an eye out for me when I was running around the street, was to take everything that I've learned up to this point and pour it into this project as a thank you and say, hey, I'm going to do my part. Y'all are older now. You may not have as much wind underneath your sails, but I'm going to do my part. And I won't rest. I will not stop. I'll pull on everything and every resource I have available to that really galvanized me. Anytime I saw any of the matriarchs and patriarchs of my neighborhood upset, I was like, nope, I will do my duty. Just rest assured that I will do everything I can. I've had this force since I was a kid. I was a bit naive, realizing that it won't exist forever. And then when I saw the potential of it being cut down and decimated, I was like, no, I have to do what I feel is right. And whether I win or lose, I'll know I did what was right. And so that continued to drive me in terms of what I think was most impactful. Maybe I'll say three things. One was just the consistency and how forceful we were. We sent out emails every single week. It was from a good majority of our community, and we consistently were on everyone's ass. We were on the cities. We were on the states, we were on the counties. We looped in Suzanne, we looped in Dallas. We tried to start talking to the wildlife.org and say, how can you help us? The second two parts that Bob has already mentioned is the ABC 13 news feature. Being able to see, okay, these guys aren't going to stop. In fact, if anything, they're going to escalate further. They're going to get on bigger and bigger podiums and holler from the top of their lungs, how much they're against this project and why it is ruining our community. The bad press and realizing it was snowballing and the fact that 1200 people were aligned with us and passionate, they saw that petition spreading like wildfire and just the rate of which we were getting signatures. Between these three things, it all kind of fell apart on the developer side. And it was a big fight. We never thought we were going to win, really, until even the end. We just knew we were fighting the righteous fight. So that propelled us to continue going. Bob will disagree with me. Bob always saw the light at the end of the tunnel, which is why I'm so grateful to him. Because when I was feeling very beaten down, which happened at points, Bob would be one of the first people I'd call to get some wind underneath my sails again. [00:16:16] Speaker C: It was amazing. You asked what was the motivation for me was the fact that this beautiful neighborhood is going to be threatened by this property. Like, there's no doubt. And we felt it was awful, right, to have this huge building. One is eyesore. Two, to have hotel attendants looking down into your backyard. That's awful. So for me, it was just property value. Oh, my gosh, we just moved from our home to this amazing neighborhood. And no, I don't want my property value to decline. Not at all. And I don't want to lose this wood that we have here, which brings in all this bird life. We have amazing bird life. And this was an immediate threat for me. And without the community, I would have been at every one of those meetings just the same. But thank God that the community felt the same way and we all banded together. Dinesh is like she said, she's tiny in stature, but not in spirit of, not in her personality at all. And on those days that she might have felt a little intimidated, it didn't show. She was always still really level headed and amazing to work with. And seeing our other neighbors that she mentioned, the grandmothers who all stepped up, these were folks who used to be on the HOa board, some of them, right? And they're retired. They're trying to enjoy their life. And you know what they would do? They would come around and they would send me emails, they would send me texts. Bob, here's. Here's this. Here's this. Give me ammunition to fight more, you understand? And this, to me, was awesome. You couldn't go and hire these people to do what they did. And I think that as a community and the city seeing us on that level as man, who are these people? Right? We just rolled over a fire ants nest with us showing up every meeting, even the ones that we were not invited to or the ones not pertaining to our fight, we would still show up. And that made a huge difference because it's subconscious. We bombarded every angle to where they could not keep up. And at the end, after we got the notification that the developers are pulling out, we're like, is this official? Is this real? Is this really happening? We were so turned up. Josh, we had everything set up. Josh. We had a group chat where the whole neighborhood can log into the group chat and see what we're talking about, be involved. Then we had every Thursday Zoom meeting so everyone can chime in and know what's going on. Then we created the main heads of another chat. So whatever. We didn't necessarily need to bombard the rest of the community with just kind of strategic planning. We had that right. And then we involve other hoas. It was just an amazing effort. And at the end, when this email comes through from our president, we were having a Zoom meeting actually at Dinesh. Right. And it says, the developers have pulled out. And just like that, we're in silence. We couldn't believe because we're so turned up on what the next steps are. We had a whole plan of what we wanted to do. We had an attorney for our HoA that we put on retainer, and we had our next steps. So when this thing comes through that it's over, basically. We were somewhat, almost disappointed. Right? [00:19:40] Speaker B: Yeah. You were ready to go to the mattress. [00:19:42] Speaker C: We were ready to go. But the councilman for our district here in Missouri City sent an email with three points to it of what he thought affected the developer. One was the fact that they tried to appease us so much in changing their plans to. They went from six levels to five and then to four levels, and then they rearranged some of the cottages and pavilion that they had planned and rearranged a lot. And he believed that, that financially, what it would cost them to do that and what they would gain at the end in regular revenue just didn't make sense for them. Was the city council, with all that was going on, started basically inward fighting. They had no confidence in this development anymore because we had so many questions. We had so many smart people. We have a guy by the name of Tommy. Kudos to Tommy, who was the one who put financial planning together for NASA here in Houston. He looked at the numbers of what this particular project was supposed to do, and he goes, no, this makes no sense of what these developers are bringing to you city. They're telling you blah, blah, blah is what you're going to make. No, here's the real numbers of what this place is going to make so you can trust that number. And he just blew their mind. Right. It created a sense of uncertainty. They were not sure anymore, and they started questioning each other. And lastly was the fact that we were just showing up at every meeting. And so he congratulates us, and then he turns it to say that he was always basically on our side, but for whatever that's worth, sure, at the end of the day. Right. But look, we're excited that we won that battle, but that's just one aspect of it. We really want to own that property. And so that's our fight right now. And I'll let Dineshi talk more on conservation and so forth. The land is beautiful. It's right next to awash, a bayou per se. And the bird life. Denishi, how many do we have here that you. [00:21:52] Speaker D: We have over 40, 50 birds. [00:21:54] Speaker C: That's right. [00:21:55] Speaker D: Eagles recorded multiple hawks, multiple owls, woodpeckers, all kinds of animals. It really is this beautiful, special area that we want to do our best to conserve, as Bob mentioned, whether it be granson working with the community to fundraise other orgs to fundraise, because it's something that's going to benefit all of Missouri City. And our vision is to kind of have a John Muir woods type of mindset set towards this property. Keep it as it is. Right. Let's enhance the native beauty of it. Let's make it an area where kids and adults can experience the lushness of what Texas used to look like and still have a pocket of that right in the city. How unique is that for any kind of Houston area that's known for being kind of very bland and corporate, having these type of enriching activities nearby, it starts becoming more of a lifestyle city, like Austin and all these other places. It also is kind of plugging a gap when you think about what citizens are looking for out of Houston and having more lifestyle oriented things. This would be a really good way to showcase how cool the Texas wildlife. People don't know half the things that are back there. They think all we have are crows and armadillos or something. [00:23:03] Speaker C: This land that we're talking about when we walk through there, you know what the majority of trees are in there? Pecan trees. It is filled with, with mature pecan trees. It is beautiful. We caught a moment where we were under these huge, towering pecan trees. And we can hear, I think it was crows. They were just flying over and then they were circling this one on top of us and just the sound and the. It was like a good two, three minutes of just theater, bird theater. It was just so tranquil and beautiful and serene and I love it. And we think that becomes a destination where people would want to really see what this is all about. [00:23:47] Speaker D: The only thing I'll add to that is we're going to try and come up with a financial model that works for this kind of local conservation, right. Hopefully it can be funded a lot by conservation, fundraising and donors, things like that. But hopefully, if we create a model, right, that works here and we can conserve 80, 9100 percent of this land, we can apply it to other places and give people, hey, here's a playbook. If the developers is here and is coming and rezoning, this is what you do. If the developer hasn't come yet, right? And you want to proactively do it, here's what you do. And then we can say, if you're interested in this type of work, this is the time our little microcosm of experience is happening all over the world in major cities, right in these outskirts and build out is going to happen, growth is going to happen. But we should do it intelligently so we don't have to look in textbooks about how Texas once was. Right? We can say, no, you can just go over here. We protect this beautiful area of land, and we still have the gators, we still have the great blue herons, we still have all that. [00:24:46] Speaker C: And the feeling of what it feels like when that great blue heron flies over you is amazing. Swoosh. You feel that movement. Dineshi, you were mentioning earlier, Muir, who is this? [00:25:01] Speaker D: He inspired me quite a lot. Funny enough, when I went to California, I lived in San Francisco Bay Area. There's a couple of beautiful national parks. One of them that is particularly beautiful is called Muir woods. It has its very unique ecosystem just full of these large trees, absolutely protected. And John Muir is an environmentalist, and it was named after him for all the work he did. He actually helped with Yosemite, making sure that was protected. And that's one of the best national parks we have here in the USA. So super inspiring. And I think if he was still alive today, he would be helping us and telling us to keep going, just like Suzanne and Dallas did. Suzanne's one piece of advice was just keep going. Keep going. [00:25:43] Speaker C: I can't tell you how instrumental Suzanne and Dallas and the wildlife coexistence organization was to us. They came over right when we needed them, right in the middle of it, when we just needed direction. And without hesitation, without a reservation, both Suzanne and Dallas disclosed step by step by step. As a matter of fact, a part of our organization is because of what they divulged to us. We would not have been as ready if we didn't have them in our corner, and we're extremely grateful to have had them. [00:26:18] Speaker B: Do you have a sense of why coexistence is important to the work that you're doing? [00:26:23] Speaker C: For me, I would say it was 50% of that and 50% of us wanting to just protect our investment here as well. Right? So I honestly say it's 50 50. Everyone here in our community, they feel the same way about our natural, preserve like atmosphere that we have, and it's just not the same if that piece of land is taken away. It's just not the same. So that was a big driver for us. [00:26:55] Speaker D: The one piece I'll add is I think it's incredibly important that everyone learns to coexist and appreciate and empathize and understand the value of everything. It may not directly impact you or benefit you, but it has value. I can't tell you how much happiness it generates. When it comes springtime and you hear all the new baby birds and baby critters running around. It's absolutely invaluable. And the happiness it generates, how people here, we probably embody coexistence the way we live with the wildlife, we send. [00:27:28] Speaker C: Pictures to each other. It's crazy. [00:27:30] Speaker B: This is true wealth in a way. [00:27:33] Speaker C: I believe so. It really is value to have it taken away with cement. I hate it. And having that in our backyards, in our neighborhood, we can look out our window and see migrating birds here, wintertime come around, and it is so many birds that paint the sky dark. And they come around. Yes, yes. But they come around and they do the swirls and they do their marches, and they're flying in one maneuver, and then they settle in a pecan tree, and then they come back around, and that is priceless. Last year we saw Denisha. You can tell me the name of the bird. I don't know which one. There's regular white ones with the pink curved bill. Right. That loves the water. Last year, we saw the pink version of those white birds. We were blown away. The pink version of these white birds, not pink flamingos. I don't know what the names are. Denise probably knows. [00:28:29] Speaker D: Yeah, it's a rosiac spoonbill. It's really, really, really pretty. They're in the Texas wildlife park an hour or two away. They're also in our backyard. It's phenomenal. I've been to all sorts of natural places. Galapagos island, the Amazon rainforest, like, deep in it. Some of the most beautiful things I've seen in nature have been in my backyard, in my neighborhood, on my little walks around exploring. I still remember a beautiful ray of sunlight shining directly into the forest. And then these three little pigs just running around in a circle, chasing each other's tails. Just little piglets, right? And it looked like a scene from a Disney movie, right? Just like a perfect ray of sunlight. The happiest animals you can ever see. And then it was gone. Right? They ran off. But wow, how phenomenal, right? It's funny. I always joke. I think there's sometimes there's more beef going between neighbors and the different animals than versus neighbor versus neighbor. Because it's like the deer are eating my roses. Yes. It's happening in front of Travis's house as well. The owls like to eat crawfish on top of his mailbox. That's their crawfish spot, is his mailbox. So sometimes he has, like, a little shrimp, and there's crawfish in the forest, too, because it's that swampy area. And so they go bring it from Doctor Blue's backyard, take it to Travis's yard, eat it on his mailbox, and then leave. And I was just like, no one in this neighborhood would dare leave a shrimp shell on Travis's mailbox. Besides the owls. [00:29:52] Speaker C: The owls. [00:29:52] Speaker D: But I just thought that was the funniest thing ever. [00:29:55] Speaker C: Wow. [00:29:56] Speaker B: I love these stories, the interactions between the neighbors, and let the deer eat some roses. So we're getting close to time here. It's been really, really fun to hear your struggle, your triumph, and the challenges that are ahead. I do want to ask a clarifying question. So did the developer actually clear any land or. They didn't get that far. [00:30:18] Speaker C: Didn't get that far. It was a contingency. Basically, they put in their option to purchase the land from the landowner, pending approval of the city's rezoning. Had they won with the city, then they would have started the process. [00:30:34] Speaker B: Thank you. That's important piece of the process. And then where are you seeking more support? Who are you seeking more support from at this point? And how can people get involved if they want to support for us? [00:30:45] Speaker D: Right now, we're really looking at the conservation and funding side, so the more we can just get involved with different organizations, whether it be at the state, federal, county, city level, to help us put this together, package it together, because there's a huge community component, there's a huge wildlife component, and for the well being, long term prosperity of Missouri City. And I think there's a lot of interesting concepts there. So we're looking for support. We have our army built of residents, but we need more ammunition. Right. And that's where we're looking to partner with the city, federal, and state organizations. I would love if we had an email or something to reach out to. [00:31:25] Speaker B: You can reach out to International wildlife Coexistence network. [00:31:29] Speaker D: Yes. [00:31:29] Speaker B: And go to our wildlife coexistence.org. and if people want to get in touch and support, you can reach out there. [00:31:37] Speaker A: We'll connect you. [00:31:38] Speaker B: That's what we do. [00:31:39] Speaker D: Perfect. I love that. I love that. So thank you, Josh. You can reach out to help with us, but, yeah, thank you. And it's been amazing meeting you and sharing in that energy. It's really inspiring to know people that care about hearing our story and think it's worth telling, whether it be for learning or inspiration. You don't need 50 people to do every single thing. You need a couple of people to be the heartbeat, and then you just need 50 people to do one or two things for you, which is like, email folks and show up to a meeting. Right. And so kind of creating a easier, scalable model that we can apply to these places and then empower the community members there to say, like, here's a plan. So don't get wrapped in the factory that your voice doesn't matter. You don't know what to do. Your voice does matter. Here's what to do. [00:32:24] Speaker B: Thank you both and enjoy your evening. All right, thank you, Josh. [00:32:27] Speaker C: Thank you so much. We appreciate you. [00:32:31] Speaker A: If you'd like to support Bob and Dineshi's community conservation efforts or organize conservation efforts in your community, please reach out to [email protected]. dot together we can create a better. [00:32:44] Speaker B: Future for all life. [00:32:45] Speaker A: Together we can learn to coexist. We'll be back soon for another episode of for the Wild Ones. Thanks for listening.