A UF alumnus has created an organization to help solve issues of sustainability and urban development around the world.
Russell Anderson, a UF sustainable development practice alumnus, said the consortium, which will launch its website Wednesday, already has 52 members from 24 countries, speaking 14 different languages. The consortium addresses global sustainability issues on a local level, Anderson said.
“Everyone here has really great networks, and our goal is to really help bring opportunities to the individual that we work side-by-side with,” the 32-year-old said.
The consortium’s first project will launch Jan. 15 and help slow the burn rate of wildfires by using plants like aloe, agave and cacti, which have high water contents, Anderson said.
“Nothing can really prevent wildfires, but we can slow it down significantly because you have it up against a space with a really high water content,” he said. “The plants they’re recommending for these spaces don’t burn as readily as most vegetation that you would find in a normal landscape.”
Anderson said the project could eventually help nations with uncontrollable wildfires. The consortium has proposed to plant and research the plants on 100-yard wide plots of land. The sites of these plots are unknown.
“If you think about the cost of planting one of these landscapes versus the cost of half a house burning down, it’s huge,” he said. “Our ability to save state agencies and insurance companies a whole bunch of money is huge, but we’re also helping to preserve life and property too, which is just as important.”
These plants will also help to slow the spread of invasive plant species, Anderson said.
“This project is really us as a network getting our feet wet and how these policies and practices may rule out or translate into different countries.”
Joe Lacey, the logistics manager for the consortium, said one of the biggest focuses for 2018 is getting grants for sustainable projects.
“The idea is to take the experience and knowledge and the connections, the networking we’ve developed as colleagues and be able to bring that into grant writing and viable action within the development community,” the 43-year-old said. “The hope is that the network that we have can participate faster. If we could do all this together, it would be exponentially beneficial.”
Anderson said 17 of the members who have already joined are UF alumni.
“I got to talking with some of my peers more and more, and we realized how much we could support one another in our respective projects, but in our collective long-term growth as well,” he said. “We want to help each other succeed and solve some of our global problems on a localized level.”
Contact Christina Morales at cmorales@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter at @Christina_M18.
