Lena Ware
Lena Ware won the 2018 Carto Cup competition for her map showing a "Summary of Ecosystem Loss on Saltspring Island between 1992 and 2014.
"This topic is especially important to me as a graduate of the Bachelor of Natural Resource Protection program at VIU in 2014. Since graduating I have been working as a bird biology research technician until I decided to add to my skillset with the ADGISA program at VIU. From this background, I have knowledge, experience, and passion for environmental issues including the loss of sensitive ecosystems in British Columbia and Vancouver Island.
The east coast of Vancouver Island is home to some of Canada's rarest and most sensitive exosystems. In the late 1980's is was becoming apparent that ecologically significant areas and important wildlife habitats were quickly depleting across the province. Sensitive Ecosystem Inventory (SEI) mapping was conducted in British Columbia between 1993 and 1997 to identify, classify, and map terrestrial ecosystem polygons... I chose Saltspring Island as my focus because it had a somewhat even variety of all the Sensitive Ecosystems and I felt it would be a good study area for visual display.
I have been a casual artist my entire life and even considered becoming a graphic designer before I realized I had such a strong passion for nature and the outdoors. Since this project was a mix of my two passions, I put a lot of time and effort into making it visually appealing, easy to understand as well as showing compelling results that hopefully have an emotional effect on the viewer." - Lena Ware
Lena Ware (Left) and Jessica Craig (Right)
