Building the next generation of conservationists

The best way to make a future in which we thrive alongside natural habitats and wildlife is to empower the young minds who will lead it. Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) volunteer Kerry Edwards knows this firsthand.

“As a kid, my brother-in-law’s family were big DUC supporters,” Edwards says. “His dad would always show me the DU Magazines back in the 70s and that was the initial spark for me.” That spark helped launch a lifelong love of conservation that has turned into a passionate drive to bring more young people to the table — and just one of the reasons why Edwards is receiving DUC’s Volunteer of the Year honours in Alberta.

Edwards started attending DUC banquets in the Edmonton area in the early 1990s and quickly decided to volunteer. “It was a cause I truly believed in,” he says. “The first chapter I was involved with was Devon, then Sherwood Park, and Lethbridge in the early 2000s.” Finally, in 2005, when he noticed that Canadian post-secondary institutions didn’t have DUC chapters, he reached out to DUC’s national fundraising manager at the time who gave him the go-ahead to establish one.

In the almost 20 years since, and with huge support from Lloyd Derry (former DUC employee) and Nick Alva (DUC Lethbridge Chapter chair), the Lethbridge College chapter has had over 600 participating students and counting. “The highlight for me is seeing the skills these students develop through the program,” says Edwards. “They come out of their DUC experience as leaders, and that’s hugely rewarding.”

It also gives him hope. Edwards believes the future of DUC is in young minds. “The average age of volunteers is significantly older than the college chapter,” he says. “It’s paramount that we inspire a new generation to move DUC’s cause forward.”

Once the Lethbridge College student volunteer chapter was up and running, Edwards saw an opportunity to educate students who did not have a hunting background about how hunting, done properly, can be a tool for ecosystem management. With strong support from DUC, Delta Waterfowl, and the Alberta Hunters Education Instructors Association, Edwards organized the youth mentored hunt in southern Alberta, introducing youth to waterfowling and the role that DUC plays to a new generation of conservationists.