Matthew Wakeling is working hard to save the planet, even if he has to do it all by himself… but he hopes to inspire more people to join him in his efforts!
Vietnam, Asia – Matthew Wakeling is on a mission to clean up the Earth and he is doing it in style! Dressed head to toe in the South African flag, he has been visiting beaches on the Vietnam coastline to pick up litter in the hopes of saving the planet.
“The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.” – Robert Swan
Matt isn’t sitting around waiting for someone else to take the lead, instead, he has taken it upon himself to clean up the planet and hopes to inspire more people to join him in his efforts.
“Dear Humans, My name is Matt and I will change the World for the better.”
By throwing on the South African flag Morph Suit, Matt has added a flair of fun to the laborious task of cleaning up the environment. He hopes it would draw some attention to his cause and it worked because it got quite a few people talking.
On his Facebook page, Nature Protecting Nature by Matt, he constantly posts stories about ways to make a difference or even sharing educational posts about why pollution and plastic are so bad. We asked Matt what inspired him to start his project and he said,
“I watched a speech by Greta Thunberg (Swedish girl, 15 years young at the time) which includes the words, “I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to act.” This gave me goosebumps (actual goosebumps) and I suddenly realized the severity of the environmental crisis.”
While he is currently living in Vietnam, he says that small part of Earth is just as important as the rest and hopes to inspire everyone to do more, especially back home in South Africa.
There are more individuals than ever, taking up the task of running cleanup projects on their own. This is happening every single day so you will be able to join no matter where you live in South Africa.
“My eco-goals for the future (currently) are – of course, I am now living/working (teaching English) in Vietnam, and so I will be starting clean-up campaigns here – it may be another country but it’s still the same planet obviously… I will, however, be representing South Africa as I will (as often as possible when relating with these clean-up initiatives) wear my SA flag spandex suit, of course, I eventually would love to do massive endurance challenges to raise even more awareness and change environmental policies for the protection of nature – we are nature and we must protect nature.
Also, I want to add that although awareness is a major part, I believe we have many humans who are aware and still are not acting and so I would say action is actually key.”
Kudos to you, Matt for taking up the initiative of working to educate people and create a way for them to actively be involved in saving the planet.