I discovered very early on that I didn’t quite fit. It was always there—a quiet but insistent sense of distance between myself and the world around me.

Growing up queer in a world that doesn’t reflect you forces a kind of vision. You graduallty learn to navigate both the hostile currents of society and the not-so-easy-to-tame winds of your own identity. You learn to read the weather—every subtle shift, every sign of an incoming storm. That vigilance sharpens your senses, not only for survival, but for lucidity. And you distance yourself from society, through this questioning gaze.

The model we’re offered—rooted in consumption, domination, and disconnection—feels not only alien, but violent. It flattens difference. It silences complexity. It insists there is no alternative, burying all other paths beneath aggression, fear, or indifference. But queerness is living proof that another direction is always possible, no matter the obstacles.

As I was put aside by societal norms, I grew more attuned to the non-human world—to its ambiguity, its fluidity, its refusal to be boxed in. My path became obvious when diving allowed me to discover the marvels and vulnerability of life underwater.

Today, I study the connectivity of ecosystems, the cetaceans’ distributions and the multifaceted anthropogenic pressures that fracture them. Through simulation tools, we try to understand how other species inhabit our common world. We try to glimpse the shared patterns of survival. And in doing so, we confront the damage our species generates.

Conservation, to me, is not just about protecting species. It’s about acknowledging the vast diversity of modes of existence in our world, and resisting a death-driven logic of extraction and disposability. It’s about rejecting a worldview that sees forests, oceans, and identities as resources to be consumed. It’s about care. It’s about remembering that every life is entangled with others, and that no victory is solitary.

I may not spend as much in the field as I wished I did, but I am part of the resistance—tracing patterns, exploring relationships, challenging the illusion of separation. Whether I am modeling cetacean habitats in the Mediterranean or questioning the narratives of progress we’re sold, the work is the same: to reveal, to connect, to defend.

Being queer and being a conservationist are not separate paths. They are the same longing, the same refusal. The same belief that we are not condemned to drift, that we can steer towards this whole new course.

About the Author

My name is Victor, I’m 30 years old and I’m from France. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been curious about perceptions and reality. I thought I’d become a neuroscientist to explore the human brain. But then I was struck by the harsh realization that we were destroying our planet ever more rapidly and thoughtlessly. So I changed careers afterwards, and found myself drawn to this other realm that we know so little about: marine ecosystems, a whole different reality. So far, I’ve worked on cetacean conservation and exploration, and on the mitigation of anthropogenic pressures, both in the Eastern Caribbean and in the Mediterranean. Although it’s sometimes hard to keep the faith, I do everything in my power to make things happen. My dream job would be helping (diving!) in the field to restore natural habitats while acting to reduce the pressures, both locally and globally.

Connect with me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victor-gauducheau-627a36140/

Let the Ground Keep the Falling Rainwater 

A recent science article utilizing multiple indirect data sources and models estimates that the world’s soil moisture water loss from 1979 to 2016 is 3,941 cubic kilometers. This is an enormous amount of water. Lake Huron holds 3,500 cubic kilometers, while Lake Michigan holds 4,918 cubic kilometers.

Unless you are a soil microbe, springtail, worm, or robin foraging for worms, soil moisture likely isn’t at the top of your list of concerns, even if you are very worried about climate change. The distinction between dirt and soil is that soil is alive and can retain moisture.  The difference between flour and bread is life; yeast consumes flour, creating bread. 

The bread of my youth, Wonder Bread, once claimed to build bodies eight ways (protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Niacin, and energy). They upped that figure in 1971 to 12 ways, at which time the Federal Trade Commission made them scale back their promises.

Soil also builds bodies (fungi, microbes, mites, tardigrades, and all) with nutrients prepared for consumption by bacteria and energy supplied by plants, which photosynthesize carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates. A plant repairs itself when cut or chewed, producing more plant fiber and carbohydrates pushed out of roots as exudate to nourish fungi and the soil.

Add water to dirt or flour, and you’ll get a sticky mess. Soil holds moisture, much like sliced bread, which will hold a liquid egg to become French Toast and still make room to soak up maple syrup. Four inches deep, healthy soil acts as a carbon sponge, holding seven inches of rainwater.

The problem with soil begins at the crust. If it becomes excessively crusty, the soil surface will not accept or retain water. We contribute to the hardening of the surface through heavy tillage, fertilizers that harm microbes, repeated fires, drainage, destruction of wetlands, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, erosion, unmanaged grazing, and all their combinations.

We’ve deprived the world’s soil and the lives within more than a Lake Huron volume of life-giving moisture, and that’s just the beginning of the troubles ahead. When the land dries, plants lose the ability to release water vapor that evaporates to cool or condense, which warms with the morning dew.  With plant evapotranspiration greatly reduced, the hundreds of horsepower per acre of solar power cycling water is re-routed to warming and baking the earth.  The rising hot air draws in more drying winds. Cumulus cloud formation ceases, except for fiercer afternoon thunderstorms. 

Raindrops unable to penetrate the soil join to form rivulets that gather speed and converge to become streams, transporting sediments that scour the land. Erosion carves, sedimentation smothers, and floodwaters rise, bringing more destruction.

A quiet trail winds through the forest, evidence of how land can absorb, hold, and slowly release water back into the ecosystem.

The clouds have silver linings because the annual rainfall amounts have not changed significantly. When it rains and water is plentiful, we need to slow it down and return it to the soil or ground, where it will be when needed during dry weather to recharge rivers. We should give the ground natural rights to retain its rainwater. Instead of stormwater, the rainwater should be channeled into the ground through rain gardens, pumps, cisterns, and French drains whenever a developer transforms vegetation and soil into constructions of cement and steel.

The loss of green vegetation and soils from the landscape resembles the emperor with no clothes.  We are so enamored with our constructions and artificial creations that we fail to see the naked truth.  For example, Boston receives an average of 43.6 inches of rain every year. The rains come in stronger bursts, yet the annual volume remains consistent.  The damage does not originate from the sky but from stormwater flooding communities.  Tidal dams are constructed to keep out the rising seas, only to prevent stormwater from the land from reaching the sea and causing more flood damage. Therefore, during the dry summer heat, it is no surprise that the land becomes so dry that forest fires ravage once wet areas, such as the red-maple swamps in Middleton – the landscape’s got no water. 

A family strolls through a winter forest, where the land remains porous, alive, and capable of holding the rain that falls upon it.

Developers profit while municipalities manage the water from off their properties at great expense to the community. Developers must be held accountable for the land’s hydrology and not be permitted to flush stormwater away to water works that most municipalities cannot afford to manage, leaving residents in low-lying areas of town standing in combined sewage overflow.

Let’s put the rainwater back into the soil to replenish life in the rhizosphere. The figure of 3,941 cubic kilometers represents a significant amount of water lost from the world’s soils. By allowing (and encouraging) rainwater to infiltrate the ground where it falls, we can reduce stormwater damage, combat climate change, and decrease sea level rise by as much as 25 percent (10 mm).  More water in the soil will result in healthier soils, enable plants to photosynthesize for more days, provide additional shade in hot weather, and make our neighborhood climate more comfortable with more life throughout the year.

A group of hikers walk a compacted winter trail through the woods — a reminder that soil, even under snow, remains part of a living, water-holding system.

Dr. Rob Moir is a nationally recognized and award-winning environmentalist. He is the president and executive director of the Ocean River Institute, a nonprofit based in Cambridge, MA, that provides expertise, services, resources, and information not readily available on a localized level to support the efforts of environmental organizations. Please visit www.oceanriver.org for more information.

References

• Seo, et al. (2025, March 27). Abrupt sea level rise and Earth’s gradual pole shift reveal permanent hydrological regime changes in the 21^st century. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq6529