Felicity Fane is the founder of The Spruce Initiative. She currently lives in Woy Woy, New South Wales, Australia. The idea for The Spruce Initiative came from a number of sources. When Felicity was a girl guide she was taught to remove all traces of human occupation from her campsites. Later when she was 21 Felicity went to visit relatives in Switzerland with her mother and was very impressed with the cleanliness of the countryside and the cities. This made a lasting impression.
Later again when she was attending architecture school in Texas, USA, Professor McDermott taught us to do sepia water colours with a shave brush and a cup of coffee. Later still Felicity noticed him pick up a coffee cup that the students had left on the floor of the classrooms. She admired this behaviour but it was a number of years before she decided to do likewise herself.
Much later in 2006 she was out walking in Mosman, Australia where she grew up, when she noticed that Mosman was quite clean and well tended. Then she noticed some rubbish on the ground. The rubbish looked out of place and so she decided to pick it up. She realized that it takes time to clean up the planet however you can be prepared to pick up one piece of rubbish a day. This became a habit and she started picking up one piece of rubbish a day when she was out on her daily walk. Rubbish actually always looks out of place but the cleaner our environment gets the more incentive there is to go that last step and do away with the rubbish all together.
One day Felicity was out walking with her Auntie in Cairns, Australia and she picked up a piece of rubbish. She told her Auntie that she picked up one piece of rubbish a day when she was out on her daily walk.. Her Auntie said she would pick up one piece of rubbish a day as well.
Felicity moved back to Vancouver, Canada and started The Spruce Initiative.in 2008. She went walking with her friend June Young and picked up a piece of rubbish. She told her about the Spruce Initiative and June said she would pick up rubbish as well. A passing couple noticed Felicity and June picking up rubbish and they said they would pick up rubbish on their daily walk too.
Felicity gets all kinds of reactions to picking up rubbish. Some people say "thank you" others say they have never seen anybody pick up rubbish before and make a decision to join in the effort.
Picking up rubbish gets to be fun. You never know what you are going to find. Mostly it is paper and plastic but occasionally you find coins or items such as can openers. One piece of rubbish a day may not seem like a lot but if you multiply it by 365 days in a year and many people it mounts up to quite a pile.
After practising with the Spruce Initiative cleaning up the planet in 2009 Felicity thought what if we give something back to the Earth to say thank you? She thought what would be the perfect gift? Every year at Christmas which is a time of gift giving what if instead of throwing away a Christmas tree we planted one instead! This became part of the Spruce Initiative philosophy and every year we give the gift of life to the Earth by planting a tree. Actually we plant a lot of trees but every one helps. If we all planted one tree a year we would have all the trees we need in no time. Towards the end of 2009 Vancouver City declared January 5th, the traditional day for taking down holiday decorations International Spruce Day.
Felicity holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the University of New South Wales, a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Texas at Arlington, a Ph.D. In Transformative Learning and Change from the California Institute of Integral Studies and a Green Laynard from the Girl Guides.
