Outdoor enthusiast Moua Yang is sharing his passion with city youth who have limited experience with nature, and he hopes his cultural traditions will inspire others to adopt sustainable practices.
As detailed by the Sahan Journal, Yang began volunteering with Urban Roots as a high school freshman. The nonprofit supports and empowers under-resourced youth, creating economic and educational opportunities, improving access to healthy, fresh food, and getting them outdoors.
Yang, who was 18 when the article was published last year, first realized his desire to be outdoors as a child when his parents would leave him behind to go on strenuous hiking expeditions. Yet kid-friendly fishing trips with his mom to Phalen Lake — near East Side St. Paul, Minnesota, where Yang grew up — cemented his feelings on the matter and inspired him to start a sustainable fishing program with Urban Roots.
Multiple studies have found that outdoor activities are a boon for mental and physical health. However, not everyone has equitable access or introduction to green spaces. In East Side St. Paul, an area served by Urban Roots, most residents are people of color, per the Journal.
Early into his volunteer stint with the nonprofit, Yang worked to remove invasive species — an ecologically damaging and expensive nuisance that contributes to biodiversity loss — and built rain gardens, which help protect communities from flooding. His experience also led him to observe worrying new seasonal trends, like drier weather patterns.
"It makes me worried that we're going to go into a drought again. The lakes and rivers, their shorelines will be lower, and that's going to hurt the ecosystem," he told the Sahan Journal.
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Yang, who is Hmong, explained that fishing is an important part of his cultural traditions, but river pollution and unsustainable practices are harming local ecosystems.
In fact, parts of the Mississippi River are so polluted that the Minnesota Department of Health warns that people who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or under the age of 15 should not consume fish from a stretch of the river between St. Paul and Wabasha.
In his curriculum for Urban Roots, Yang promotes ethical and sustainable fishing practices, including tips to give catch-and-release fish the best chance of survival. His program also educates on the dangers of toxic lead-based tackle and overfishing, in addition to honoring the heritage of peoples Indigenous to the Americas, such as the Ojibwe and Dakota.
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Yang graduated from Johnson Senior High School in 2023, and at the time of his interview with the Sahan Journal in the spring, he was developing an intermediate-level fishing curriculum as a staff crew lead at Urban Roots.
Yang told the Journal that he wants to go to college but isn't yet sure which path to take. All he knows is that he wants conservation to be part of his journey as much as possible.
"I can see myself doing this for a long time. But I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to do that," he said.
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