Author: Erika Zambello

Erika Zambello is a writer, birder, and photographer living and working along the Emerald Coast of Florida. She has a master’s degree in environmental management, where she specialized in ecosystem science and conservation. Her love of the outdoors was inspired by a childhood in Maine, where she returned for her National Geographic Young Explorer grant. In addition to Maine, she has lived in New York, France, Washington, DC, and North Carolina. Erika believes in the power of communicating conservation and exploration, which was the inspiration for One World, Two Feet.

Beaches are an amazing place to explore, both from an ecological and a photography perspective. They are ever changing, sands literally shifting from one area to another; they are a canvas for weather patterns that pass briefly and then disappear. To really know a beach, you must visit often, in all conditions and seasons. Though…

I have always been fascinated by human structures overtaken by nature; collapsed barns now covered in grasses, old homes shrouded in thick vines, rusted cars with trees growing through the center. Here in Florida, what I see most often are sunken boats. One evening my husband and I decided to explore Easy Bay near Pensacola….

Last week I witnessed something truly amazing: the release of a rehabilitated sea turtle. The Gulfarium, a local aquarium, has a special turtle care program. The turtle I saw had recovered from pneumonia (I didn’t know turtles could get pneumonia!), and was now healthy enough to return to life on the ocean’s currents, maybe even…