Nature Interpretation's Role in Environmental Sustainability
As a nature interpreter, I do feel that I have to be careful about how I conduct myself. Ultimately, the intent is to guide people towards understanding why they may relate to nature more than they thought they would, but also to allow people to realize on their own that they should go out into nature to develop this opinion for themselves. Perhaps my own interests are rooted in the well-being of my surroundings, in the sense that I am interested in nature and everything it encompasses, but not everyone necessarily relates to that. So, I consider this rooting to ultimately be of my own interest, that way I can express this belief in a way that presents it as an interest like any other person would have. I simply think nature should be allowed to exist, for it brings me great joy in many ways simply by existing in its unmanaged state, but if I were to express in an objective manner that my audience also allow nature to exist in its unmanaged state, then it might be hard for me to keep said audience.
One of the beliefs I have that I still struggle to get across in a way that people can get behind is vegetarianism. I’ve been avoiding animal products for over six years now, because after informing myself of how they are obtained and what the costs of doing so are, it made sense to me that it was not something worth being a part of. So, without much hesitation, I simply decided that I was going to stop being a part of animal product consumption. At the time, I had no idea how people would react to how I was now going to conduct myself, though I was in for a bumpy ride. As a pretty typical white male tenth-grader in a suburb of Boston, I hadn’t really had much in the way of insecurities, and I’d just opened myself up to a wave of criticism from people who come from a plethora of backgrounds. To make that long story short, I was often questioned about my choice to become vegetarian, in ways that made me less open about it. I felt people wanted to talk civilly about things they were able to relate to, but once the topic became something they already had in their mind as something so preposterous, they became more defensive and uncivil in conversation, and it started to become a bit of an insecurity. However, despite all the insecurity I felt around doing what I believed was right, I never let up, and I think it’s helped me to express myself in general more confidently.
Something I learned here at the University of Guelph from keynote speaker Payton Head, a queer black man with a history of strong leadership, on the topic of interdisciplinary inclusivity, is that everyone grew up with their own set of environmental conditions, and are only able to shape their thoughts and beliefs. While we may see another person’s views as ignorant, we can still only empathize with a person if we want to discuss their thoughts and beliefs in a way that we may see as benefiting from change, regardless of how different these thoughts and beliefs may be. I only see the need to dismiss one’s self from an interaction if there is a lack of common respect coming from one or more of the individuals interacting. So, with all that in mind, I feel my best approach for perhaps being influential as a vegetarian is to simply lead by example. People tend to look up to others who have shown they can conduct themselves in a calm and collected manner, and do well by themselves, even if not necessarily doing so at all times. I think that as long as I can continue to conduct myself in such a manner, while still doing things the way I see as right and respectful towards other people, then I may be able to keep myself approachable to someone intrigued by it, and possibly influence how they choose to conduct themselves.
If we are to take a more collaborative approach to it though, I think the best change should start with children. As Jacob Rodenburg put it in this week’s reading, children are disconnected from their natural surroundings, and not by their own choice (2019). Young children, for the most part, are restricted by their parents/guardians as to where they can be throughout most of their early life. If we want to allow people to make their own choices as to how they want to conduct themselves, starting in their younger years, I believe we owe it to them to show them what exists, including nature, how we operate society and its food supply, and so on. Nature is full of different plants and animals which we have learned to appreciate throughout the course of life. When one takes their kid to a farm, they often want to pet the farm animals, as they perceive the world as being friendly; uncorrupted. Hunters often say that if most people had to kill their own meat, then people would eat far less meat–not for the effort it takes to track down an animal, take its life, then prepare it so that it is both edible and palatable, but simply because they become aware of what takes place when they eat meat. I think the same would absolutely be true with children. If Children, who often learn to love and adore animals, saw how they needed to be treated in order for them to eat, they might resist eating them in the first place. In one case, a farmer even decided he would resist such after having lost his cattle to bovine tuberculosis, by going vegetarian himself (Bearne, 2022). Considering the environmental impact that agriculture has on our planet, I ultimately feel responsible to make it a part of our knowledge pool.
Literature Cited:
Jacob Rodenburg (2019). Why Environmental Educators Shouldn’t Give Up Hope. Journal of Environmental Education in the Cascadian Bioregion. https://clearingmagazine.org/archives/14300
Suzanne Bearne (2022). The meat and dairy farmers who are going vegan. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61565233
Hi there,
Thank you for your thoughtful and informative post. I admire your stance on vegetarianism. There are so many amazing benefits of vegetarianism for the environment and the impact it could make is massive if it was more widespread. I admire your bravery and am saddened by the reactions of others that caused insecurity about your choices. In my post I discuss how learning about different cultures and their relationship with their land is an important feature of interpretation for me. In many cultures that are very connected to the land, eating meat is part of their appreciation of the earth. With western ideals and culture, as well as what we know through science, this seems counterintuitive. But with so many unique and special cultures around the world, come so many different ways of thanking the land, and this is one of them. This is why interpretation is so powerful, because the way we interpret is so different around the world.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts! I admire how you have courage in your convictions, it is so important. All the best!
Olivia
