Humans have a tendency not to do something unless it’s easy. From bread-makers, recycling rules, planting trees or engaging with environmental media; we want it fuss-free.
Obtuse nature
“Some of the stuff you write is impenetrable, Rob”. And perhaps surprisingly, I agree. Equally unsurprisingly, it may be much easier to scroll a line of twitter feed and editorialised media headlines, than decipher something obtuse that’s a little outside the box in its framing.
Perhaps it’s no wonder after a handful of Nature Notebooks in The Times a few years back, they gave up on me. Understandable. See extracts below, and make up your own mind. I now find it easier to say something in circa 60secs – follow the market they say, as concentration spans shrivel.
Side by side wildlife
Ask Carson
Even Rachel Carson (Silent Spring) understood a need for judicious use of some pesticides but there seems like little space for that type of nuance today.
Engaging, not tilting at wildlife
I’ve been involved with conflicts in conservation for some years now. It’s a hardcore place in modern ‘soft’ conservation terms. Too often we are ‘tilting at wildlife’ (think windmills) by exposing the matter, not the purpose.
Ask these wildlife conservation signatories, George Monbiot, or even anyone seeking to release WT eagles in Norfolk. There’s plenty of fresh research (social) on this science page that could help us deal with human interests in helping wildlife.
“It may seem paradoxical, but by adopting a cooperative mindset, you are more likely to get what you want“
Harvard Negotiation School
a book informed by evidence in building trust for conservation
Comments off, conversation on
Healthy conservation partnerships generally seem to be fostered closer to the ground roots. Away from middle management, media PR, membership recruitment departments, single issue campaigners etc. (all important valid roles but at times a gatekeeper to pragmatic works for wildlife.)
Ask these conservationists busy working in Scotland (for waders), Ireland (for curlew), Orkney (on stoats) or pine martens in Wales.
There’s no need to be alarmed by the image above – as researchers, wildlife conservation scientists often work together much more than the media let you know. Here’s one 25 yr project in the uplands and a 20 yr one in the lowlands.
Nature-based media, heads up!
Much of this is work in progress at grassroots which is why I headed this ‘nature-based chainsaws’.
Because we humans are integral to nature-based actions: whether feeding ourselves, walking in parks, controlling rats, flushing toilets, releasing beavers, growing trees, saving curlews, wilding hillsides, dealing with flooding.
We just have to get smarter about how we interface with both nature and ourselves while harvesting not exploiting natural resources on more levels than ever before.