Comments on: Screening In Nature

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 06:09:20 +0000

Ha! Finally found it:

At the 1968 triennial meeting of the IUCN, The World Conservation Union, Senegalese conservationist Baba Dioum observed, “In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.”

Norse, Elliott A. (2005) Marine Conservation Biology. Island Press.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 03:05:46 +0000

Interesting points all, and I agree wholeheartedly. I think if kids are brought up developing no interest in nature. Their society will develop to the detriment of society, ie lost habitats, etc in lieu of movie theaters, shopping malls, or whatever. When such kids grow up, no one will be passionate enough to take jobs or fight to save such wild places? Though interest in nature might be a double-edged knife, I think one edge will always remain sharper.

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 16:29:15 +0000

Steve Brady…fixed your URL.

As for the decline being a good thing, I expect part of the concern can be summed up with this old quote:

We will only protect what we value.
We will only value what we understand.
We will only understand what we are taught

Wish I could remember the attribution for that quote. Anyone know? But the idea being that if children are disengaged from nature, they won\’t value it later in life and won\’t vote or take measures to keep it wild and protected.

By: Steve Brady

Steve Brady — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 13:33:01 +0000

Actually, I wonder about something else… isn\’t the decline of people visiting natural parks actually a good way for the damage from humans to be lessened? The last time I visited a national park (Grand Canyon–1992) they were talking about the negative impact that the tourists had on the natural ecosystem, which at the time struck me as a bizarre set of conflicting missions–exposing the populace to the wonders of nature, while simultaneously wishing they wouldn\’t \”get so close.\”

Actually, the lack of interest in nature does remind me of a movie produced a number of years ago, where a space ship was created that would be our last vestige of nature. It was a collection of habitats maintained by just a few people, and mostly robots.

Wish I could remember the name of it…

By: Jonathon D. Colman

Jonathon D. Colman — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 17:23:28 +0000

Agreed! I personally listen to the LOST podcast during my commute as well as various others whenever I’m running or working out.

I work for TNC and upon the publication of our “TV vs. Trees” report, I plied the same question to the Gather.com community. You can see what they said about sedentary kids.

As for how to battle sedentary habits, it seems that a mix of parenting, education, community/school opportunities, and active lifestyles all could play strong roles. And I think that technology and broadcast media can definitely have positive aspects… think of how Steve Irwin got kids interested in wildlife and conservation when they watched his TV show or DVDs.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 05:51:27 +0000

The problem isn’t electronic media; it’s sedentarianism. When sedentary, electronic media is the path of least resistance in terms of entertainment and recreation. The original popularity of podcasts proved that new media can be fasioned to fit into a non-sedentary lifestyle–mp3’s that would normally be listened to at the computer as “webcasts” were now going jogging!

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 04:26:00 +0000

And as an update, I now notice that the Nature Conservancy offers its own podcast. Which is kind of my point. If the problem is electronic media leading to disengagement from the natural world, then we need to reinterpret the message by using new media.