Let me introduce you to a hero of mine. Juan Martinez. He’s also my friend. Last week, I sat down with him at the Children & Nature Network Grassroots Gathering in Princeton, New Jersey and he told me a bit more about his life.
Juan, now 26, was raised in South Central Los Angeles, and he grew up angry. [...]
Boredom has its benefits. So does solitude, that lost art in the age of wall-to-wall media. To occasionally be alone – not lonely, but alone – is an important part of parenting and of marriage. One time, my wife Kathy rented a room at the beach, and spent a weekend with no electronic interruptions, no [...]
Many people believe that technology is the antithesis of nature. Here’s an alternate view. A fishing rod is technology. So is that fancy backpack. Or a compass. Or a tent. When boomers my age ran through the woods with play guns (as distasteful as that might be to some people), they were using technology as [...]
One of the admirable characteristics of modern Australia – one that the U.S. should emulate – is a relatively new custom. As I learned on a recent visit to four cities, at the opening of most major conferences indigenous people are asked to give an invocation; and the first person to speak offers a [...]
“We gain life by looking at life.” Those are the words of Dr. Mardie Townsend, a researcher and associate professor in the School of Health and Social Development at Deakin University in Victoria, Australia, and an important thinker about the importance of the natural world to human development. She added, in an interview with the [...]
It’s time for a National Conference on Children, Nature and the Law, organized by the legal profession with a little help from insurance companies, educators, health care folks, policy-makers, C&NN and others. This conference is a fiction, so far. But somebody needs to step to the plate.
Those of us who care about the future of our children and the human relationship with the natural world should applaud First Lady Michelle Obama’s call for a ” Let’s Move” campaign to reverse the trend toward child obesity. We particularly like her statement that when she was young, ” we spent hours running around outside, we couldn’t go inside until dinner.”
In the past, the national conversation about child obesity has seldom mentioned getting outside in nature as part of the solution. We’re hoping that changes, and as the ” Let’s Move” campaign evolves, it will give far greater attention to children’s independent play, particularly in natural surroundings.
Dear Mr. Cameron,
A few weeks ago, I read a terrific quote from you that ran in at least two newspapers, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and The Hindu.
” What is ‘Avatar’ saying,” the interviewer asked you.
You answered: ” It asks questions about our relationship with each other, from culture to culture, and our relationship with the natural world at a time of nature-deficit disorder.”
A billion or so dollars later, ” Avatar” is the king of the film world. Not everyone likes its political message. But from Connecticut to Kansas to California, and probably around the world, people are starved for the movie’s larger message: humans pay an awful price and take a terrible toll when they lose touch with the natural world.
Remember the special place in nature that you had as a child — that wooded lot at the end of the cul de sac, that ravine behind your housing tract? What if adults had cared just as much about that special place as you did, when you were a child?
In the spirit of the Do it Yourself, Do it Now philosophy of the Children & Nature Network, here’s an idea whose time may be coming: the creation of ” nearby-nature trusts.” Land trust organizations could develop and distribute tool kits, and perhaps offer consulting services, to show how neighborhood residents could band together to protect those small green parcels of nearby nature. What might these little parcels be called? How about ” button parks?”
One day, my older son, Jason, announced that there was one more thing he wanted to do before school started. This was a long time ago. As we left the dock, we felt the cool air coming up from the water. Fishing air feels and smells like no other air. It cools your face and gets in under your shirt, and everything is left behind—all work, all worries, all the static of the city.
“Remember last time?” asked Jason, as he let his line out behind the boat. I did. Here, we had seen the strangest sight: at the very end of the lake, violet hills and green pastures and scattered cattle and a little river running through the willows, a valley that seemed to recede from view as we approached. “The closer we get, the farther away it seems,” I had said to him. His eyes had grown wide. The light had turned red and begun to fade. We had turned back.
A while back, I wrote about a terrific book in this space, and mentioned there was more to come. So here’s Part II.
Doug Tallamy is professor and chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, and the author of ” Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens” , a book I’ve endorsed as “the perfect antidote to the belief that nature happens somewhere else.” Tallamy believes that biodiversity must be managed, just as we manage (or mismanage) our water resources, clean air and energy — and that families and kids can play a big role in that. First and foremost, he advises, we must provide the two things all species need: food and shelter. ” Fortunately, unlike most of our water or energy supplies, biodiversity is a renewale resource that is relatively easy to increase,” he says. Which brings us back to the back yard. Front yard, too.
Part of the following column is adapted from a previous blog entry. The column was released September 4, 2009 by Citiwire.net. Citiwire.net columns are not copyrighted and may be reproduced in print or electronically; please show authorship, credit Citiwire.net and send an electronic copy of usage to webmaster@citiwire.net.
In August, CBS’ ” The Early Show” [...]
I was intrigued when I first heard about my local natural history museum’s intention to hand out packets of seeds to schoolchildren so that they might plant their own backyards with the vegetation that attracts butterflies – thus helping bring back butterfly migration routes. There was something almost enchanted about this plan – the idea [...]
Got dirt? “In South Carolina, a truckload of dirt is the same price as a video game!” reports Norman McGee, a father in that state who bought a small pickup-load of dirt for his daughter and
friends.
McGee, who took the wonderful photo above, is turning consciousness into action. So is Liz Baird, who keeps a [...]
The children and nature movement has miles to go before it sleeps (if it ever does), but we’re seeing so much progress that it’s difficult to keep up with the news. Look for C&NN’s next email newsletter for a more extensive report, but here are some recent highlights.
Eco Clubs and Early Angels: A few minutes [...]
