Final Blog

        During my time at SRS, I’ve learned a lot of things. Not just about conservation and the environment, but a lot about people. Most of my classmates going in to Conservation Ecology had little to no experience with the “great outdoors,” and even for environmental majors like myself, one month ago I couldn’t tell the difference between a pine tree and an oak tree. Now, just after one month, I can see that everyone in the class has developed a deep, personal connection to nature. For a young adult raised in an urban or suburban area to achieve a spiritual connection with a thousand year-old cypress tree, there has to be a major transformation within his or her way of thinking about the world around them. And that is exactly the purpose of this class: for us to think about nature as not just an irrelevant concept separate from daily life, but as something that is deeply interconnected to our individual lives and which connects us to everything else in the world. 

        Even though our Conservation Ecology class is coming to a close, our mission does not stop once this internship is over. We should strive to remain connected with the environment on an individual level, and strive to deepen that relationship. As an Environmental Policy major, one of my goals is to obtain a career in which I can influence other people to care about the environment, or at least to become more aware about how to protect it. But that is not going to be an easy task. Our class of eight people was lucky enough to have such a kind and influential teacher who challenged us to view the world through a new perspective, resulting in a deeper understanding of ourselves. We were lucky enough to receive such instruction for an entire month, in an internship strongly focused on concerns of the natural world. Most people are not so lucky to be challenged in this sort of way, and as a result, they continue to view the world in the narrow lens that our society, which emphasizes “progress” at the expense of nature, has created. My goal is to one day influence people to “connect the dots” just as Dr. Lanham has taught us; to help them realize that tree frogs in South America, the clearcutting of the Amazon rain forest, and efforts to restore America's wild turkey population do impact us all.

Visit to Silver Bluff

        For our Conservation Ecology class, we have visited three different and unique field sites, yet all of them share the desire to preserve certain wildlife species, and conduct local conservation efforts which, hopefully, will help maintain the ecological health of the world. The NWTF has had great success in restoring America’s wild turkey population, and even expanding the turkey’s population into states where it has never inhabited. The organization gathers its funds from license fees and taxes on guns, and has also helped to educate hunters on the importance of preservation and the dangers of excessive hunting. Beidler Forest has also had much success in preserving the species it initially aimed to conserve, mainly Bald Cypress and the Prothonotary Warbler, preserving the area’s health, and protecting the area from clearcutting and other economic pursuits. Beidler’s funds come from membership fees and entrance fees into the area. 

        The Audubon Silver Bluff is different from the other two organizations, in that it has had provide its own funds for the organization’s operations, which has led them to use the environment in a different manner than the NWTF and Beidler. Similar to old-school forestry operations, the Silver Bluff makes money by growing trees and harvesting them for timber. However, instead of just selling timber, Silver Bluff also collects and sells the pine straw that comes from these trees. This allows them to practice traditional forestry in a sustainable manner; they sell timber, but only use a designated area for planting, cutting, and replanting trees, and to supplement their income, they gather pine straw so that they do not have to cut down so many trees for timber.  
        Silver Bluff’s conservation mission also surprised me in another way. I already knew that foresters used controlled burns to take away fuel for future wildfires, but I did not know that they also used fires to rid the area of certain species of trees. I did not know that Sweetgum was considered a pest, and I could not fathom a reason for why a forester would want to remove Oak trees from an area. But after learning Silver Bluff’s goal to return parts of Aiken to their original, native habitat, now I understand that in order to do so, the nonnative and the pest-like species of trees have to die. Both the NWTF and Silver Bluff's conservation missions succeed in maintaining a healthy balance between life and death, and where the living (whether turkeys, trees, or humans) actually benefit, by bringing America one step closer to its original habitat.

Interview #2

        Tonight, I interviewed my friend Allan here at the SRS internship. I asked him what his conservation ethic was, and his response was similar to Ben's, in a sense that their opinions probably match the opinion of most American people. Allan replied that he believes in the importance of recycling and conserving things like water, paper, etc; and he thinks that everyone should have a garden. A garden could cut down an individual's grocery costs, while also absorbing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and producing food in a sustainable way.
        Allan is here mostly for the experience. He did not know at first what this internship was about, what it involved, and what he would learn, but he thought it would be interesting to try. Allan also commented that he is also desires to be more informed about environmental issues, with which this internship has definitely helped him. I also asked Allan how his time here has affected his conservation ethic. He replied that his experiences here have helped to further strengthen the conservation ethic he had before coming to Aiken. Except now he also feels more aware about specific environmental issues, and cares more strongly about them (for example, river health, conservation efforts in hunting, etc).

Trip to Beidler Forest

        On Tuesday, our class went to Beidler Forest, one of the world's oldest and largest remaining floodplains. I found our walk through the forest, which full of Bald Cyprus as far as the eye could see, to be one of the most peaceful and serene ways to spend an afternoon. But then I remembered that as a kid, even in my early teenage years, I hated the outdoors. My afternoons usually consisted of video games, TV, and homework, without a trace of time spent outside. And then I wondered: how on earth did I go from being a full-on couch potato to an outdoor junkie, in such a short period of time?
        My attitude towards nature began to change as I started running outside for exercise and recreation (that, too is an ironic story of how I suddenly transformed into an athlete). For cross country practice, we would usually run on the Chattahoochee National Park trails where we were surrounded by trees, all of which overlooked the big, beautiful Chattahoochee River. The outdoors quickly became a place of quiet meditation for me, not just because I began associating nature trails to exercise endorphins, but because I truly felt a "spiritual" connection and a deep appreciation for the natural world and all its beauty.
        For some reason, walking along the trails of Beilder Forest reminded me of those first few weeks of cross country. We're constantly surrounded by the natural world, but until we take the time to actually see its beauty, appreciate it, and feel a deeper connection to it that surpasses our minds' comprehension, only then can we start to grasp how special nature really is.

Conservation Biology: State of the Environment

        Yesterday in class, we discussed the development of conservation biology. It emerged as a "crisis discipline" in the early 20th century, in response to rapid habitat destruction. But even though many conservation practices have been successful, such as those by the NWTF, the majority of these practices are reactive measures. Countless environmental crises and disasters could have been and could still be avoided if people act in a proactive manner, rather than reactive. For example, passenger pigeons might still roam the skies of Wisconsin if hunters had not killed them in such excess, but rather hunted them in a sustainable manner. Unfortunately, it appears to be basic human nature to only change our behavior until it leads to a crisis, or at least a situation where the consequences of our current actions start to outweigh the benefits they once brought.
        Changing our behavior at a crisis point can work sometimes, as shown in the video yesterday with America's grisly bear population. It is true that local efforts can add up to nationwide successes, but right now hundreds of questions, regarding the state of the environment, persist in my mind: can local or national efforts solve current global issues? Can local farmers, using sustainable practices, offset the damage of large-scale, corporate-run agribusiness? As Brazil's Amazon rain forests are burned to meet China's growing demands for food, as America's forests are cleared to make room for urban developments, and as the world's oil resources are depleted, do individual or local actions even matter?
        Could any of these situations be solved by national governments? And would these governments even stand up to do the right thing, and be proactive about protecting the earth, or will they only wait to react until every global environmental crisis becomes a matter of life or death for the entire human population?

Peer Interview #1

        I recently interviewed Ben Blackwelder about his own conservation ethic. Like me, he is concerned about the local, national, and global health of the environment, but at the same time it is not his top priority. He tries to help reduce his carbon footprint by recycling whenever possible, turning the lights off when leaving a room, and emailing assignments instead of printing them out. I believe that Ben has the same conservation ethic as many people in America; they are concerned about the environment, but are more concerned with more pressing everyday matters. At least this large section of the population is unlike an other large portion of our population, who just does not care about the environment at all. I do fear, however, that the wastefulness of the latter group offsets the small efforts of the first group.

Visit to NWTF

        Last week, our Conservation Ecology class visited the National Wild Turkey Federation, and learned how over time, a land ethic developed for the protection and conservation of wild turkeys. Suddenly during our visit, I remembered that my uncle John belongs to the NWTF and hunts wild turkeys. I also remembered that after he would shoot a turkey, he saved all of the feathers for me when I was a little kid (when I was about three years old, I had an unusual obsession with feathers). At that time I could only appreciate his gift for me, the feathers, but I was not yet able to understand his gift to the land: conservation. One misconception about hunters is that they represent waste and excess, not conservation (probably thanks to hunters during the 19th century). But groups such as the NWTF actually promote the ethic of sustainability; keeping the turkey population in check while at the time time making sure it is not depleted. There definitely need to be more groups and organizations out there today that promote sustainability, instead of the wasteful practices of our global population.

My "personal code" for conservation

What is my conservation ethic?

Thanks to the influence of my wonderful high school environmental teacher, ever since then I have endeavored to be environmentally-conscious. When I started becoming more aware of global environmental concerns, I began taking small, individual steps to make a positive impact. I convinced my mom to buy recycling bins for the house, I'm aware of how long I take a shower every day, I make sure to turn off all the lights when I leave the room, etc. However, I do not believe that my actions alone will make much of an impact in the world. Only when everyone (especially Americans) begins to take similar, individual steps, we as a human race can create a more sustainable global community and protect our resources for future generations to come.