This exactly what I do. At present I’m living in a tiny 1 room building inside a national park in Vietnam, where I’ve been since 2014, working on regional biodiversity conservation and additionally addressing issues like livelihoods (a major aspect of the anti-poaching work I’ve done here and elsewhere), development issues, and the like. I’ve done similar in-situ work in Indonesia, several parts of the US, Canada, and several South American countries.
I prefer to be out in the field doing in-situ work, but that doesn’t at all mean that the other aspects we’ve been discussing don’t play into the work, indeed, they often play into it more than they do when you’re removed from the in-situ situation, since you are seeing day-to-day the direct effects of you and other people’s actions and you’re seeing up close how important the economic, political, and legal issues are.
Everything I’ve raised comes from decades of hands-on in-situ work, as well as growing up around people who founded some of the modern sustainability movement in the US that got started in the late 60s and early 70s, and long discussions, conferences, etc with friends and colleagues doing similar work in other regions.
I’m not bringing up these things as theoretical ideas, they’re things that are used and implemented day-to-day on the ground. In these cases the big picture is the same as the small picture, it’s the scale, the implementation method, and the resources necessary that change, but not the over-all approach.
I knew a somewhat cynical conservation biologist who worked for a NGO who referred to most agency biologists involved in endangered species management as “conversation biologists” because our meetings involved a lot of talking while our accomplishments on the ground were nonexistent to minimal. Kind of stung but I don’t think he was too far off. Some conservation obstacles are simply insurmountable when you have to factor in the needs, wants, and political power of humans who see the world differently than you or I do.
I am glad that my rant got some responses. Is it a possible future? Yes, and an emphatic NO! Like many of you shared, Teaching is the reality way. The biblical story of giving man a fish, they eat for one day, but teaching then to fish, they eat for a lifetime.
As I mentioned in my comment yesterday, I am a retired Entomologist. Life has blessed me with so many gifts while in the field, I cannot count them all. My life has taken a turn for new teaching for me personally. In late 2015, I was diagnosed with 4 Progressive Spinal Disabilities. 3 are treatable and 1 is not. As I mentioned in yesterday’s response, over the years, I went to teach docents my world, just as Herpetology, Ornithology, Mammalogy, and botany. By me teaching the docents, when they lead nature walks for the general public, they teach what was taught to then from me and all the other disciplines. Even if one or 2 are move from what the docents teach during the walks, that is one or two who’s paradigm is altered. This can and usually grows. Just like many on the conversation has shared.
Now that I am forced into wheelchairs (manual and power), getting out in less than inviting habitat, I can, at times, get out to preserves that have a more inviting series of trails for wheelchair bound visitors. I take advantage of these precious times to teach what has graciously been given to me. The other benefit for me is living in Southern California, having some of the most diverse habitats within a small area. I live in San Diego County what is noted nationally in the United States with the most diversity than any other county or parish in the U.S. For a county San Diego have the most threatened and endangered plant and animals in the U.S. and 2nd only the the ENTIRE State of Hawai’i. I have beautiful platform to, Teach. If I cannot get out, I develop PowerPoint videos to educate those interested. Currently, that teaching aid is on hold due to new physical challenges, multiple tests, imaging, doctor appointments, more test, etc. but iNaturalist allows my to assist with identifications, which creates a teaching mechanism.
The future is ‘unclear’ (Yoda from Start Wars). This allows all of us to continue to make our mark with what was graciously given to you to passing on by teaching.
In the “longtermism” thread, someone meantioned being asked to undergo privations – always for just a little longer. I wrote out a really mean reply, then thought better of it and didn’t post it. I get that there are good reasons why the people in this world with the smallest carbon footprints really want to enlarge them (read: abject poverty); but I come from the part of the world at the opposite end of the scale. Being vegetarian doesn’t feel like “privation” to me – it has been one of the most rewarding life choices I ever made. Being car-free is hella inconvenient sometimes, but I have no regrets about that either. If lightening our footsteps on the planet feels like privation, I can’t see things getting any better – not when the number of humans only increases.
Which is not to say that we shouldn’t bother “fixing” our own lives, which is the one thing over which we do have (some degree of) control. Yes, I know that it isn’t about personal purity. It may be necessary to charter a bus to take your activist group to a protest. But it doesn’t follow that you need to drive everywhere in your daily life. If being active in conservation, doing the things that will make a difference, itself uses resources, does it not make sense to “offset” that (to use the parlance of the carbon marketplace) by finding ways to use less resources in other aspects?