This week I am teaching an interpretive planner’s course with Lisa Brochu at Eldorado Nature Center in the heart of Long Beach, CA, in the Los Angeles basin. It was amazing to drive through the tangle of freeways and down urban streets and find ourselves on a wooded parking lot with trails meandering over and around the water features on the 100 acre property. One guest commented to me that he comes back again and again to escape. He referred to it as a nature island in the heart of the city. He didn’t expect to find it on his first visit.
It is interesting to meet city folks who value hiking trails hidden in among the rush of this major metropolitan area. A new study suggests that people who backpack and hike trails frequently are likely to become donors and supporters of conservation organizations later in life. Those who only go sightseeing or fishing are less likely to become serious conservation supporters. These findings were reported in October on PLoSONE, an online publication of the Public Library of Science.
The research was done by Oliver Pergams of U. of Illinois Chicago and Patricia Zaradic, director of the Red Rock Institute in Pennsylvania, along with Peter Kareiva, chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy. Their study showed a ten to twelve year lag between the period of active hiking and becoming a donor and/or supporter. Their work suggests that there is an overall decline of people who get into serious hiking and outdoor experiences. Our urban, wired lifestyles do not encourage exploration of deeper outdoor experiences.
This all leads back to, “What do we do about it?” The obvious suggestion is that we get kids outdoors earlier and more often. I have written several blogs on the No Child Left Inside movement and the importance of supporting it. We finally have a political coalition that is creating real buzz among legislators and it is leading to more money for environmental education.
I still have questions. City folks may not become backpackers very commonly even if they have outdoor experiences as children. How do we create engagement with new generations of people who will not ever choose the deeper experience with nature? We need to better understand this relationship between life experiences and stewardship commitment better. How does an urban nature center, like Eldorado Nature Center, make a difference for city dwellers. It’s not backpacking but it does provide outdoor experience that many value. How can we protect or build more open space into urban life? Eldorado is an example of a natural area built totally on bare farm ground of forty years ago. It is in a great location to influence a lot of people. Children need a starting place and an urban nature center provides that.
It is a daunting but important challenge for all of us who want to protect natural areas. There has to be advocacy for these areas or they could slowly disappear with changing political priorities. I value these urban escapes. They give kids and adults a place to begin hiking that leads to greater outdoor adventures in the future. I fear the decline in avid hikers and backpackers will continue.
The researchers mentioned above express their concerns at the end of their article:
Given the trends of increasing US population diversity, urbanization, and economic and cultural changes, we fear that the currently narrow base of conservation NGO supporters will become even narrower. To avoid becoming marginalized, the conservation movement will need to diversify its outreach strategy, engaging novel and diverse constituencies. Strategies for doing so may either require more of the ‘‘right types’’ of nature exposure, or entirely different approaches to ethnic or socioeconomic groups who are not likely to engage in hiking and backpacking. Ultimately, the fate of biodiversity and intact ecosystems may depend less on rates of habitat loss or invasive species, than on public perception of whether conservation should be supported at all.
Patricia A. Zaradic1*, Oliver R. W. Pergams1,2, Peter Kareiva
I share their concerns.
-Tim Merriman
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