While I have not fully followed this debate the point about the interest of
young people caught my attention. WIRES has run a program call "I Spy Wildlife"
in primary schools for the last couple years. I think a couple of hundred
schools are involved and the feedback has been that kids are very attracted to
the natural world but have difficulty 'accessing' it outside the excellent work
done by teachers.
This probably reflects broader socio-economic factors playing out on parents.
Average hours of work have risen dramatically and most households require two
working adults to sustain the costs of large city mortgages and outsourced
costs (lawn mowing, domestic labour in general). The spread of hours through
the effective abolition of the old culture of 9-5 work over a five day week and
the extensive casualisation of labour may also reduce the capacity of adults to
introduce exploratory leisure time. Add to this an ideological bias towards
conspicuous consumption as 'leisure' and the concomitant barrage of marketing
and a picture emerges of time-poor parents who need quick fixes for
entertaining offspring who are bombarded with advertising for such products.
WIRES is probably no different to other NGOs in this sense. We have no trouble
filling our training courses with potential recruits but their ability to
participate in collecting injured or orphaned native fauna is severely
constrained by such changes as mentioned above. The irony for us is that the
amount of fauna in trouble grows (largely a function of urban habitat loss
through the doubling of the size of family homes) and the membership gets
bigger but our ability to supply the public service of rescuing native fauna
has been in decline for the last five years.
The public lets us know of our failings in no uncertain terms through our call
centre. Unfortunately many seem to believe that we are funded by government and
can't comprehend why we have not got the resources to pick up the bird or
mammal they have found.
One can't help but feel that there would be more bird watching (and other
interaction with the remnants of the natural environment) and less carbon
emissions if there was a bit of a rethink of the fundamental economic drivers
in our society. Perhaps a little less asset wealth, and the working hours
required to acquire this, and a little more emphasis on our muscles as the
motive force for recreation and we might kill two jetskis and a wall screen
with the one policy.
Chris Lloyd
Training Officer
WIRES
PO Box 260
Forestville NSW 2087
==============================www.birding-aus.org
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