Cultivate a relationship with nature with the Friends' Summer Nature Day Camp

Human health depends upon a healthy environment. That is the underlying principle which has guided the Friends' mission - to connect people to Tryon Creek State Natural Area and cultivate a lifelong relationship with nature - for more than 40 years.

The Friends believe that we need to "know" the land upon which we depend for survival. We need to understand how its ecosystems function and how they work together. We need to recognize the relationship that inhabitants have with the land, be they the fox, the robin, the newt, or the human being. If we know the land, we can understand it. When we understand it, we are compelled to conserve, protect, steward, and respect it.

Access to that knowledge begins the moment each of us first sets foot upon a forest path, in a mountain stream, or in a country meadow.

Tryon Creek State Natural Area is the ultimate outdoor classroom. In this classroom, knowledge of the land is awakened and encouraged. With regular cultivation that knowledge flourishes. It grows and expands and fills the human mind and heart with inspiration, peace, energy, and a sense of connectedness to the natural world. Connectedness becomes familiarity. Familiarity becomes "knowing". We experience a sense of purpose that helps ground us as we experience the awe, majesty, and transcendence that occurs when we realize that everything - all of it - is interwoven. We realize that each of us plays a part in it and each of us has a responsibility for the part we play.

Every summer, the Friends of Tryon Creek share the experience of Tryon Creek as a living classroom with children through our Summer Nature Day Camp program. Each child that participates, be they four or 12 years old, comes to the forest innately ready to connect deeply to the natural world around them. Through play, activities, hikes, and hands-on experience with nature, campers gain a sense of themselves in the wild world, of their sense of place and their relationship with all living things.

Give your child the experience of a lifetime and enroll them in the Friends of Tryon Creek's Summer Nature Day Camp today: www.tryonfriends.org

Wanted: Earth Ambassadors

 

From May 9th - 11th, 2013, a number of Friends and OPRD staff members attended the Environmental Summit with the Dalai Lama in Portland. The Dalai Lama was joined by religious leaders, politicians, and prominent environmentalists to discuss the importance of environmental stewardship, education, protection and preservation.

The event was a success: Venues sold out, audiences were given a wealth of information on the environment, speakers received standing ovations, and participants felt energized and empowered. However, the issue of environmental advocacy – specifically, how does one compel and inspire others to take action – was a question that largely went unanswered.

We are facing a future of unprecedented global threats to the environment. On Saturday, May 11^th, the front page of the newspaper carried the headline, “Carbon dioxide levels hit new milestone”: the article went on to note that, “Worldwide levels of the chief greenhouse gas that causes global warming have hit a milestone, reaching an amount never before encountered by humans, federal scientists said Friday. Carbon dioxide was measured at 400 parts per million… the last time the worldwide carbon level was probably that high was about 2 million years ago.” The following day, Sunday, May 12^th, the newspaper’s A section carried another ominous headline, “Common species at risk, climate study says.” According to the study’s lead author, Rachel Warren, “…the average plant and animal will experience significant range loss under climate change.” The study looked at 50,000 common species and determined that “…more than half the plants and a third of the animals could lose 50% of their range by 2080 if the world continues its current course of rising greenhouse gas emissions.”

What do we do with such bleak news?

Paralysis is one common response. When we encounter unsettling or worrisome news and information, a seeming inability to take action, to even know where to begin in addressing the problem, can take over.

Those that are able to process the news and are motivated to take action often find themselves facing an additional challenge: How do you inspire people to rally around a cause that is freighted with gloom and doom scenarios?

The Friends found an answer in This Green Life, Sheryl Eisenberg’s monthly journal, in a post titled, “Becoming an Earth Ambassador: The art of persuasion”.

Eisenberg's post below is valuable because it provides a blueprint for how to approach the subject with people in a constructive and productive way. There's no pointing fingers and no lecturing - and your audience will be inspired. We hope you will read and share with others.

Becoming an Earth Ambassador
The art of persuasion                                                        

If you follow environmental issues closely, you may often feel the urge to share your knowledge with those around you for the sake of the common good. You think: if only Gina and Joe knew about the Sargasso Sea of plastic trash in the Pacific, they'd stop buying bottled water. Or: tomorrow's the last day for public comments on fracking. I'd better get the word out.

In theory, educating family and friends about these issues is a great idea. In practice, it's a hard trick to pull off.

If you've tried it, you know. Your lessons rarely go over as well as you'd hoped. Inexplicably, your friends yawn and change the subject or argue the points. However they react, the upshot is the same: no conversions to the cause.

At least, that's often been my experience.

There is a simple reason, and we all know what it is. Outside the classroom, people don't like being lectured to. Even less do they like being told how to live, except perhaps by real preachers, and then only on the Sabbath. At worst, they're offended; at best, they write us off. ("There's Sheryl going on about the environment again...")

So how can we get our message across more effectively to our family and friends?

We begin by being mindful of the nature of these relationships. Our nearest and dearest are not potential recruits, but people who trust and care for us. To speak to them otherwise, even in the service of a good cause, would distance them from us, which can't be good.

We consider each person's interests, just as we do in ordinary conversation. (None of my friends would think to talk to me about sports, nor would I bring up Victorian literature with many of them.) If there's no point of connection on an environmental issue, we don't bring the subject up. If there is, we make it as relevant to the person as possible.

We avoid talking doom and gloom at get-togethers where our seriousness would be out of place. It never pays to be a killjoy.

When it comes to green practices, we talk about what we do, not about what others should do. And to the extent possible, we rely on our friends to see what we do, rather than make a point of telling them. After all, our reusable water bottle and cloth napkins don't really need commentary, nor does our habit of biking to the store. These things really do speak for themselves.

When raising a particular issue, we explain why it matters to us. Do we want to save forests because our father loved trees? We tell that story. Do we fight for clean air standards because our child has asthma? We tell that story too. Was it an essay by Thoreau that got us living more simply? A film about factory farming that made us stop eating meat? The memory of once common butterflies that have disappeared from our garden which got us campaigning for a carbon cap to rein in climate change? When we relate these stories, we dwell on our eureka moments, knowing they will make a greater impression than a recitation of facts alone.

Of course, we bring facts to the table too, solid ones we're sure of, but not too many at a time. People will ask if they want to know more.

If a friend disagrees with our position, we ask why and listen with an open mind, remembering there is something to be learned on both sides from every exchange.

We are not strident and we know when to stop. If we've described the issue, tied it to the person's interests, told our personal story, and got no reaction, we put the subject to bed.

But if we see a spark of interest, we fan the flame.

In the end, we let the other person decide whether he or she is interested. And we respect the person either way, just as we hope to be respected in turn.

We know there will always be another opportunity for conversation. We keep the doors open.

—Sheryl Eisenberg