As stated by Goodwin (2016), “an individual’s ecological identity [can] evolve throughout one’s life” (pg. 6). My personal participation as a member of Earth’s ecologic system began at the moment of my conception – when matter became a new life.
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A human being 12 weeks after conception.
Image from https://www.webmd.com/baby/ss/slideshow-fetal-development
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I took in oxygen and carbon-based fuel while developing within my mother’s womb. That oxygen originated as a byproduct of plant respiration and the carbon was derived from the sugars that plants produce during photosynthesis. Under the guidance of an unfathomably complex genetic code, my living cells used these inputs (and the other nutrients my mother consumed) to multiply, build, and maintain life. In the process, carbon dioxide was given back to the plants though the breath of my mother. A form of this process continued until the day I was born, when, to some degree, I became a more independent member of this naturally homeostatic system.
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| My brothers and I (blue shorts) camping in 1993. |
Once outside the womb, my ecological identity continued to evolve. Although I cannot significantly alter the automatic aspects of my ecological identity, such as the pumping of my heart and breathing of my lungs, I grew to take more from the natural world than water, oxygen, carbon, and nutrients. I took in the beautiful sights that this world has to offer.
First I fell in love with the lakes, rivers, woods, and rolling prairies of my home in Northeast Kansas. I have captured the beauty of some of these things in my photographs below.
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| October at Tuttle Creek Lake |
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| The Kansas River |
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| Farmland in the Kansas river valley |
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| The verdant Flint Hills – The USA's largest never plowed section of tallgrass prairie |
Later my wonder was captured by the seemingly more dramatic scenery out west – the mountains, deserts, canyons, and rock formations.
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| Grand Teton National Park |
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| Wild Horses near Shiprock New Mexico |
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| The Grand Canyon |
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| Great Sand Dunes in Colorado |
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| Medano Creek – Great Sand Dunes National Park |
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| Lone Eagle Peak – Colorado |
At this time in my life I would have considered myself to be a nature lover; but this relationship only went one way. I certainly preached recycling and leaving the wild places as they are; but at the same time I treated the natural world like it was an isolated system that I could traverse and enjoy without generating any direct impact. This is where many people are today. They will send off tweets about saving the boundary waters from mining while using the newest model of smartphone. That smartphone (like the ones they have traded up for every year) uses a nickel battery mined halfway across the world, in a process that decimates the local landscape and watersheds. Our phones are just one example. Our kayaks and backpacking supplies were made using petroleum, our clothes are made in Asia, our food is farmed in unsustainable large-scale farms - only to be later shipped thousands of miles using fossil fuels before landing on our table. This is where many people are in their ecologic identities. They love the natural world and aren’t afraid to say so; but that love only reaches as far as our awareness. This is where I was also in the evolution of my ecological identity.
Then, in the August 2015 issue of Backpacker Magazine, I saw a Subaru advertisement similar to (but not exactly like) this one:
Instead of including the picture of one of their newest models in the ad, Subaru used two full pages to dramatically display an image of a landfill, with this statement in plain font:
“Loving the earth means understanding you can’t throw anything away, because there simply is no ‘away.’”
With the nation’s focus continually shifting more towards technological advancements, people have flocked to the cities – where fast food restaurants and supermarkets are always placed in such close proximity to each new housing development, that food must be imported and rubbish exported. Once the source of food and the destination of refuse are out of sight and mind, the demand for products that are cheap and convenient increases exponentially. Of course, such products are not usually generated in an earth-friendly manner; and as the Subaru ad pointed out, garbage has to be put somewhere. It is easy for people to dump their refuse on land that no one has emotionally invested themselves in. This is where my ecological identity began to shift closer to where it currently is. Not long after seeing the Subaru ad, I read “On A Scrap of Land in Henry County” – an essay by Carol Polsgrove. This essay is Polsgrove’s recollection of an interview with environmental activist and writer Wendell Berry, who believed that by settling down and dedicating oneself to a specific spot of earth, a person will naturally become environmentally nationalistic enough to fight off any attempt to exploit that land. If every community of the country becomes more dedicated to passionately defending their local environment, then even the cities would have no other option but to start living more sustainably. Just as those caring for their farms would not like to see refuse clogging their once-clear streams, cities would not tolerate garbage piling up in front of their restaurants and shopping centers. The moral of Berry's thoughts were this – if you want to live in an environmentally friendly way, then settle down in one space, appreciate and love the land where you live, grow your own food, and rely as little as possible on far away out-of-sight resources. Essentially, Berry wants us to shop local, eat local, and live local – to plant our own crops, raise our own meat, and reuse or repurpose aging possessions before ordering new ones from Amazon. That lifestyle is difficult to adopt.
Although I have come to believe that the vision of Wendell Berry shows us the most ecologically sustainable way to live, I certainly have not yet fully embraced living local. I would like to; but initially this takes time, money, planning, and sacrifice.
My own opportunities to interact decisively with the biological community and to adopt Berry's vision increased extensively three summers ago, when my family and I moved out of a small downtown loft apartment and onto a 20-acre parcel of land Northeast of Bemidji, Minnesota.
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| A group of Paper Birch trees beside the still-standing charred remains of a past tree. |
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| The northern lights above my beloved single-wide trailer home |
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| Looking south into the front five acres |
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| My home. |
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The pond
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Other than our house, a garden, and the half-acre pond, the front five acres consisted mostly of open prairie grasses and seasonal wildflowers. The back fifteen acres is wooded, predominantly with deciduous trees such as Birch, Basswood, Maple, Oak, Ironwood, Ash, and Poplar. The very northern tip of this gently rolling woodland touches a large wetland, which beavers use as their base of operation. The greatest beauty of this land is that, aside from a few small patches that were logged in 2009, the land has largely been left untouched for 80 years. This fact is evidenced by 1940 aerial imagery and my own count of tree rings – some of which reveal lifespans that were over 100 years old.
My older brother, who has a long resume of working for the National Park Service and the Conservation Core, echoed the advice that Theodore Roosevelt once gave regarding the Grand Canyon, urging citizens with a petition to “[l]eave it as it is. You cannot improve on it; not a bit. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is to keep it for your children and your children’s children and for all who come after you" (Roosevelt, 1903, p. 2).
The me of five years ago would have agreed with this sentiment; but I now see that reducing one’s negative impact on the earth's ecologic system requires more. I can't just not alter the earth. My food has to come from somewhere. My shelter has to come from somewhere. Even the beavers, gophers, deer, and other animals alter the land upon which I live.
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| Deforestation by beavers on the north end of my property |
I am not sure it is enough to teach our school children how to reduce and recycle the many commodities they will someday acquire. We must show them the natural world where they are, so that they will develop a protective admiration for their local ecosystem. Then we all must demonstrate how to live sustainably within that local system using small scale agriculture to minimize our environmental impact both far and near. So in accordance with my present ecological identity, I am striving to raise my children in a sustainable lifestyle of appreciating the local beauty and eating what you grow or raise. For now we mostly garden and have established orchards. In the future we wish to raise our own livestock also.
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| Some of our newly established apple trees, with deer and mice protection around them. |
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| Our oldest son playing in the lower garden. |
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| Needing some comfort after tripping on a rake. |
As another of my favorite environmental writers put it, "There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace" (Leopold, 1968, pg. 6). My ecological identity is now one of seeking to reduce the impact that I create beyond that which I can see. This means moving towards raising our own livestock and growing more and more of our own food, for the use of my family and others in the community. It means limiting the amount of things I order from far away places. As a teacher, I will also strive to ignite a protective appreciate for the local land in the hearts of my students, as I show them the more sustainable way in which we all could live. Many of these steps are still foreign to me and the way I grew up; but if my ecological identity is to evolve further and become one where I minimize disruptions to the natural system as much as possible, then these are the steps I want to take.
References
Goodwin, T. (2016). Ecological Identity: Finding Your Place in a Biological World. Bemidji, MN: Riverfeet Press.
Leopold, A. (1968). A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. London: Oxford: UP.
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