How Would You Help the Wild?

Description

Julia Roberts is the Voice of Mother Nature in Conservation International's latest ads. Though I agree with the premise (Humans need nature, but nature doesn't need humans), the tone and message portrayed in these ads seems to breed conflict with nature instead of a connection with nature. To me this seems misguided. In this video I ask what you think -- how do we best foster concern for the natural world?

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Tags: Kenton Whitman,ReWild University,Human Rewilding,personal rewilding,mindfulness,how to,bushcraft,survival,wilderness survival skills,how to survive in the woods,Julia Roberts (Celebrity),The Voice of Mother Nature,Conservation International

Video Transcription

if you're watching this video wilderness is probably essential to your life these places that are still relatively untouched where we can wander and explore what treasures I hear from people in other parts of the world we don't have these sorts of places where wilderness is rare even non-existent it fills me with gratitude how places where i can come myself or today i'm here with two students three wild university exploring adventuring sitting up on these these high cliff tops finding places where we want to go and try to try to adventure there's a lot of worthy organizations out there that are trying to keep the natural world as natural as possible for us and i applaud everyone who's doing that sort of work i did however recently see a video ad and features Julia Roberts as the voice of Mother Nature and if you've seen it

you'll know that the voice of mother nature comes across as extremely well uncaring the overall message is that we need nature but nature does not need us we'll take us or leave us and she very effectively portrays that in her voicing sort of a stern motherly figure who really take you relieve you and here's the thing I actually agree with that conceptually right I mean nature will do just fine probably a lot better if humans weren't here on the planet but coming from an environmental organization I feel like that message is may be doing more harm than good and here's why I feel that way we humans have a tendency to repel against things that don't care about us when Mother Nature is portrayed as someone who doesn't give a crap about us it doesn't really inspire people to get their hearts behind caring about nature it actually helps to set up or to continue to invoke the US against nature relationship which I feel is at the heart of why we're seeing less and less places like this on the planet most people would probably consider me to be an environmentalist but what that means to me is that it's not about trying to be green or trying to recycle everything or get all your power from solar energy those things are important but I think those things are better coming as a symptom of a heart that cares about nature I'm just forced into those behaviors then I really don't care about this and I'm not going to be invested in taking that extra step going out of my way or maybe even inconveniencing myself to make sure that nature can still be around to me the heart of environmentalism is helping other people to find that love of nature not to feel opposed to nature or feel like nature is this harsh mistress harsh mistress but to feel like we are integral with the natural world we're part of all this and if we can have that essential connection then people automatically start to become environmental I would love to see environmental organizations switch their messaging around what if it's about making people feel connected with nature a part of nature integrated with nature what we need to do is get people out seeing how amazing this is what it's like to start a fire out in the woods and to cook food that you've gathered how good it tastes better than anything you can buy in a restaurant especially if you're a little bit hungry connecting in with those elements of nature I think that's where the secret lies I don't imagine that this organization is going to be pulling down those videos I'm sure that they're making a big splash but I think these organizations need to think about more than just getting donations or getting a lot of visibility if you're someone who cares about nature how do you help to preserve this how do you help to connect people up with the natural world do you agree with me what do you think of that Julia Roberts video please I would love to hear your opinions and thoughts I think for all of us the fuel is connection with nature this is a really important issue that we understand how to fire people out how to get people passionate about preserving places like this and making this normal all over the world so that it's not just people in the United States or some other countries who have these places to explore but people ever learn tell me what you if you heard that tree just fell in the woods and we heard