I was teaching a program on spiders, mid-October (2022). Halfway through the month means I’ve already taught the lesson 2-3 dozen times and have about that many more to do before the month is up.
The lesson objective was simply to introduce children to spiders. What does it mean to be a spider? Are spiders insects? Do spiders hurt us? Should we step on spiders?
Harvestmen are arachnids, but not spiders. They scavenge for food on the forest floor, eating both plant and animal matter. They are not venomous, nor can they spin a web. Their one rounded body segment also differs from spiders who have two distinct body segments the cephalothorax and an abdomen.
To teach these programs, on any topic, I typically bring in materials from outdoors. Biofacts I call them. Something as simple as a pinecone or as complex as jars of spiders. I had come across a harvestman when collecting that week and used him as the ambassador of an animal not quite a spider, not quite an insect.
I was in the basement of a church in Raleigh, working my way through multiple preschool classrooms, walking around showing 4-year-olds the harvestman, better known as a daddy-longlegs. In that moment, a remarkably visceral memory hit me, right in that room. No windows. Fluorescent lighting. Church preschool carpeting over linoleum. 3000 miles away from where I grew up.
I was a child and daddy-longlegs were crawling on my arm. It was sunny and I remembered the warmth; I was laughing and could recall the feel of their delicate 8 legs on my freckled arm, triggering my blond hair to register “tickle-tickle-tickle” in the sensory area of my brain. I remembered how often I used to come across them. I hadn’t met them in a class or at a museum. They were just part of my outdoor experience, numerous and common.
A teacher said, in the midst of my flashback “Gosh, they used to be everywhere.”
In that moment, in a room with two teachers, 12 4-year-olds, 5 jars of spiders and 1 jar with the harvestman in my hand, I found myself on the brink of tears.
“69% of animals have been lost since 1970,” I told her, having just read the headlines of the Living Planet Report, 2022 put out by the WWF (World Wildlife Federation) and the ZSL (Zoological Society of London)
It doesn’t help the kids to see me cry about the biodiversity crisis. It helps them to see my genuine interest in our native flora and fauna. It helps them to meet an adult who is comfortable in nature, who sees nature in any and every green space left. It helps them to know an adult who doesn’t walk around with a bottle of Raid on the ready. It helps them to be taught to love these critters too. The 31% that remains anyway.
It is the reason I can teach the same lesson 60 or so times per month, knees aching, crouching and standing, sitting and kneeling; patient with the tantrums and undeterred by the sneezes and runny noses. My smiles are big and my tone is joyful and both are a genuine reflection of how frickin’ amazing my job is, even if those smiles are masking the ache in my heart from knowing too much and feeling oftentimes like any personal effort on my part to help will never be enough. But I rally. If I can show them to love nature, I think, maybe they will work to protect it too.
Our Planet On The Brink
The 2022 Global Living Planet Index (GLPI) shows an average 69% decrease in relative abundance of monitored wildlife populations between 1970 and 2018. 31,821 populations of animals, representing 5,230 species of vertebrates were studied across the globe. The declines are staggering. But we know why it’s happening and we know how to reverse the damage. The question is, are we willing to do it?
Willingness may actually be a result of perception. Does this loss in biodiversity affect me? Yes, it does. But without an environmentally literate public, that’s a hard story to sell, which is why providing nature and environmental education is so critically important.
When we dive deeper into the declines, we see that the damage done in North America is actually less severe in other places. The average person may not notice much change then, although a person like myself, who spends more time outdoors and pays more attention to these issues, certainly does notice. Regional losses in biodiversity in North America were measured at 20% compared to the 94% loss in species abundance in Latin America and the Caribbean!
There are several reasons for the decline in biodiversity noted in the GLPI, namely industrial agriculture, overhunting or harvesting of animals, deforestation, pollution, the introduction of invasive species and climate change. Climate change and biodiversity are inextricable. While we can’t blame all the losses in biodiversity on climate change, we know for certain that with climate change will be more rapid loss. And we know that biodiverse ecosystems can stem the effects of climate change. The solution to both problems is in the consideration and action on each.
Photo Credit: Marcus Spiske
Action. From governments, of course, local and federal. Businesses, absolutely, both the behemoths of our capitalistic society and small businesses like mine. And action is required by individuals. It is my experience that many individuals are waiting for some guidance, waiting for a good enough reason, waiting for something bad to happen to them personally before they act. Because yes, acting is inconvenient. But act we must!
“Demand-side efforts (to decarbonize) based on responsible consumption principles could represent 40-70% of net emission reductions by 2050.” That figure is astounding! Our personal consumption habits have an enormous impact on the related climate change and biodiversity crises. What we eat and wear, how often we replace our cell phones, the vehicles we rely on, the products we buy—it all matters!
The UN General Assembly passed a non-binding agreement in 2022. “Everyone, everywhere, has the right to live in a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, meaning that for those in power respecting this is no longer an option but an obligation.” An obligation that will determine human’s capacity for thriving on this planet within my sons’ lifetimes. With any right comes responsibility. It is my responsibility, and yours, to advocate, through action, for a healthy and sustainable environment, for the benefit of every living thing on this planet and for future generations. Your actions can be small and private like making small changes to the way you live. They can be bigger than that. I invite you to begin today.
Take Action-TODAY
Lifestyle changes take time and oftentimes a financial investment. So start with small changes and continue to look for more sustainable practices that are manageable and affordable. Over time, it’ll get easier.
Decrease or stop altogether your dependence on single-use plastics. Consider starting with drink bottles, snack/sandwich bags or grocery bags.
Landscape with natives, specific to your region.
Keep cats indoors and dogs on leashes. Pets are not part of the food web.
Donate to an organization that works to protect the environment.
Change driving habits: do all shopping for the week in one trip, find opportunities to carpool, reduce time spent idling in park.
Upgrade to heat pumps, tankless heaters, energy star appliances, LEDs when your old goods wear out.