The Forgotten Worth of Nature

Last May, I was offered a job by my father to direct the ecology program at a Boy Scout camp in Upstate New York. As a result, I was forced to endure a week at National Camping School, sponsored by the BSA, where I would learn the fundamentals of my job. While the logistics of the program made for an experience as pleasurable as licking an electric fence, I did have a rather amazing experience within the natural environment. One evening, a few of my colleagues and I went to the lake which this school sat on. Along the far edge of the lake was a levee which overlooked a valley, and allowed the excess lake water to spill over a dam and into a stream below. We sort of sat there, just listening to the sounds of the ecosystem which surrounded us-- frogs croaking, insects bouncing off the water, assorted creatures rustling through the nearby forests, etc. At the same time, a storm was rolling in, and the thunder crashed between the mountains within this valley in the middle of rural Pennsylvania. Lightning struck the ground a few miles off in the distance, and the rain began to fall heavily.

I consider this experience to be one of the most enlightening things I have ever personally been through. The meditative experience allowed me to truly concentrate on the natural environment which surrounded me, and the complexity of nature spoke to me on both a spiritual and scientific level. Furthermore, it proved to me that maintaining our natural environment and doing everything we can to ensure that such diverse, expansive ecosystems are preserved should be a top priority by all of us.

As my summer advanced and I performed the duties of my job, I further realized how important it is that we invest in saving nature. In today's day and age, children are too concerned with watching television or putzing around on the internet. Even I find myself more inclined to update my Facebook page than to go out and do something outdoorsy. We are becoming more and more detached from nature, and as this becomes a dangerous trend on a societal level, I fear that conservation efforts will be hindered. How are future generations going to save this planet if they have never experienced all that nature has to offer us? Looking at a picture of the Adirondacks on Google Images is imcomparable to spending a weekend climbing one of those mountains or camping in a nearby park. It seems impossible, to me, for people to value something when they do not know the full extent of its worth. Somehow, we need to reinstill the value and worth of nature into our growing generations-- a key step in conserving our natural environment and keeping in tact well into the next century.