Biodiversitynotes summer 2001 |
|
  |
|
|
If you would like your name to be deleted from our e-mail list, or if you would prefer a hard copy of this newsletter, or if you would like us to add a name to our distribution list, please e-mail your request to project@biodiverse.org . Content
Experts Talk About Audiences
We 'polled' several of our trusted pollsters and colleagues in communications on their thoughts about cultivating audiences. We heard from John Russonello (JR) and Kate Stewart (KS) at Belden, Russonello & Stewart, Vicki Sneed and Celinda Lake from Lake Sosin Perry & Associates (LSPA), and Vikki Spruil (VS), executive director of SeaWeb. Here's what they had to say. 1. What is the most important thing you would like environmental groups to understand about cultivating audiences for environmental concerns? VS: We are not the audience. We know and care about things that most people don't even know about. We need to get rid of our 'righteous attitudes' and recognize that good people don't have to think the way we do. We need to listen without judgments to what people care about and respond accordingly. Until we do so, we are continuing to preach to the choir. I'm not saying we should compromise ideals, but I am saying we need to be much more pragmatic. JR: Recognize that your audience probably cares about the environment but not necessarily for the same reasons you do. Acknowledge that, respect that, and you will be far ahead in communications- especially if you figure out why they care. For some people, it is nature's connection to human health, for others it's an appreciation of nature's beauty, and others feel a responsibility to protect God's creation. LSPA: Bring environmental concerns home to the different audiences-attaching the issue to every day or local impacts really resonates. Values, such as protecting the environment for future generations and stewardship responsibilities, and ties to public health are important message paradigms for activating target audiences. These take our message out of the 'radical' category for many swing audiences and make it a more common sense and community issue. Voters want balance. We need to use language of 'working together' on a 'balanced' solution to environmental issues. 2. We hear so much about soccer moms. Are they really that pivotal? Who else should advocates for biodiversity conservation be paying attention to? VS: I think soccer moms are important (I am one). We have to start with their concerns, which for soccer moms, are about legacy issues and the planet they're leaving for their kids. It's also about convenience and easy steps to take. This can be hard, because so much of what we ask for is harder: don't eat farmed salmon, don't drive an SUV, don't use Zip Locks. We need to keep focused on kids. They get it, but they lose it at around 13 when caring is no longer cool so we can't forget them. My eleven-year-old says, "Mom, nobody cares!" Somehow we need to be making this 'cool.' It's not only about 'enviro nerds' as my daughters would say. KS: Whether or not soccer moms or another target group is pivotal depends on what your goal is. For winning an initiative on smart growth or building an educated constituency for biodiversity conservation we may be targeting different audiences. JR: All moms, whether their sons and daughters play soccer, baseball, or chess, and single women, are very important targets for environmental activism. Especially when presented through the lens of public and private health. But I think biodiversity advocates should be paying attention to everyone, while recognizing that there are different approaches for different groups. At this point, broad public education about what biodiversity means to people's lives and future is more important than focusing on one group to the exclusion of others. So far, you've done a great job shaping a message that people can understand. Just continue to fill in the picture for people suggested by your slogan: Biodiversity. Life. Nature. You. Make the connection. LSPA: Married suburban moms are important for two reasons: 1) they were a key political target in the 2000 elections and will be again for the 2002 elections; and 2) overall, they are key swing targets on environmental issues and are particularly concerned about public health issues, Right-to-Know laws, and air and drinking water quality. 'Waitress' moms, or non-college educated mothers, are also very important to our efforts. They are more pessimistic about the future of the environment and who strongly support a progressive federal environmental agenda. And, there are Republican women, particularly those 'compassionate conservative' suburban mothers, who strongly agree that society has an obligation to protect the environment. We should also be looking at 'Reagan seniors,' those seniors who were 40 or 50 years old during the Reagan years. These seniors are more issue oriented and progressive on issues like choice, education, and the environment. They are more physically active than traditional seniors and are intensely concerned about public health and air quality issues, as well as heritage and leaving a healthy environment for their grandchildren. These seniors will make up large voting segments in the next few years, equaling as much as 30 to 35 percent of the voters in swing states like Michigan, California, and Ohio. 3. American culture is changing rapidly. Where do you think the future challenges and opportunities are for building the base of public support for biodiversity and similar issues? JR: Start with young adults, 18-30. They care a lot about the environment. They are media and information savvy. They are not apathetic, as some have said, just more apolitical than older Americans. You can earn dividends later on by planting the seeds of awareness and understanding, so that concern for biodiversity becomes part of their social and political values. VS: We have got to make [support for the environment] easier, more convenient and more relevant to everyday life. We need to be more hopeful and less gloom and doom. We need to be willing to accept baby steps instead of sweeping actions that will transform the whole planet. We need to think in socio-economic terms and make this about good business not just about good for the environment. Again, this is not 'selling out' as I've said before; it's about being pragmatic. KS: A number of trends could be beneficial: the movement to simplify life; the growth of organic food stores and concerns about food safety; and the new baby boom, which may open up a whole range of opportunities to educate parents about the dangers of toxins in ways that are extremely salient and speak to a core value-protecting my family's health. LSPA: There are several 'opportunities.' First, President Bush's poor record on the environment has shaken up the public somewhat and has made Congressional Republicans more sensitive to the issues. Not only do voters give Bush a failing to below-average grade on the environment (33% give him a 'D' or 'F'), it is his weakest job performance rating across the board. For the first time in a decade, the President's performance on the environment also predicts...his job performance [ratings] overall. Voters' perceptions on the environment also drive perceptions that Bush is not for protecting middle class families. Furthermore, Bush's poor job performance on the environment is negatively impacting the perception of Republicans in Congress. By a margin of 40 points, voters say they have more confidence in the Democrats in Congress on "protecting the environment" than either President Bush or the Republicans in Congress. This trend is forcing some elected officials to 'play ball' with the environmental community to protect themselves against Bush's anti-environmental agenda. Second, voters are more concerned about the environment than in the past, are more willing to support laws and policies to protect their environment, their right-to-know, and public health. And, third, even in this post-boom economy, the public is unwilling to believe that the economy versus the environment debate is a zero-sum game. By large margins, the public believes that strong environmental policies create more good-paying clean jobs and actually help the economy. In focus groups we found many voters believe protecting the environment in their community ensures a good quality of life that brings more business to their area. Very few believe tough environmental policies cost jobs and hurt the economy. Anything else? JR: Keep up the good work! Thanks John! From the Executive Director: Celebrating Diversity A few weeks ago I was making the rounds at our local farmers market when I overheard the following conversation. "Look at these strawberries! Aren't they incredible? Don't you just love strawberries?" The companion answered, "You know, they're OK, but they aren't my favorite." The strawberry enthusiast was incredulous. "How," she said, "can anyone not love strawberries?" Her amazement (underscored with a touch of disdain) reminded me of the way environmental enthusiasts can sometimes be astonished that other people don't cherish the things we do with the same verve and commitment. Moreover, we tend to take offense at lifestyles and actions that we know are harmful to the environment, and it is easy to establish broad brush categories of the 'bad guys.' But, carrying around a 'more environmentally purer than thou' attitude can get to be pretty exhausting, and also isolating. As those of us who care
about the diversity of life on Earth seek to build a broader base of
public support, it is important to remember that people's attitudes and
experiences and reasons for caring (or not) are as diverse as the natural
world we seek to save. It always strikes me as a bit odd that those of us
who can champion diversity in the natural world have a hard time living
with diversity of opinion in the human family. I'm not arguing that we
play nicey-nicey with people who would just as soon have us and the issues
we care about for breakfast. Rather, I'm arguing that there are a lot of
potential allies that we dismiss just because they don't look at the world
the same way we do. And speaking of
diversity...
[back to top] After visiting the Indiana Dunes Environmental Learning Center with her fifth-grade class, Tyara wrote that "I never really liked nature before but now I have found out that nature is very important to humans, plants, animals and other living things." She also, "wants to come back very soon." Tyara and thousands of other children are carrying on a 100-year-old tradition of learning about biodiversity in the Indiana dunes at the three-year-old residential environmental education center. Located within the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, the center is operated by a partnership between a private not-for-profit agency and the National Park Service. The kids literally follow in the footsteps of Henry Chandler Cowles, known as the Father of Ecology in North America for the concepts he developed while working toward a doctorate at the University of Chicago in the 1890s. His description of plant succession in the dunes has excited scientists ever since. Students observe the differences in five ecosystems on an all-day hike along the Cowles Bog trail. Almost all conclude with Tyara's classmate Anthony that, "Nature is cool." Part of the Center's philosophy about educating children about ecosystems is to reach them at a time in their lives when they are particularly open to learning about the natural world. Reaching them at this time can foster a caring attitude about ecosystems and the biodiversity that lives within them at a time when that attitude comes naturally. Both urban and rural kids benefit from establishing this caring attitude because they can then learn and appreciate about the importance of natural areas to their lives. Most children who visit the center feel that they are stepping off the yellow bus into a forest wilderness. Actually, they are an hour from Chicago in a metropolitan area with 8 million people and five minutes from a huge steel mill with national park land on two sides, and the busiest industrial port in the Great Lakes. Few of the students have been to the national park before and many who live in shoreline communities visit the edge of Lake Michigan for the first time. Their visit to the Dunes Learning Center is the first time that most of the visiting children have heard about the value and importance of these resources in their own backyard. They go home with a new sense of the world around them. They have been taught to look closely at the life that exists around them and to consider the importance of all the species they see in the big picture. They also learn about simple and complex things that they can do to help maintain biodiversity, from preventing erosion by staying on paths and limiting food waste and other resources, to acting as stewards in natural areas. For information, contact the Indiana Dunes Environmental Learning Center, 219-395-9555, or IDELC@netnitco.net.
[back to top] Building
Partnerships with the Faith Community: A Resource Guide for Environmental
Groups (a new version of our Spirituality Outreach Guide: A
Guide for Environmental Organizations Working with Faith-Based Groups)
is now available. The handbook also includes useful resources and profiles from many conservation and religious organizations (primarily from Christian and Jewish faith traditions). A brief overview of theological and historical roots of conservation within the Jewish and Christian communities, scriptural quotes related to caring for the environment, and quotes from other faith traditions round out the guide. The handbook lists "Hot Tips" and "How To" points, and has an extensive bibliography and resource list. The guide is available for $15. Click here for ordering information. Our sprawl and biodiversity ads are now available on CD at no cost to all partners who have a copy of the sprawl message kit. To receive a copy of the CD, contact project@biodiverse.org (please submit a brief description of how you plan to use the ads and agree to the terms of their use). We have already received more than 30 requests for the CD. Order your copy now, before supplies run out! We ran one of our full-color wetlands ads in a newspaper in suburban Milwaukee in early May, in collaboration with the Wisconsin Wetlands Association and the John Muir chapter of the Sierra Club. The ad ran during the week that a wetlands debate peaked in the state legislature. Our colleagues report that the ad caught the attention of key state policy-makers. (Wisconsin now has new statewide wetlands protection to fill the gap left by the Supreme Court decision earlier this year.) Earlier this summer, we worked with Fenton Communications and the communications team of Smart Growth America to develop a communications plan for this national coalition. The plan identifies a strategy that will position SGA as a leader in efforts to both raise awareness of sprawl and increase support for responsible growth, and provides a framework for SGA to provide support to their partners on this issue. The plan incorporates the message and audience recommendations that the sprawl community has developed with the Biodiversity Project over the last few years. Science Briefs: The Biodiversity Debate in Ecology-What is it Really About? By Mary Hobbs The other school of thought-what might be called the "function school"-believes the attributes (or functions) of the dominant species within a given ecosystem is more critical to ecosystem health than species variety. That is to say, the role of particular plants in recycling nutrients or sequestering minerals for other plants may prove more important to the health of an ecosystem than the total number of species. The discussion might lead some people to wonder, "does this mean we still have to worry about extinction?" Few ecologists would say the loss of species richness, or biodiversity, doesn't have detrimental effects on ecosystems. Instead the nature of the debate-while still very important-is much more academic. The question is not: "is biodiversity important?" Rather it is: "how consequential is species richness to ecosystem functioning?" The debate came to a head in the Fall of 1999, when the Ecological Society of America (ESA) published one of its Issues in Ecology reports, entitled, "Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning: Maintaining Natural Life Support Processes."iii The authors of this report, a diverse team of ecologists, featured results from a few well-known field experiments. These experiments were designed to test the impacts of changes in biodiversity on ecological functioning, and both concluded that ecosystem functioning decreased as the number of species in a community of plants decreased. Critics, primarily ecologists from the "function school," charged that the ESA article was biased because it only presented findings from one school of thought, and because it "stated opinions as facts."iv The critics argued that the featured experiments could not prove that increased plant productivity was due to increased diversity alone. At the heart of this criticism was the notion of "sampling effect." That is, did productivity increase because of greater plant variety, or did it increase due to the high productivity of just a few plant species within these plots, or some other factor? The nature of the dispute rests on the methods and results obtained from two very complicated experiments. Dr. Steve Carpenter, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and current president of the Ecological Society of America has appointed an ESA task force to further investigate the controversy. But because the debate is highly technical, it cannot be reduced to a reassessment of biodiversity's importance to ecosystem functioning. According to Dr. Carpenter, "biodiversity is an important concept, but it operates at different levels. Because it is so important, that's why scientists are arguing about it." Scientists are likely to continue to debate the interaction between biodiversity and ecological functioning. In the mean time, Dr. Carpenter said, "a person who believes biodiversity is important for ethics, aesthetics, and healthy ecosystems should go right on believing that." Biodiversity Debate
endnotes: ii Wardle et al., "Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function: an Issue in Ecology" in Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, vol. 81, no. 3, July 2000, pp. 235-9. iii Issues in Ecology, "Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning: Maintaining Natural Life Support Processes," No. 4, Fall 1999, Ecological Society of America. (Available at http://esa.sdsc.edu/issues.htm) iv Wardle et al., p. 235
Spirit Briefs: A New Cosmology in Practice Look Who's Making the Connection now! (Good news among the glossy pages) The Biodiversity Project applauds... Gardeners' Supply Company summer 2001 catalog for its two-page cover spread extolling the virtues of pollinators and offering "5 ways to help pollinators." You can get their free bulletin, Gardening for Pollinators (#00-661), from gardeners.com. They get extra points for their wide selection of FSC certified wood garden furniture. So far it is the only garden catalog we have seen that features and promotes certified wood as opposed to teak from who-knows-where. And speaking of teak, applause also to the June issue of Martha Stewart Living, in which readers are urged to always look for FSC wood if they are buying teak garden furniture. The issue also includes an informative article on beneficial garden insects. (You go girl!) And finally, the July issue of Gourmet magazine for its special issue on produce, in which organics and sustainable food production get plenty of ink and sumptuous photographs. The word 'biodiversity' even appears in an article about organic farming going mainstream. As the editorial says: "Really great food...requires really great ingredients." Now that's a connection.
|
   
|
