Nature Walk, Part 2

This week, unfortunately did not go as planned. Due to an injury, I was not able to go kayaking with my fellow Earth Lodgers but the second part of our walk around campus did give me some things to think about.

The walk ended near the edge of campus where a golf course and the creek are separated by a small path. Professor Lookingbill explained that in order to keep the course green and pristine, large amounts of fertilizers were used on the grass which eventually made their way into the creek. The task now, he explained, was to find a way to perhaps diminish the amount of those chemicals reaching the water by using the path to absorb them before the could cause any harm.

The end of our walk made me think about our closeness to nature. First of all, I had never seen that creek before, and secondly, I had no idea there was a path there. If I had stopped only for a second to really look at what was around me, I would have seen and understood just how important my proximity to this nature really is. We tend to think of nature as some sort of separate entity that we have to go really far out of our way to experience or appreciate. People flock to national parks and the Grand Canyon, which is by no means a bad thing, but the reality is that the same nature is in your backyard waiting to be looked at and appreciated in the same way. Why then, if they are the same, do we choose those huge swathes of land with geysers and forests to protect and revere over the little creek? No one ever goes and paints the little creek and not once have I seen it on a post card. It is unassuming, and because of this, it is easy to take advantage of. I’m sure the golf course would approach the creek very differently if it was the border to a national park. If we are to truly commit ourselves to protecting the watershed (or water), it can’t just be to the big, majestic areas. Plans such as the one for the absorbent pathway need to be looked into more seriously because the little creek flowing through our school is only the beginning. Something like that could be implemented for much larger areas with far greater amounts of people, which would help stop the effects of even more runoff. Both places, regardless of size, are equally important because they are all connected. The trees here in Richmond can’t look too different from the ones out in Wyoming. All you have to do is go and look.