Go Local or You Can’t Go Home
Wally World
I was reading the most recent issue of South Carolina Wildlife magazine, which is published by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (DNR), last night. The opening section, Directions, was written by John E. Frampton, the Director of DNR. He says that the pace of life in the south is changing as “our daily lives pulse through cyberspace”, and with our busier, always connected lives we are losing touch with our outdoor traditions and culture.
He states that there has been a 12% decline in the number of hunters and anglers in the state since 2001, and that our recreation areas are experiencing drops in hikers, boaters, campers, and wildlife watchers as well. The support for conservation initiatives is also falling off as a result of people interacting less with the natural world. He claims that as a result of this, “urban sprawl continues to replace open natural lands once available for hunters, anglers, and anyone else who enjoys getting outdoors.” He has started the Life’s Better Outdoors campaign to get people back outside. His intro is a lead-in for another article in the magazine, Making Memories, where S.C. Wildlife readers share tales of their outdoor traditions.
While I don’t agree with everything that Mr. Frampton says, I do agree that people are spending less time outdoors, and that some of our traditions are going by the wayside. I am as guilty as anyone as I work on my computer, in Mr. Frampton’s “cyberspace”. I have gone from one phone and one email to at least 10 email addresses, a blackberry (so I can always check my email), an RSS reader with I-have-no-clue-how-many feeds, and a phone glued to my ear. While I do still make the time to get outside and meditate on our natural environment, I would love to have more of it.
Our loss of culture can not simply be attributed to “cyberspace”, though. Culture the world over is being homogenized by the rapid spread of globalization. You can walk into one of the WalMarts in 14 different coutries and get essentially the same goods. You drive through one of the more than 31,000 McDonald’s franchises in 109 different countries and get a Big Mac. As we are innundated with these chains, our local cultures are slowly being lost forever.
What can be done to stop it? Of course I’d like to tell you that it can be stopped just by eating local seafood, but that isn’t true. Try to eat as much local food in general as you can (try all-local meals for a week), shop at locally owned businesses rather than big chains (try that for a week), and get outside. Get out on the water or in the woods. If you’re from here, remember to do the things that people in the lowcountry traditionally do like hunting and fishing. If you’re not from here, get someone who is to turn you on to our outdoors. If we don’t go local, we won’t have the lowcountry we all call home anymore.
Turn off the computer now. Go outside.
