The Power of Volunteering
How volunteering at your local nature patch can boost biodiversity and help reduce eco-anxiety
We live in a world saturated in bad news. It’s in the headlines of our newspapers, populating our social media feeds and plastered across our television screens. Wildfires in California. Typhoons in the Philippines. Floods in Bangladesh. It seems almost every day we are faced with not only disasters caused and exacerbated by the climate crisis, but also politicians and corporate leaders denying, lying and floundering in the face of this climate and ecological emergency.
By focusing too much on a crisis thousands of miles away, we often become overwhelmed by feelings of hopelessness and heavy dread. We call this eco-anxiety, and even though it’s been something activists on the frontlines have had to contend with for many years, it’s only recently that the term “eco-anxiety” was coined. In 2005, philosopher Glenn Albrecht defined it as “the existential pain experienced when the place where one resides is subject to environmental degradation”.
Over the past two years, this term has found much more widespread use, and reflects a growing fear throughout society for the future of our planet.
While eco-anxiety is a valid and important topic to have conversations about, the more we worry about issues that we feel powerless to fix, the more we ignore the environmental issues right on our own doorsteps. Here in the UK, we are one of the most naturally depleted countries on earth. Our biodiversity is in decline, with the comprehensive 2019 State of Nature Report showing that nearly 700 species that we have detailed data on have seen their numbers fall by 13%. The declines have left 15% of species in Britain facing extinction.
This is, of course, bad news, but hope is not lost. Despite this overwhelming existential worry at the state of our biodiversity, there are actions we can all take right now within our local communities to increase biodiversity, inform people on the issues our wildlife faces and alleviate symptoms of eco-anxiety.
Arguably the best way of combining all three of these things is through practical conservation volunteering. Groups across the UK work locally to manage habitats and make a positive difference to our wildlife. In 2018, exhausted by feelings that there was nothing I could do to help wildlife as I watched footage of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, I sat in front of my laptop and tapped a few things into Google. One of the first results to appear was the volunteering page of The Wildlife Trusts, a brilliant UK based wildlife charity. A few quick taps later and I’d sent an email to the coordinator for the local group of the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust, and the rest is history.
When you’re spending time each week learning about and watching local wildlife and improving habitats for so many incredible species, eco-anxiety fades rapidly. When you’re focusing on the wildlife on your doorstep, you feel you have the power to bring about tangible positive change. This is a different feeling from signing a petition or donating to a GoFundMe page. This is taking direct action to improve biodiversity in your local area and, multiplying this by a thousand or a million individuals, it means people across the country are giving wildlife the helping hand it so desperately needs. Practical volunteering can also improve your mental and physical health. Joining a group like The Wildlife Trusts connects you to so many like-minded people and allows you to learn new skills, from bird identification to how to use different tools, to how to recognise non-native invasive species.
We desperately need nature and nature needs us. According to the Wildlife Trust, nature-based solutions to climate change could deliver more than 30% of the emissions reductions needed by 2030. Helping nature helps us as a species, whether that’s on a local or global level, and getting involved in practical habitat management and conservation volunteering is arguably the best way to do this.
Of course, we must remember we are currently in yet another lockdown in the UK, and the global Covid-19 pandemic has impacted practical conservation volunteering as much as it has to so many other aspects of society. However, with many, if not all local group work cancelled, there is still work you can do to make a positive difference to wildlife. Citizen science is an important part of conservation work in the UK. Talking to a fellow student who takes part in various citizen science and practical conservation groups in the UK, she summarised her experiences thus:
“Volunteering with conservation organisations alleviated the feeling of helplessness and powerlessness for me; it allowed me to focus on my local area and gave me a sense of purpose in helping the community to feel more prepared for environmental change through taking positive action. It encouraged me to develop a personal connection with nature, which is invaluable in the ‘online-world’ with overwhelming coverage of environmental destruction.”
After two years of volunteering regularly at a local nature reserve, I can also safely use myself as a case study and say that taking part in practical conservation volunteering really works. Spending my Saturday mornings in all weather, cutting patches in the reeds for nesting Bitterns, building dead hedges and standing chest deep in algae-choked water during the infamous annual dragonfly pond clearance, I felt I was making a real difference.
In a pre-pandemic world, joining organisations like your local/regional Wildlife Trust groups or The Conservation Volunteers would be by far the best thing to do. However, in a time of ever-increasing restrictions due to Covid-19, getting out in nature and recording important data on species groups such as birds for use in scientific studies is invaluable for the conservation of our wildlife. It also still brings you the same benefits of practical conservation volunteering. Organisations such as The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) have great resources to read and a whole host of projects to get involved in.
Apart from spending time in nature, deepening your connection to nature and taking part in citizen science projects, the current lockdown gives us an opportunity to learn. Many organisations are releasing webinars and there are a huge range of livestreams, YouTube videos and podcasts that you can learn from. Why not take an online class in field sketching or watch videos on birdsong identification, and then hone your nature note-taking skills in the local park?
One day, the pandemic will be over. We will get through this and when we do, the nature on our doorsteps will still need us, and we will be there to help it. When that time comes, put the knowledge you’ve learnt into practice, pick up your bow saws and field guides, and find your local practical conservation group. Help nature to help us.
Below are some YouTube channels, podcasts and bird-watching live-streams that I’ve found particularly interesting, educational and entertaining recently:
Lucy Lapwing’s Bird Song Lessons
This Wild Life Conservation podcast
Coffee with Conservationists - This is a bi-monthly podcast that I host and produce, where I sit down over a cup of ethical, sustainable coffee and talk to some amazing people who dedicate their lives to protecting, researching and documenting the natural world.
Many groups across the world livestream bird feeders and trail/nest camera footage online. Here are some really interesting ones:
LIVE Bird Feeder Cam in Ohio [20+ species observed!] - YouTube
LIVE Animals and Birds! - South Africa (Hornbills, Bushbaby, and Genets) - YouTube
Live Birds In 4K! Cornell Lab FeederWatch Cam at Sapsucker Woods - YouTube
The Woodland Trust’s Osprey nest cam live-stream at Loch Arkaig in Scotland is also a great one to watch, and will become active again in the spring later this year.
George Steedman Jones
George is a first year Marine and Natural History Student at Falmouth University, who tells stories of nature and conservation through a variety of mediums. While conservation photography is his main passion, he has loved writing from a young age and pursued nature writing as a form of science communication alongside his photography over the last year. An environmentalist and conservation volunteer, he has been passionate about the natural world, wildlife and environmental issues throughout his life, fuelled by a childhood spent in nature.
You can find him on Instagram: @george_brynmor