Nature shouldn’t be feared, it should be revered.
How to overcome nature fears and embrace wild spaces.
Whenever I share the more “wild” parts of my yard or garden, I’ll receive comments like, “watch out for ticks!” When I share my composter, I almost always hear about the potential for bear visits. Or more recently, when I shared my stumpery, I received the very succinct feedback of: “snake pit.”
The meadow in my yard. I think is a great carbon sink and others think I’m going to die from a tick bite because of it.
Being critiqued on the Internet is nothing new. Everyone has an opinion about everything, but I’m alarmed by how many people seem to be truly afraid of nature.
This is a backwards way of thinking. Nature and the great outdoors pose much less of a threat than indoors. In fact, the indoors is much, much, much more dangerous than the outdoors. Indoor air is 2-5 times, even up to 100 times, more polluted than outdoor air. According to the National Safety Council (NSC), the chances of an American dying in a car accident is approximately 1 in 106. Every day, more than 120 people in the United States are killed with guns, twice as many are shot and wounded. 102,958 die each year just from unintentional poisoning.
My stumpery AKA the “snake pit” in my yard.
Each year in the United States about 5 people die from a snake bite. Do I want to get bit by a snake, no? Do I want to get Lyme disease from a tick bite? No. Does that mean I should actively dissuade wildlife from my yard? Also, NO.
It’s more important than ever to encourage wildlife to our yards and gardens. Private, residential properties make up approximately one-third of the urban landscape. Wildlife need our yards for food, water, cover and raising their young. And let’s not forget that wildlife was there long before our homes were built. We need to be attracting wildlife to our garden, not dissuading it because of an unlikely hypothetical situation.
Climate change is here now. It’s not a hypothetical.
If you have a garden or even a small balcony to grow plants, you can reduce carbon emissions and increase carbon storage with your efforts. You can help the endangered monarch butterflies! Your yard is a truly amazing opportunity to help wildlife. It’s not a place to fear.
Next week I’ll share more about how to encourage wildlife into your yard, but for now…
Here’s a few tips for being smart about mosquitos, ticks, snakes and bears without destroying our ecosystems:
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