The Land Ethic

How did your childhood shape your relationship with the environment?

I grew up in Sartell, which is a nearby city of about 16,000 people. I lived in a small house, in a quiet neighborhood, with a nice backyard that my parents always took good care of. While most of the backyards around us were somewhat plain, my parents worked hard to turn ours into somewhat of an escape. We have large oak, cottonwood, and maple trees surrounding our house, providing plenty of shade in the summer, and tall bushes along the back to enclose our yard from the others. My dad has always been enthusiastic about feeding the wildlife, so we get every species of bird in the area, including a pileated woodpecker that likes to stop by from time to time, and every once in a while we see a hawk. There is usually an overabundance of squirrels and chipmunks, some rabbits, a woodchuck, and a couple of times we have even seen a deer in our yard. Growing up I chased chipmunks around in my mom’s flower garden, watched the birds, and examined burrows of rabbits and chipmunks. My mom grew up on a farm in Albany where my grandmother lived until recently, and my uncle lives on a farm in Richmond, so I also visited them often and got a chance to learn about and interact with the animals on their farms. In addition, my family went on many vacations to cabins located along lakes, and every summer we go camping with my mom’s entire side of the family, so I spent a lot of time outdoors experiencing nature growing up. I was also a big fan of watching animal planet, and I would go around telling everybody that I would be a veterinarian when I grew up so that I could help the animals.

All of this has influenced me and has carried over into my ethical thoughts and opinions about the environment. I care deeply about the environment, especially the animals and their habitats, and try to respect nature as much as possible. I sometimes have a hard time understanding how others can treat the environment so carelessly, as if it means nothing to them, because to me it means so much. Even walking around campus from day to day I can’t help admiring and just taking in the beauty of the nature that surrounds us. (as cheesy as that may sound) I believe that every living thing has its role in the balance of nature and the environment, and that changing or harming one thing essentially has a domino effect on everything else. I think that everything in nature has a right to live, and that we should try our best to keep what we can alive and healthy, and protect it as much as possible. I realize that we cannot turn the world into one giant nature preserve, but I think that even if we just try to respect the environment a bit more, it will do some good.