A note about thriving as a changemaker
Exploring the despair and hope in ecological work
“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds,” Aldo Leopold famously wrote in 1949. I’ve certainly felt that at times – deeply. But is it inevitable?
I’ve spoken with many people working in sustainability, climate, biodiversity etc, and they seem to fall into two groups:
Those who are in despair at the state of the world, and questioning whether their work is worthwhile.
Those who accept the state of the world, but are buoyed up to some extent by the knowledge that their work is genuinely making a difference.
This came up when I was speaking with Rebecca Lewis about the citizen science river monitoring project that she leads, and discussing that with Nadine Andrews and Morag Watson (all on a recent episode of my Thrivable Scotland podcast).
Reflecting on those conversations, I got to thinking:
What are the minimum conditions for those of us working for people and nature in the polycrisis, to function well despite knowing about the state of the world?
I came to these tentative conclusions:
To thrive as changemakers working for people and nature we need…
Not to be alone. Instead, to feel part of an organisation, community or movement that is doing good work.
Feedback that our work is making a genuine, worthwhile, difference.
Rebecca’s work certainly meets both conditions. Not only is it inherently collective, it has a feedback loop.
The Guardians of Our Rivers project has an agreement with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency so if water quality, as monitored by the volunteers, falls below the minimum acceptable level, this triggers action by SEPA. Volunteers therefore know they are helping improve the health of the river, not just monitoring its decline.
As a more personal level, Rebecca talked about feedback she gets from working with volunteers about how the project changes them – like when a fisherman who believed their river was dead, first saw the invertebrates teaming in their water sample, and exclaimed “It’s not dead, it’s alive!” And went on to become a regular volunteering monitoring several sites and driving action on the river.
Do these conditions (being part of collective action, and feedback that the action is effective) ring true to you? Have I missed anything?
And where do you get your feedback? What’s it telling you?
