Teach
a Man to Fish & you Have Fed Him For a Lifetime
Randi
Salinas
Warner
Pacific College
December
18th 2013
Teach
a Man to Fish & You Have Fed Him For a Lifetime
The
famous Chinese adage reads as follows: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a
day; teach a man to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime. As this proverb continues to resonate
deeply in my mind I find that the ability to hold oneself accountable is of
upmost importance in regards to how we, as a society, determine the value and
importance of our natural resources. The Lents community right here in southeast Portland, and
also the Puget Ridge community in Seattle has determined that raising public
awareness through sustainable urban farming, or simply put, community gardens,
is one way to become environmentally conscientious.
It
appears that our society has become accustomed to a lifestyle of
convenience. The problem that I
can identify here is that many young adults are unaware of the importance of
harvesting your own food supply.
Learning how to grow food under the right conditions is a skill one
should not live without. By having
your own personal garden, or a community garden, we can become effective in
sustaining our natural environment.
By decreasing the need for purchased items in the grocery store and then
by canning your own fruits and vegetables for the off-season, you are
conserving energy at a grand scale.
Teaching the community, especially the younger populous, is an
invaluable asset that can only strengthen a community, and furthermore give us
the knowledge of how to assess our natural resources on a level we can all
understand.
When
addressing environmental concerns, such as food supply or land management, we
can establish environmental regulations by contacting an agency, such as The
Natural Resources Conservation Service where they can give us the technical
assistance needed to get a project up and running. “Conservation technical assistance is the help NRCS and its
partners provide to land users to address opportunities, concerns, and problems
related to the use of natural resources and to help land users make sound
natural resource management decisions on private, tribal, and other non-federal
lands” (nrcs.usds.gov, 2013).
In
order to be effective in sustaining our environment we need to make informed
decisions, and also understand the importance of how making those informed
decisions not only affect our current situations, but also how the decisions we
make will affect us in the future to come. By first recognizing and admitting that there is indeed an
environmental issue at hand, we can then become advocates for the solution,
whatever that may be.
Environmental
agencies can use tools and fancy equipment to test and give an overall
assessment of the quality and or quantity of our natural resources, but we as a
society can start by taking accountability for the impact we have on our
environment—negative or positive. By acknowledging the information provided to
us by these agencies and using the knowledge to teach others, which ultimately
has an overall affect on our culture and lifestyle, we can sustain our natural
resources as well as our future.
Being
only takers of our resources in our natural environment will not teach us how
to sustain for a lifetime, we must educate ourselves and the public on the
footprint we choose to leave behind
Ashton, D. F. (2006). Lents'
Children's Garden helps kids grow by teaching the how to garden. Retrieved 12 18, 2013, from
eastpdxnews.com: eastpdxnews.com/community-resource/lents-childrens-garden-helps-grow-by-teaching-them-how-to-garden/
Conlin, R. (2011, 01
27). Making it work. Retrieved 12 18, 2013, from Seattle.Gov: conlin.seattle.gov/2011/01/27/new-urban-farms-in-parks-levy-opportunity-fund/
USDA, Natural Resources
Conservation Service. (2013). Conservation Planning. Retrieved 12 -18,
2013, from www.nrcs.usda.gov:
Withgott, J. &.
(2013). Environment: The Science Behind the Stories (5th Ed.). New
York, NY: Pearson
Benjamin Cummings.
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