ENS 301.01
Investigating the Perception Ottawa County Residents Have on Local Biodiversity Through the Promotion of Natural Urban Landscaping
Embedded Files
Introduction
Introduction
There is a saying that you don’t know what you don’t know. As industry and a consumerism hungry society spirals deeper and deeper into a disconnection with the natural world, one main factor can point us to what has occurred: Shifting baseline syndrome. This can be defined as natural degradation of the natural world mixed with a belief that things now are how they have always been (Alleway et al., 2023). Within the current world this shifting baseline theory can be displayed on a much smaller scale that most everyone has interacted with before; the ever popular grassy urban lawn. The perfect lawn is seen as a pure light pine green color, uniform and clipped half an inch high. There is no biodiversity, only water hungry plants providing little actual benefit to the landscape. Do individuals know what a native landscape is? Are we truly lost in belief that grass is the ideal singular choice for what we consider beautiful? Biodiversities decline is something that has not been fully recongnized, as shifted perspectives believe nature can only be found in rural context outside of grassy barriers. It is important to understand how individuals view these spaces and how human vs. natural made landscapes play a role in how they make people feel. In addition, the values and beliefs that these landscapes can implement into an individual. If people knew the benefits and upside to a native plant landscape then they would take more of an initiative to pass on the message spreading the silent wisdom nature has to offer.
American History
Following WWII people were looking for an escape from the devistation of war and the American dream was provided as an outlet and bait used by business and corpurations to help people to find a sense of comfort. Before we knew it “40 million acres of land are covered by lawn” (Son, 2020, p.1). People were not worried about biodiversity or trying to be enviromnetally consious they wanted a quick safe option for their family. This idea led to the mass urbanization and suburban America that has become a stapled norm of today.
Climate Change
As the climate continous to change at an ever rapid pace, the biodiversity we see in areas is also ever changing. This makes it hard for the average individual to be aware of because of how rapidly the dynamic between temperature, vergiation, and ecosytems are changing. What was the perfect habitat for a species 2 years ago, may now be too warm or flooded, causing the ecosystem to change.
Literary Review
Literary Review
Lack of Public Education
There are some very good guides available out there that share how to manage urban landscapes with the intrest of nature in mind; such as the Managing Michigan’s Wildlife: A Landowner's Guide that support environmental practices (Sargent and Carter, 2001). However, this is not common knowledge to the public. To further add to the lack of environmental knowlege ubran commuities are getting many neiborhoods have regulations or "aestetic" requirments that all residents must fufill to uphold the look of the neiborhood. Not to mention, the media does not do a great job of bringing aweness to the health of local biodiversity and what the actual people can do to positivly interact with it. There has to be more local programs to bring awarness to biodiversity in order to increase connectivness and interaction. This leads to postive biodiversity and healthy natural native lawn practices.
Urban Lawn Culture
As more Ubran landscapes popped up throught out America a lawn culture began to form. Consumerism has always been a problem with a constant need for better and more. The annual landscaping industry is estimated at “176 billion dollars” (Golonka, 2024). Through advertisments showing what a lawn is suppossed to look like and propaganda portraying anything but grass as bad, green lawns have become an essential and normalitiy that few question. A tactic known as greenwashing is normally used where companies make their products seem very good, while minimizing enviromental damage. This keeps consumers coming back as they feel by using certain products over others they are actually helping the environment.
New Ecological Paradigm
The three value types feed into the new ecological paradign or the beliefs that come from the vaules one has. Both Biospheric and Altruistic individuals are more likely to have positive beliefs on natural green spaces and how this effects biodiversity.
Egoistic individuals will have negative beliefs about natural lawns as it does not provide any personal gain. There also is litte awarness or connection to local biodiversity.
Theorectical Framework
Theorectical Framework
The framework I have chosen for my research is the Values-Beliefs-Norms Theory (Figure 1) which helps us to understand what has led to individuals specific environmental behaviors and actions.
Values- 3 value types are the basic instilled principles a person has
Altruistic- Individuals have the intrest of community in mind and will act outside of themselves for the health good of others as it pertains to natural green landscapes
Egoistic- This population's values are focused in self-intrest and soly focused on whats to gain from green spaces
Biospheric- These people not only have values that look at the greater good of community urban landscapes, but also have deep values in what is best for the natural world as well.
Environmental norms
Created from the valeus and beliefs one already has enviromental norms are either positive or negative in regards to biodiversity awarness and how one interacts with it. Altruistic and Biospheric folks are going to have mindful lawn norms that keep biodiverity in mind.
Egoistical individuals are going to have a negative environmental set of norms in terms of how they interact with their lawn and other green spaces. These norms consist only of the biodiversity they see in their yard and do not account for past to present biodiversity changes.
Behavior/Action
Finally, putting together values, beliefs, and norms this provides the fundementals for indivduals actions regarding the way they take care of their lawns. In addition, it also demonstrates the behaviors people have to their local biodiversity or if the are aware of the health of local environment. Egoistic individuals have negative envrionmental actions followed by negative biodiversity awarness, while altruistic and biosphereic people make positive landscaping choices keeping a positive awarness of biodiverity in mind when making decisions.
Research Question
Research Question
How does the promotion of natural urban landscaping influence public awareness of biodiversity within Ottawa County?
This question calls upon the fundamental aspects of how we interact with the world around us and what has led to a disconnect with the natural world in itself. With the urban landscape being as big as it is in the ever growing urban society it is crucial to learn how to promote natural landscapes and help individuals to feel pride and responsibility for the biodiversity of their respective areas. By looking into a small localized community we can see how natural lawn promotion is effecting diffwerent persepctive on biodiversity right now. Then utilizing these finding look towards means to informing more individuals on the benifits of natural green spaces. As the world is rapidly changing and the furture is very unknown, understanding how to better connect communities to nature is vital in fixing and maintianing a healthy world.
References
References
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