HalfManHalfTitanium wrote:Sorry this is a long post. Trying to put my thoughts together in an attempt to get to the heart of this problem.
First observation: I've hardly ever seen litter in Europe, whether in cities or on the mountains.
One of many cultural differences. Another cultural difference is that if the In Pin was in Europe, there might well be an iron ladder bolted to it.
My wife used to live in Germany. If someone drops litter, they will be told off by (a) their parents (b) their friends or (c) every passer-by. Everyone learns from a young age that it is a no-no. German muggers probably dispose of victims' purses and wallets in litter bins.
Overall, we don't have that same approach in Britain. So while we would not expect the sort of people who do the CWT to be the stereotypical "litter lout", we should not be totally surprised either, when a national problem reaches Glen Dessarry and its ranks of commercial conifers. It is easy to label a group and blame them; harder to find solutions that work.
Samantha Harding, Director of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said “The crux of the problem is that all sorts of people litter all sorts of items for all sorts of reasons”. Ah, so now we know.
I think that deep down there is something in our culture, about our relationship with the world around us. I am distrustful of surveys, but it was interesting to see yesterday the results of a Europe-wide survey about how connected people feel to nature. Of course, the UK came bottom.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/23/britain-ranks-bottom-in-europe-for-nature-connectivenessThe Guardian article about the survey findings said "While high levels of urban residents did not necessarily mean a weaker connection with nature, more decisive negative influences on nature connection were higher average incomes and smartphone ownership."
But again, that's just scratching the surface. Smartphone ownership, for example, is a symptom, not a cause, of a society that chooses to have a closer relationship with Facebook than with the plants and animals living in our own gardens.
Last year, I joined Instagram. I didn't really know what it was, but I could see it enabled me to post up a photo every day, like Harvey Keitel in the film Smoke. A record of something nice I'd seen - a flower, a tree etc.
I hadn't reckoned on the untamed power of the Internet. Soon I had 700 Followers, and hundred of Likes for every photo. So I felt obliged to look at and Like photos posted by my Followers.
What I saw was really striking.
I had Followers in Britain, but also other parts of the world - Canada and the States, Brazil, Argentina and Chile, and lots in Europe (especially eastern Europe and Scandinavia) and Japan. There was a stark difference between the British photos and all the others.
The "rest of the world" photos were devoid of people. They were of hills, rivers, coast, plants and animals. You could look at such photos and meditate. I felt that I was seeing the world through others' eyes, and feeling the contemplative closeness of their relationship with nature.
The British photos, on the other hand, always showed the person. And they were always
doing something - completing a long distance trail, climbing a mountain, wild camping, wild swimming, "Doing the North Coast 500" (whatever that is).
Nothing wrong with any of that! I post the occasional summit selfie myself! - and my TRs on WH are obviously a log of my outdoor activities.
Rather, it was the almost complete lack, in the British images, of those contemplative photos, those quiet moments of not doing anything, just being with nature.
Perhaps a higher percentage of British people see the natural world as "out there" - separate from us. When we go into it, we take selfies to show our friends where we have been. the enjoyment of being outdoors is to be found in the ability to tell people about it. "Look at me, in the wilderness!".
When you feel like that, maybe it is easy to drop a piece of plastic packaging. But if you actually feel a connection to the landscape around you, you wouldn't do it - any more than you would leave litter in a friend's home.
Just exploring an idea. We will never find a solution if we don't understand the problem.