Outdoor Code - Conservation Minded
| Category: | Outdoor Code |
|---|---|
| Notes: | Fourth in a four-part series on the Outdoor Code. Good before a conservation service project, around Earth Day or Arbor Day, or as the closing piece in the series. See also outdoor-code-clean-in-my-outdoor-manners, outdoor-code-careful-with-fire, and outdoor-code-considerate-in-the-outdoors. |
The last line of the Outdoor Code is, "Be conservation minded."
Notice something about it. The first three lines are mostly about what we do on a campout: our trash, our fire, how we treat other people and animals. This one is different. It doesn't stop at the edge of the campsite. It follows you home.
Conservation means using what we have wisely, so there's enough left for the people who come after us. Clean water. Healthy forests. Soil that can still grow food. Wildlife that still has a place to live. None of those take care of themselves.
Some of it happens outdoors. A trail repair project. Pulling invasive plants. Planting trees. Those are some of the best service projects a troop can do, and the results are still there years later.
But a lot of it happens at home, in small ways nobody notices. Turning off the lights when you leave a room. Shorter showers. Fixing something instead of throwing it away. Recycling what can be recycled. One Scout doing those things doesn't change the world. Millions of Scouts doing them is a different story.
The Outdoor Code also asks us to help others do the same. That doesn't mean lecturing your family. It means doing it yourself, cheerfully, until they notice.
Be conservation minded. Not just on campouts. Everywhere.