Environment

The pros and cons of unpaid labour

Every winter I pack my old van full of home made chutney, blankets, bobbly hats, and emergency Supernoodles, then head to France to volunteer on organic farms. Through the WWOOF programme, or ‘woofing’, I’ve stayed in log cabins up mountains, ran a derelict donkey farm, lived in an abandoned wine cellar, been a sheep shepherdess in torrential rain, and planted leeks in a bog in Brittany. They called me a ‘woofeuse’!:)

We are expected to work hard for a few hours in exchange for some form of lodgings, great local food and eccentric company in a foreign language. Enriching win-win experiences in my eyes.

So how does this type of simple, quid pro quo volunteering compare to paying £6000 for 3 weeks in Africa staying at high-end resorts (tourism) and “helping the poor”? Do these folk need or want our help, or developing? Are they poor by our standards or theirs?? How did volunteering become a profitable business? Volunteering was once about a group of strangers working together for a common cause, such as during a beach clean, which strengthens our sense of community. To me it’s about embracing others, their lifestyles, customs, and knowledge. It seems we can now marry tourism and volunteering and create a whole new market to exploit the gullible.

I blame documentaries, personally. There has been an enormous surge in the amount of university graduates hoping to land planet-saving jobs, just like our heroes did. It seems though, that government and industries, whilst perhaps recognising the need for more research, are not yet prepared to prioritise this need and fork out the money.  Increasingly, we find ourselves needing “experience” to land an entry-level job, and will do anything to gain it. Enter “voluntourism”. Marketing strategies are based on leading young westerners to believe that volunteering will increase their job prospects, that these poorly disguised holidays “ will look good on a CV”. But do they really?? Statistics now show that the relationship between having volunteered and finding a job depends on individual circumstances, is far from straightforward, and in young age groups can actually lower the chances of finding paid work. This is because rather than actively applying for jobs we are doing dive courses in Malaysia.

Another down side is that volunteering can damage communities by taking away paid jobs for locals. It can damage science because rather than recruit (and pay) a well prepared, albeit green graduate, who doesn’t want to volunteer as needs to repay their student loan, positions are filled by untrained volunteers. The truth is that most of us cannot afford to volunteer for extended periods of time to gain this “experience” required for an entry-level job. A friend of mine once told me that “you learn by doing things”-wise words. So how about businesses not taking the big old p…and giving recent graduates, young and not so young, and that have spent in the region of  £50.000 on qualifications, a chance to learn on the job whilst earning a decent wage?

While I absolutely do advocate volunteering, it pays to do some research into who you do it with beforehand. Try and volunteer with local organizations in the host communities, rather than pay a fortune to a western-based business. Though less exotic, closer to home organizations may be more transparent, and are less likely to mask remote beneficiaries and business scams.

Regardless of what is does for ones’ CV, more often than not, volunteering is about what we get out of it, i.e personal fulfilment, rather than what we put in, i.e. altruistically helping anyone. Volunteering makes you feel good, and there are plenty of opportunities to volunteer in Menorca; check out BeachcleanMenorca, Menorca Preservation Fund, GOB, or AECC.

GOB’s Wildlife Recovery Centre, located in a disused quarry at Lithica in Ciudadela, is run almost entirely by volunteers. Injured hedgehogs, falcons, tortoises and pine martens all end up there, where they are treated and then ideally returned to the wild. Usually these animals have been hit or squished by cars, electrocuted or shot by hunters. Volunteer tasks include; cleaning peregrine falcon, barn owl, Egyptian vultures or booted eagle enclosures out, having previously carried the inmates outside on your gloved hand; delousing hedgehogs, who can get very grumpy and growl at you; counting and sexing hundreds of baby tortoises, worming the scops’ owls, making sure to get the syringe beyond the windpipe and into the gullet, and weeding the paths. Mid morning we stop to enjoy oranges picked fresh from the trees, and in the summer months, all operations are overseen by Fausto the African spurred tortoise. He belongs to the third largest species of tortoise on the planet, his relatively long legs mean he follows visitors around the centre with astonishing speed, ever curious about what is being said. Unfortunately for his admirers, he is currently overwintering in warmer lodgings than most of us are, at a heated house in Ciudadela, and has an iguana to keep him company!

Volunteering can be a great lot of fun, plus you meet lots of like-minded folk you never knew existed, so give it a go! Having said that, untangling voluntourism is far from straightforward, for example, 80% of voluntourists are said to be women! This could illustrate how it’s easier to exploit female heartstrings with stories of helping the poor. For an interesting read on the subject see ‘Looks good on your CV’: The sociology of voluntourism recruitment in higher education, by McGloin & Georgeou.

How can cultivating our conscience make us environmentally responsible?

On a walk in the Serra de Tramuntana last week, our group happened upon some game hunters’ hideouts- or what looked like a rave scene; the place was strewn with broken bottles, plastic chairs, old tarpaulins and rope. Surely if you can carry all those full wine bottles almost 1000-m up a mountain, you must be fit enough to carry them down again empty? Perhaps their bags were too full of dead birds. Once recovered from the initial disgust, I began to wonder if there was not an element of social pressure involved in littering…these shameless people perhaps didn’t feel the need to dispose of their rubbish, because who would ever see It or find out up there? Why don’t we see (quite so many) piles of broken bottles in well-frequented areas? Probably because with no one around to see the littering, there is no one to hold offenders accountable for their actions. Would people be ashamed if caught? The definitions of shame and ashamed; suffering from feelings of inferiority, fear of humiliation, awareness of having done something dishonourable, show how our social behaviour is subject to scrutiny by others.  This gives us power to influence those with an irresponsible conscience. So let’s speak up when we see our planet being spoiled, after all, there’s a slight chance that litterbugs never even question their behaviour, and our mentioning it may strike a chord within their minds. Just watch they don’t lob a bottle at you (also been known to happen!).

Apparently all our actions stem from egoistic self-interests; those of us who ride bikes (allegedly “doing our bit for the planet”) primarily ride because it gives us a chance to exercise, get some fresh air, and save on fuel. It is argued that “responsible” do-gooders enjoy holding other people accountable partially to garner self-recognition or praise from fellow humans, others may adopt eco-friendly measures simply because they are fashionable, or marketable. Again it narrows down to how we feel, or how we think we will feel; anticipated emotions influence our decisions so that we choose feel-good options. Conversely, guilt is an emotion that stems from our self-evaluation of whether or not we are conforming to social and personal standards. All examples of how peer-pressure can lead to a happier mother nature! I’m sure that the environment doesn’t care which motives are driving our actions.

Early campaigns to promote environmental awareness (1970s) assumed that people would take environmental action once they had the knowledge to do so, yet the ability to act depends on peoples’ personal situations, resources (can I afford a bike? Is there a public bus or a recycling point? ). Most people agree that the environment should be cared for, even in the poorest countries, where litter usually just goes straight out of the window. The western nations still pollute far more than poor countries, due to our wasteful lifestyle, where we have come to rely on so many potentially polluting disposable commodities. This highlights the fact that information is not enough, and that legislation CAN and DOES drive instant behavioural changes. Take, for example, the 2015 UK plastic bag levy resulting in an 80% drop in bag usage in a year. Countries with high fuel taxes drive less.

Having had great childhood outdoor experiences is the strongest factor influencing adults’ decisions to become environmentalists and it has been shown that people who are emotionally attached to nature are more likely to care for it.  It’s also true that we are more likely to worry about things in our own back yard, so let’s get outside and explore our natural surroundings, so that we will learn to love and care for them.

One thing is knowing what to do, how to help the environment, and another thing is actually doing it. So what’s stopping us? It’s important to acknowledge the inherent risk in bombarding one another with guilt fuelling recriminations. The risk is that readers may end up downright bored of hearing about eco this and eco that.  When exposed to environmental degradation some of us become emotionally distressed, which may in turn lead to psychological defense mechanisms such as denial, rational distancing, apathy and resignation. As informed as we are, a feeling of overwhelming helplessness in the face of too much negativity will very often prevent us from taking pro-environmental action. This has enormous repercussions, because, while knowing about the negative consequences of our non-friendly actions CAN make us feel responsible and adjust our behavior, we become desensitized and prioritize other aspects of our busy lives. The belief that each individual act does make a difference is the primary motivator for environmentally friendly action. In cases where we don’t believe we have the power to change things, government legislation can intervene and force us to act regardless of ones’ perceived effectiveness of their actions.

My hope is that by becoming aware of the positive outcomes of our actions, we will feel compelled to make more responsible choices. Successful campaigns now focus on specific examples of positive reinforcement; 7 recycled cans make a car, etc., It seems that the best combination to motivate an environmentally pro-active society would be a little knowledge (what the problem is and HOW we can help), a little legislation (and enforcement!) and a lot of direct experience of nature from an early age so that we feel emotionally connected to it.  Ideally, we will learn that caring for the environment will make us feel proud, good, and less guilty,  and we will be able to relate our positive emotions (cultivated through knowledge, peer pressure, personal awareness) to making more sustainable choices.