As people and businesses go about their daily activities, environmental conservation is often the last thing on their minds. People buy products with excess packaging, use water carelessly, and damage the habitats of wild animals by improperly disposing of trash. Reminding people and business owners that conservation is a vital activity can be challenging, but the benefits can spread to every living thing in the environment.
In today’s landscape, there are so many political and social causes that conservation awareness can be lost in the shuffle. People are jaded and feel like they can’t spare any more energy to care about the world. It’s important to promote environmental awareness in positive ways, rather than using scare tactics, which may only make some people care less about the environment. For example, local businesses can be encouraged to reduce waste and recycle by using a social media campaign.
Use social media
Social media can be a perfect way to raise awareness without lecturing. Internet users love to utilize hashtags. Encourage visitors to parks and forests to take photos and tag them with conservation-related phrases. In social media campaigns, people can also be challenged to do one more environmentally friendly thing a day and to post about it. For example, users may post about turning off the lights in a room when leaving, or about picking up trash around their homes. A small action each day is better than none.
Teach children
The most important way to raise awareness is by teaching our own children to take care of the environment. Children naturally look up to parents and authority figures and model their values after them. Parents should be aware of their own actions and make sure they are environmentally sound. For example, lecturing children about wasting water falls on deaf ears when the child sees a parent letting the water run while brushing their teeth.
Children can effect powerful change on their own. A child who learns about environmental conservation at school is likely to go home and share the information with his or her family. Led by the children, the whole family may use resources more wisely. When children in youth groups, for example, encourage a business to behave in a more environmentally friendly fashion, the business is more likely to pay attention as opposed to an adult activist’s message being brushed off or ignored. Children can encourage businesses to use packaging that is less wasteful or to use recycled materials.
