Climbing and Conservation
Backroad Family’s Elizabeth Bauer takes us a journey through nature’s wonders— and teachings— rock climbing with her family on England’s Jurassic Coast.
When it comes to how we approach conservation with our children, I like to start with a metaphor.
We treat the plants and animals in our natural world with the same respect we treat our family and friends in the human world. I find that an understanding of purpose and approaching concepts with curiosity, help establish wonderful relationships with people and our planet.
Spending time in nature is a practice we prioritize in our family. My partner and I love being outdoors and it’s typically the first place we visit when we have extra time. Whether it’s an hour during a busy afternoon in Cambridge or a few weeks off over the summer holidays.
Nature hosted our first adventures as a family and has since become the setting for our most cherished memories. When our daughter was 8 weeks old we were hiking in Lake Tahoe and at 11 weeks she was laying in a cozy bed at the base of a rock climbing crag in the Italian Dolomites.
Family rock climbing in the UNESCO World Heritage Site Jurassic Coast in southern England with Backroad Family.
Climbing is an activity we continue to pursue with our children and over the years we have been lucky to explore crags in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North America. Now that our daughter is 10 and chased around by her two younger siblings (6 & 3) I am thinking more about the conversation around conservation and its place in our travels.
Relationships can also act as a metaphor for how we engage with new environments. Just like meeting a new person, when we visit a crag, I want to know its story. Our most recent climbing trip to the Jurassic Coast presented a fantastic opportunity to include our children in learning more about where we were headed.
The Jurassic Coast is is a 95 mile stretch of coastline in Southern England. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a geological scrapbook that contains 185 million years of Earth’s History.
Like a conversation with someone who has lived a long and fabulous life, this area has embodied a few different personas. It’s been a desert, a tropical sea, a swamp, and now a rugged, temperate coastline. The rock’s embedded fossils provide Earth’s historians with information about the animals and plants that lived here and how they evolved over millions of years. Some of the first theories of extinction were developed in this area along with the first complete Ichthyosaur skeleton. Skeletons of a Plesiosaurs and a Pterosaur have been discovered here as well.
Our children think it’s pretty cool we were rock climbing on a spot where now extinct marine and flying reptiles used to play with their own families.
We discussed how this coastline is similar to the photo books we’ve made of our family history. We love photo books because they tell the story of our lives. This rock tells the story of earth’s life, and that’s pretty special.
Now we know the story of the rock, we get to spend time with it.
Just like spending time with new people we meet. Which sparks the question, how do we show up in new relationships? In our family, we are mindful of our impact. We make choices about our behavior and consider how our presence makes a new person feel. Are we respectful? Are we non-judgmental? Curious? Do we assume the best? Do we assume that every part of them serves a purpose? Do we treat them like they matter? We applied these same questions to how we showed up at the crag.
Climbing involves a lot of waiting around. Because of this, and our practice of leaving toys, and devices at home, we get to explore the new area, and take notice of life happening around us.
Sometimes we discover things that elicit an immediate “ewww gross!” Which reminds me of kindergarteners eating lunch together and one child’s reaction to another child’s choice of food. On this particular adventure, the tiniest snail you have ever seen, a black slug nursery, and a bloody-nosed beetle each drew an “ewww” out of at least one of my children.
I don’t shame them for their “ewwws”, I feel them, too. Slugs and beetles are not my favorite animals. It’s the same way I feel when I see someone eating anchovies out of a can. But because our children are watching me, when I experience my own version of “eww,” it’s my job to redirect the reaction into something more positive. So I choose to lead with curiosity.
Instead of 'ewww,' I try 'wow’. 'Eww' becomes 'wow' when we learn why this animal is special.
We first noticed the beetle when we were climbing. The big black beetle surprised us, but after the initial shock, we observed that the beetle was climbing head first down the rock while we were trying to climb up the rock! We had a giggle about how tiny its feet and legs were yet somehow it was doing a much better job than us, without ropes, all while upside down.
And if the “wow” is a bit of a stretch, maybe it could be “hmm.” When we find out why animals are important members of the ecosystem, at least we know their purpose and it’s easier to give them space and respect. We may not want to spend time with a particular person in our community but knowing the role they play helps us recognize their value.
Turns out slugs and snails are important decomposers. They help consume and break down dead or decaying plants and animals. They are also delicious treats for hedgehogs and birds.
During our downtime at the crag, there are many nooks and crannies to explore, plants to step around, and places for our hands and feet to get busy. So understanding not only how we react to animals we see but also how we interact with plants and non-living things, is similar to how we behave as a guest in someone’s home.
Would you show up to a friend's house and start moving around their furniture? Probably not. So perhaps we should keep rocks and logs where we find them. That slug nursery we found was because my son was trying to overturn a heavy rock. Once we realized the underside of the rock was keeping the slugs safe and wet. We decided it wasn’t fair for us to use their home as one of our toys, so we turned it back over and kept it in its place.
And what about the butterfly bush with the beautiful honey scented flowers? Can we pick them? Well, we learned that the flowers serve as food for the butterflies so we decided the flowers were doing more for the animals in their place attached to the bush, then they were picked and dying for us.
If we don't understand the purpose behind something in nature, then what motivation do we have to protect it? And if we don’t have the ability to discover its purpose (the SEEK app doesn’t always load at climbing crags), then we need to assume it’s there for a reason. There are no accidents in nature. If we remember this, then we need to trust that even the tiniest snail has a reason to be here. Some people could probably argue, it has more value than we do.
Next time you are in nature with a child, I invite you to connect the skills you use in your human relationships with the natural world. You probably wouldn’t throw your half eaten apple on your neighbor's lawn. So why throw it on the 150-year-old Oak Tree’s lawn? Yes it may be biodegradable, but does it belong there? Do the animals that live in the area even eat apples? Orange or banana peels? Do they have a use for granola bar wrappers or plastic bags?
To foster a future that cares deeply about our planet, we must take our children exploring on the planet. We must create memories with the natural world. And part of those memories must be learning about the purpose and value of living and non-living things.
You don’t need a 4-day weekend at a world heritage site to get your children inspired to protect the planet.
Children are naturally drawn to nature, often choosing to climb trees or jump over rocks instead of using playground equipment.
Learn the name of the tree they climb and spend time with it. Poke around to see what animals live in and around the tree and under the rocks. Your child will take their connection to that tree and those rocks and they will remember how you modeled respect and curiosity.
