Fostering ecological understanding in and engagement with local communities

While growing up in the forests and fields of northeastern Pennsylvania, I spent time with some of the best homegrown naturalists in the country. Anglers, hunters, and trackers taught me firsthand how to look at nature, as they themselves had been instructed by previous generations – and I was gifted with taxonomic keys for identifying plants and wildlife, which sparked what would be a lifelong desire to understand the natural world. It was not until after I left rural Pennsylvania and found my way into higher educational spaces when my “formal” introduction to ecology started.

But while I continued on an ecologist's path I began to repeatedly ask myself an important question: “Do I belong here?” The further I became involved in my research and schooling, the more I felt the need to adopt scholarly language, at the expense of being able to speak to the community of naturalists in the forests and fields where I grew up. As I pursued my degrees, I delved deeper into ecology until it was all I could see. It was not until after graduating with my master's degree, when I began work at a small nonprofit land trust, that I realized I had become disconnected from the sense of wonder that had first drawn me to this discipline. Bogged down by the constant news of habitat loss due to development, the loss of protections for sensitive ecosystems, and the brutality of climate-change-driven disasters, I questioned the impact of my efforts. If I were to key myself out in my professional landscape, I would not know where I belonged.

I have met many scientists pursuing critical ecological questions who feel either separated from the impacts of their work or unwelcome in decision-making circles where their voices are desperately needed. Ecologists are trained to identify, to question, and to probe relationships in nature, but how many of us learn the ways to share that information with a wide public audience? How can we bridge the divide between the rigors of scientific research and the broad discussions of policy or application of theory to the natural places we love? In my experience, the answer is straightforward: first listen, understand the social context, then share.

In my transition from academia to a nonprofit I was forced to reckon with a painful reality: my degrees in science are effectively in a language that the people in my local community do not speak. Only by recentering on my community's needs was I able to understand where my work was necessary: helping residents in local watersheds build emotional connections with their neighboring streams. These people did not feel passionate about the population dynamics of stream insects or patterns in eel migrations; instead, they cared about the danger of their homes flooding and the safety of their children from potentially polluted waters. It is my responsibility to meet community members where they live and ensure they feel welcome where discussions about water resources are taking place.

As a community of ecologists, we must continue to adjust our communication, to create spaces where all people belong. In shifting from leading conversations to listening to concerns, I regained my lost sense of connection to the natural world. I began to share with my community as the naturalists of my youth had shared with me: we went outside and got wet and dirty. No pretext, no expectations, and no jargon, just a shared sense of discovery and wonder and growing trust.

I joined the Darby Creek Valley Association, a local watershed organization, to train residents as community scientists. What happened was remarkable – the community scientists who collect water chemistry data began making their own discoveries within their stream system. They developed a connection to their sample sites and began advocating for better land development strategies in their neighborhoods. They even started to feel more comfortable sharing their observations and knowledge of their communities’ needs in spaces previously reserved for scientists and decision makers.

Ecological research is critical to our collective future but without finding ways to share these lessons with a broader audience our scientific impact is diminished. We shortchange ourselves by not listening to the residents of the communities in which we work and live. Increasing local scientific literacy helped my community and, in so doing, helped me rediscover my passion for ecology and promote local action to conserve the precious ecosystems on which my community relies.