by Madeline Bachner ’02

(Madeline Bachner ’02 is a graduate student in Environmental Education with the Audubon Expedition Institute (AEI), sponsored by Lesley University. The following essay about her experiences in Hawai’i was previously published in AEI’s publication "Connections.")

From the bustle of downtown Hilo I have moved to the hostel outside of town. The roar of traffic on the busy street below is replaced by the call of invasive coqui frogs, rattling palm fronds and the faint crashing of waves on a rocky shore. Instead of clean white sheets in a high-ceilinged room, I have my sleeping bag separated from the muddy ground by a thin sheet of plastic in a tent. It is not raining and has not for most of the day though everything is moist with the humidity from weeks of precipitation. The all but full moon peeks out through a thin veil of clouds. After five weeks of camping out on the bus as we travel around the Big Island of Hawai’i, I feel the pull of both of these lives in my move today: comfort and convenience in the detached life of downtown against the simplicity of sleeping on the ground, hearing the night, seeing the moon and being connected with these cycles and the Earth.

We began our semester on Hawai’i reading David Quammen’s Song of the Dodo about island biogeography, “the study of facts and patterns of species distribution” in the isolation of islands (1996 p. 17). Hawai’i, of course, is an island within an archipelago, separated from the mainland by 2,300 miles of ocean; isolated but not unconnected. “Via wind, water, or wing” (Moore, 2003 p. 67), the islands here were naturally colonized by plants, insects, birds and one mammal, the hoary bat. Human landfall by the Polynesians circa 400 AD began the onslaught of introductions of new plants and animals. Now the myriad cultures of people living here have brought all the technologies and disruption of humanity.

We live in a world of islands isolated by either surrounding seas or by the divided and disrupted environments humanity has created. Apart from land masses, one can view, for example, parks, preserves, interstate medians and lone trees in agricultural land as islands, set adrift in an environment that no longer fosters continuity. We in Western culture have also begun to define ourselves as islands, isolated in our individual worlds of fenced-off habitations and technological devices. We actively engage in our own separation, the fragmentation of our lives and our time, the isolation from others (human and non-human), the natural world and the cycles we ultimately depend on. In some ways, to become ecologically literate might be as simple as recognizing this isolation and walking back into the connected world.

Ecological literacy can have many definitions. At the heart of it is the knowledge and experience of a place and the acceptance that we depend on and are part of the greater natural systems we live within. This cannot come only by reading about eco-literacy or studying it. It cannot come by simply teaching it. Being ecologically literate is a process of immersion. Prominent author and educator David Orr writes, “if literacy is driven by the search for knowledge, ecological literacy is driven by the sense of wonder, the sheer delight in being alive in a beautiful, mysterious, bountiful world.” (1992 p. 86) In order to feel this wonder we must be able as ecologically literate citizens to acknowledge the connections we have with this wonder-filled world around us, and work to mend the connections that have been damaged.

This afternoon upon returning from the day in downtown Hilo, I felt chewed up by the barrage of sensory information, the sharp edges and loud noises. Having ridden a bike there and back it felt like I had thrown my soft self directly into the hard grind of traffic to be spat out now in the late afternoon drizzle. I quickly threw on my swimsuit and sarong and walked to the rocky beach park nearby. The surface of the water was stippled with raindrops. With my snorkel on, I sank into the solace of the cold salty ocean and took a deep breath. It was a cool, quiet, wet blue world that greeted me. I had come to renew myself, to find what the ocean could teach me about calm and serenity, to fill myself once again with wonder. I had come seeking connection.

On this island in the middle of the vast Pacific there coexist, as in all places, human isolation and fragmentation with natural cycles and connections. Eco-literacy for each of us begins with the recognition of this duality as we actively take steps to mend the divide and reconnect with our own wonder, wherever we source it in our lives.

References:
Moore, S. (2003). I myself have seen it: The myth of Hawai’i. Washington, D.C.; National Geographic.

Orr, D.W. (1992). Ecological Literacy. Albany, NY; State University of New York.

Quammen, D. (1996). The song of the dodo: Island biogeography in an age of
extinctions. New York, NY; Scribner.