"I...uh...am a naturalist," I stutter to the person next to me at the bar.  I quickly chug a swig of beer as the person I'm talking to gives me a puzzled look.  "What kind of work do you actually do?" he inquires.  "I mostly do environmental education programs for youth and the general public," I respond, trying to sound astute and sophisticated.  "So do you like teach kids how to camp and fish and live out in the wilderness then?"  "Sort of," I respond.  "I focus more on teaching  about and engaging people in the natural history and ecology of a certain area," I reply.  "Oh...I see..." he says as he fades away to order another drink.

It seems that many people do not understand what I do for a profession.   Part of the reason for this I think may be that my "profession" is one that is more causal and laid back; it is a form of recreation, leisure, science, and activism all mashed up into one enterprise.  The main I reason though that I believe people may be confused about what I do is they have never met someone who is a naturalist.  A naturalist is someone who studies natural history and ecology either has a profession or as a pastime.  Natural history involves looking at an animal, a plant, or a collection of animals and plants and searching for clues and conducting a scientific investigation in order to determine how those plants and animals got there and why they live there.  Ecology attempts to figure out how those plants and animals interact with each other and their environment.

Historically, naturalists were synonymous with biologists.  Charles Darwin, Carl Linnaeus, and Rachel Carson are some more popular examples.  These folks would spend hours in the field researching the life and the evolutionary history of plants animals across remote and rugged landscapes in an attempt to understand their role on our planet.  The rise of laboratory biology, however, has somewhat changed the role of a naturalist from one of a pure scientist to that of an educator and interpreter (see Figures 1 and 2).

Figure 1:  Environmental education involves teaching youth and the general public  the ecological sciences.  This group of middle school students are learning how to measure water quality in a nearby bay, as well as to investigate what animals live in and around the water body.

Figure 2:  Hikers in the woods on a  park-ranger led guided nature walk.
Environmental education and guided interpretive programs are a large component of what a modern-day naturalist does.  Education is important since the better informed citizens are of their local natural environment, the better chances that communities will make choices that are in alignment with the latest natural and social sciences.  Yet education alone cannot be the only means of making positive change with respect to protecting the environment.  Aldo Leopold, considered the 'father of conservation' and and an avid naturalist himself, argues that developing a conservation-oriented mindset (or in his words, a conservation 'land ethic') involves more than just being educated.  It involves a working knowledge of how the landscape works, and how to figure out which decisions "preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community" and which decisions do otherwise (Leopold, 1949).  Leopold argues that we should discard any choices that negatively impact the landscape for both us and for Earth's natural ecosystems.

This is why another duty of a naturalist has become important:  conservation outreach.  


Conservation outreach involves stepping outside the boundaries of a nature preserve or a park and creating programs and coordinating projects that increase environmental awareness and help restore ecosystem functions.  Popular examples of environmental outreach programs are things like recycling programs for cities or coordinating neighborhood trash cleanups.  Conservation outreach, though, typically focuses on ecological projects, such as gathering volunteers to reforest and area, or encouraging home owners to include native landscaping in their back yards.  Other examples of conservation outreach programs including monitoring a stream or river for water quality, counting the number of birds that visit a bird feeder, or working with the city on developing a management plan for urban forests and street tree care.  These various outreach programs rely heavily on volunteers as well as citizen science.  Average ordinary people work alongside naturalists such as myself to make improvements to the landscape in order to move towards more environmentally sound lifestyles (Figure 3).

Figure 3:  Volunteers - and not necessarily people that are accustomed to working in the great outdoors - assist a local environmental group with erosion control problems in an urban park.   In addition to helping professional naturalists with  serious environmental issues, local area residents also learn and become connected with the natural history of their own backyards.  
Leading guided walks, teaching people about wild plants and animals, and providing active, hands-on outreach to the general public has become the new and "trendy" thing to do for naturalists such as myself.   Even if you are not into the outdoors or if bugs and snakes scare you, chances are there is a place for YOU to help us restore our beautiful natural resources...and to have some fun feel good, too.  

A volunteer measures and weighs a bird as
part of a citizen science project that inventories migratory bird populations.


References
Leopold, A. (1949). A sound almanac. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc.

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