Brian Keating firmly believes that people are not getting out into nature nearly enough. The keynote speaker at the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation’s 87th Annual Conference, Keating hoped to inspire the people in the room to work towards getting more people going outside.
When discussing the decreasing amount of time spent outdoors, Keating references the concept of Nature Deficit Disorder, coined by Richard Louv. He says that with kids spending hours upon hours looking at a screen, it’s time to change the trend and get them outside.
“We are raising children who, to large degree, are now so disassociated with nature that they are losing touch with what makes them human. I tell kids these days that humans are really just large, upright, well-dressed, iPad holding gophers. We need the same productive soil, we need clean water and we need clean air to survive. If we don’t get kids outdoors, they’ll never develop a love or appreciation of the great outdoors.”
The importance of getting kids out into nature is an urgent one, Keating says, because those kids are going to be decision-makers in the future.
“When it comes to making important decisions down the road, when they get into power play positions like many of the people in that room are, if we don’t have them armed with that love from the heart about how important nature is, we’re going to miss the boat. Who is going to protect our creeks, our rivers, our streams, our hills, our forests, our prairies?”
While people are realizing the importance of nature in our lives, Keating says that it’s urgent to get kids less reliant on technology. He notes that kids spend 55 hours a week looking at a screen, a trend Keating hopes to change. He says that with more outdoor-oriented population, it reverses the trends towards hyperactivity and obesity.
“Imagine if they took that 55 hours and spend it in front of nature? We would have a very different population.”
Keating’s presentation covered a wide range of animals, whether extremely common like the mallard duck or endangered like the whooping crane. Keating says that’s a deliberate choice, because celebrating nature involves celebrating everything from a common animal to those people are trying to save.
“We’ve got to celebrate all aspects. Endangered species are important, and [the whooping crane] is a symbol of the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation and it’s a wonderful symbol, because it’s a symbol of hope. They’ve gone from 22 birds to over 500 now from the hard work and dedicated effort of people like the people in that room.”
He also believes an organization like the SWF is well suited to change that trend, and use their members to help get kids outdoors. He says a combination of experience in the outdoors and love of nature makes the members ideally suited to reversing that trend. He hopes that through the conference, people get new ideas and are inspired to try new approaches to get people appreciating nature again.
“There are 32,000 members of this organization, that’s the largest percentage of population of any region in the world for an organization that’s focused on wildlife. They’ve got a very dynamic education system that’s very involved in getting kids outside.”
For himself, the chance to return to the province is one that Keating appreciated.
“It’s great to be back in Saskatchewan. I lived here for three years, years ago when I worked with the Canadian Wildlife Service near Webb Saskatchewan at the Prairie Wildlife Centre, and I did a lot of southern and central Saskatchewan exploration. It’s great to be back here, it’s a very special province.”
