A creation care study session I was facilitating in one of our target communities came to a hard pause when one of the participants adamantly expressed doubt in his willingness to protect a species of animal he was terrified of.
The participants would not relent no matter what I said and it made me ponder on the possible reasons why he felt the way he did. I even took time to remind him that God declared all of His creation, good – even snakes the animal he dreaded the most.
Confession time: I am also terrified of snakes.
However this interaction had me asking myself these questions, “Why is it easy for me to talk about the protection of snakes even though I am afraid of them?” and “Do other conservationists like me struggle with advocating for species that they are most afraid of?”
In order for me to understand if this struggle exists in the midst of conservationists, I constructed a simple three-question questionnaire and administered it on a group of conservationists, nature enthusiasts as well as individuals with neutral opinions about the natural environment – to serve as control.
From the responses I received, the class of species that was most dreaded belongs to the group Reptilian. The reason for their fear is based on the harm such organisms could inflict on us – humans – such as poisonous venom that can lead to death.
The main aim of this blog is to illustrate that as conservationists, we do fear for some organisms but this does not stop us from advocating for the conservation of all species. It was heartwarming to note through the survey that the reasons why these conservationists agreed that they could still advocate for the species that they were most afraid of is because all species deserve to live. The validity of their lives as described as good by the Creator and raising awareness for their protection increases the chance for research to be carried out on them, which will lead to better ways/solutions to dealing with venomous ones e.g. snakes.
Phobias, as we all know come with a lot of fear, we also get irritated and try to avoid those things or animals that we dread.
So, I am encouraged by these special ones to that believe enough to advocate for the conservation of their phobias.
I would love to hear from you.
Can you tell me the type of animal or plant you are most fearful of? And do you think you could either advocate or work towards their conservation?
Until next time, I hope you learnt something new!!!
Written by Chioma Okafor
Reviewed by Ulan Matta
Photo credit: Google images
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