Conservation Comment: Keep the faith but keep sane

Airini Beautrais

In other pieces I've written for Conservation Comment, I've focused on waste minimisation.

This is definitely a big interest of mine: I like to find ways to do things more sustainably in my everyday life. However, a focus on individual consumer ethics can lead into a spiral of anxiety and guilt.

A basic trip to the supermarket or to buy a pair of shoes can turn into an ethical dilemma. Is this food locally grown? Is it wrapped in plastic? Is it healthy? Are these shoes going to sit in a landfill for 30,000 years? Were they made by modern-day slaves?

Conservation ethics can contribute to mental health issues, already a prevalent problem in today's society.

I've been involved with some form of environmental and/or social justice activism for most of my life. In these spaces, we can meet like-minded people, devise solutions, and effect change in our communities.

We can also over-invest our emotional resources. Over the years, I have seen many activists reach burnout point, or adopt cynical positions because it may be a better means of coping.

"Climate change is happening no matter what we do," a person might say. "I just can't deal with it any more."

I have been working on some literary essays lately and one of the main threads that has arisen is anti-materialism. My relationship to this philosophy is multi-faceted. Sometimes, adopting a minimalist or anti-materialist approach makes people happy in and of itself.

Hannah and Liam of The Rubbish Trip write, "We know from our personal experience that the zero waste lifestyle makes us far happier and fulfilled than we ever have been."

The Minimalists, Ryan Nicodemus and Joshua Fields Millburn, have a similar philosophy: "Minimalism is a tool that can assist you in finding freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom from worry. Freedom from overwhelm. Freedom from guilt. Freedom from depression. Freedom from the trappings of the consumer culture we've built our lives around. Real freedom."

But as The Minimalists also point out, this means different things to different people. A single person who lives on the road will have different approaches to a family with children who live in a house.

If our suggestions are too extreme, we may put other people off taking action. Not everyone wants to give up shampoo, deodorant, and skincare.

Over the past few years, we have seen some really positive changes: single-use plastic bags are no longer standard at supermarket checkouts, bars and cafes have largely stopped using plastic straws.

Individually, our choices make a small amount of difference. Collectively, we can work together to enact the structural change needed to create a more sustainable world.

It is really important to look after our own mental health while doing so, and if this means finding ways to just do the groceries without having an anxiety attack, or holding on to things that make us happy, perhaps this is a better solution than a modern-day asceticism.