A lot of the information the we are learning about the environment – that people are feeling anxious about is often based around international situations, but not a lot of what were learning has a relevance or a connection to our local environment; to New Zealand. We are not provided with much information about our own country, regarding the environment situation here, for example we know that the rainforest is being cut down in the Amazon and wildlife species are dying out, but not many people may know about how many species are being lost in New Zealand. Its not public knowledge that we have really big issues in our own country. If we are going to be able to target something and make a change then it has to be close to us. We can’t go and easily plant a thousand trees overseas when our own country is losing its own forest habitats.

We are seen as a very green place. New Zealand is seen as one of the greenest places in the world, growing we have this expectation and status level of our country. As someone young whos only been aware of this for about 7 years now, since I was old enough to really understand what was going on, you grow up thinking “oh we have this beautiful place, all our trees are growing tall, we have wooded mountains a crystal lakes, yay we were in Lord of the Rings” etc. If we are not being made aware of the small issues that we do have then when bigger issues do happen, we wont be able to tackle those either. the only people who really understand are the researchers and scientists dealing with the issues, whereas the majority of the population fo Auckland isn’t actively aware that the sea-life around our harbours and beaches are under threat, or that the fishing around the Coromandel is becoming a problem now. because we just think “Oh, it cant effect us, we are in our little bubble down south of the world”. All we are hearing is a lot of doom and gloom information which we cant do anything about. So, that doom and gloom Information is sitting as a really big area of anxiety within us, but its something that we can’t touch.

You can’t tangibly do anything with international issues revolving around climate change, that’s why we are focusing on a national level. If you’re given information on how to change it in your backyard then you can connect to the issue better with less buried anxiety.

If we are going to feel a level of anxiety about something, it may as be towards something we can work towards changing. This whole problem of feeling like your actions don’t matter and feeling like everything youre doing is insignificant is because the problems shoved in our faces are so big.

Hypothetically, it’s like writing an exegesis. If you stare at a To-Do list that states 3000 word exegesis in 3 weeks, you will be afraid to touch it because of the sheer overwhelming size of it. If your mind breaks it down and says okay, I have to write 200 words before next Monday then it seems like a much more manageable task, a smaller thing to mentally tackle. It takes awhile to fix the big problem, but at least the steps are being made and you’re not worried about the huge end result, just the smaller steps.

Plot Setting // Garden

In relation to targeting a reduction in the eco-anxiety of young adults, the location of the narrative of my story is based in a garden on Waiheke Island. My characters, a family of witches, are connected to the nature of this garden. I chose this garden because I found through research that some people take in information better when its not directly related to the world you are in. I understand there is another bracket who responds well to factual information however this is not the group I am targeting with my story. metaphorically it will become very obvious at the end of the story that the garden is a basic reflection and representation of our Earth, in that people it is being poisoned from the unnatural waste and actions inside it. but there are actions we can take to help heal the garden, or heal the earth. The main problem with this is that when people are faced with international/ a whole world of issues that need to be targeted, its a huge responsibility and burden on your shoulders.

As a university student myself, I would not want to tasked with dealing with all of the climate decline happening overseas, however that is what we are given through social media, news, its all that we are faced with. There are very rarely any local environmental challenges that we can join in to fix. I like the idea of using the garden as a metaphor. While it is very obvious at the end that the moral of the story is talking about the planet, not just a garden, it decreases the expanse of the problem in our mind and makes it seem more manageable. There is a necessary area of separation between the climate problem, and the person learning about it. A garden is very small. You can always see the edges of it. It doesn’t feel like somewhere farfetched, or that you can’t touch. My method is to focus on an issue in a calm manner, that will not overload the viewer. Putting across an idea that will not scare them by the sheer magnitude.

My Whiteboard notes: