During the summer of 2019, I spent a month in England and Scotland participating in a class titled “Field Studies in Natural Resources.” We focused on sustainability, natural resource management, and conservation. We traveled through England and Scotland meeting with community leaders to understand the importance of the Triple Bottom Line: people, profits, and the planet. Over the course of my study abroad, I learned about the delicate balance between education, recreation, and preservation. Natural and cultural resources have to be managed in sustainable ways that allow for their beauty to be appreciated, their history to be recognized, and their value to be utilized and understood for the future. Maintaining a focus on sustainability and the necessity of passing educational, recreational, and historical value down can allow stakeholders to create sustainable plans for the present and future.
Before embarking on this journey to the United Kingdom, I thought that sustainability was only for scientific pursuits. However, I now realize that every discipline can utilize the concepts of sustainability. As a future Anthropologist, I now understand that I can employ sustainability in everything I do to ensure that natural and cultural resources are available for our descendants. Another big lesson that I learned while on this study abroad is the necessity of including all stakeholders in decisions. The lack of all stakeholder input results in the loss of depth and breadth of understanding; the full picture is lost. As I prepare to become an Anthropologist, I plan to include multiple different perspectives and understandings in my work so that the cultural resources of the people I engage with will survive to provide beauty, education, and recreation for future use and appreciation.