When People Say Dumb Things about Environmentalists

Every genuine woods-craft, woodcraft, bushcraft expert I’ve ever met is a dyed-in-the-wool, hardcore, gung ho environmentalist.  They might take a deer or trap a wild hog for the kitchen table; they might whack a rattlesnake that’s settled down for the night in the dog’s house; they might pop a few rabbits with a slingshot for a deep woods supper.  But darn it if they aren’t environmentalists.  Talk down nature to them and they will get very upset.  Knock down their favorite trees and you’d best move far away.  Pollute their fishing stream (or any stream or lake for that matter) and they will make war with you.  And dare tell them that they don’t know anything about the woods and they’ll go find a brujo and put a curse on you.  The real, genuine articles; the true blue woodsmen are fanatic environmentalists.  They know that without nature they can’t survive.  By that I mean that they make no distinction between nature and themselves.  And when some dude comes along and starts lecturing them about things they grew up with and then has the audacity to suggest that they don’t know anything about the woods…well, that’s taking it too far.  When somebody submits that environmentalists “don’t spend time outdoors and would rather debate things they know nothing about” like I read in a recent article then I think something should be made perfectly clear: If you aren’t an environmentalist, nature freak, Tierra Primero! type then you aren’t a real woods-craft, bushcraft, woodcraft kind of person.  A genuine love for the woods, for nature, for the wilds is at the heart of every real woodsman or woman.  And saving it and fighting for it runs in their blood! They are environmentalists to the core.