Southern Conservation Partners
  • Home
  • What We Do
  • Fiscal Sponsorships
  • Partnerships
  • Resources
  • Defense
  • Viewpoint
  • Contact

Viewpoint

The Future of Conservation

7/30/2018

0 Comments

 
Brendan Mackay, respected Australian ecologist, member of the International Union for Conservation, and science advisor to the Climate Change Commission, in his essay, “The Future of Conservation: An Australian Perspective,” offers some perceptive and stark opinions. Here we quote a portion of the essay and encourage you to read it in its entirety.  It can be found in a collection of essays published by Island Press: Keeping the Wild: Against the Domestication of Earth  (2014). 
Do we need a new compass bearing?  In the midst of what is now considered to be the sixth mass extinction in the approximately 4.5-billion-year history of Earth, knowing that the primary agent of biodiversity loss (the aggregate impacts of human activities) is increasing in reach and intensity, it is perhaps understandable that some conservationists have lost their way, have given up hope, or are now suggesting that the goal of conservation be abandoned and reinvented. The(ir) argument goes something like this: There is no longer any wild land, what we have left is in a seminatural state (the product of human management and impacts), so we should think of ourselves more as gardeners who have to manage the planet carefully, ensuring that ecosystems remain healthy and providing people with food, water, and other ecosystem services; in brief, we need to “domesticate nature more wisely.”

Resetting the conservation goal to one of “wise gardening” is tempting in that it enables us to focus on manipulating species and biophysical processes as circumstances suit us, without reference to or regard for evolutionary and ecological legacies and processes.  Such reorientation of conservation . . . also appeals to human hubris and vanity, suggesting it is people who are now in control of Earth and that we can manage our way out of this environmental crisis. . . . 

Read More
0 Comments

    Conservation, viewed in its entirety, is the slow and laborious unfolding of a new relationship between people and land.
    --Aldo Leopold
    ​There is in fact no distinction between the fate of the land and the fate of the people.  When one is abused, the other suffers.
    --Wendell Berry

    From the President

    SCP President Chuck Roe looked at land conservation along the route of John Muir's "Southern Trek."​
    ​READ ABOUT IT


    About Viewpoint

    This blog offers views of our Board and partners. We invite  your viewpoint on the following questions:
      --How can we work together to overcome isolation among groups working to protect and conserve land, water, wildlife, biodiversity, urban green spaces, productive farms and forests, and communities?
      --How can we devise means to conserve more natural and rural land resources in corporate ownership (even in "syndicated" partnership ownership)? Can that be done ethically, responsibly, effectively?
      --Is there substantive interest in creating a new regional association of nonprofit groups engaged in land conservation and environmental protection in the southern U.S.--for mutual support and exchange ?
      --Is there a need for a regional approach to promote, assess, recognize, and certify operational standards and practices, and performance excellence for nonprofit environmental resource conservation groups?

        Your thoughts on other topics are welcome as well. Email us to submit a "Viewpoint" essay.

    Archives

    November 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    November 2021
    August 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    November 2019
    September 2019
    March 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    July 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015

    Categories

    All
    Aldo Leopold
    Anthropocene
    Biodiversity
    Book Review
    Clean Water Act
    Climate Change
    Coastal Systems
    Conservation
    Conservation Easements
    Cultural Heritage
    Ecological Catastrophe
    Ecological Restoration
    Education
    Environmentalist
    Extinction
    Extractivism
    Forest Ownership
    Forest Products Industry
    John Muir
    Land And Water Trust Funds
    Land Ethic
    Landowner Recognition
    Land Trusts
    Land Trust Tools
    Natural Resource Protection
    Nature Connection
    Partnerships
    Registry
    Resilience
    Southern Forests
    Tax Incentives
    Water Pollution
    Wildlife Trade
    Zoonotic Pandemic

    RSS Feed

Southern Conservation Partners
​P.O. Box 33222,  Raleigh N.C. 27636-3222
    Phone: 919-500-6598
  • Home
  • What We Do
  • Fiscal Sponsorships
  • Partnerships
  • Resources
  • Defense
  • Viewpoint
  • Contact