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

Viewpoint

Time to Declare War on the Greatest Threats to Our Natural and Human Environment

8/24/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
From 350.org/David Gilbert
As much progress as we have made to safeguard our natural heritage and defend our environmental resources, our present situation seems grim and the future is uncertain, particularly with the twin perils facing us in the domestic political arena and the dramatic consequences of world climate change. I am reminded of the fact that, despite our many gains, our situation is not all that different from what U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt observed more than 75 years ago when he dedicated the new Great Smoky Mountains National Park in an address at Newfound Gap, on the North Carolina – Tennessee border, on September 2, 1940:
We used up or destroyed much of our natural heritage just because that heritage was so bountiful. . . . We slashed our forests, we used our soils, we encouraged floods . . . all of this so greatly that we were brought rather suddenly to face the fact that unless we gave thought to the lives of our children and grandchildren, they would no longer be able to live and to improve upon our American way of life.
In 1940 President Roosevelt and the country were preparing for entry into World War II. Even while preparing for war, FDR’s favorite slogan was, “Conservation is a basis for permanent peace.” He was fundamentally concerned for America’s environmental “infrastructure” and future security and well-being.
     Now worldwide climate change--largely human caused--is threatening us. Elsewhere on our ConservationSouth website, you will find links to numerous resources that may help in the effort to respond and adapt to climate change. For further inspiration, we direct you to Bill McKibben's August 2016 article in the New Republic, “A World at War.” McKibben, Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College and co-founder of the climate group 350.org, has issued an important call to arms. 
                                                                                                               --Chuck Roe, SCP President
0 Comments

From STEM and STEAM to ECO-STEAM: Why the Whole is Important

8/5/2016

0 Comments

 
PicturePhoto by Laura Cotterman
Years ago, during my interview for an adjunct professorship at the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, I argued successfully the need for the college to hire me as an ecologist to work with the institution’s distinguished arts educators and students.
      They needed me, I asserted, to help provide a critical thinking approach to the natural world too often portrayed naively in the visual and performing arts. I am happy to report that, for years afterward, I taught a popular course at the school focused on biodiversity as our global treasure.  


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