species
Conservation Redemption
10/08/08 08:09
Although I am an
agnostic in fine standing today, I am certainly
betraying my childhood as a Protestant and a man
bound to the U.S. South when I use the word
redemption — one of the signal ideas in the
European Protestant tradition. This is the prodigal
son, the slaver who was once lost but has now been
found, the sheep who has returned to the flock and
her relieved shepherd. It’s the second chance, with
hope rekindled and fanned into open flame. The
language of redemption drives many of us in
conservation. Most of us seem daily aware that this
point in history is special, pregnant with special
losses and opportunities. Some of us in more
extreme forms see the outlines of Armageddon and
apocalpyse — an end of what we have known and
the press of imminent and ultimate battle
— but that’s not my personal sense of time. I
am more keen to see struggle, even if manichean in
form. That struggle has largely seen defeats for
“our” side. But the victories are notable
too. Read
More...
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NEWS: streaming freshwater adaptation talk
24/06/08 19:50
A symposium from the
Western Division of the American Fisheries Society
focused on climate change and bull trout has been
posted online for live streaming.
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Wetlands in the Air
25/05/08 16:09
A study late last week suggested that
atmospheric methane emissions are way up. This
is disturbing on a number of levels that should
have a lot of people very worried.
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The Romance of Conservation
06/04/08 10:42
A lot of people have
a romantic vision of the life of a conservation
biologist, certainly for those who do fieldwork in
exotic places. Perhaps I still share this vision,
at least occasionally. But one reader of the first
three entries here called and said, Your site is
very depressing. I assume he meant it wasn’t
romantic and charming.
He’s right, of course. Even by the root of the term, “conservation” is about a stopping loss, an attempt to keep from losing too much and about holding on to some notion of what’s “left” in a place -- an attempt to keep a place from passing from threatened to a state of crisis, or from a crisis to something even worse. Read More...
He’s right, of course. Even by the root of the term, “conservation” is about a stopping loss, an attempt to keep from losing too much and about holding on to some notion of what’s “left” in a place -- an attempt to keep a place from passing from threatened to a state of crisis, or from a crisis to something even worse. Read More...
