On November 15th, the Land Trust Alliance brought together leaders in land conservation across New England recognized for their outstanding performance. Twenty-five people from ten land trusts gathered at the Alnoba Lodge (Alnoba comes from an indigenous word for “Change”) for a day of high-level discussion and peer-to-peer learning as part of an ongoing discussion about community conservation.
The concept of community conservation has become an unofficial “theme song” of my internship; some piece of my work could always be traced back to it.
David VanLuven (left) and Collin Adkins (right) discuss community conservation.
For those who aren’t familiar with the concept or haven’t read my previous blog post, community conservation is an approach to land conservation that represents the diversity of peoples and their needs in communities across the world. It is NOT a call for an anthro-centric (human-centric), utility-based approach to conservation, but rather asks the question, “who is not being served by conserved land and how do we make it accessible?” While we all benefit from conserved land in the clean air and water it collectively provides, those benefits are not always equitably shared or even perceived in each community.
So There I Was…
On that November day whose cold and rainy weather was emblematic of my post-election season mood, I was preparing to share my perspective on community conservation with a group of land trust board members. After a deep immersion into the subject throughout my time with the Alliance, I felt I was prepared to artfully interject into the breakout discussion with just a touch of insight that would spur conversation to an enlightening crescendo. That didn’t happen.
Instead, we mostly argued semantics over the questions we were meant to answer. Just as I was about to give into frustration, an interesting thing happened. From our deadlocked, chicken-or-the-egg conversation about conserving land for the biodiversity it held or the people who would ultimately steward it, I was transported back to my first year at the Bard Center for Environmental Policy. I was working on a literature review of a deeply theoretical body of work around Socio-Ecological Systems (SES). In a nutshell, an SES is community of individual people, governing systems, ecosystems, and species that interact and create outcomes.
That’s when it occurred to me that my message to this group of land trust board members was all wrong. Land, biodiversity, and people do not stack up in a hierarchy as I had been trying to argue, but rather in concentric rings around a center, where each is supported by the layers inside.
I wager I might already know what you’re thinking. But Collin, couldn’t futuristic, space-dwelling humans be supported by a few of our favorite domesticated plants and animals? At a bare minimum to survive, yes. But this begs a much deeper question: is our quality of life determined by having what we need to survive or by the richness of the world around us? This question strikes at the heart of what renowned biologist and author E.O. Wilson meant when he said:
The human hammer having fallen, the sixth mass extinction has begun. This spasm of permanent loss is expected, if it is not abated, to reach the end-of-Mesozoic level by the end of the century. We will then enter what poets and scientists alike may choose to call the Eremozoic Era — The Age of Loneliness.
~ E.O.Wilson, “The Creation: An appeal to save life on Earth”, 2006.
It’s a very bleak and disheartening realization that we–the human species–may be so willing to continue on our present course of consumption, sacrificing so much of what makes life on this Earth so rich. But it’s also a position I think we can still work to come back from.
My Hope for the Future
Land that is protected, rich in biodiversity, and accessible to people from all walks of life is a powerful thing. To date, 56 million acres have been protected in the United States by state, local, and national land trusts, and over 6.25 million people visited that land in 2015 alone. The entirety of this conserved land offers the broader public much more than recreation.
- The Nature Conservancy estimates that halting deforestation, conserving land, and restoring ecosystems can achieve more than 30% of the targets set by the 2015 Paris Climate pact.
- Privately conserved land like that of land trusts creates legal protection for endangered species and biodiversity hotspots.
- Added time spent in nature has been shown to increase our well-being and kindness.
- Nature has a transformative ability on a person that connects us to our world and our communities. All over the land conservation world are stories of transformation, triumph and joy brought about by a connection with the land.
These facts illustrate a truth that humanity has long known and has recently come close to forgetting. In a sense, “Socio-Ecological Systems” and “Community Conservation” are just fancier terms for what Aldo Leopold dubbed a Land Ethic. It the belief that the living biosphere of the Earth is a community to which you and I and the other 9 billion people on this planet belong. And as Leopold himself said, when we begin to see ourselves as part of that community, we may begin to use it with love and respect.
All around us America is deeply polarized, cast onto one side or the other. How we treat the land cannot and should not be a polarizing issue. It is something we all depend on and is part of the solution to regaining common ground (pun intended). Land trusts know this. In fact, the IRS requires land trusts to remain non-partisan by law. As a result, land trusts have been enormously successful across the political spectrum.
Listen
Even in states in which environmental causes have been caught in a political crossfire, there is something to be learned from hearing (not just staring while they talk) what your ideological opponents have to say.
Collin Adkins, Cynthia Henshaw (East Quabbin Land Trust), and John Baker (Clark University) sit on a panel discussing land conservation and youth engagement.
As our director here at Bard CEP, Eban Goodstein, often reminds us (as he did in a recent blog post): sustainability just makes sense. There are lessons to be learned from Right-leaning, oil producing states like Texas, the nation’s biggest producer of wind energy. Sustainability just makes sense. Perhaps surprisingly (or not), 75 percent of Trump voters support accelerating the adoption of renewable energy. Sustainability just makes sense!
I would like to share something I’ve learned with you. I’ll let you in on the biggest lesson to come out of my internship. Don’t blink or you might miss it. Ready?
Listen.
Listen to your neighbors, your coworkers, your friends, that relative of yours who gets a little too political around the holidays, the radio talk show host you were about to pass by, and especially listen to that person who you just can’t ever see eye-to-eye with. You may realize that your views, which we so liberally assign to party lines, are really not so different. And when it comes to our land, we cannot and should not allow it to become a partisan issue. It matters to all of us. Then after you’ve really listened to what others think, talk to them about climate change. Tell them why that’s important to you. Oh, and it might just keep you sane as well.
For more about the Land Trust Alliance and community conservation you can watch the following inspiring videos from Rally 2016 on YouTube.
wow eye opening!
Thank you for your comment! I’m glad you found it enlightening. I’m happy to point you to some extra reading if you’d like to explore any of the ideas a little deeper.
Colin –
Very interesting post. It sounds like you’ve had some worthwhile epiphanies at the Land Trust Alliance. I particularly like this insight “That’s when it occurred to me that my message to this group of land trust board members was all wrong. Land, biodiversity, and people do not stack up in a hierarchy as I had been trying to argue, but rather in concentric rings around a center, where each is supported by the layers inside.”
Land conservation must be a frustrating field: on the one hand, we need to grow, knowing causing more environmental destruction. On the other, we need to preserve land, knowing that we can never preserve enough acreage or biodiversity hotspots. Until we learn to build in ways that restore the land, I think we’re probably doomed, with land trusts fighting a noble rearguard action.
I’m curious, though, about the limits to your call to hear each other. You’re absolutely right, of course, and that skill is seldom taught and little used. Cultivating in each other the ability to listen is key – especially for resolving land use disputes. This can also lead to another problem – the decision when to pull the trigger and take action. I’m wondering if you’ve had any thoughts on how to calibrate the need to hear each other with the need to move forward. There must be an art in that, too.
Jason-
Thanks for your thoughtful and articulate observations about my blog post. Land conservation can at times be a frustrating field, but perhaps not for the reason you mentioned. Preserving “enough” acreage depends on who you ask or what goal you intend to achieve through conservation. If the goal is to leave enough intact ecosystems to support historic levels of biodiversity and a booming human population then perhaps a conservationist with such a goal is destined to frustration. On the other hand if the goal is to protect enough land so that as many species as possible can survive through an uncertain future, or so that as many humans as possible can make connections with the natural world so that they might care to steward it then perhaps frustration can be avoided. In the short term land trusts (especially in the East) do play an important role protecting private land necessary for ecosystem services to continue.
You are also absolutely right that there are limits to what hearing each other out can accomplish. At best, it is still a start, at worst a dead end where no two sides could ever agree. But I believe that it is imperative that that is still where we must start and sometimes, perhaps more so today, we return in order to find common ground. From that common ground we can overcome inaction. I am afraid I have little advice to offer about when is the opportune moment to move forward or move back, for as you say, there is certainly an art in that that I am still discovering.
Thank you for always making me think deeper and keeping the conversation going!
~C
GREAT JOB COLLIN!
Thank you, Kevin! I look forward to chatting with you more about YOUR internship this Spring!
Thank you for sharing this. I think “community conservation” has been what I have been calling “outreach” in what I had been doing for the ATC. I believe that trying to get people to care for a place is so crucial and trying to make the connections is key. Often times the quest is about getting new membership and new people to care about a place- and this is always the challenge. My struggle has always been to get people that already live in a place with a unique asset to realize and steward the asset. The small pieces all connect to a larger picture. I will have to listen to links you shared. Keep up the good work!
Thank you for your comment, Silvia! It’s wonderful to hear from you! Outreach is certainly a big part of “community conservation.” As you no doubt know, outreach is the vital communicating and listening portion of what creates community conservation. CC can also extend beyond just outreach into almost every action that takes place in land conservation; land acquisitions for example (who might this piece of land serve? or more importantly whom might not be served by this piece of land?). I suspect that therein may lay a path towards addressing your struggle with locals identifying with special places: what might those who are not connecting with reaching for in their lives? Can those special places serve them to meet their needs? Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has been a very helpful tool for me to begin asking myself why certain parts of the population do not respond the same to land conservation. Once that need has been met, the special connection has been made and desire to steward that asset can follow. Likewise, keep up the great work at the ATC! I’d be happy to share some more CC resources if you are interested.
Hi Collin,
It’s really nice to see your work on SES having some real-world impacts! Working with similar material for my lit review has also had a holistic impact on the way I think about policy, community, and the environment.
It dovetails nicely with your takeaway of listening. Especially studying SES modeling, people are going to follow their self interest, but also adapt to the behavior of those they respect and interact with. Especially in our privileged positions as white men, I feel like we have a responsibility to have those conversations with people of opposing views who might listen to us more readily, as well as avoiding undue emotional labor for those who don’t get to choose when to have tough interactions.
Do you feel that you’ve been able to make progress in outreach to those communities that may not typically receive or perceive the benefits of land trusts? Has these shifts in perspective been helpful towards those ends?
Thanks,
Joe
Hi Joe!
My internship did not include a lot of direct outreach to communities under-represented in land conservation so I wouldn’t say I’ve personally made much progress, but rather created the framework for future interactions throughout my career. That being said, I’ve seen many great examples across the country of land trusts that have been successful at making their conservation work accessible and relevant to a broader cross-section of the public.
In addition to the links at the bottom of my blog post, I’d suggest looking at some resources and success stories that the Land Trust Alliance has put on their website: http://www.landtrustalliance.org/news/more-conservation-more-people
I look forward to talking about your literature review soon!
~Collin