Excerpt
Most of us recognize that conservation is not a practice, a program, a technical standard, or a plan. Neither is conservation another name for a government financial incentive. As Aldo Leopold so eloquently reminded us, conservation is a precarious, never-ending process of seeking harmony between land and people (Leopold 1966). Conservation is a journey.
Unfortunately, the conservation journey today, like so many travels, is restricted to well-worn paths. We choose to pursue the conservation journey on the interstate rather than on the blue highway. Conservation is a topic to be addressed with a “tweet” rather than seeking out the subtle nuances and complexities of the written chronicle. We continually seek a conservation path characterized by convenience, speed, and simplicity—a superficial, quick fix to our conservation challenges resulting in a jaunt rather than a journey.
Our conservation journey is stuck in a rut. We have created uniform and standardized pathways to conservation with technical guides, models, and consistent program requirements. These regimented processes become prerequisites for an ever-increasing diversity of conservation programs supported by progressively more public dollars. We are slow to learn that more dollars do not necessarily translate into more conservation. More funds, however, do mean more accountability, which…
- © 2011 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
