Thinking about a future conservation agenda

Excerpt

We do indeed stand on the shoulders of conservation giants. Whether that is H.H. Bennett, Rachel Carlson, or Aldo Leopold among others, they have shaped our conservation agenda. Yet, I am sure these conservation pioneers would agree that we should not worship them, but try to emulate their conservation contributions in our own way at a scale commensurate with our positions. Acting like a conservationist should trump honoring a conservationist. Simply following in their footsteps down the same path does little for conservation as the challenges of today are very different than the challenges of yesteryear.

We live in a world where science and technology has advanced such that the source, cause, and potential remedy to degradation from agriculture can be specified with a high a degree of precision across spatial and temporal scales. However, while the agency names and program acronyms have changed across time, the fundamental premises behind our conservation policy have remained static—we still believe the farmer needs to be educated, assisted, and compensated for engaging in conservation. At a time in our history when the majority of farmers did not have an eighth grade education, as was the case in the 1930s, these premises may have…