newsroom

TODAY Tuesday 6 January 1998 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site.

 

TODAY IN THE WORLD: Proactive, Shmoactive

There is no way that the environmental movement, in this country or anywhere else, is going to be able to set aside enough land to preserve species diversity as we know it today. There's not enough money to save all threatened habitats. Even if there were, forces external to the habitats (air pollution, climate changes, etc.) could extinguish species inside them with lethal ease.

Human activities, which is to say economic activities, therefore must be modified so that their consequences work less damage on the environment. Those modifications have and will come from many forces, often interacting with each other: public education, government regulation, and technological innovation, for example. To speed those modifications, environmentalists seek changes in public policies. This is called activism. Those who pursue it most insistently are called "proactive." In boxing terms, any fighter qualifies as an activist, but no counter-puncher makes it as proactive.

Among the most activist of greens, there's been a tendency to belittle old-fashioned conservation. I could use a dollar for every meeting I've attended where at least one of the participants announced that "fencing off" nature was not the answer.

Well, saving habitat is not the answer but it's an answer. It's not sufficient but it's necessary. It has little to do with sustainable economies, but it's great for hiking, morale building, and that extra ineffable lift that comes from exempting a part of the universe from cost-benefit analysis.

1997 was a good year for conservation, and the last weeks of 1997 -- a mad dash for tax write-offs -- were especially good. That most old-line of organizations, The Nature Conservancy, rang up some wonderful successes by showing deft flexibility in working with local groups. According to the Environmental News Network, the Conservancy and the Vermont Land Trust saved 23 parcels totaling 41 square miles of Green Mountain forests. In Georgia, TNC helped save the habitat of the endangered Green Pitcher plant (a scary little carnivore); in North Carolina, it set aside a large chunk on the flanks of Mount Mitchell, the highest peak of the mid-Appalachians; and in Missouri, it acquired enough new land to swell the tallgrass prairie reserve to 2,300 contiguous acres.

In New York/New Jersey, 1997 was the year when the decades-long efforts of two local groups -- the Open Space Institute and the New York branch of the Trust for Public Land -- were finally crowned with success. The beautiful Sterling Forest, which straddles both states, was saved through a combination of federal and state appropriations, private donations, and a dramatic $5 million contribution from the infant Doris Duke Foundation.

You can read about these and other conservationist success stories -- bond initiatives for new parks, farm preservation funds, win/win deals with ranchers -- from the Conservation Fund , publishers of the valuable Common Ground newsletter. They lie at the heart of the matter.

 

TODAY ON THE SITE

It is never too late to subscribe to The Grove, Lib Tree's free electronic newsletter. Note, please, that the incomparable Donella Meadows is available exclusively on (in?) The Grove; her "Community Conversations" are some of the best things to be found anywhere on the Web. In the latest issue, Donella tackles the curved relationships between human contentment and square footage of dwellings.

 

Recent "Today" columns:

1/5: Mediocre Landscapes and Hope for the Planet
1/2: The Greatest Environmental Cause of the Year
12/31: The Top Twelve Environment Stories of 1997
12/30: Bad Eating and Not Eating
12/29: Owning the Public Health Issue
12/23: Good Year for Vintage Climate
12/22: Save the Reefs
12/19: Mousemobile
12/18: Year of Fire
12/17: Ramblin' Man (Ramblin' Woman)
12/16: Big News on the Margins
12/15: The Hybrid As Savior
12/12: Good Week for the Dragon
12/11: Help Wanted: Unreasonable Extremists
12/10: Oh Boy! A Fight!
12/9: Running Away From It All
12/8: "What I Wouldn't Give for This War to End."
12/5: Feisty Euros at Kyoto
12/4: Beauty in the Bronx
12/3: God from Machine
12/2: Gentlemen's Bet
12/1: Public Opinion
11/26: Sperm
11/25: Sound Sound-Bite Science
11/24: Home Sweet Storage Locker
11/21: Tim Wirth's Inscrutable Adventure
11/20: Better to Receive than to Give
11/19: Wes Jackson's Problem with Agriculture
11/18: "Stay Home and Be Decent"

To access more "Today" columns, click "Archives" below.