Conservation

  • Reading Recommendation

    Jonathan Ratner

    For those of us who still read, we got a suggestion from a reader, triggered by the comments of Ken Brower regarding the paradigm shift from bio-centric to anthropocentric in US conservation over the last 40 years. When change is not cataclysmic but takes place over a number of years, humans tend to lose track…

  • Don’t Mourn.  Organize!

    Mike Garrity

    A phrase attributed to labor organizer Joe Hill is fitting for this moment: “Don’t Mourn.  Organize.” Or in the words of writer Ed Abbey,: “Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.” During the last Trump Administration our small, gritty organization, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, sued the Trump Administration 18 times to…

  • The Meaning of Virginia Park

    Chris Zinda

    NOTE: Written in 2018, I offer this as a response to a TWN reader curious about “fortress preservation”. Once a year the NPS offers a guided tour so you, too, can experience a preserved piece of public lands [w/o citation & monetary fine].) In the 1990s I worked at Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park. I…

  • George Wuerthner and Jonathan Ratner on the Rewilding Earth Podcast

    Jonathan Ratner

    Episode 123: Who Pays for Conservation, Being the Lorax, and Introducing A New Voice For Western Lands Conservation Join George Wuerthner and Jonathan Ratner in conversation with Jack Humphrey of The Rewilding Institute for a discussion about the direction of conservation in the United States, the shift of American conservation from its roots in biocentrism…

  • Mythologizing the Practice of Burning by Native Americans

    George Wuerthner

    Did Native American use of fire make it so that wild country never really existed? When reporting about wildfire, current stories in the media often claim that in prehistory, fire was deliberately set by tribal groups so often that big or severe wildfires hardly existed. So, if that practice is restored today, it will be…

  • Historical Lessons of Successful Conservation Movements

    George Wuerthner

      We do not want those whose first impulse is to compromise. We want no straddlers, for, in the past, they have surrendered too much good wilderness and primeval areas which should never have been lost. – Bob Marshall on the founding of the Wilderness Society   There is an unfortunate tendency on the part…

  • Response to Inclusive Conservation of Tallis and Lubchenco

    George Wuerthner

    Heather Tallis and Jane Lubchenco published a commentary  titled “A Call for Inclusive Conservation” in the November 2014 issue of Nature.  The essay sought to broker a truce or compromise between two philosophical positions in the conservation movement today that can be characterized as “new conservation” which promotes human utility as the primary goal of…

  • Book Review of “Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World” by Emma Marris

    George Wuerthner

    Emma Marris, the author of Rambunctious Garden (RG), loves the nature hiding in back street alleys and along the highway median strip. Marris believes it’s time to abandon (or de-emphasize) what she sees as outdated and naïve conservation strategies such as creation of national parks and wilderness reserves.  She feels the biggest obstacles to a…

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‎”At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour.”

Edward Abbey

“The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans.”

Jim Fowler

“Our forests offer much more than just beautiful landscapes and wildlife. Each one has a different story to tell.”

Raveena Tandon

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