Estelle Leopold Jr., Baird Callicott, Peter Forbes, John Francis
Recently I attended the Geography of Hope conference in Point Reyes, CA. The focus was the film Green Fire and honoring Aldo Leopold’s life and legacy for the conservation movement. The overall theme was “Conservation as a Moral Issue” and Leopold’s concept of a land ethic. How can we live in balance with the ecological systems we depend on?
According to Peter Forbes, a presenter at the conference, it is all about relationships: relationships between people and relationships between land and people. The relationship we cultivate with the land is dependent on the relationships we cultivate with people. How do our relationships with each other and ourselves affect the land? Our identity comes from the land. To care is simply human, not political, nor environmental.
From Gary Paul Nabhan, another presenter at the conference, his question is: Where are the most urgent needs for healing for land and people in your community? Ecological restoration leads to community restoration, which, in turn, leads to a restorative economy.
Other questions posed at the conference were from Kathleen Dean Moore: What do you love too much to lose? What obligation does that mean for you? And from Huey Johnson, founder of the Trust for Public Land: How do we remain rooted in place and pass the candle on to help people connect to each other and the land?
As Aldo Leopold said: A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of a biotic community.”
According to Peter Forbes, a presenter at the conference, it is all about relationships: relationships between people and relationships between land and people. The relationship we cultivate with the land is dependent on the relationships we cultivate with people. How do our relationships with each other and ourselves affect the land? Our identity comes from the land. To care is simply human, not political, nor environmental.
From Gary Paul Nabhan, another presenter at the conference, his question is: Where are the most urgent needs for healing for land and people in your community? Ecological restoration leads to community restoration, which, in turn, leads to a restorative economy.
Other questions posed at the conference were from Kathleen Dean Moore: What do you love too much to lose? What obligation does that mean for you? And from Huey Johnson, founder of the Trust for Public Land: How do we remain rooted in place and pass the candle on to help people connect to each other and the land?
As Aldo Leopold said: A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of a biotic community.”
How might we continue our conservation work here in Carmel Valley, Monterey County and beyond that responds to these questions? How might we continue to form a land ethic and an Earth ethic that responds to the times we are living in?
Newly leafing-out buckeye in Hidden Hills, Carmel Valley. © P. Berthoin
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