Something clicked in me on Monday when someone asked me if I was still doing anything with my conservation biology background.
Now, this is a big of a source of sadness for me, having spent 9 years in University to become a conservation biologist, and not lasting at it very long. Technically, I have not worked as a conservation biologist since 2005. And then, I realized something. "Yes." I told the person, "Yes, I AM doing something with my background, but I've been focusing on conserving people."
And, now I'm realizing that my obsession with real estate might be anchored in part in my background as a conservation biologist. Because, really, we're animals. And as before I would study protecting forests for birds, and rivers for fish, so too am I interested in protecting spaces for people to live and work.
Aha. I had an "Aha" moment as Oprah would put it.
This entire series of blog posts has been because I worry over the future of people. The other day it occurred to me that maybe I'm creating a new field of science. Maybe this new field should be called "Human Conservation Biology".
My assertion is that to date, the field of Conservation Biology has existed without considering the fact that humans are animals. And this is the limitation of this entire field of study. Somehow, humans have been excluded from the whole study of the environment, even though we are part of it.
So today I tried googling "Human Conservation Biology" and I don't think anyone has yet thought of the need for this study; the study of protecting humans. Perhaps if we approached the conservation of human beings in the same manner that we approached conservation of other wildlife we would be a bit better off, socially and economically.
The best article that I came up with in my search is this one:
"Conservation Where People Live and Work"
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/116299902/Conservation-Where-People-Live
But, if you read it you'll see it doesn't speak of conserving humans, but conservation in general.
Interesting. More interesting are all the quotes by Aldo Leopold, who is really one of the founders of wilderness protection and wildlife management.
He is best known for his book "Sand County Almanac"
Somehow, I've managed to spend the years 1990 - 2005 studying or working in the field of wildlife/conservation biology without having ever read this book. Well now I really want to read it, because just in the few quotes I've read today I think Aldo and I may have been on the same page in our philosophy of where humans fit into the landscape.
Here is my favourite quote:
"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."
Yes. Yes!!! More thinking like this. Where did we all go wrong? Quick, someone hand Prime Minister Stephen Harper a copy of this book!
So as of today that's a new label I've created for myself. Human Conservation Biologist. A conservation biologist whose area of concern includes the conservation of humans. Our drinking water, homes, work places, air, societies, communities, families, surroundings, livestock, pets. The whole works. How about from now on instead of viewing ourselves as somehow being exempt from the landscape, we recognize the fact that we're ALL participants in one giant ecosystem, and that our personal actions and choices affect each other constantly.
Think about that.
I've started looking at my own household and its occupants as an ecosystem. The dog knows I'm a messy eater so she follows me around when I'm feeding, looking for crumbs. I let her lick out pots and pans to cut down on my work load. The cat hunts rodents around our home, sometimes the dog pitches in. We occupy a structure that some other humans built back in the 1920's, a house, which contains our sleeping, feeding and working habitat. The cat is working on figuring out how to use the toilet, the dog isn't quite so advanced... Right now the alpha male of the household is drinking beer and watching hockey night in Canada, a popular past time of many humans in this country.
I'll end this post with Aldo Leopold's essay, the Land Ethic.
http://home2.btconnect.com/tipiglen/landethic.html
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