Welcome to the general discussion page of the TRAC blog! This page is open for any topic of discussion.
Tell us what’s on your mind…The new comment box is at the bottom of the page, so scroll down to below these recent comments and tippity-tap away!
Welcome to the general discussion page of the TRAC blog! This page is open for any topic of discussion.
Tell us what’s on your mind…The new comment box is at the bottom of the page, so scroll down to below these recent comments and tippity-tap away!
Wednesday, Feb 18th, 2009 at 14:14
Love the idea of a blog! Best wishes & congratulations on this new venture!
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2009 at 14:32
The Blog is a great idea- I hope it generates a lot of interest for the cause!
Miss seeing everybody at TREAC- I’ll have to make a trip down sometime soon!
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2009 at 14:33
I meant TRAC
Thursday, Feb 19th, 2009 at 14:50
Ron and Wendy, EXCELLENT IDEA!
Our grandfathers were less well-housed, well-fed, well-clothed than we are. The strivings by which they bettered their lot are also those which deprived us of [now-extinct Passenger] Pigeons. Perhaps we now grieve because we are not sure, in our hearts, that we have gained by the exchange. The gadgets of industry bring us more comforts than the pigeons did, but do they add as much to the glory of the spring.
Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land. By land is meant all of the things on, over, or in the earth. Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators; you cannot conserve the waters and waste the ranges; you cannot build the forest and mine the farm. The land is one organism. Its parts, like our own parts, compete with each other and cooperate with each other. The competitions are as much a part of the inner workings as the cooperations. You can regulate them—cautiously—but not abolish them.
The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism. Only those who know the most about it can appreciate how little we know about it. The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: “What good is it?” If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.
Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher “standard of living” is worth its cost in things natural, wild, and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television.
A Sand County Almanac
Aldo Leopold