Since late January, a good deal of federal conservation funding has been frozen, released, cut, repurposed, or simply vanished. Slowly, some conservation organizations are recognizing common cause and beginning to band together. Broader legal actions are coalescing in places. Here and there, groups and funders are meeting to begin to develop ideas for novel approaches in areas from which the federal government is being removed.
Nature conservation works. So says a landmark study recently published in >Science. This is powerful news, and it should be a heartening boost for everyone who has committed their work and funding to nature, as well as anyone considering whether to do so.
At some point one becomes keenly aware of time and capacity. In turning back, I see much to be satisfied with. Choices, what I have done with my capacities, such as they are. And also things I might be, but no longer will.
When I saw the State of the Chesapeake Bay 2022 Report in my inbox I thought of my father, an avid Bay sailor, and an image came to mind from sometime in the mid-1970s of him smoothing a Save the Bay bumper sticker on the car. But as I read on, this pleasant feeling did not linger… For 2002, the state of the Bay was rated D+.
I often find myself working with people and organizations in moments of transition. I have read academic examinations of the subject, but recently I picked up William Bridges’s more popular-style Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes.… Bridges’s conception of transition is simple. All transitions have three phases: an ending, a neutral zone, and a new beginning. This start-with-an-ending idea quickly made sense.