Conservation and Community: Beyond the Public-Private Binary in the History of Land Conservation
Nov. 15, 2022
2-3 pm ET on Zoom
Join us on Nov. 15 for the 2022 Lynn W. Day Lectureship in Forest and Conservation History. This year’s presenter is conservation biologist, environmental historian, and writer Curt Meine. This talk has been approved for 1.0 hours of CFE credit from the Society of American Foresters.
For more than a century, conservationists have pursued their goals through various mechanisms that recognized shared interests in the land and ecological relationships that worked across legal and jurisdictional boundaries. While they have fitfully come to understand that a wider variety of people, uses, and perspectives must be considered, progress has been constrained by a mindset that reinforces a simple division of interests: private and public. Moving from this simple binary framing to a more flexible and nuanced view may allow conservationists to embrace a wider array of community-based approaches to conserving the public interest in private land. It may also allow historians to find new insights in the evolution of conservation science, policy, and ideas. Conservation biologist and environmental historian Curt Meine will discuss this reframing and the many new opportunities it presents.
Curt serves as Senior Fellow with the Aldo Leopold Foundation and the Center for Humans and Nature. He has authored and edited several books, including the biography Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work (1988/2010) and The Driftless Reader (2017).