I thought a lot today about how I relate to conservation in the USA versus abroad. Conservation abroad seems so exotic to most people in my field, but in my exposure to it (including this summer) I have seen it is very similar to conservation in the United States. I don't mean that efforts aren't changed to fit the relevant context; I mean that, once you strip away this idea of the exotic and foreign, then it is equally as interesting and of vital importance as conservation anywhere. We shouldn't fetishize foreign conservation because 1) that's just another way of fetishizing foreign cultures and 2) that makes conservation in the USA seem less exciting and important. Conservation anywhere helps conservation everywhere. To be cliched: it's all one Earth and we're all working together.
1 Comment
Robin
5/26/2017 10:06:20 am
That makes a lot of sense. I realize that I do somehow hold in higher esteem conservation in Africa or Asia or South America. But, it is true that it is equally important any where on earth.
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Ben JohnsonI am a junior at Rice University majoring in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and minoring in Environmental Studies Archives
June 2017
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