Every day the news grows more dystopian – civilians being killed and neighbors getting disappeared, child sexual abuse normalized and dismissed, expanding corporate capture of our institutions, and international diplomacy devolving into imperialist bullying. Every day, my colleagues and I try to reconcile these horrors with the recognition that the ongoing dismantling of environmental conservation still matters, and that our work to protect and restore ecological communities is still important. Our collective work to make things right with the land, with the plants and animals, and with Indigenous people are essential parts of the big picture of the changes we want to see in the world.
And then, you read another story that feels at first like a bad joke and then like a gut punch, which is that several industry lobbyists and former administration officials are teaming up to encourage “fresh thinking” about conservation. The effort, called “Ground Shift,” was announced Tuesday and includes a parade of participants that range from Mark Rey to Lynn Scarlett – architects of forest destruction and gray wolf delisting, respectively – to Brian Yablonski, prominent promoter of a deregulation consortium. These problematic thinkers are joined by former BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning, one of the architects of a mostly disappointing Biden conservation legacy. It’s a cast of characters that doesn’t necessarily inspire optimism for the future of our planet.
