In The End We Will Conserve Only What We Love

Says it all - "In the end we will conserve only what we love. We love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught."

His other blog is at http://lifeatdrtoms.blogspot.com/ and is well worth a read.

From www.lifeatdrtoms.com

DrTom's Field Biology (An "Old and in the Way" project)

For inspiration, I could cite dozens of insightful, even moving, passages from the great Aldo Leopold.  In fact, my graduate advisor at the University of Arizona, Lyle Sowls, was one of Leopold's last grad students; I have, therefore, a sort of academic lineage with the man.  But my favorite quotation on conservation is by Baba Dioum, the Senegalese environmentalist:

"In the end we will conserve only what we love. We love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught."

I believe this statement is as true today as it was when Dioum first uttered these words in a speech over 40 years ago.  His message has guided my teaching of natural history for most of my adult life. Read more at www.lifeatdrtoms.com