I grew up in a culture of science. My roots lay in rural Oregon with a biologist and geologist for parents and a curiosity for the natural world at my core. However, through college and my professional career, I have learned the importance of melding this ecological understanding of conservation with another vital aspect of preserving nature: the historical, economic and cultural knowledge of a land and its people.
My goal for graduate school is to study this intersection of ecology and culture at the heart of conservation and land rights issues, with a particular focus on the involvement of local resource users and indigenous communities. My visit to the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies’ Masters in Environment Management (MEM) program introduced me to a faculty, student body and program with a commitment to the fundamental belief that conservation and human culture cannot occur in separate silos.
As an undergraduate I conducted research analogous to that of many of your students, under the supervision of Drs. Daniel Boxberger and Grace Wang. For my senior honors t...
The Conservation movement was a driving force at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was a time during which Americans were coming to terms with their wasteful ways, and learning to conserve what they quickly realized to be limited resources. In the article from the Ladies’ Home Journal, the author points out that in times past, Americans took advantage of what they thought of as inexhaustible resources. For example, "if they wanted lumber for their houses, rails for their fences, fuel for their stoves, they would cut down half a forest at a time; and whatever they could not use or sell they would leave to rot on the ground. They never bothered their heads to inquire where more wood was coming from when this was gone" (33). The twentieth century opened with a vision towards the future, towards preserving the land that had previously been taken for granted. The Conservation movement came along around the same time as one of the first major waves of the feminist movement. With the two struggles going on: one for the freedom of nature and the other for the freedom of women, it stands to follow that they coincided. As homemakers, activists, and citizens of the United States of America, women have had an important role in Conservation.
These Indigenous people realized that the only way to heal the poverty, dysfunction, addiction, and violence that has plagued them since the ‘assimilation’ efforts was to turn back to their traditional spiritual practices and teach them to the young people (Robbins). Often, the return to Native traditions has meant taking on environmental concerns, opposing development activities, and becoming politically active to protect the nature that is so closely tied to indigenous spiritual practices. This is what makes indigenous spirituality different and hard to define and protect, it is closely tied to the land and environment, which is very different from religion (Fisher). The United Nations defines the situation perfectly in “The State of the World’s Indigenous People: Chapter 2”: “…spirituality defines the relationships of indigenous peoples with their environment as custodians of the land; it helps construct social relationships, gives meaning, purpose and hope to life.” (Kipuri,
The environmentalist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries presents a picture of America at the time: torn between the desires to expand while seeking to protect nature. Although all members of the movement sought to protect nature, there were two predominant schools as to how to go about this. In their two philosophies, they created two methods for human interaction with the wilderness. The conservationist movement can be called the utilitarian movement, and sought the greatest good for the greatest number over the longest term. In contrast, the preservationist school aimed at keeping nature in its current state, although the individual members had differing reasons why. From these two conflicting views, the American public land system developed into its current state, in which it pursues a two headed program that preserves and conserves.
There are a lot of reasons why I chose to pursue pharmacy as my career and they all point to the most important reason: pharmacy is a great fit for my life and is something I have become increasingly passionate about. It started when I was researching careers with my parents and my dad suggested pharmacy and, simply put, it sparked my interest because at the time it was one of the few things I thought I would not hate doing. A healthcare career has always been where I put myself in the future, mainly because most of my family members are in the healthcare field. However, I have never been one that could directly help the wounded or deal with anything gory, but am very intrigued by the growing science of pharmacy. As I continue exploring pharmacy, the more I enjoy learning about it and feel like I could excel in this career.
Soaked under sweat, I stood on the running machine, took a deep breath, and counted in my mind, one…two… three, GO! With renewed power and confidence, I started to run again with satisfaction. This moment happened every day in last summer at a gym and I lost 62pounds. Had persisted for five months, I am so proud of myself that I am able to achieve the goal of losing weight and established high self-discipline. In addition, I have gained great appreciation for the challenges. However, I also have grown up from this, on the other hand, frustrated experience. Not because the process of losing weight was painful, but because my by-product of the weight loss journey, my online team.
Over the years, past resources have quickly dwindling. Since then conservation has broadened beyond the use of natural resources, and has become a movement. Many critics of conservation believed it would stifle industrial development, however, the conservation movement has increased development over the years because it forced the need to find an alternative source of power. One of the main concepts of conservation is that it should be used to benefit the many not for the profit of the few, like big business that destroy large areas of wilderness without care for what they are destroying. Preserving wilderness areas will help with the conservation of America’s resources that are quickly dwindling. The resources we had years ago is much less due to the supply and demand of society today. Preserving certain areas will allow us to...
Whoosh!A bed whizzed by, surrounded by about 6 medical personnel. “What’s going on?” I thought immediately with apprehension. I knew whatever was happening it was not ideal. Ensuring I was not in the way, I stood on my toes to see what demanded so much attention. To my astonishment, I saw a coin sized hot-pink little girl. She could not have been bigger than two quarters lying side by side.She was struggling! Even with all the procedures the doctors were executing to save her life, she was performing the most work.
Ed. Kathleen Daniel et al. Austin, TX: Holt, 2003. 282-86. The. Print.
Since the rise of the American environmental romanticism the idea of preservation and conservation have been seen as competing ideologies. Literary scholars such as Thoreau and Muir have all spoke to the defense of our natural lands in a pristine, untouched form. These pro-preservation thinkers believed in the protecting of American lands to not only ensure that future generations will get to experiences these lands, but to protect the heavily rooted early American nationalism in our natural expanses. Muir was one of the most outspoken supports of the preservation ideology, yet his stylistic writing style and rhetoric resulted in conservation being an adopted practice in the early 20th century
From the lone hiker on the Appalachian Trail to the environmental lobby groups in Washington D.C., nature evokes strong feelings in each and every one of us. We often struggle with and are ultimately shaped by our relationship with nature. The relationship we forge with nature reflects our fundamental beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. The works of timeless authors, including Henry David Thoreau and Annie Dillard, are centered around their relationship to nature.
My perseverance has prepared me for a career in medicine. The path towards becoming a physician can be long and challenging, necessitating the ability to endure. My ability to bounce back from setbacks and mistakes has solidified throughout my journey. One of the cornerstone experiences of my personal development occurred during high school. My determination led to me my graduating as valedictorian of my class, while balancing three varsity sports and several extracurricular activities. In addition, I worked on weekends to help support my family financially. This persistence resulted in scholarship awards that made higher education a possibility.
I hope that over the course of my analysis, I have shown that in the case of environmental activism in the Pacific Northwest, that could not be further from the truth. The process of choosing what expertise a group wants to be able to transport and the infrastructure that is required to create that expertise in the first place limits how it can travel, specifically, that it cannot be transported outside of these thematically cohesive spheres without significant compromises and discomfort, or in the case of Riverkeeper—whose natural expertise is founded on and therefore constrained by the Columbia—who were forced to destroy the traditional delineation between expert and lay person. For the Oregon Environmental Council, these sacrifices are too significant a burden to bear, and they instead are focusing on work within the framework of their expertise. This not to reprimand the OEC for how they stay within their sphere of expertise, or to commend Riverkeeper for their efforts to work outside of it, but to illuminate the complexities inherent in the creation of frontiers, expertise, abstraction, and environmental
Please discuss the following items in the order given. Briefly respond to all areas listed.
In the essay “Children in the Woods”, Barry Lopez discusses how he encourages children to take an interest in wildlife and nature conservation. His methods include taking children on walking tours through forests while prompting them to make observations. Lopez places special emphasis on the abundance of knowledge that can be gained through observation. Lopez emboldens children to use their imaginations while discovering nature instead of relying on the author’s “encyclopedic knowledge” (Lopez 735). The author also focuses on how many components of nature work together as a whole. In “Why I Hunt”, Rick Bass writes about his passion for hunting. Bass describes how hunting, besides a means of sustenance, is an exercise in imagination. Bass observes how society has become preoccupied with instant gratification and has lost its sense of imagination, “confusing anticipation with imagination” (Bass 745). Both essays share common ideas, such as how an active imagination is vital to the human experience, the totality of connection in the natural world, and the authors’ strong spiritual connections to their environments. In contrast, the main focus of Lopez’s essay is conservation education in children, while Bass’s essay discusses how society has become disassociated from nature in a modernized society.
When I think of the perfect place, I imagine a cascading waterfall, a vast forest, a stunning mountainside, or a warm sunset on the beach. I look up around me, mesmerized by the vastness of the natural world and breathe in the fresh air. Over the course of my life, I have come to respect the environment and the earth’s natural surroundings in ways that most others do not in the industrialized and technological era of today. I can appreciate the beauty of the Earth and of all the different landscapes and organisms that surround me. The way in which I value and treasure the environment has evolved just as I have. I see the environment as something to be preserved and admired, not destroyed or exploited. My relationship with the environment is