It’s crazy to think that today marks our 51st Earth Day! Well, what’s crazy about that is that before 1970, there was no Earth Day and no Environmental Protection Agency. People and businesses had 0 regulations – they could destroy land without any repercussions. To clarify, those particular people were not paying the repercussions, but their descendants are paying for that damage today.
Luckily, we are beginning to understand our duty to the land, as it isn’t something individuals actually “own.” Rather, we get our brief time to occupy it before it falls into the hands of the next generation. Thankfully, the government has organizations like the EPA and DEQ in place. We have non-profits like the Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy doing great work for the outdoors. Over 84,000 acres of Virginia lands wouldn’t have been put into conservation easements in the past 10 years alone (& much more if you date back to our start in 2002) with the help of Conservation Partners if it weren’t for the increasing understanding that environmental stewardship is critical to the survival of all species, including humans.
Today, we all join together to celebrate the Earth. We realize our humanity when we understand that we all depend on this beautiful planet for our existence. At the same time, we understand that the planet that supports all of us as we know it is fragile– it needs our help. We have to take actions towards conservation.
To capture the essence of beauty and fragility that we celebrate today and that Conservation Partners strives to protect, I will leave you with the words of a much better writer than I…
Thinking Like a Mountain
Aldo Leopold
