Growing up on a farm in rural Connecticut, the natural world was my playground. And what a playground it was, and still is, for one interested in frogs and beetles, birds and snakes.
Little did I know that planners were considering damming the river for future water supplies and recreation, and to provide jobs for builders and boatsmen, by turning our remarkable valley into a lake.
The farm my father inherited is in a valley where I now live. The land straddles the Eightmile River. The river, and in fact the whole watershed, is now designated as a Wild and Scenic River, worthy of federal protection. How it got protected is part of this story, for another day.
I left the valley for an extensive "education" which taught me remarkably well about basic science, literature, the history of man, and the arts. But in retrospect, it failed to educate me in an area which may most important of all for future human survival.
I got no lessons at all in ecology, in natural history, in the study of how mankind relates to the environment that sustains our communities. But I learned how to learn, and I have been an enthusiastic student. Fortunately, there have been wonderful teachers and writers and mentors I have learned from along the way. Hopefully, I can tell you about them as well one day. They are worth knowing about.
As time passed, however, it has become clear that the wonders of nature I have hungered to learn about are increasingly at risk. The incredible natural playground I grew up in was threatened by plans for a dam. Neighboring towns sprouted subdivisions where there once were hundreds of farms. Pressures from population growth but also from consumptive lifestyles are putting unsustainable pressure on what is a limited and fragile planet that seems to shrink by the day.
So my life has become devoted to trying to restore and protect the delicate equilibrium of nature that mankind is tipping out of balance. Spectacular and fascinating life forms are becoming extinct before we even know them. Where we are responsible for this disruption, worldwide we (mankind) have an obligation to ourselves and our fellow creatures to restore and protect this fragile planet called earth.
It has been said that "the art of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts." And the best way to save the parts is to conserve land, watersheds and oceans. We can do conservation by fiat if we had the will and the power (we don't in this nation, and don't want to in a democracy). We can do conservation by regulation if we have sufficient police to enforce the rules (we can't, or won't, afford them). Or we can seek ownership of the land and/or development rights and provide stewardship.
Ownership is something our society respects highly. Stewardship issomething society needs to learn mdore about. This approach, seeking appropriate ownership and applying stewardship, has been my avocation for 50 years. In that time I have worked on projects where lands or land-protection agreements have been acquired for conservation by the federal government, the states, local communities and private non-profit organizations such as land trusts. There are lessons to be learned at each level.
Each deal requires skills similar to those I used when I played Monopoly as a boy. But in this new game, the winner has the fewest houses and hotels, the most undeveloped land, the most biodiversity. Thus I have been playing what I like to call Unmonopoly. Success at this game takes the same strategies, and makes everyone a winner.
I was good at the conventional board game, Monopoly, in my youth - a winner most of the time I played. The game I play now is much more serious, but it uses all of the same skills. And it has also been more fun, because really there are no losers. Biodiversity is the winner, and all humanity is in the game, directly or indirectly.
Each acre saved is an important one for the thousands of critters living there. Thanks to those who have been playing this game, thousands of acres have been protected just in our watershed. Internationally, conservation partners have saved millions more.
And the rewards are gratifying. Every time I hear a spring peeper, or birdsong or the call of a coyote in our valley, I feel it is saying "thank you" for protecting this land.
The deed on file at Town Hall says my father's farm will have no development on it "in perpetuity." How long is that? We won't know until it is over. But land protection agreements in the US have stood up for hundreds of years. And that is good enough for me to have worked to get the family to sign over these rights.
There is much work to be done. The game never really ends, since there will continue to be risks to the environmental and economically sustainability of our community, region, nation. Many more citizens with talent are needed to pursue the game after we are gone, to seek the security of a world where human communities on earth are in harmony with nature.
I welcome your thoughts and suggestions for playing Unmonopoly. And if you are not playing already, I urge you to participate in the game.
DBB
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