When I think about what the work on the ground must be like, I often wonder things like, "how in the world do you estimate how many of a rare animal live in such large areas?" Are people literally going out, scouring places, catching and tagging these animals to make sure they aren't recounting animals? are they relying on tracks and other evidence? I really wonder what this work is like in the most practical sense. The theory, analysis, and projections that follow kind of seem like a practical mystery to me because I don't really understand how they get the data.

It would be pretty amazing to go to a school for conservation science that was actually set up in one of these places that need experts and funding. Like if a major university with a big budget in a rich nation were to set up a satellite that would be equitable to the locals. If the learning environment actually was in the field, and the community in which the work takes place. It seems like a program like that would be good for the students and the people trying to do the work, and maybe it could be a financial benefit to the community too.

Its funny, I never actually thought about the land in the national parks in this way, because I think about the creation of the parks system years after the native people were forced out or killed. I immediately think of things like farm land, and housing land as being the worst offenders because these uses were put into practice right after the land was taken.

Usually, I think of the parks as a "good" thing, protecting something that past Americans didn't get a chance to ravage, but this paragraph actually turned my stomach, and now the parks too have taken on a negative light. Thanks "Conservation for All" lol

It tends to be very difficult to make local change in the standard outreach model. Generally, it is the property owner who makes modifications to the properties they own- they must be incentivized to do so. Poor people tend to settle in some of the most degraded places because they are so cheap, and they are usually just tenants with few rights. Developers don't generally even see the properties they manage, and don't receive extra income for cleaning them up or making them particularly equitable without out pricing the tenants. The poorest people view government as a thing that happens to them, not something that they can engage in. There needs to be incentive for them to reach out, engage, and participate; most people are just trying to survive, and any free time they have is precious and sparse. They should be paid for their time and expertise in the community, even if it is a small amount, there should be something that draws them in. No one wants to sit through meetings where nothing is accomplished, its boring, and kind of depressing. Make it a fair or something community building.

If you'd like to see some really encouraging examples of incentives, and a case of environmental reclamation in a city, check out this link on Singapore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMWOu9xIM_k&t=4s. N'Parks pays up to 50% of the cost of green roof and green wall programs, and have been successful in restoring a channelized river into a natural habitat/ park/ drainage filtration site.

I think of this often when I drive through Franklin. There is a stone there, carves by the native people who lived there maybe 300 years ago. One of the most prominent images was a shad, a fish that spends part of it's life in the sea, returning to spawn, similar to a salmon. I had never head of shad in land before I found out about this stone. Apparently, the fish were incredibly plentiful, and was considered a staple of the native diet. Damming and over exploitation have stopped this natural cycle.

When I walk in the woods today, I find so much dead wood on the ground, that I sometimes wish the town would allow people to take some of it. IT is piled so high now in my local woods, that I think if there were to be a fire, it would be basically an inferno. I feel that maybe it is time for people to consider managing with more natural means.

Although it's a little sad that there are so many unprotected key biodiversity areas in Turkey, it is really encouraging that there are so many known. These areas are targets for protection simply by being known. I think its great that they're making an effort to understand a broad spectrum of environments and species.

I was really surprised that there had been so many recorded extinctions for this period, especially considering the large percentage of deforestation. I thought that it was an interesting angle to see this from; the deforestation happened in a more successional way, rather that all at once, which would have given the birds a chance to move to other areas nearby. I would not have thought about it like this before.

I can't help but wonder how much over exploitation is happening because there is not enough known by the fishermen who actually exploit these fish. I can't say if they knew that there is a limit to sustainable harvest, I can't say that they would choose to do the right thing. It's not even about food, it's about money. More fish, more money. Maybe that sentiment could be used to create change, but it seems immediate short term gain is more important than the better long term.

I think this is really interesting. In a way, scientists have been creating island effects for years in biological research studies. It's kind of novel way to think of the effect of limitation on a population as being akin to being on an island- environments can be limited by human intervention to create "islands". zoos, laboratories, and even our own homes or farms become effective islands.

This makes me so sad. Instead of trying to help developing nations maybe harvest resources in a responsible way, having learned a lot from our mistakes, globalization is really just continuing to push the same destructive pattern. I'm no expert, but it would seem that developed nations just want cheap product. It's extremely depressing to think that things as trivial as cheap hamburgers are causing the destruction some of the most biologically diverse habitats on this planet, not to mention the human impacts.

I thought this was just awesome. It really highlights the attitude that has developed among some people. Things like food, water, and air are so taken for granted that they have actually been reduced to "inconsequential" status because they are "marginal" in the scope of the over all economy. Like the only thing in the world that is real are dollars.

I find this really interesting; as an artist, I view these issues not so much as "obstacles" but more like levels of sophistication. It seems to me that biodiversity is a science of course, but it is also something of an art made up of facts. Its almost like new colors are being discovered everyday, and yet many are being destroyed; Given enough time, understanding will come. Unfortunately, societal activity is removing time from the equation. This seems like a job that would be worthy of a life time of study for untold numbers of people.

This statement is so important in the work we have ahead for those of us interested in planning. I love that he mentions cultural diversity, as well as ecological diversity. There is something about the conformist government of the past that really had little value for diversity in general, dividing the world into categories of "worthy" and "unworthy," first or second class, important or not important. It is a shift in cultural values that we are witnessing. What surprises me, personally, is that it has literally taken coming to the crisis point ecologically, and on a humanistic level (language and culture loss, gentrification among other things) to realize that there was value lost; that what has been touted as "the highest and best use" has in fact been an incredibly destructive, narrow vision that has caused much undue suffering, often for the gains of the few.