While the Network for Landscape Conservation (NLC) is supposedly only local, it also partners with the International Land Conservation Network (ILCN) and its other Idaho pals under the North America tab including Sawtooth Society and Lemhi Regional Land Trust. NLC recently held a webinar with Michael Whitfield, former High Divide Collaborative Executive Director, as the featured speaker. He recently wrote a white paper for the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy called, Toward Holistic Landscape Conservation in the 21st Century. Among the meanderings of thoughts by an admittedly old man, the paper consisted of the same boring themes of overpopulation, threats of fragmentation, starving people with nowhere to live, and the plight of life. If not depressed prior to reading the paper, one should certainly feel that way after reading it. The whole webinar is about the same diatribe, we are in a crisis, and there is mass extinction going on which necessarily drives the need for protecting land and connectivity. But this focus has lacked full inclusion of all people so now there must be more emphasis on that, after all, we all live in the same world neighborhood. Translated that means there will be targeting of local citizens to engage them in this agenda. Beware. It isn't about collaborating with them anymore than it ever has. It means more pressure to join. There is a special section on the High Divide area that includes how successful collaboration has been in that area, starting at the 22:45" mark. What will Mr. Whitfield do when he finds out that other "stakeholders" don't hold the same ideological beliefs as him? How will Mr. Whitfield manage that level of disagreement?
Mr. Whitfield, if you truly believe in what you say, immediately you should turn your land over to the wild, move to an area of human need where starvation and homelessness abound, with no recognition of jurisdictional boundaries. Give up what you expect everyone else to give up. Live a life of self sacrifice for wildlife. What you say may then appear as those you are sincere in your beliefs and not someone who is unable to come to some resolve about life actually being good and not at the point of doom.
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