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Considerations of Humanity’s Need for Nature: Why Biodiversity and A Flourishing Natural World Should Matter  (11 pages, PDF)

Transcript of a Lecture by Shane Mahoney, Executive Director of Science, Newfoundland & Labrador Department of Tourism, Culture, and Recreation. Lukens Endowed Lecture Series, Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania. January 26, 2003

Abstract: In this lecture, Shane Mahoney discusses how each of us have the right and responsibility to engage in the crusade for a clean, diverse, and thriving natural world. Throughout recorded time, human societies have marveled at the natural world and drawn from its complexity and subtle beauty. Whether it is the physical make-up of man or the inscrutable depths of mind and soul, all stem from our long immersion in the river of life. In our journey to modernity, we have altered much about ourselves, but our fascination for nature and our desire to see it preserved within our midst is an unalterable expression of our humanness. Each person may have a unique interpretation of why this should be so or how mankind should interact with the rest of animate creation, but all will show some measure of interest in what happens to the diversity of life on this planet. It is in this crucible, the admixture of fascination and need, that the hope for conservation swells. By standing for the land around us, whether it be the far horizon of the wilderness camper or the green space in our city neighborhood, we each make our impression on the forward progress of preservation. Whether a hunter-naturalist or an amateur bird watcher, whether a cultivator of wild flowers, or a rambler of farmer’s meadows, all of us have the right and responsibility to engage in the crusade for a clean, diverse, and thriving natural world. It is not man apart, but man within nature, that is the symphony of all good things.