Preservationism vs. Conservationism

Yesterday on PBS (I know we are dorks), there was this really interested documentary on the National Forest Service called "The Greater Good". I mainly highlighted the creation of the National Forest Service and many of the conflicts and scandal's involved with it's evolution.

The most interesting conflict in my opinion centered around whether the Forest Service would be about preservation or conservation. I don't think I have ever considered the slight but significant difference between those two words. To "preserve" an area of land, the resources of that land can not be used for profit. However according to "conservationism", you carefully steward the land so that you can use/harvest/take particular renewable resources and then replenish them to ensure that resource will be around in the future. So in reality it comes down to whether we or humans can touch a piece of land or resource for our own profit.

Anyways, I always thought those two things meant the same thing. And while the show didn't really address this, I think it's interesting how both preservation and conservation are needed in different circumstances. For example, if many of our nation's watershed's wern't turned into preservations, there is a good chance many of those watersheds would have become poluted or destroyed. Yet in the case of many national forests, it's important that they are conserved (stratigic logging/clearing/replanting) so that fire danger remains lower.

Watching shows like these remind me how complicated a world we live in and reveals just how enourmous and serious the task of being stewards of the earth is that God has entrusted us with. It seems such a big task that it's easier to keep living life as is and not think about what it means to both conseve and preserve the nature that is around us. But listening to people's stories and the battles fought around the forest service, it makes me wonder how much more exciting and fulfilling life might be if we really understood and took action on God's desire for us to be good stewards of the earth.

Anyways, I might just have to join the forest service now. It seem like a cool job.

Quote of the Day

"The Church is too much like a football game where 22 professionals are on field in the heat of the battle desperately in need of rest while 100,000 spectotors are in the stands cheering and desperately in need of exercise." -E. Trueblood

Sunset Boulevard

We have some friends that are currently going through the top 100 movies of all time. I'm not sure where they are on the list, but this last week we joined them for Sunset Boulevard.

If you like dead monkey's, suger mommas, and Hollywood writers, this is definately a movie for you. It's actually a pretty funny yet very creapy movie. And even though it's from the 50's, it's very well done.

One thing that surprised me though was the content of the movie. It's was surprisingly dark and messed up. I'd almost expect it to be a story line from a current movie. I guess it just goes to show that even in the 50's, there was an attraction to the weird, bizzare and humanness of man.

It's well worth watching if you want a laugh and some bizzare dreams at night.