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- One of the big problems with land protection initiatives is that they usually start by assuming land is currently unprotected if it isn’t a park or preserve or have some other legal status. That’s a harsh thing to hear if you’re someone whose family or community has spent generations caring for the land in a conscientious way. It’s especially frustrating when there are so many examples of ‘protected’ lands that are in pretty rough shape.
I think the term effective conservation has a lot of merit because it has less loaded language than land protection and feels more able to account for the various ways of assuring that land will remain healthy for the long term. Wouldn’t it be great if we could measure conservation success by quantifying the acres and landscapes where land is currently healthy and the factors that promote that health appear stable? We could then keep track which areas are effectively conserved and work to support the enabling conditions in those places, regardless of what those conditions are.