From The Green Skeptic Archives: Caring, or A New Conservation Ethic

My son Jasper tagging a saltwater croc, Mexico, January 2005

[Note: While on hiatus this week, I'm re-posting gems from The Green Skeptic Archives. This post originally appeared on 7 October 2005.--SEA]

Over the past several weeks, in the conference centers of Monterey, the wilderness of Yosemite, and the halls of my company's offices in suburban Washington, our talk has been about drawing a closer connection between conservation and people.

We've come a long way, but still have miles to go before we can say we've expanded the boundaries of our own conservation ethic.

I've been thinking a lot lately about conservation ethic. One phrase that keeps coming back to me is Robert Michael Pyle's statement that "People who care conserve, people who don't know don't care." It's a powerful truism and one to which we should pay heed.

Our movement is often accused of being elitist and defeatist and, frankly, those criticisms are far too often accurate. Beautiful photos of pristine places beg the question, "What about the people?"

(Pyle's words came back to me during tonight's playoff battle of the Sox. It was late in the game, my beloved Red Sox had bases loaded and blew several chances to tie the game or take the lead. Johnny Damon was up, surely ready to play the hero. My nine-year old son, who learned to care about baseball -- and my team -- during the 2003 ALCS, was on tenterhooks: would Damon do it? When the Caveman struck out, stranding three base runners and turning the BoSox into WoeSox once again, my son was apoplectic. "Now I know you are a true fan," I told him. "You really cared." I haven't seen him that upset since he learned that polar bears were losing habitat to global warming!)

We need a new conservation ethic that clearly redefines the human + nature equation: that human beings are not apart from, but rather a part of nature. We need to articulate the real connections between conservation and restoration of the earth's natural functions -- also known as ecosystem services -- and their real implications for the people of the earth.

Moreover, that we care about people as much as the earth's other species. Without this, we will sink in a downward spiral of our own making.

Whether we're talking about food, fuel, fiber for clothing or paper or a myriad of other goods and services nature provides, we need to stop "seeing the natural world as a resource for the economy," as James Gustave Speth writes in his book, Red Sky at Morning, "rather than seeing the economy as nested in the natural world."

We have obligations to the world that go beyond our self-interest, to paraphrase Aldo Leopold, and until we own up to this our conservation ethic will ring false for the majority of the world's people. Our new conservation ethic must be as inclusive as it is pragmatic, and as interconnected to the other issues of our time -- poverty alleviation, terrorism, AIDS/HIV -- as to the natural world we hold dear.

We need to remember this whether we're on higher ground in one of this nation's important National Parks, the sterile corridors of an office in northern Virginia, or the cozy confines of that little bandbox of a ballpark that is Fenway.

Has the Green Movement Stalled? Green Skeptic on Fox Business

I was on Fox Business' Varney & Company this morning for Earth Day.

Tyson Slocum from Public Citizen was also on the program and we had fun talking about whether the environmental movement has stalled:

Conservation: Mark Burget Leaves TNC for Climate Works

Mark Burget, Chief Conservation Programs Officer of the Nature Conservancy announced his departure last Friday. It came as a surprise to me, as it may have to others, because, frankly, Mark is one of those people who personifies the Conservancy.

The core values of TNC are integrity beyond reproach, respect for people, community, and culture, and commitment to tangible, lasting results; all of these can be used to describe Mark. Oh, and one other: "One Conservancy," which was John Sawhill's way of saying a collaborative spirit that works for the whole of the organization, not just its parts.

In fact, Mark always kept the whole of conservation in mind when he set strategy, whether as program director for the Upper Colorado River Basin, state director in Colorado and California, or in his more global responsibilities over the past few years.

And I gather it is this consideration of the whole that is once again in his mind as he decided to leave TNC. He is heading to ClimateWorks, a San Francisco-based non-profit that is focused, as Mark put it in his letter to colleagues, "on the most pressing environmental issue of our time: the need to dramatically reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that threaten to disrupt and destroy the miracle of life and the human experience on Earth."

TNC will miss Mark's leadership, vision, and sheer brilliance -- he is one of the most thoughtful and strategic thinkers in the field of conservation. But Mark would not have made this decision without a whole lotta soul-searching. I applaud Mark's decision and will look forward to his success at ClimateWorks.

Mark Burget joined the Conservancy in 1992 as the Program Director for the Upper Colorado River Basin. He earned both his J.D. and M.B.A. from the University of Virginia and his BA in Government from Dartmouth College. Since joining the Conservancy, Mark has held several leadership positions including Director of the Colorado Program, Director of the Global Priorities Group, and most recently Director of the California Program. Mark assumed his current position as Chief Conservation Program Officer in 2007 and leads the Conservancy’s eight conservation regions worldwide.

Blogging: Thank you, reader, for 3 Years of The Green Skeptic

I started this blog 3 years and 330 posts ago, on 24 November 2004. It's been a good run and the past year has been the best ever. Readership is up, as is my RSS subscriber list, and it would seem the switch I made a year or so ago to narrow the focus to the four areas that consume my interests -- global climate change, social entrepreneurs, microfinance, and clean tech investments and innovation -- has been a success.

Thank you, dear reader, for your continued interest, comments, emails, and dialogue. Without you, The Green Skeptic would be just a voice in the wind. Keep reading and letting me know how I'm doing.

Conservation: Steve McCormick's Departure from The Nature Conservancy, Questions and Appreciation

The emails started hitting my inbox shortly after 11 yesterday morning. From all over the world, colleagues and alumni alike were sending me the news: Steve McCormick resigned from the top of The Nature Conservancy.

"After almost seven years in my role as President," his email to staff began, "and a total of thirty years with The Nature Conservancy, I've concluded that I've contributed all I can to help the organization improve its ability to fulfill the mission. I've decided, therefore, to resign, and will vacate my role immediately."

What is surprising is the abrupt manner in which this was done. It begs the question, "Why now?" The harsh ring of "vacate my role immediately" begs another set of questions. It's not surprising that he stepped down; many of us had speculated that Steve was weary of the top job. And who could blame him?

His first year as president and CEO was marked by an unfair three-part investigative series by the Washington Post. The reporters put Steve -- who was not in charge when many of the alleged discretions were made -- under the spot light; chiefly for the no-interest loan the Conservancy had given him to lure him from California to northern Virginia.

I argued at the time that it was the lack of disclosure and not the loan itself that should have been questioned. I don't see any problem with trying to lure talent to your top position with such incentives. And his salary and Fairfax County home, which were also disclosed, the latter even pictured in the series, were neither extravagant nor lavish.

The Post series, much of which was based on conjecture and a too strict interpretation of what constitutes an "insider," led to two letters of inquiry from the Senate Finance Committee. Even as Steve took the heat most directly, he led the charge for transparency and cooperation, and marshaled all staff to work on the response from whatever corner of the organization they sat.

In the end, the committee in its review called the Conservancy a "model institution" and recommended it as an example of how non-profit organizations should be governed.

During this time Steve was seemingly unflappable. But this belied another struggle he was undertaking: transforming the organization to realize its mission: "to protect the diversity of life on Earth" (emphasis mine), by making it more of a global institution.

In his first 90 days, Steve told staff that the Conservancy needed to act on our global mission and that we couldn't fulfill that promise by spending 80 percent of our resources in the United States, where 20 percent (or less) of the biodiversity was found. We need to flip that ratio and we needed to do it soon -- time was our worst enemy.

Some early advice from ill-considered consultants who misread the organization's appetite for change, led to push-back from many parts of the organization. Much of the Conservancy was ill-prepared to move in this direction or to move as quickly as Steve wanted; some are not there still. Steve's reaction to that push back -- to scale down his tone and rhetoric --- was appropriate, but it eroded his leadership.

The fact is the Conservancy was not ready to do a 180 or even a 90-degree shift. Over 55 years (56 in a few weeks), the Conservancy built a strong infrastructure around a state-based model, and attracted staff, donors, and trustees to make it the largest and most effective conservation organization around.

With that strength and history, however, came responsibility. At times, I've likened this dilemma to a mid-life crisis: the Conservancy has a strong, 55-year marriage and it's faced with the fast-car/trophy spouse of global conservation. To be honest, I'm not convinced Steve's closest advisers at the time were doing him good service. We should have listened to the pulse of the organization, understood how to go about this change in a more strategic, methodical manner.

The Conservancy's brand was so tied up in its history that it seemed intractable. I know about this because my team there was intimately involved with trying to change the perception of that brand, from "We Buy Land" to protecting Nature for life; from "Saving the Last Great Places to words articulating a vision that Steve used in his email to staff: that our vision was not about "protecting lands and waters from people, but conserving them for people."

Truth be told, there were many among us who felt the Conservancy wasn't going far enough and fast enough. The last few years have been characterized by too much planning and process and not enough action. In my mind, some of that leads directly back to Steve's early charge and retreat. Once people got a sense they could push back, they did -- and heavily at times. I don't think Steve's presidency ever fully recovered from that early stumbling.

Ultimately, however, Steve has brought the Conservancy forward towards realizing its potential and his legacy. Much of the organization now better articulates the connections between biodiversity conservation and human well-being; there is a groundswell of recognition of the need to be a global institution, even if it is intellectual and not yet operational; and they now have a more clear strategy for its reaction to the major environmental issue of our time, climate change.

I got to know Steve first when he was California State Director and I was in Alaska. We shared some trustees between our two programs and I always heard about how good Steve was at managing their relationship to the organization. I was also intimately involved in helping shape the conversation on biodiversity/human well-being, going global, and developing the climate change strategy as part of the working group Steve chartered last winter.

At times, he frustrated me; like the Annual Meeting in Monterrey a few years back, right after we had made it through the Senate Finance Committee hearings, when I wanted him to acknowledge our painful journey and how we emerged stronger and better, and now could put it all behind us. I wanted him to take charge, lead the troops, rally all of us towards the ambitious goal we'd set for ourselves. Instead, he told stories that made you scratch your head and had none of the fire of his passion he carries within.

Yet, when Steve was on message, he was on fire, and his tenure as president of The Nature Conservancy should be weighed by the progress the organization made under his leadership. I think the late John Sawhill, whom Steve “replaced,” would be proud of him.

In the end, I left the Conservancy because of a need to explore alternative models, to find a way to catalyze entrepreneurial ideas and approaches that were beyond what the Conservancy could foster. There’s too much of an air of mystery surrounding his abrupt departure (and attempts to reach him have proved futile); I need to know more and why the accelerated timeframe?

I still consider Steve a colleague and am proud to have helped in my small way to move things forward with him. (Would that I could have done more early on to help him navigate the treacherous path he undertook.) I wish the best for him in his next endeavor -- and I hope he does turn his attention to global warming, as he told the Post he may.

For more on Steve McCormick's resignation, see: nature.org

15/15: Favorite Memories in Conservation, Part 2

Okay, Part Two of my favorite memories in conservation over the past 15 years...(see Part One)

9. Pribilof Islands, Alaska: We've flown from Anchorage to Dillingham. At Dillingham we are to board a plane to the Pribilof Islands, in the middle of the Bering Sea, famous for its fur seals, bird life, and spectacular yet difficult existence. From Dillingham, you have a fifty-fifty chance of getting to one of two islands: St. Paul or St. George. The pilot says we will be landing on St. George today, because a thick fog has stationed over the other island. A sigh of relief comes from the woman seated next to me; she's a school teacher and has been trying to get back to St. George for a week, each time disappointed. We fly but about 3/4 of the way there the pilot informs us that the fog has shifted over to St. George and we will now land on St. Paul. My seatmate is visibly shaken by this news, but a few moments later, she is resigned. We are over open ocean, but the plane -- an MD-80, I believe -- is descending. I can see the ceiling is extremely low, it seems we have maybe 50 feet from the water's surface. Suddenly, below the plane I see a strip of black basalt. Within moments, the pilot downs the plane almost as if the engines were cut. We slam onto the basalt. I'm told it is a fairly routine landing.

10. Pribilofs (again): I meet Candace Stepetin for the first time. She and the National Marine Fisheries biologist are stalking a sub-adult male fur seal that has a very fashionable, but dangerous bit of neck wear. Fishing nets, packaging materials and other flotsam can wreck havoc on sub-adult males. When they catch one, Candace gently removes the twine and plastic with sheers. The next day, Candace is working at a computer that we sent earlier, cataloguing fur seal census data, especially the number of entangled seals and where they were sighted. NMFs has enlisted Candace and other stewardship camp participants in this research. The next time I see Candace is at a surprise fur seal harvest; she is an integral member of the crew that is gathering the subsistence stock of meat in a very careful, controlled manner. I am in awe. Candace, who was then maybe 18, becomes one of my heroes. We are still in touch. (For a more detailed account of this story, see my web site under essays: Candace and the Fur Seals.)

12. West Branch Wilderness, Northcentral Pennsylvania: In late 1998, I transferred from Alaska to Pennsylvania to help the chapter expand its efforts across the state. "To fill the hole in the doughnut," as John Sawhill used to say, referring to the western half of the state, virtually the only place in the U.S. where TNC was not working. Then State Director Randy Gray and I heard about 3,00o acres of forest land in northcentral Pennsylvania, a private inholding in the Sproul State Forest, along and above the West Branch of the Susquehanna River. We were looking for a big landscape project like this and when we visited it for the first time, looking over the seemingly endless expanse of "wilderness," we said to each other "How could we not do this?" It wasn't an easy road, but it was the start of bigger landscape-scale conservation for TNC in Pennsylvania. We dubbed it the West Branch Wilderness, which is another meme that has stuck.

13. Podocarpus National Park, Ecuador: Our sights were set not just on expanding into new territory in Pennsylvania, but in connecting PA conservation to international projects and global issues. Together with Roberto Troya, currently director of international external affairs, but then Ecuador Country Director, I had the pleasure of managing a partnership between TNC (in PA and Ecuador) and Fundacion Ecologica Arcoiris in southern Ecuador to help protect the park, build capacity, and share learning between our programs. The focal point was shared migratory birds between the Pocono Plateau (one of the Conservancy's "Last Great Places," and Podocarpus.

Being in the Park and meeting the local people on the ground who were striving to apply the latest conservation tools and techniques to protect this resource was one of the most rewarding and enlightening experiences for me. Podocarpus supplies water to Loja, the largest city in southern Ecuador, as well as livelihoods and sustenance for many surrounding villages and towns. I could easily suss the deep connection between biodiversity conservation and human well-being, which I had also seen in the Pribilofs and would see again in Indonesia (see below).

Bringing the staff and board of Fundacion Arcoiris to the Poconos was almost as enlightening. First of all, some of them had never seen some of "their" birds, such as the scarlet tanager, in their breeding plumage and singing their mating calls -- a real eye-opener! But for the Arcoiris board members, an equally eye-opening experience was the camaraderie and collaboration between the staff and board of TNC. Back in Ecuador, they followed a more strict protocol; the board really only had a relationship with the President. As one of the board members told me, "This could have tremendous impact on our effectiveness in conservation, but perhaps in NGO governance overall." (That's systems-changing.)

14. Raja Ampat, Coral Triangle, Indonesia: When I first went to Indonesia, working with our Global Marine Initiative, I was on a two-fold mission. First, to see this place that is a true gem of marine biodiversity and be able to communicate its value directly to investors and others; second, although I didn't know it at the time of planning, to reconnect my father-in-law to this place that had meant so much to him. The place lived up to its billing -- the most amazing diving and snorkeling experience of my life -- but again, it became more about the people. The Indonesians I met and their deep passion for protecting and living and working in this area. It was, again, a demonstration of the interconnectedness of place and people, of biodiversity and human well-being. Our local partners and local staff, local government officials and elder council members. Together, we were trying to find ways to make the triple bottom line of economy, environment, and community sustainable and viable for the long-term. It was no longer about protecting parks from people but for people and, more importantly, with the very people who stood to gain or lose so much if we got it wrong.

For my father-in-law, Harold Dubuisson, Indonesia, and in particular the region around Papua and the Bird's Head, was the place where as an land man for Continental Oil (now Conoco) and later with his own company, he has spent the middle part of his career, helping the people there bring their oil resources to market in a way that considered the needs and benefits of the people of the region. Sadly, my father-in-law died a few months after my return, but I felt my journey there had brought him full circle. (For more on Harold Dubuisson's story, see my post "A Tribute to Two Fallen Fathers.")

15. Finally, two short takes on systemic issues and change: Over the past six years I've been involved in a powerful transformation at TNC. From an organization whose stock-and-trade was land deals, mostly in the U.S. ("We protect land the old fashioned way," John Sawhill used to say. "We buy it.") to one that perceives fulfillment of its mission at a global scale and, simultaneously, at a local scale. As part of that move, we began shifting our fundraising efforts, under the direction of David Whitehead and Stephanie Meeks, to an unprecedented scale. The result was the largest capital campaign in the history of conservation US$1.4bn and one of the most effective and efficient fundraising organizations in philanthropy.

We also started to shift the organization to embrace and articulate the connections between biodiversity and human well-being, identifying and, through storytelling and better quantifying those connections, articulating those connections. It hasn't always been easy, nothing important ever is, and we've probably lost some good folks along the way who weren't ready to move so fast to be a truly global institution in the service of a new kind of conservation. And TNC is by no means there or at the end of its journey to fulfill its global mission. But, in the words of current TNC chairman John Morgridge, "Don't underestimate the ability of the Conservancy to make big things happen." I'd expect no less from this group of talented and committed individuals. I have been honored to be a part of it for so long.

I have many more memories of my 15 years with TNC. These are just a bunch that occurred to me on the train home Thursday night, and I'm not sure I've done these stories justice in the space this form allows. Oh well.

What remains for me is the power of my collective experiences at TNC; the relationships I've built with passionate, empathetic, sometimes hard-headed brilliant people such as those identified in my earlier post (and many more who were not called out therein).

And that collective power has caused a shift in my focus as well, a need to be even more connected to what William Easterly calls the "Searchers," the people devising innovative, local solutions to problems that may have a global impact if they are given the resources and freed to bring their enterprises to light. That's what I hope to bring to Ashoka when I get there in September, along with a striving for excellence and commitment to values that John Sawhill expected of us all those many years ago.

15/15: Favorite Memories in Conservation

Today is my last day working for The Nature Conservancy after 15 years. Last night, some colleagues threw a send-off party for me at Caribbean Breeze in Arlington, VA. It was wonderful to see so many friends from my time at the Conservancy: old (or should I say, long-term), new, and treasured.

One dear friend, Karen Browning Gallardo, whom I've known for more than a decade, asked, "So what are your favorite TNC memories after 15 years?"

For me, the Conservancy has been about two things: the mission and the people. Who can argue with the mission: to preserve the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the places that represent that diversity -- and that are essential to human and economic well-being, by the way. "We get results you can walk around on," said our late CEO John Sawhill (more on him later). I'm often asked why I stayed so long at TNC. It's the people (I think I may have said that in my earlier post).

But when I think about favorite memories, the mission, places and people are linked, inextricably. My memories of work with TNC can be classified into three realms: places, people, and systems change.

I thought of 15, not necessarily one for every year and not necessarily in this order, but close. Thanks, Karen, for the idea, and for some great memories of working together.

Here goes, starting from my earliest years with TNC. (I'll probably break this into multiple posts.)

1. White Plains, New York: One of my early meetings with Texaco. Chapter director Olivia Millard and I met with their community relations director to talk about funding specific programs. They were having issues with Ecuador at the time, the result of some bad practices from 20 years previous. I realized they were serious about trying to do something different, something more environmentally and socially responsible (this before the triple bottom line was a meme). I asked if they had ever tried to speak with environmentalists in that country. No, they hadn't. What if I facilitated a meeting with Hugo Arnal, then our Ecuador country director? They were non-plussed. Could it happen? It did. A dialogue started. It wasn't always pretty, but we were building bridges. My oil biz in-laws and my greenie friends could both be proud (some of the latter were not, unfortunately).

2. Neversink River, New York: The Neversink River surfaced as a conservation priority and a team of us determined it should be a bioreserve, as it was then called: an integrated landscape protection effort comprised of a core area and buffer zones, and which considered and incorporated the surrounding human uses and impacts. We put together the financing for the initial purchase in short order, including funds from some well-healed fly fisherman. (I remember a long night of serious drinking after a day of serious fishing with Leigh Perkins, then chairman of Orvis and a TNC board member.) In a stroke of marketing hubris, I dubbed the place "The Birthplace of American Flyfishing," because Theodore Gordon developed many of the commonly used dry flies from that stream. People still call it that today (another meme).

3. Neversink River (again): Our big opening celebration of the Neversink Preserve and Bioreserve project, one of the Last Great Places. Then Conservancy president John Sawhill is there to cut the ribbon and glad hand with TNC members, do a speech and high-tail it home. "I have to be back for a cocktail party that Belle [his wife] is putting on. I can't be late," he said to me. I was his driver. It takes exactly one hour to get from the Neversink Preserve north of Deer Park, NY, to Newark Airport (okay, if you drive like me). After John's speech, I whisk him into the car and drive like hell. He's talking animatedly, asking me about my work, how things are going for me with TNC. Then he stops, drops off like a bad cell phone connection. I look over. His head is in his chest and he appears to be unconscious. (OMG, I thought, I've killed TNC's president!) I look at the clock. No time to stop. I look at the gas gauge, the light below "E" is flickering to life. No time to stop. I hold some paper up under John's nose, It flaps. (I didn't know he had diabetes and this was just low blood sugar moment.) I keep driving, get to the airport just in time. As I pull up to the curb, John bolts up, thanks me, and sprints from the car. "You'll go far in the Conservancy, son," says John.

4. Lower Talarik Creek, Alaska: My success with the Neversink led me to be recruited by Susan Ruddy, then state director in Alaska. At an annual meeting she cornered me and chatted me up about Alaska, a place that had always held an allure for me. I couldn't believe they were having trouble raising money for that world class flyfishing stream. At the corner of the bar sat Leigh Perkins (see above). I walked Susan over and introduced her to Leigh. We walked away with a $100K commitment. How'd you like to come to Alaska to finish this deal? "Would I?" I said, stammering like George Bailey.

5. LTC, Alaska (again): standing in the middle of the creek, flyfishing with some good ol' boys from Texas. My cell phone rings. "Hello?" "Scott, is that you? Where are you?" "I'm at work." "What are you doing?" "I'm standing in the middle of a flyfishing stream with a 9-weight rod and a prayer." "You have the best job in the world. Why can't I have your job?"

6. LTC (again): I've just spent the past two days flying in the back of mail planes from Iliamna to Port Alsworth and everywhere around and between, including one rough flight with a bush pilot who wanted to test my mettle (I passed), going from fishing lodge to fishing lodge promoting Lower Talairk Creek. We needed a final $50,000 to complete the deal. Before I left Anchorage I had sent our proposal to the head of a family foundation, at the request of one of the family members. At one of the lodges, I used their dial-up service to check my email. "You have a deal," he wrote. "A check for $50K is being cut today." I took the rest of the day off and went fishing. Thanks, Harry, wherever you are!

7. Central Park, New York City: My return to New York from Alaska came barely four months or so into my stay there. But this time I was part of the Alaska delegation at the "Second Great Party to Save the Last Great Places," an extravaganza put on by TNC and the Central Park Conservancy. Guests wandered from "ecosystem tent" to ecosystem tent, representing the Last Great Places, from Indonesia's Sulawesi to Brazil's Patanal; from the desert southwest to Alaska. It was a hot, late spring evening in New York and I worried about the troupe of Yup'ik Eskimo dancers we'd brought from up north. They weren't used to the heat, or the heights: we took them to the top of the Empire State building. Others worried about the sled dogs posing with Colonel Norman Vaughn; the dogs came from Long Island.

8. LTC (again): Flying into the creek from the Iliamna Lodge, 15 or 20 miles away. We circle the mouth of the creek, where the famous "rock" is found. 10-12 brown bears can be found in the pool, scarfing up the salmon heading up stream, followed by the trout, tremendous endemic rainbows that are HUGE. We land the float plane in the lagoon and all the bears disappear. Can't see one of them, although all around is just low brush and tundra. Where the F*%@ did they go?

Okay. That's enuff for now. Part two later...

Social Entrepreneurs: Moving from Dialogue to Action, Part Three

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you may have noted a few recent references to Ashoka. I’m about to move from The Nature Conservancy, where I’ve spent the past 15 years (read my reflections on that anniversary from last month: Conservation Mission Success), to Ashoka, the global association of leading social entrepreneurs.

Ashoka was named for the Indian leader who unified the subcontinent in the 3rd century BC. He renounced violence and dedicated his life to social welfare and economic development. The organization was founded in 1980 by Bill Drayton.

Ashoka was built on the simple premise that the most effective way to promote positive social change is to invest in social entrepreneurs, individuals who are devising innovative solutions to the most pressing social issues of the day.

For the past few years I’ve been tracking social entrepreneurs and the growth of this approach to social change. Indeed, it’s one of four focus areas for The Green Skeptic. A year ago, I wrote about the need to move from Dialogue to Action and proposed to step up my efforts to promote social entrepreneurs on this blog. So, now I'm going to take more direct action.

I’m convinced social entrepreneurism is the next big thing: mobilizing individuals with system-changing solutions for the world's most urgent social problems.

There's still a strong environmental component to my interests, obviously; but this move allows me to expand my impact in a more triple-bottom line fashion: economic, environmental, and social.

I’ve also been exploring some of my own ideas for potentially systems-changing action on climate change and energy distribution. Ashoka is the right place for me to explore these ideas for tackling climate change impacts on the poorest of the poor through small-scale, distributed alternative energy options.

It’s a bittersweet farewell, as you may imagine; sort of like leaving home. The Conservancy’s mission is in my DNA, however. I will continue to stay in touch with the Conservancy and many of my colleagues there.

And in some ways, there is a symbolic continuity in this natural growth move for me: I’m trading TNC’s oak leaf logo for Ashoka’s oak tree logo.

Both organizations are dedicated to “innovative solutions that are sustainable and replicable, both nationally and globally.” Ashoka is built upon the idea that individuals can effect social change by being empowered to act at the local level while promoting social change on a global scale.

I’ll be joining Ashoka after Labor Day and will keep you posted on this and other developments in the social entrepreneur space here on The Green Skeptic.

Conservation Mission Success: My 15 Year Journey

It was 15 years ago today that I set up shop in The Nature Conservancy. I walked into the offices of what was then the Lower Hudson Chapter with a bag of tricks, a drive to change, and a desire to help the Conservancy achieve its mission of protecting the diversity of life on Earth.

The Conservancy took a chance on me: I had little experience, having spent my previous career years in various forms of publishing, from producing my own magazine to scouting for foreign publishers to the editorial staff at a tradition- and whiskey-soaked publishing house. They were looking for their first development and communications staffer; I was looking for meaningful work and a vehicle for making social change happen on an unprecedented scale.

I believed then, as I do now, that one of the most critical roles in conservation, indeed in any public benefit or civil sector corporation, is that of helping other people act on their values.

Along the way, I've had some tremendous mentors, including Kay Sprinkel Grace, Simone Joyaux, and Scott Schultz (three of the best fundraising management consultants in the business) who operate outside the organization, to Julie Rosenfeld and Mason Morfit from within; from Carter Bales from the Conservancy's board of governors to Harry Groome and Jan Portman from the organization's current board of directors. Phoebe Driscoll, Robin Potter, Ken Thompson, Al Parrish, Gene Sykes, Mary Clifford, Terry Pelster, Tom Dolan, Tom Rosenberg, Dick Eales, Chris Earl, Ted Robb, Boyce Budd, Hugh Moulton, all trustees from the various state programs with which I worked, taught me the value of perseverance and critical thinking in the face of great challenges.

My chapter directors, including Olivia Millard, Susan Ruddy, and Randy Gray, and initiative directors such as Lynne Hale, Jeff Hardesty, and Brian Richter, inspired me with confidence and a guiding hand. And David Whitehead, Stephanie Meeks, Mark Burget, Roberto Troya, Rili Djohani, Steve McCormick, the "Skeptics," Holley, Jill, and the late John Sawhill all helped keep me focused on the long-term view of our global mission. Together, we've wrestled with the growth and expansion of the Conservancy's vision and fulfillment of its mission. Some have moved on, but their spirit remains.

The list could go on. Indeed, so many people have contributed to my success at the Conservancy, from those on my very first team, through my two "best hires" and two "best inherited" employees, to my current team, which I'm convinced is the hardest working group in the Conservancy, tirelessly pushing the horizon of the organization's worldview and its face on the global stage.

And the donors. I won't name them here, but they know who they are and what we've accomplished together: from building the Neversink Bioreserve in New York to protecting Lower Talarik Creek in Alaska; from forming Pennsylvania's West Branch Wilderness to mapping protected areas and sacred sites in Mongolia; from helping local people secure Podocarpus Park in Ecuador to helping put Indonesia's Coral Triangle on the map.

All this and more we've accomplished together from the simple gift of acting on shared values and an ambition to be the best in the business at achieving ever-increasing scales in conservation.

It's been a great run. Fifteen years is longer than most people stay with one organization these days, certainly in the functional area within which I've operated, and it's longer than I ever anticipated on that day in 1992 when I walked into the Conservancy's little office in Katonah, New York.

Here's to fifteen years and the millions of acres we've protected together, the millions of lives upon which we've had a positive impact, and the multiple millions of dollars we have mobilized together in the service of conservation, of saving the last great places on Earth.

A friend of mine, and a long-time donor to the Conservancy, used to tell me I had the best job in the world. He was right.

And on this first day of summer 2007, while I stand on the edge of that 15-year precipice trying to see what's ahead for me, I thought it best to reflect on the work that my colleagues, donors, friends and partners have accomplished together. The change we have affected. So much has changed for me and for the organization over these past fifteen years, and much continues to change.

But isn't change the whole reason I got into this business in the first place? Isn't that the job of a change agent?

Here's to 15 years. Thank you.

Environmental Movement: Is the Pew/NET M&A the Wave of Future?

Last week, the Pew Charitable Trusts' environment program (Pew) and the National Environmental Trust (NET) announced it was merging to form a new entity, the Pew Environmental Group. While the Washington Post wrote about the merger a week ago, I haven't heard much about it from colleagues in the field. I'm surprised.

As Post staff writer Juliet Eilperin writes, many "Americans think of the environmental community as a fractious bunch of free thinkers, that if you put two of them together they would generate at least three different opinions."

We've been hearing for years from the foundation community that they want environmental groups to collaborate more. Sometimes this works and scales of efficiency and effectiveness are achieved that would otherwise be impossible; most of the time, however, such direction leads to a scramble to create new projects or programs that end up making more work for all concerned.

True, there are some genuine collaborations that have worked. Most of these have been at the field level, although there are periodic efforts to get the green groups to work together or to share best practices at the highest level. Still, there is room for improvement on that front as scarce resources generate turf wars as very distinct, often niche missions compete for a limited donor pool.

We're hearing it from donors too. Questions about what distinguishes one group's strengths from another, missions that are beginning to overlap more frequently, and even long-range goals that are duplicated and would be more complementary if we would only take Rodney King's advice and "just get along."

But this merger idea is a novel one. It happens in the for-profit sector all the time and it is surprising that it hasn't happened before in the civil sector.

And why not? This bold move by Pew and NET is forward thinking. Both parties acknowledge that they will be stronger as one. As Environmental Trust President Philip Clapp told the Post, "The challenges are so enormous and we have such a short window of time to solve the problem, we decided we had to change the way we operate."

In the business world, mergers are often a way to expand operations and, sometimes, to bring in expertise and capacity that is otherwise lacking. If done right, it may also allow for greater efficiencies, long-term stability or sustainability.

Will this move spur a wave of M&A activity in the environmental movement? Keep an eye on the landscape: This may be an idea whose time has come.