Posted by: "John Hartog"
> Walt, you know I (being a streetwise city kid) can't help but comment.
>
> Such perceptions are common and our activities as nature recordists
> will be taken as intrusions by some no matter how decent, benign (or
> corrupt)our true motives.
> Where habitats are faced with destruction there is often a human clash
> between greed and compassion, and in this I see no great differences
> separating city from country folk.
The big and very significant difference is that much of that habitat is
owned by country folk, often in the family for generations. I don't see
city folk too often having their property invaded and being restricted
in the use of their property by environmentalists. Quite simply it's
taking without compensation. Often by people who then proceed to destroy
the habitat in the name of conservation.
I am only providing a reflection on what I deal with all the time in the
survey work. Often I have to hide the fact I'm acting as a volunteer for
the GA DNR, a government agency. These folks did not go negative for no
reason, it's become a matter of personal survival for them. Like
recently after a court decision that allowed it they wiped out nearly
half the remaining wetlands just because to allow them to continue would
have wiped them out. It's come down to survival.
And that does not even start in on the government defining the "highest
and best use" of any land as dense urban blight (though they don't call
it that). Rabbit hutches for people sprawling across the countryside.
That includes, in some cases the richest and best agriculture soil in
the country.
No, city folk have a lot to answer for. Not that I'm saying country folk
are lilly white, but the contrast is large. I think country folk have a
very legitimate beef.
Walt
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