Ivy (Conservation) League

Who knew many of the big private conservation organizations in the U.S. are ran by an Ivy League Boy's Club? Wouldn't it make sense to have diverse leaders who are planning for biodiversity conservation? Have I taken the whole "diversity is a good thing" too far?

Here's a quick list with the briefest of information. You decide which one(s) might begin to measure up to your expectations.

• Conservation International (CI): Chairman and CEO Peter Seligmann – MS in Forestry and Environmental Science from Yale and a BS in Wildlife Ecology from Rutgers. Prior job was at TNC.

• Land Trust Alliance (LTA): President Rand Wentworth – MBA from Cornell and unspecified degree from Yale. Prior job was at Trust for Public Land.

• National Audubon Society (NAS): President and CEO David Yarnold – unspecified degree from San Jose State University. Prior job was at EDF.

• National Wildlife Federation (NWF): President and CEO Larry Schweiger – education unknown. Prior job was at Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

• Sierra Club: Executive Director Michael Brune – Unspecified dual degrees in Economics and Finance from West Chester University. Prior job was at Rainforest Action Network.

• The Nature Conservancy (TNC): President and CEO Mark Tercek – MBA from Harvard and BA from Williams College. Prior job was at Goldman Sachs.

• Trust for Public Lands (TPL): President and CEO William Rogers – MBA from Harvard and unspecified undergraduate degree from Stanford. Prior job was at unspecified Chicago-based real estate development company.

• Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS): President and CEO Steven Sanderson – PhD and MA in Political Science from Stanford, MA in political science from University of Arkansas, and BA in history from University of Central Arkansas. Prior job was at Emory University.

• World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) U.S.: President and CEO Carter Roberts – MBA from Harvard and BA from Princeton. Prior job was at TNC.

Consercologists

A business person leading a conservation organization is like having a man as your gynecologist. There are probably some very good male gynecologists. But if you want the very best, you should find a woman. After all, women (excluding those who have had sex changes) have been dealing with their female anatomies their entire lives – it’s innate. Women know things about women that men will never know, be able to learn, or be able to understand. Female gynecologists begin their medical training with 20+ years of full-time experience. Male gynecologists, regardless of their rationale for ever wanting to be gynecologists in the first place (I’m sure some must have legitimate reasons), start their medical training 20+ years behind their female counterparts. MBA conservation leaders are similar. 

For conservationists who spent their childhoods fishing, camping, hunting, canoeing, hiking, cross-country skiing and otherwise absorbing nature every chance they got, nature is in their very soul – it’s innate. For most of these people, there was never any doubt what they would do in their adult professional lives. They would never have dreamed of doing anything other than some form of conservation. These are the female gynecologists of the conservation world. These are the people we want to be our leaders. Conservation is their life. It’s in their nature. It's their passion. Their decisions and actions will be profoundly different than the MBA who gets bored with making money in banking and the stock market… the decisions of conservationists at-birth will be better. These are the people we want operating on biodiversity.

 

Conservation's One-legged Stool

The foundation of conservation is three-fold: 1) biodiversity; 2) staff who protect the biodiversity; and 3) constituents who support the protection of biodiversity. This, in essence, is conservation's three-legged stool. Without any one leg, the stool falls over. If any one leg is longer or shorter than the other, the person sitting a top the stool (our beloved conservation leader) is at best off balance. Bottom line, without each leg existing in proportion to the others, balanced conservation is not going to happen. Unfortunately, the forgettable conservation leaders of our time focus solely on constituents, and within constituents, primarily on funders. Little concern is given to the biodiversity or the staff. "Leaders" seem to think, with a lot of money, they themselves could pretty much deal their way to world domination... I mean conservation.

Our stool is severely broken. We need balance. We need respect for and recognition of staff's role in protecting biodiversity and a recognition that the ultimate goal is biodiversity conservation, not basking in leaderless glory.

Consertigically

Ever wonder how big conservation initiatives get hatched? Well, turkeys lay them.

Our fearless conservation leaders organize and re-organize, plan and re-plan, strategize and re-strategize, and think and (well, okay, maybe they don't think) until they are blue in the face and their staff are disillusioned and disgusted. Staff get shuffled and reshuffled more than a deck of cards in a tribal casino. Fearless leader grandiose ideas usually lack context, connection to current field work, and recognition of the gravity and long-term commitments needed to pull their ideas off. They are out of touch turkeys.

Solution? Go turkey hunting, or set up a staff-level advisory committee that has veto power over turkey eggs.

Conservation Leadership...less

How many of the top decision-makers and leaders in the conservation arena have ever built a fence, pulled out invasive plants, burned a prairie, cleaned up a public campsite, chased a poacher, or installed boundary buoys in the ocean? Not many. Most are lawyers, business people, philanthropists and marketers. If any of these people have ever been in the field, it was likely part of a ceremony or a site visit, not part of their core, day-to-day work activities. Having a long-term, personal commitment to a specific place is at the heart of conservation work... and the majority of our leaders have no idea what that means or how it feels.

How are organizations supposed to protect and manage land and water if the leadership does not have a clue as to what that means?

The solution is simple: Anytime someone without field experience wants to be in a leadership position tell them "no", or, as part of their "Senior Management Training," tell them they must spend at least one year in the field managing a protected area. 

Greening the Greeners

Catholic priests continue to demonstrate how easy it is to tell the masses to do one thing (the "right" thing), but continue to do the wrong thing themselves. Conservationists are just as bad. While there may be some conservationists who are committing improper sex acts similar to Catholic priests, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the hypocrisy of conservationists telling the world -- businesses, governments, and the public -- that they all need to become "green" in their operations and lifestyles, yet at the same time conservation organizations, agencies, academic institutions, and the individuals who work for them are some of the least green people on the planet! They (we) need to start the green movement from the inside out. Make sure everything we do as organizations, agencies, academic institutions, and individuals is as eco-friendly as possible. That means insulating our homes and businesses, turning down thermostats and water heaters, junking all of our gas guzzling vehicles for alternative-fueled vehicles, taking public transport whenever possible/necessary, decreasing our traveling, stopping in-person meetings.. and on, and on. We shouldn't cast stones until we get our own glass house in order.

It's not that hard: U.S. Green Business Guide and the National Geographic Green Guide.

 

Conservation Clarity

Just to be clear -- I'm not angry that the world is a mess and we're headed towards environmental doom. While that is indeed a problem I'm concerned with, I'm not necessarily angry about it (anymore). I'm now angry that those of us who are trying to save the world from environmental doom are exacerbating the problem.