Executive Director of the Big Sur Land Trust and Former Director of the Nature Conservancy

In The Watchman’s Rattle, Rebecca Costa offers a perspective of our current predicament that is both logical and hopeful, allowing one to move elegantly from the head to the heart in support of a new, more diverse movement dedicated to the stewardship of our planet and the resources that sustain our communities. Her story of the future allows us to see how to free the wisdom and individual potential of each one of us, and how this is the key to solving our species’ multifaceted problems. By breaking out of our fight or flight mindsets, we may tap our embedded, shared values and recognize new ways to restore human communities, fight injustice, and tackle our most challenging environmental threats.

In many ways, environmental activists, land trusts and other conservation practitioners have, mostly unintentionally, helped foster some of the “supermemes” Rebecca speaks of. We have allowed ourselves to fall into oppositional thinking, perpetuating our own set of “old belief systems” which advocate simplistic, legalistic “mitigation techniques” as a solution to root causes. Conservation is perceived by many as a “silo” benefiting the privileged few, and, intentionally or not, in opposition to a more loving, diverse and collaborative movement towards sustainability.

Over the past seven years, The Big Sur Land Trust has dedicated itself to discovering a new and more enduring strategy for “preserving and protecting” our native landscapes.  We have come to see that our traditional models of land conservation - acquiring land and “setting it aside” for future generations – as limited and insufficient to the task of creating an enduring, sustainable relationship with the lands and waters that support us.  Our present day challenges – an accelerating loss of wild places, the decreasing viability of family farms and ranches, and a lack of accessible park land in our poorest and most crowded urban areas - are all related. They represent just a few of the symptoms of a broader and far more complex crisis of disconnection between people and nature.

The Watchman’s Rattle is an important call to collective action at a critical juncture in our human evolution. It offers an opportunity to overcome our own biological predisposition to belief systems that no longer serve us and break free from the paralysis and despair associated with our increasingly complex times. By moving through the tyranny of “supermemes” to deeper, more meaningful relationships with ourselves, with others in our communities and with the lands that sustains us, we stand a chance of creating a planet that perpetuates human societies on earth in a manner that reflects our deeper and more peaceful nature.