This content was created by GHION.AI . This content was uploaded by GHION.AI . This is a YouTube video titled "Target Vital Resources" featuring a talk by Peter Seligmann from February 28, 2018, discussing the mission of Conservation International, which focuses on protecting nature that is most valuable to people to ensure sustainable conservation efforts.
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Okay, so I'd just say Conservation International has been around for about 30 years, almost exactly 30 years, a little bit more than that. And it was founded on a very simple premise, and that is people need nature to thrive, that it's in your own enlightened self interest to protect these things, the land, the water, wildlife that surround us, because it ultimately provides everything that we have, from your jobs to food, to medicine, to virtually the air we breathe. When people ask me, what's the mission of the organization, I usually just sort of cut down to like one simple line, which is, we try to protect that part of nature that is of most value to people. And it's important that I balance that out with that word that's of most importance to people. And if you ask the simple question, why? Why not just protect all of nature, I'd be fine with that. I personally would be fine with that. But it turns out that if you really want conservation to stick, you want to stick in faraway places that you may never get to see, like Liberia or Suriname or Madagascar or Indonesia or Brazil, places that we work in, then at the end of the day, once our attention shifts somewhere else, we have to have created some kind of virtuous cycle that will allow that conservation of nature to continue long after we're gone. And if people aren't involved in that dialogue, then it won't happen. It will always be a niche, it will always be a hobby. It will always be something that people who have will participate in and people who don't simply just don't have the opportunity to.
