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Track: Natural Resources and Conservation
Kevin Miller
Heartwood
8801 N Bottom Road
Ellettsville, IN 47429
Telephone: 317-233-5298
Fax: 317-232-3403
E-mail: kmill@opndem.state.in.us
Conservation Development: A View from the Central Hardwoods
Defining Issue: Development of natural resources needs to be tempered between the conservation of our natural heritage, the spatial distribution of this heritage, and industrial development of these resources. Business, government, and the public need to be made aware that development and conservation can be a symbiotic, rather than a confrontational relationship. GIS Solution: The tools provided by GIS allow for the visualization of the analysis and planning needed for this paradigm shift to occur. Conservation of biologic diversity is a philosophic principle that needs to be in the consciousness of the population to become a reality. If biologic diversity is not a part of the thought processes of regulators, industrialists, and developers, then the realization of conserving what remans of biologic diversity will remain rare, threatened, and endangered. The coarse screen, ecologic island approach to nature conservation cannot provide the habitat necessary to sustain the diverse populations essential
to variation among species. Conservation islands need to increase in size, the mesh they create densified and joined to realize a sustained atmosphere that allows for natural evolutionary processes. But this will not happen until conservation of our natural heritage is fundamental in development decisions, and development of natural resources is driven by sustainability rather than exploitation, and until we realize that all geoecologic regions are essential and integral parts of the earth's system.
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