Tom Gilbert doesn't just know the
history of Environmental Conservation
he's lived it a leader in conservation
for 65 years and key to creating and
implementing the man in the biosphere
programme in the United States and
around the world
tom is a fount of first-hand knowledge
about the map program and worldwide
conservation in July 2016 the
Continental Divide research learning
center invited Tom to stay at mcgraw
branch historic ranch turned research
center in Rocky Mountain National Park
while there he shared his knowledge
through three days of conversation with
Ben Bukowski then acting superintendent
of Rocky Mountain my beginning in the
program that was the 1972 world
conference on national parks which was
held in Grand Teton and Yellowstone and
that's when Michelle Botti's of unesco
ask director George hartzog for
assistance in the development of the map
project on conservation of natural areas
and of the genetic material can contain
I was just delighted that I was selected
so i went to UNESCO paris in 1973 my
charge was to help organize the expert
panels to develop the guidelines and
criteria for the program but before that
but he's asked me to develop a kind of
master plan how I saw going about this
and so as naive as I was I developed a
plan over a few days and came back and
it is i remember was the plan for
something like five or six million
dollars but it was with not only in esco
and what funding was needed but
cooperating agencies like iucn and
participating States so it was a
cooperative effort
one of the things that really helped
kick the program off before i went to
Paris had worked for Russell train who
had started this bilateral with the
Soviet Union on Environmental Protection
and it had a section on protected areas
what's going to happen at this summit
conference which was proposed between
the u.s. and this and the Soviet Union
in Moscow and July of 1974 what is
proposed on protection of the
environment and her said we don't really
have anything specific
so I said how about supporting advice
man x series or program with herders
help we were able to get that proposal
in and it actually happened
the community from Moscow went all over
the world it was featured in New York
Times and part of that was to support
the map program so that really were
really was a big Bruce and shortly in
the next few years quite a few by Cirie
serves were officially designated by
unesco when i was invited to become the
national program coordinator for the map
program we had 14 different project
areas at that time but I felt by series
serves where the the the main focal area
so we set up a co-lead agency
arrangement between the Park Service and
Forest Service getting agencies to work
together to solve common problems
related to conservation and sustainable
development is it and come up with a
pilot projects in the u.s. so we
proposed for pilot projects one in the
southern Appalachian which I was most
familiar with the Lake Champlain basin
Rocky Mountain region and the Lower
Colorado River Basin those were the four
what we labeled cooperative regional
demonstration projects 1979 memorandum
to the agencies and support of the man
and biosphere programme gave the
department's of Interior and agriculture
the front main responsibility for
developing the domestic program in the
US
and of course the State Department for
the international program we often
complain about the resources and funding
that we have here in the United States
but compare that to many of the less
developed countries you know that the
the situation the wars the conflicts the
separation then two different country
eritrea and all the things that went on
had to be taken into consideration the
bias reserves are and many national
parks are in the best position to add a
really important dimension to this whole
new program of global citizen education
and if we don't succeed in doing that I
don't see how we're going to overcome
these horrendous I obstacles that we
have to overcome now one has to be
optimistic
Raymond Iseman had written a book called
planet in peril man and biosphere today
in which he described the situation and
he said that we need to not only
understand the needs but deal with the
mechanisms to conserve natural resources
and sustain the environment so the
knowledge and the technology is much
better today we probably know what needs
to be done but the difficulty is
bridging that gap between what we know
needs to be done and convincing the
politicians that it should be done
I can't keep coming back to Frank
darlings statement at the beginning of
the program in 1968 our eyes are open
wide enough worldwide but he also said
time is not on our side
and so I'd I think we can't be content
with business as usual we've got to do
something extraordinary
put it this way these reserves are one
means of keeping our options open for
the future and doing the best that we
can to sustain the resources that we end
comes
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