SCOTT SHALAWAY Celebrate Earth Day, 2001

I usually commemorate Earth Day with a series of inspirational quotations intended to promote discussion and provoke action. I will continue that tradition in a moment, but first, a new book warrants an Earth Day plug.
About a book: "Green Phoenix: Restoring the Tropical Forests of Guanacaste, Costa Rica" by William Allen (2001, Oxford University Press, $35) offers a ray of hope for those concerned with environmental degradation. Back in the early 1970s I learned that tropical ecosystems, once destroyed, were gone forever. At least by human measures of time. But the focus was always on tropical rain forests.
In Green Phoenix, Allen tells how Dr. Daniel Janzen, an ecologist at the University of Pennsylvania, refused to accept this dictum. For years he studied the ecology of dry tropical forests, those that had both a wet and a dry season, only to see them succumb to fire, logging, poaching, ranching, and farming. When his own study sites became threatened, he decided to act.
In the early 1980s he began working with local politicians and cultural leaders. His job was facilitated by what Allen calls Costa Rica's "intrinsic conservation ethic."
Historically Costa Rica has been, at least by Latin American standards, a peaceful, affluent, democratic, and educated country. Consequently, its citizens have had the luxury of enjoying and appreciating nature. So they were a receptive audience for Janzen's message of restoration.
Controlling fire and poaching and public education became the cornerstones of Janzen's project. Green Phoenix explains how in less than 20 years 463 square miles of land and another 290 square miles of marine habitat have become part of the Guanacaste Conservation Area, home to some 235,000 species of plants and animals. Celebrate Earth Day by reading Green Phoenix, and encourage your local library to get a copy.
Now, this year's words of wisdom:
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtfully committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead.
"To keep every cog and every wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering" -- Aldo Leopold.
Needs companionship: "If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in." -- Rachel Carson.
"Only in the last moment of human history has the delusion arisen that people can flourish apart from the rest of the living world.." -- E.O. Wilson.
"Nature is not easy to live with. It is hard to have rain on your cut hay, or floodwater over your cropland, or coyotes in your sheep; it is hard when nature does not respect your intentions, and she never does exactly respect them. Moreover, such problems belong to all of us, to the human lot. Humans who do not experience them are exempt only because they are paying (or underpaying) other humans such as farmers to deal with nature on their behalf." -- Wendell Berry.
"I spent the summer traveling. I got halfway across my backyard." -- Louis Agassiz.
"The majority of the American people have demonstrated on every possible occasion that they support the ideal of wilderness preservation; even our politicians are forced by popular opinion to pretend to support the idea; as they have learned, a vote against wilderness is a vote against their own re-election." -- Edward Abbey.
Last word: "The last word in ignorance is the man who asks of an animal or plant: 'What good is it?'." -- Aldo Leopold.
"While my interest in natural history has added very little to my sum of achievement, it has added immeasurably to my sum of enjoyment in life" -- Theodore Roosevelt.
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover" --Mark Twain.
"In the end, our society will be defined not only by what we create, but by what we refuse to destroy" -- John C. Sawhill.
UCatch Scott's radio show on the Internet every Saturday afternoon from 2 to 4 at www.1360wptt.com.