Conservation

Conservation or should I say the word to never be spoken aloud?  This week I was at a meeting and this topic came up.  I am ashamed to say I was a willing and even complicit participant.  We were talking about the strategic direction for an organization focused on saving water.  You may ask yourself why don't I say we are focused on water conservation.  Well I don't say that because like a few other words, the word conservation is being held hostage, it is handcuffed to Xeriscape.  By whom you might ask?  I can promise you the answer is even more surprising!  It is held hostage by Water Conservation Professionals.  To be fair also by energy conservation professionals and land conservation professionals, you get the picture.

We were talking about the very unique challenge of championing water efficiency in a an area where rainfall is in a feast or famine cycle. When we have a rainy year like this people look at us like we grew a second head.  When we have a severe drought people look to us to solve it!  It is a weird crossroads to live at, but I digress.  We were discussing that the need for water efficiency is constant to make the times when conservation is needed less painful.  We went on, of course we did. It was a room full of water professionals discussing water.  We said water efficiency is using water as efficiently as possible to accomplish a purpose.  Water Conservation is when the sacrifice might hurt a little.  I am pretty sure I added the rationing word.  What?

The Merriam Webster Dictionary actually defines conservation as:  the protection of animals, plants, and natural resources
: the careful use of natural resources (such as trees, oil, etc.) to prevent them from being lost or wasted

I should have stood up, someone should have stood up, and defended conservation!  It would have seemed hollow coming from a person who created their program and intentionally called it the water efficiency program, to avoid the negative connotation of conservation (guilty!).  When did conserving things for the future, or for the benefit of the collective, or gasp... the benefit of the environment become a bad thing.  Not for nothing where were we when it happened?  Maybe we were busy explaining that Xeriscape is actually a technical term. 

I don't mean to imply we are the ones who cast conservation as the villain.  It wasn't a bunch of conservation professionals sitting around discussing that their job would sound so much cooler if they were efficiency experts, actually doesn't that usually mean you fire people for a living.   The viewing conservation as taking away instead of protection and preservation happened when somewhere along the lines we began to believe that everyone is due to have as much of something as they want. The accompanying belief that asking them to make any adjustment, that might allude to the fact that they are not alone on this big rock orbiting the sun is a sacrifice.  Conservation professionals just stopped fighting it.  So today in a blog no one reads, because it is about water.  I am proud to say in a whisper, I am a conservation professional.  But please sshhh don't tell anyone.