A bittersweet visit with friends old and new

Group exercise

This past week, I spent several days working on issues and opportunities with hundreds of other conservationists. We gather annually to collaborate and seek consensus. Sixteen years I’ve been doing this, and these past few years, I’ve been finding this meeting is becoming increasingly poignant and bittersweet.

Some of my associates have been around longer than I. What a pleasure it is to see them and talk, every year. It has become almost a ritual, one that brings with it a sense of connection and continuity. I honor their commitment to conservation, and their belief in working together to find solutions.

Some attendees are relatively new. It is a pleasure to meet them, in part because they bring so much energy and desire to the mix, and also because they often bring new thinking to bear on our long-standing challenges.

That combination of experience, commitment, energy, and new ideas is powerful. This is the most interesting, challenging, enjoyable, and productive meeting I attend all year.

So why am I feeling poignant? It is a sense of loss. Some associates passed away recently. One was a coworker of 15 years. One was a person I worked with several years ago. Another was one I worked with more recently.

I know death is simply part of the cycle of life. The scientist part of me knows that as an absolute truth. I know it and accept it. But that recognition lives in the intellectual, logical side of my brain. My emotional brain does not accept this fact nearly as easily. It feels the pain of losing these people I was so privileged to know.

It is the contrast between those long-standing leaders and the influx of young, excited, energetic conservationists that makes this annual event so bittersweet. While I feel a sense of loss when I see a few less familiar faces each year, I also know a sense of renewal as new members bring their own special character to the scene.

Bittersweet? Yes. But the sense of reconnection, and making new relationships, and finding new solutions is so strong and valuable I can’t bring myself to not attend.