Photo: Barbara Slaiby

Each generation mentors the next generation of leaders. The Conservation Study Institute is playing a leading role in training leaders—at the entry, mid-career, and senior management levels—for the challenges of the twenty-first century.

Through its leadership training programs, the Institute aims to create opportunites for the leaders of today and tomorrow to explore their commitments to places that move their hearts and inspire their minds. Leaders are encouraged to explore their visions of stewardship as well as to study conservation history and current issues in the field.

Poem written by Helen Scully, a participant in the Institute's first training course on "Conservation Leadership: History and Practice," July 1, 1998.

Stewardship means doing what I can to conserve what does not belong to me alone holding in trust that which exists before, during, and after my time, caring for, to the best of my ability, what is beyond and greater than my self.
Because I believe there must always be places that defy human arrogance, I am here.
Because I am learning that there are places where humans and nature are entwined,
resonant, and harmonious, I am here.
Because there are places where aesthetics are more valuable than money, I am here.
These places must be evoked and nurtured in the consciousness, the soul, the very essence
of human being.
These places are the measure of our success—for upon them our continued existence
depends.
They are places of hope.
They are places of memories and dreams. With my mind I seek to know.
With my words I conjure connections.
With my camera, I preserve moments in time.
I am on a journey of learning and of wonder on a path with no end. In my footsteps may
the legacy grow and thrive.
I am part of that legacy;
I am its steward and its voice.