What will our county look like when today's children are adults?

Generations to Come

This article originally appeared in our newsletter, Landmarks, Spring 2008

In March our work on creating a land conservation district reached a watershed as we worked to create a measure that could win voter approval (see "Creating a Water and Land Conservancy" from this newsletter). The stakes and the obstacles seemed huge. $8 million a year in local money to protect our county and the need to convince almost everyone (two-thirds seems like almost everyone) that this was just what our county needs.

And then my daughters had children, my second and third grandchildren. Little toes are not complex. The obstacles to them reaching adulthood might be huge, but we didn't notice that. We noticed their fingernails and the creases of their skin. No one needed convincing that these babies were just what we needed.

I took some time off to be with them and my daughters. When I came back into the office I noticed that something had changed. These births have made me ever more conscious of what our world – and our county – will be like when they reach adulthood. My horizon has been extended beyond my lifetime and even my children's lifetimes. I am thinking generations ahead to what Santa Cruz County will be like when Lane and Harper are adults and perhaps having their children.

The world they will grow up in will be a different one than the one I've known. The climate will be different. There will be more people. There will, no doubt, be less of the green earth than we have now, just as there is less now than when I was growing up.

Change is inevitable, but we are not powerless. We can, by our actions, help shape the world my grandchildren, everyone's grandchildren, will grow up in. Our actions will affect how much the climate will change and how much of the glorious green earth will remain glorious and green.

It's all about them, isn't it? It is their future. It is the legacy we leave them. A part of me never wanted to leave them, to sit in the rocker and rock them and stroke their downy heads forever. And another part of me wanted to – and did – get up and try to make their world a better one.

Terry Corwin
Executive Director •

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