Fred W. Allendorf’s short essay “The Conservation Biologist as Zen Student” appeared in Conservation Biology, Vol. 11, No. 5 (1997), pp. 1045–1046 — a genuine peer-reviewed paper, still worth citing directly.
Building on David Barash’s 1973 observation that Zen non-dualism and ecological thinking share common ground, Allendorf argues that intellectual knowledge of ecology is not, on its own, enough to drive conservation practice — it takes a cultivated, felt sense of connection to the living world. He points to Zen practices such as gathas (short reflective verses) and meditation as ways of making that connection concrete: turning on a light switch, for instance, and actually tracing the line back to a dam on the Columbia River.
His central claim is unambiguous: conservation only becomes durable once the boundary between self and nature is recognised as illusory — “we are one emergence of life on this planet trying to save itself,” not outsiders trying to rescue something separate from us.
The full paper is available via Wiley/Conservation Biology (subscription) or reproduced on John Seed’s site.