Former United States President and supporter of The Nature Conservancy’s Georgia program, Jimmy Carter is the founder of The Carter Center committed to bettering the human quality of life throughout the world. (Photo Courtesy of Jimmy Carter)

My boyhood days in Plains in the 1930s and 40s were shared among the family farm, church, schoolhouse, and nearby woods. In each place, I learned crucial lessons that eventually would coalesce into the values that have sustained me throughout my life. My excursions into the woods to observe wildlife, hunt, fish, or just wander the paths gave me a lifelong affinity for the natural world.

One childhood tale concerned the existence or not of a bird once synonymous with the dense hardwood forests and bottomlands of Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, and other southern states. Some people said it had gone extinct; others claimed to have seen it. All agreed it was a sight to behold.

Like nearly every one of you, as a child, I never saw the ivory-billed woodpecker though I did keep my eyes peeled in those Georgia woods. I was often fooled briefly by glimpses of its grand cousin, the pileated woodpecker, spooked into flight. But no ivory-bill. And like all of you today, I am delighted by the news that the "IBW," as we birders call it, is, in fact, alive. While many call the rediscovery a miracle, it is not luck that brought the ivory-bill back. The bird is alive in Arkansas today because local communities, government agencies, and private organizations worked together for decades to protect the bird's forest habitat. Its existence not only is a message of hope, but also a reminder that we all can and must be stewards of this Earth.

While global warming, habitat destruction, and species extinctions give us just cause for deep concern, I believe we have reason to be hopeful for our planet. In our nation alone, for the last 150 years, one of the most prevailing bipartisan commitments has been to the protection of the environment. Together, we have created and expanded national parks and wilderness areas, passed laws ensuring clean air and water, and afforded legal status to non-human life. On a global level, nations have signed important international agreements on reducing greenhouse gases and preserving biological diversity.

Still, there remains much to do everyday. We cannot continue to push nature to the brink and then hope that by miracle it will return. We must be vigilant, active defenders of our natural resources and prompt our leaders and fellow citizens to join us as such. We must follow our faiths and common sense, which I believe will guide us into the future on this better path.