It’s very important from our point of view for conservation of natural areas too that children are exposed from a very early age to the wonders of natural systems and I find that often times when children go to explore something, they always go to the edge of something; the edge of the river, the edge of the pond, the edge of the forest, because that’s where different systems intermix and I think the magic is the strongest in those places. And you can’t do any better than to get a child at the edge of the marsh, the edge of the water, the edge of the land and see the kind of tempos diversity and life that takes place there and hopefully those children will carry with them a little bit of that natural world to help guide them in the future.

— Loren Lown (1999)