This is blog number three, just finished my seventh week in Vale.
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about conservation, its importance, and what it should look like in the face of climate change. I haven’t completely thought through all of these ideas, and am really just presenting a bunch of questions. Nor do I know how many people actually read this, but comments are appreciated.
The other week I went up to Washington to monitor a sensitive species that has only been found at this location. We spent a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of gas to get to the site every day that week. We also had to take a pretty dangerous road to and from the site each day, and were monitoring on some dangerously steep and slick hillsides. One we deemed too unsafe to complete the assessment. This all made me wonder just how worthwhile our efforts really were.
Is it really that important to monitor and conserve this particular species? While pondering this question I began to contemplate why conservation is important in general. This idea, the importance of conservation, or lack thereof, lies at the heart of what I’m doing here, at the heart of this program, and at the heart of my educational and career choices.
Conservation work does not always generate immediate success, results, or satisfaction. It tackles long-term problems and goals. This fact makes the work tough at times, but I’ve always told myself that the bigger picture, the long-term benefits of my work makes it all worth it. The knowledge that what I’m doing matters and is important has always been my fuel. But why does it matter? Why is conserving plant species important? Well, because each species is part of a complex ecosystem on which other organisms depend, on which other species depend, on which other ecosystems depend, on which we depend. Or maybe the answer is simply because other species are living things, and have their own right to continue to exist. These answers have generally sufficed my questioning mind. However, the more I think about the issue the less clear cut it becomes.
The natural world is always changing, always evolving. This is true even if our species hadn’t altered so many landscapes, or exacerbated global climate destabilization. I struggle with the idea of conserving something; a landscape, an ecosystem, or a species, in its natural state, since change is a constant and because the term “natural” is subjective. Species, landscapes, and ecosystems are evolving on geologic time scales. So who’s to say our definitions of “natural” and “native” are in fact natural and native? Is our own species not part of this “natural” environment? Taking these ideas into consideration, how beneficial is it truly to conserve a species in a location we’ve deemed “native”? On top of that, how beneficial, or important, or fruitful, are those efforts in the face of climate change? If the chance of long term survival is slim for the particular species we monitored in Washington, were our efforts a poor use of resources? What actions should scientists and conservationists be taking in the face of climate change? How do we decide which of those actions are most important, or the best use of our resources?
I’m not offering any answers here. Rather, I’m interested in what other people think about this topic. This is something I think about frequently, and don’t have great answers to, as few people I expect do. But they’re important ideas to discuss nonetheless. Please share your thoughts!
Colleen
Vale BLM
Washington site
Hi Colleen, thanks for posting these problems. ‘Natural’ is a poorly used word that usually separates us from the environment. Everything is natural–from whale migrations to pulling fossil fuels from the ground. It is pretentious to think we can help the environment or save it from ourselves. Nothing is good for the environment more than anything is bad for it. Does it then seem completely insane to spray the weed and enclose the endemic? Of course it does, but we are altering the landscape to suit our species needs and our case is not special. What is amazing is that we can hold records outside our DNA to communicate changes. All the money, time, gas and stress of the job help us do that.
Hey Colleen, I like your thinking here, you bring up a lot of good points. These are important questions that get at the underpinning of conservation philosophy. I think you’re onto it when you say “the natural world is always changing, always evolving.” That’s the absolute truth. So if nature has directionality, what is that direction?
I’ve asked myself these kinds of questions time and again and my two cents is that natural systems, etc tend to move in the direction of greater depth and complexity. We see through several billion years of evolution that you can go from a completely stochastic environment made up of basic elements to complex and dynamic systems with organisms which possess a depth of consciousness and the ability to have a subjective meaningful experience. While that process has been productive in the long run, it hasn’t always been so. Numerous extinctions, etc. Ultimately I think it’s important to keep in mind as conservation-minded people that upholding the integrity of processes by which evolution occurs is more important than preserving certain individual species.
I think that the tough times we’re facing now may provide the conditions necessary for the process of evolution to continue in a productive fashion. There’s a huge amount of selective pressure being placed on natural systems. I don’t think that the world will look the same a couple centuries down the line and attempting to preserve it as such will prove to be unsuccessful. I suppose it’s our job to become the most well educated and informed individuals possible and figure out how we fit into that picture. Just a thought.
If you like to think about these kind of things you might enjoy Integral Ecology by Zimmerman and Esbjorn-Hargins. They attempt to put things in order and is if nothing else it’s good food-for-thought.
Phil~
Thank you so much for the responses you two!
Phil, putting these issues in that evolutionary context is interesting; a good way of looking at things. And I definitely agree that the world won’t look the same in a couple centuries. It is important to figure out where we fit into this whole picture. I suppose therein lies the excitement of research. It’s a tough call, though, on deciding what actions we take after gaining more knowledge. I look forward to looking into Integral Ecology, thanks for the recommendation!
Lucy, I’m interested by what you said here “It is pretentious to think we can help the environment or save it from ourselves. Nothing is good for the environment more than anything is bad for it.” I agree that we can’t think of the environment as something separate from ourselves, but I’m hesitant to say that decreasing our impact on the environment isn’t a good thing. I suppose I need to think more about it. Thanks!
-Colleen