On the other hand, defining the conservation movement seems to have a cynical or harshly realistic worldview. I would define the “men-of-note”, as they were, as most of the actively engaged scientific minds in the field. The managers and game wardens, but especially the field specialists. Those with direct access to the results and actively working to add to those results. They may lack a certain… gravitas, or public recognition, as the artists always seem to experience. They are; however, extremely knowledgeable about their topic, whether it be on a scale small as microbes in the thermal feature of note, or a scale as grand as the Rocky Mountain Ecologic Region. Their knowledge is practical.
While to poets argue philosophy, the conservationists produce tangible, practical, and solid evidence, developing new ways to examine the ecology of our unique, albeit insignificant, planet. This is not to say conservationists do not take to flights of fancy, or poetic exuberance, far from it. Abbey, one of the more personally influential writers, along with generations (yes, plural) of similarly concerned individuals provide the source of the environmental modus operandi, or at the very least, the philosophical plank in our dealings with the environment.
I would segue by saying, his (Abbey) characters’ attitude and actions illustrate a refreshing and invigorating “no fucks given” approach. The conservationist seems less taken by utopia, less inclined to believe complete redemption is possible, or even necessary. Essentially, humankind was removed from the Garden of Eden, never to return, now we can only stop the bleeding, but we can’t heal the scar. Interestingly, this argument was used in Wilderness Act literature.
Wilderness, typical to this day, implies a place removed from human kind, far from our corruptive touch. Yet, anyone who has spent time in “wilderness”, especially in more populous areas, can tell you how horribly disrespectful, loud, crowded, and angry the crowds can be and how dark the cloud of human presence feels, far more oppressive than any blizzard. Its a bullshit argument to state otherwise, and we should use it no more.
The strategy of inviting more and more people into the wilderness leads to its being loved to death, as is a popular argument against the environmental movement. There is no virgin wilderness. The areas which we think of as pristine and pure have toilet paper flowers forests, and granola wrappers flutter on the wind. Mankind has trammeled over most of the forests and mountains. There are only degrees of impact. In the politicizing of the wild to save it, in building a wilderness constituency, the destruction of wild places is inevitable and profitable, both to the destroyers and the self-professed saviors.
In all fairness, the conservationist perspective, at least as I define it, makes testable claims. While they are not neat and nice and easy to understand, they foreshadow our potential future. The goal seems more realistic. Do what we can, to save what we can. A noble creed. A worthy goal. Work on the diversity of the biomass, but realize the system was irreparably altered by the Agricultural Revolution. Astonishingly so with the Industrial and Nuclear Ages. Those components of the cascade are gone, let’s address what we can, and realize that although humanity may strive towards to goal of undoing 10,000 years of history, the earth will remain mutilated until we are long extinct, the scars we left removed only by the elements and time.
It sounds fatalistic, but I find it much more hopefully than the idealized perfectionism of environmentalist thought. Once you accept the argument that we will never return to a pre-human state of “wilderness”, bigger ideas can be discussed. I have heard the argument, usually from some anti-wilderness asshole, that we cannot mitigate the impact of footprints, so why worry about the damage a helicopter flying overhead can do. This example illustrates a foundational point of divergence. If we believe a conservationist paradigm, we can completely remove this questioning from the discourse.
It does not matter the scale of impact, because what’s there is there. To conserve is to mitigate those factors we can. How do we do that better? Maybe by not allowing helicopters to hover in wilderness? And we are off to the races. That type of philosophical argument brought me, initially, into the pro-reintroduction camp when I was much, much younger, back in grade school. Science class, maybe taught by a field biologist, at least someone part of the reintroduction, telling us how they were predicting wolves would be reintroduced to the Park, and the impacts they would have.
By that time, the elk, bison, and deer had destroyed the Yellowstone riparian structure. As we found out, post-reintroduction, that situation rectified itself as an ecologically based solution, i.e., looking at Yellowstone as an ecological entity, the same as the human body is a biological entity. When our heart fails, the biological machine stops. When Yellowstone’s heart fails, it will be gone as well. The wolves were the heart of Yellowstone. Their return brought the Park’s life force back, and the damage done by years of their being gone began to reverse. Now, over twenty years later, the Park is a fundamentally different place than that which I grew to know in my youth. A change for the positive, regardless of the naysaying and complaining of the masses. Science, versus emotion. Conservation.
JFL