Conservation

Conservation

1. Is a normative concept

   • Human dimensions
     • Human environmental relationship-(contemporary)
       • Broad characteristics
         • Restraints on the use of resources (Constraints on human behavior)
         • in particulars places
         • at particular times
         • to achieve particular ends/objectives
           • "things that matter" to people- Answer just because
           • means
             • actions to achieve particular ends/objectives- you ask why?
     • H-E historical
       • Anthropocene epoch
         • 1750s-steadily increasing impacts
           • timing coincides with the exploitation of fossil fuels
           • industrial revolution
         • accelerated after 1950s
         • Caveats
           • impacts are uneven across groups
         • Planetary boundaries
           • effects on the anthropocene
             • 1. Global scale impacts
             • 2. Long-term Consequences
             • 3.Complex, interdependent linkages and feedbacks
           • as a normative concept
             • defines the "safe operating space for humanity
           • 9 Key Earth system processes
             • objective
               • Climate change
                 • co2 350 parts per million by volume
                   • 387
               • Rate of biodiversity loss
                 • 10 species per million species per year
                   • >100
               • Interference with the nitrogen and phosphorous cycles
                 • 35/11 millions of tons
                   • 121-fertilizer
               • Ocean acidification
                 • 2.75 saturation state of argonite in water
               • Stratospheric ozone depletion
                 • 276
               • Global freshwater use
                 • 4000 km^3 per year
               • Change in land use
                 • 15% of land converted into crops
               • chemical pollution
               • atmospheric aerosol
             • undermnining the ability and stability of planet earth to support human development
             • risk is so large that remaining on the course of action will result in failure
               • need trasnformative change
               • opens window for innovation for new ideas new paradigms
               • holocene epoch best for development
       • Humans and ancestors always interacted with their environment
         • accessing food
         • controlling and manipulating fire
         • hunting
         • creating crop land (8000 y/a)
         • rice cultivation(5000 y/a)
     • Dichotomous thinking
       • humans are separate from nature
         • linguistically
         • conceptually
         • pervasive in western thought
     • attributes
       • Human impacts
         • responses shaped by
           • Historic traditions and relationships
           • values and beliefs about the what constitutes the "Right"
           • Relationship between human and non-human nature
           • institutions and governance
             • ways of organizing human behavior
             • to achieve particular ends/objectives
             • outcomes for different social groups
     • Human environmental perspectives
       • anthropocentric
         • nature has value for human edns and use. It has value because humans assign value to it
         • instrumental value
           • has use
       • biocentric
         • nature has value unto itself/intrinsic value
           • intrinsic value
     • non-dualistic modes of thinking
       • people are part of the environment and the environment is par of the person
       • many societies challenge the human-nature dichotomy
     • H-E contemporary
       • global scale impacts
       • long-term consequences
       • complex, interdependent linkages and feedbacks
   • are prescriptive,they decide how we should or ought toto act toward something
     • in particular ways
     • in particular places
     • at particular times
     • to achieve particular ends/objectives
       • Means
         • actions to achieve particular ends/objectives
           • You ask why?
       • Ends/Objectives
         • Things that matter to people
           • answer Just because
   • infused with values beliefs that differ
     • across groups
     • across cultures

2. central visions/ normative philosophical positions for conservation

   • John Muir
     • instrumental
       • anthropocentric
       • aesthetic contemplation
       • healing rest/ relaxation
       • satisfying spiritual needs
         • intrinsic value on divign logic
           • God creates sacred places
             • nature as a temple
       • spiritual
     • morally charged vision of conservation
       • the tendency nowadays to wander in wilderness is delightful to see. Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildnerss is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, buts as fountains of life
     • Socialistic, undemocratic
   • Gifford Pinchot
     • instrumental
       • envisions forests a a crop that can't be over exploited
       • forests as a perpetual crop
         • through wise use
     • 1865-1946
     • 1st chief of US forest services
     • scientifically informed
       • efficient use of natural resources
     • references
       • The greatest Good for the greatest number for the longest time
       • Forests are to be treated as a crop not a temple
       • First duty of the human race is to control the earth it lives upon
     • principles
       • 1. Development
         • "the use of natural resources now existing on this continent for the benefit of the people who live here now
       • 2. Prevention of waste
         • "Forest fires are wholly within the control of men...the duty of the human race is to control the earth it lives upon
       • 3. Common good
         • the natural resources must be developed and preserved for the benefit of many, not merely for the profit of a few
       • 4.
     • historical and contemporary policy
       • Gifford Pinchot- helped creat the National Parks Service
       • US national parks service organic act-1916
         • "conserve the scenery, provide for enjoyment, leave them unimparied for the enjoyment of future generations
       • contemporary acts
         • National parks act
           • for the benefit, education, and enjoyment- unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations

3. NFB Film for future generations

4. Aldo Leopold

   • Sand County Almanac 1949 Land Ethic
     • characteristics
     • Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land(1949)
   • Biography
     • 1887-1948 Yale
     • 1901 (joined USFS Arizona and New Mexico)
     • Projects
       • Gila national forest as wilderness area(1924)
     • 1st professor of game management (University of Wisconsin 1933)
     • lives on a 'worn out farm'
   • principles
     • 1. "Land: is a system of interdependent parts( a community, not a commodity)
     • 2.Humans are a member- not master("Conqueror" of this community( a member of the "biotic team"
     • 3.Human place in nature is part of an interconnected whole
     • 4. Duty- a responsibility to preserve the "integrity, stability, and beauty" of the bioitic community
     • 5. Community members have the "biotic Right" to continue their existence regardless of economic advantage to humans
   • biocentric
   • non economic benefits of conservation
     • Can a farmer afford to devote lands to woods, march, pond windbreaks?
       • semi-economic land uses
         • have utility but no economic benefits
     • Can a farmer afford to devote land to fence rows for a patch of lady-slippers, a remnat of prarie or just scenery?
       • utility shrinks to zero
     • all of these apply to conservation
       • Normative Maxim
         • "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community, it is wrong when it tends otherwise
       • Respectful use
         • keeping the resource in working order
         • preventing over use
         • exercise of skill and insight
           • not merely a negative exercise of
             • abstinence
             • caution

5. Cronon

   • How have ideas about wilderness changed over time?
     • from terrifying wasteland to sacred temple
       • the mountain as a cathedral
   • What effects do these ideas have?
     • increasing nostalgia for the myth og the frontier
       • momentum to create parks increases
     • increasing nostalgia for the myth of the frontier
     • embodies and reproduces dichotimous thinking
       • the place where humans are is the place where nature is not
     • Myth of pristine, virgin, uninhabited wilderness
       • What is the trouble?
         • not idealizing the environment in which we actually live, the landscape that for better or worse we call home
           • the pristine virgin wilderness is just s product of our imagination
   • What are the implications of particular habits of thinking for achieving a sustainable, balnaced, environmental ethic ?
   • relation to other perspectives
     • Most of our serious env. problems start right here, at home, and if we are to solve those problems, we need an environmental ethic that will tell us as much about using nature as about not using it. The wilderness dualism tends to cast any use as abuse, and thereby denies us this middle ground in which responsible use and non-use might attain some kind of balanced, sustainable relationhsip.-
     • normative: we need a land ethic to state what would be considered us and abuse
       • allows us to use nature responsibly
       • non use
         • this gives us a sustainable relationship with nature
       • dualistic road block
         • man's presence in wilderness degrades the condition of it
         • to understanding a sustainable place for man in relation to the environment

6. perspectives

   • anthropocentric
     • nature has value for human ends and use
     • humans assign value to it
     • has instrumental value
   • biocentric
     • an end in and of itself
     • inherent right to exist
     • has intrinsic value