Keeping the Wild: Against the Domestication of Earth ed. by George Wuerthner, Eileen Crist and Tom Butler (review)

Description and Purpose

“Keeping the Wild” is a group of essays compiled by George Wuerthner, Eileen Crist, and Tom Butler. The compilation is evidently an outcome from a meeting held between many of the author contributors (there are 27 listed for 22 relatively short essays, including the Introduction by Tom Butler) in Denver, Colorado, organized and sponsored by the Weeden Foundation. The Weeden Foundation’s mission is to protect “biodiversity as its main priority” and it “supports organizations that protect ecosystems and wildlife and “those that work towards population stabilization and sustainable consumption” (www.weedenfoundation.org). It is not clear when that meeting was, but it was hosted by Michael Soulé, who helped convene the meeting. Six of the papers, however, were either republished from other sources, or shortened versions of essays appearing in other places. As a result, reading the “book” is more like reading a conference or meeting proceedings. Developing the book could have been the purpose of the meeting, but sharing ideas was probably the more significant outcome among those invited to attend. There were never any cross references among the papers, or efforts to coordinate the papers to avoid repetition, that this reader detected.

In the Introduction, Butler makes it clear that the book is a “. . . book about ideas . . . conceived to confront the notion of human hegemony and also to join the growing conversation with the conservation movement about the so-called Anthropocene” (p. ix). From the Introduction it is clear that the purpose of this compilation of “ideas” is to mount arguments against embracing the “Anthropocene” as a term describing the age of human dominion of Earth, increasingly used to justify further domestication of the planet. A primary force instigating both the meeting in Denver and this compilation of papers was evidently a paper published in 2012 by Kareiva, Marvier and Lalasz, that represents the “new conservationist” viewpoint. Harvey Locke’s essay, “Green postmodernism and the attempted highjacking of conservation,” in Part 2 describes and responds to the Kareiva et al. (2012) paper most completely, not only critiquing the primary philosophical shortcomings of the Anthropocene concept, but also pointing out that the paper was not peer reviewed, it was published online to allow wide dissemination, it contained many erroneous facts, and it included unnecessary personal attacks on Thoreau, Emerson, Abbey, Carson and Muir, all influential writers in the conservation movement.

Butler also articulated in the Introduction the seven primary points of contention with the “new conservationists” as: in the Anthropocene humans are now de facto planetary managers; all pristine wilderness is gone now and focus on wilderness has poorly served the conservation movement; nature is resilient, not fragile; conservation must serve human aspirations, primarily regarding economic growth and development; maintaining “ecosystem services,” not preventing human-caused extinction, should be conservation’s primary goal; conservation should emphasize better management of the domesticated, “working landscape,” rather than establish new, strictly protected natural areas; and conservationists should partner with corporations to achieve better results. Most essays included in the compilation address some aspect of these points of contention.

Organization

The compilation of essays is introduced by Butler and then in three parts presents essays addressing: 1) Clashing Worldviews; 2) Against Domestication; and 3) The Value of the Wild, with an Epilogue by Kathleen Dean Moore. There is very little break in flow across Parts 1 and 2. Most essays included in these two Parts are pointedly aimed at describing the points of contention with the Anthropocene concept (best articulated by Soulé in the 7th essay) as being the foundation of the “new conservationists” and their optimistic description of a future with economic well-being for rural and poor communities that partner for economic development with large corporations. This approach evidently leaves traditional conservation aimed at protecting wildness and biological diversity behind. In fact, this explanation, with specific finger pointing at Kareiva et...