A Conservationist Manifesto

A Conservationist Manifesto

A Conservationist Manifesto \ 1. The work of conservation is inspired by wonder, gratitude, reason , and love. We need all of these emotions and faculties to do the workwell.Butthefirstimpulseislove—loveforwildandsettledplaces, foranimalsandplants,forpeoplelivingnowandthoseyettocome,for the creations of human hands and minds. 2. In our time, the work of conservation is also inspired by a sense of loss. We feel keenly the spreading of deserts, clear-cutting of forests, extinction of species, poisoning of air and water and soil, disruption of climate, and the consequent suffering of countless people. We recognize that Earth’s ability to support life is being degraded by a burgeoning human population, extravagant consumption, and reckless technology. The most reckless technology is the machinery of war, which drains away vast amounts of labor and resources, distracts nations from the needs of their citizens, and wreaks havoc on both land and people. 3. The scale of devastation caused by human activity is unprecedented , and it is accelerating, spurred on by a global system of nationstates battling for advantage, and by an economic system addicted to growth and waste. So the work of conservation becomes ever more urgent. To carry on in the midst of so much loss, we must have faith that people working together can reverse the destructive trends. We must believe that our species is capable of imagining and achieving fundamental changes in our way of life. 4. Even while we respond to emergencies—keeping oil rigs out of wildlife refuges, saving farms from bulldozers—we must also work for the long-term healing of land, people, and culture. Conservation means not only protecting the relatively unscathed natural areas that survive, but also mending, so far as possible, what has been damaged. We can’t undo all of the damage. No amount of effort or money, for example, will restore the roughly fifty percent of the world’s coral reefs that are now dying or dead because of pollution, dynamiting, and ocean warming. But we can replant forests and prairies, reflood wetlands, clean up rivers, transform brownfields into parks, return Caring for Generations to Come 212 species to their native habitats, and leave the wildest of places alone to heal themselves. 5. The cost of such restoration is so great, and the results so uncertain ,thatweshouldmakeeveryefforttopreventthedamageinthefirst place. Although skillful work may help, all healing ultimately depends on the self-renewing powers of nature. Our task is to understand and cooperate with those powers as fully as we can. 6. Conservation should aim to preserve the integrity and diversity of natural systems, from the local watershed to the biosphere, rather than to freeze any given landscape into some ideal condition. Nature is never fixed, but in constant flow. If we try to halt that flow, we may cause more harm than good, and we are certain to waste our energies. When we speak of ecological health, we do not refer to a static condition , but to a web of dynamic relationships. We ourselves are woven into that web, every cell in our bodies, every thought in our minds. 7. Lands, rivers, and oceans are healthy when they sustain the full range of ecological processes. Healthy wild land filters its own water and builds its own soil, as in ancient forests or unplowed prairies. Agricultural land is healthy when it is gaining rather than losing fertility, and when it leaves room for other species in woodlots and hedgerows. Whetherwildorcultivated,healthylandsandseasarediverse,resilient, and beautiful. 8. Healthy villages and cities are also diverse, resilient, and beautiful . No human settlement can flourish apart from a flourishing landscape , nor can a family or an individual thrive in a ruined place. Likewise , no landscape can flourish so long as the inhabitants of that place lack the basics of a decent life—safe and adequate food and water, secure shelter, access to education and medical care, protection from violence, chances for useful work, and hope for the future. 9. Concern for ecological health and concern for social justice are therefore inseparable. Anyone who pits the good of land against the good of people, as if we could choose between them, is either ignorant or deceitful. A Conservationist Manifesto 213 10. Justice and compassion require us to use Earth’s bounty sparingly and to share it out equitably. For citizens in the richest nations, this will mean living more simply, satisfying our...