The upshot of Kevin’s presentation last week basically seems to be this: the
recognition that all ecosystems are dynamic – that everything is to some degree
novel – leads to the corollary recognition that any decision about what to conserve
is, in a sense, arbitrary. There is no “original state” that conservationists can look to
as a benchmark for their efforts. Kevin pointed out that taking this idea of novelty
too far can lead to complete relativism and/or a pure environmental services model,
where we preserve only what is of most use to us. At the same time, though, he
acknowledged that in these hybrid ecosystems, we have to decide what we want,
one way or another.
This is where values come in. But what strikes me most about this question is
that behind the decisions that ecologists and conservationists make about what to
conserve, or what to use as benchmarks for conservation, are not simply values, but
normative judgments about the proper relationship or attitude toward the land.
More specifically, as is the case in nearly all morality, I think (even when ethicists
would claim otherwise), they are judgments about intent. I want to think about
some examples – in the spirit of religious inquiry, we can call them ecological koans:
Is the Sewanee golf course more or less natural than the stone stairs and benches of
Abbo’s alley? Or, since the term “native” is more precise than “natural”: Is the taro
that was brought to Hawaii by the earliest Polynesian settlers more or less native
than the coffee brought there by Europeans in the 19th century? Is it more or less
native than other species that arrived on the islands before the Polynesian settlers?
Are Native Americans more or less native than European Americans? Are humans
native anywhere besides Africa? And more broadly, why should pre-Columbian or
preindustrial ecosystems be common benchmarks for conservation biologists?
The answers to these questions suggest, first, a variation on our culture’s all-toofamiliar anthropocentrism and, more specifically, Eurocentrism. The species or
ecosystems that are preferable are generally those that predate European
interventions, or, if preindustrial, the ones that predate a particular form of
European culture. Everything still revolves around white people, even if it’s negative
rather than positive. And this is probably partly due to the vanity that usually drives
these “centrisms.” But I suspect it also suggests something else, something more
constructive. I think we perceive that Abbo’s Alley, and the Polynesians’ bringing
taro to the Hawaiian Islands, indicate a certain relationship, and specifically a
certain kind of intention, toward the nonhuman world, and it’s that kind of intention
that we are seeking to conserve more than any particular species. We use industrial
European culture as an ecological fall from grace not only because our culture is
inevitably self-centered, but because we perceive that before those changes humans’
interactions with their environment was of a different character, with a more
respectful or harmonious intent. So rather than being terms of scientific precision,
terms like “natural” and “native” actually conceal implicit judgments about the kind
of relationship to nature we think is appropriate. Where the intent behind
anthropogenic changes seems culpable – baldly utilitarian, exploitative, or willfully
ignorant – we deem that ecosystem or assemblage of species unnatural or
nonnative; where the intent of human interactions seems noble – caring,
harmonious, cooperative – we call the resulting ecosystem natural or native. There
certainly are scientific considerations as to which changes are damaging and which
aren’t, but it seems to me that our decisions about which version of an ecosystem
we want to “freeze” as the model – those decisions are more about these kinds of
normative judgments.
Maybe all this is obvious, or maybe I’m just adding another level of debate into
already fraught decisions about conservation. But I think that acknowledging this
implicit role of normative relationships and intentionality is helpful in two ways.
First, it is helpful because there may be times when it is more productive to be
explicit about why we are choosing, for example, 1491 as a benchmark for
conservation. The idea of native ecosystems may still be the most appropriate one in
certain contexts, but in other contexts it may be more accurate to acknowledge that
what we’re really debating is a certain kind of relationship. Second, it is helpful
because this is where religion can have a real substantive role to play in
conservation decisions. Religions provide a lot of norms for proper relationship to
the land, and if we’re clear that that is what we’re actually debating, we may have
good reasons for recommending a certain attitude or intent as the basis for
conservation decisions.
I don’t mean to suggest that science becomes unimportant to these decisions, but as
Kevin pointed out last week, science can’t tell us which version of an ecosystem is
the best or most natural. I think the intuitions that lead us to prefer pre-Columbian
or preindustrial states need to be heeded to a certain extent, but if we acknowledge
that these preferences point more to relationships to the land than to specific
characteristics of the ecosystem, we can introduce more thorough deliberation
about the proper character of those relationships.
There are a couple other considerations that I want to add. First, if conservation
decisions are guided by the relationship or intent that we believe is appropriate, I
don’t think this has to be a universal ideal. That is, I don’t think we choose one
appropriate relationship – say reverence – that will guide all decisions. Such
universals are invariably either too vacuous to be of any use or too specific to be
broadly applicable. Rather, I think they should be particular and plural - we should
deliberate what relationship is appropriate for this community with this land, at this
time, which will not be the same for another community or another time or place.
The proper relationship for an Episcopal university to have with its land will be
specific to that community, and will require knowing that community and that land.
So now questions about what to conserve have not only become questions about
what kind of relationship we should have to our land, but also questions about who
we are and who we want to be.
The other consideration, though, is that even though this relationship is particular, it
is never isolated (not even on our mountain). The relationship we have with our
land affects the relationships we have with others and they have with their land. If
our way of relating to our land creates unjust relationships with others or forces
them into unjust relationships with their land – for example, if our waste
contaminates someone else’s land, or our consumption patterns force others to
exploit their land – then neither the relationship nor the intent behind it are
appropriate, however suitable they may seem here.
So this is where I think deliberation about what to conserve leads, and where I think
religion comes into the discussion. What we conserve depends largely on who we
are and who we want to be, and what intent and relationship we think is
appropriate for our land. At Sewanee, it may be a relationship of both care and study
that guides our decisions. Then biodiversity is important both as a way of caring for
our place and preserving objects for study. In such a relationship, restoration might
take a priority that it wouldn’t have for a more static, preservationist view, since it is
both a means of caring for the land and provides opportunities to study. Elsewhere,
the proper relationship may be more characterized by work and cooperation. In
such a relationship, wilderness and biodiversity may be less important for
conservation than maintaining a productive ecological community. Benchmarks like
1491 could still be relevant, not because they necessarily represent a scientifically
verifiable vision of ecological wellness, but rather because they represent the
relationship or intent toward the land that we believe is most appropriate. The
question then becomes what characterized that relationship, and what conservation
decisions seem likely to help bring us closer to it? Likewise “native” remains a
helpful term to describe the assemblage of species that thrived when our
relationship to the land was more like what we believe it should be.
I think this deliberation about relationships or intent fits the challenges posed by
novel or hybrid ecosystems. If terms like “native”, “natural”, or “pre-Columbian” are
understood comprehensively, as if we could reproduce precisely those assemblages
of species that correspond to those terms, they are misleading. If they are
understood to point more to a relationship to the land, then we can be clearer about
what a similar relationship looks like in novel or hybrid contexts. It may mean
approximating as much as possible those particular assemblages, but it certainly
will not involve any comprehensive reconstruction.
So maybe the best topic to begin discussion is, if we think decisions about what to
conserve lead back to decisions about who we are and our intentions toward the
land, who are we, and what should those be?