0: Aesop’s Swallows
- Profiles of key individuals in the history of species conservation— often problematic, doing the right thing for the wrong reason and vice versa
- Despite tragedies of extinction stories today, conservation movement has prevented loss of so many more species
- Overlap and conflict between movements of confederation, environmentalism, preservation, animal welfare— here, focus on the first
- Must be careful and specific with the words “wild,” “wilderness,” “nature”
That the situation is hopeless should not prevent us from doing our best. (Aldo Leopold)
1: The Botanist Who Named the Animals— Carl Linnaeus
- Developed naming system → define the human constructs of taxonomies
- Distinctions between “biological realities” = blurry, but influential, as species = fundamental unit of modern conservation
- Affects which individuals can be introduced into endangered populations, etc
2: The Taxidermist and the Bison— William Temple Hornaday
- Taxidermist at what is now the Smithsonian Natural History Museum
- Hunted several of the remaining bison to make the iconic display at the museum
- Only in late 1800s did colonists begin to realize species could go extinct— not static entities
- With hunting of bison in America, elephants and quagga in Africa
- Urbanization → frontier inspired nostalgia, seen as healing place for wealthy white men with anxiety
- Madison Grant = very effective conservationist of his time, also championed racist POV of human subspecies
- Hornsday and Grant → “appalling callousness” toward fellow humans
- Blamed Native Americans equally with white hunters for demise of bison
- Teddy Roosevelt likewise had “commitment to saving the bison [that] was both genuine and infused with racism,” ultimately essential to survival of white masculinity
- Hornsday eventually restored bison to the Great Plains, but as livestock rather than to their actual place in the ecosystem
- Only in 2016 were any bison restored to the Blackfeet Confederacy
3: The Hellcat and the Hawks— Rosalie Edge
- Birds = class of vertebrates suffering most extinctions (driven by humans, most of the time)
- Plume trade especially harmful → blame placed on affluent women, but also some of strongest advocates for conservation
- Audubon = controversial figure— opposed abolition, but made nice bird drawings
- Women + Audubon Society kept pushing for ban of feather trade, finally accomplished in 1918
- Some internal conflict over protection of birds of prey between those opposed to plume hunting, sport hunters, etc.
- Major figure = Rosalie Edge; unusual sense of interconnected nature of ecosystems for conservationists of her time
- Founded Hawk Mountain Sanctuary
4: The Forester and the Green Fire— Aldo Leopold
- Incredibly influential figure among conservationists
- Two bedrock principles of species conservation: 1) each species requires a habitat (land, space, food, shelter); 2) all species need predators
- Neither habitat nor predators could be protected by law alone
- Muir (strict conservationist, even indigenous people have no place in the “wild”) vs Pinchot (more utilitarian view, aiming for greatest good, efficient use of natural resources, land should be managed for the benefit of all)
- Pinchot → established Forest Service under TR, mentor to Leopold
- Leopold’s childhood growing up observing his environment → understanding of ecology and interdependence of life and the land → could see how things like erosion threatened goals of conservation
- Disturbed by what he observed in pre-WWII Germany; “sanitization” of clearcut forests mirrored by talk of racial purity
The obsessive drive for order, whether in politics or the woods, was antithetical to the emerging principles of ecology. What the land needed was not uniformity, but complexity.
- Saw ultimate purpose of conservation, and of humans, as maintaining the flow of energy through living systems
- Connection between hunting and conservation → policies like paying private landowners for protecting game habitats and allowing hunting on their land
- People started to realize predator eradication (wolves, eagles) led to problems with population control of deer and such → humans have to step in as top predator and/or have some protection for predators
- Leopold’s most famous essay, “The Land Ethic”
- Conservation movement must counter humans’ “philosophical imperialism” to other species and their habitats
- Must develop an ethical obligation for the private landowner, where “a thing is right when it tends to preserves the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community,” and wrong otherwise
In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conquerer of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.
5: The Professor and the Elixir of Life— Julian Huxley
- Helped unite species conservation efforts → intl movement
- Expansion of conservation mvmt beyond Europe and NA → initially motivated to protect overseas economic interests, part of colonial power
- Malthusian views + Darwinian evolution → rise of eugenics movement, to different degrees, among basically all these people (till after WWII)
- Integration of conservation goals into UNESCO, founding of IUCN, WWF… people realizing how many species were threatened by extinction & what the impact could be
- Conservation movement remained controversial in Africa as decolonization occurred— valid questions of who the wild was being protected for?
- Preservationists often used it as an excuse to kick people of their land (like the Maasai, who began to retaliate by killing rhinos)
6: The Eagle and the Whooping Crane
- Stewart Udall → one of most important campaigns to protect a single species (whooping crane)
- Secretary of lots of things under presidents from Kennedy on; tons of national parks and reserves, as well as utilization of national resources through dams and such
- Whooping crane on brink of extinction, efforts at captive breeding not successful
- Rachel Carson → gathering info on danger of DDT
- Noticed decline in bald eagle population, esp number of young birds— bc accumulation of DDT breakdown products
- Published findings in The Silent Spring, which had immediate impact in the piblic and caught attention of JFK (along with Carson’s friend and ine of his Cabinet members, Udall), spurred modern environmental movement by recalling nuclear threat
- Gave shape to idea of the environment as a life-support system underlying global connection (and vulnerability)
- Environmental movement has its beginnings w middle class, focus on things like water pollution;
- Species conservation was part of a larger mission, while for conservationists (founded by hunters), it was the end itself
- Under FDR, some of first legislation passed protecting some species (suggested by Leopold)
- Udall, as Interior Sec → CREWS to protect endangered species, eventually lead to 1966 Endangered Species Act
- BUT emphasis more on recovery plans for individual species in crisis than habitat conservation overall, which is not that effective
- Strength = generation of public awareness and support for bald eagle conservation, which was very successful— allowed to rebound mostly on its own, vs whooping cranes, which still struggle and are not doing well with captive breeding (really a last resort strategy)
7: The Scientists Who Escaped the Tower
- By 1970s, field of conservation biology beginning to emerge: intersection of biology with social sciences and humanities → very turbulent!
- Biologists long hesitant to get involved w conservation for fear of being seen as less than other physical sciences, having their own practices obstructed
- Founded by Soulé, outlined common beliefs in 1985 essay, “What Is Conservation Biology?”
- Diversity of organisms is good, ecological complexity is good, evolution is good, biodiversity has intrinsic value
- Analogous to Leopold’s land ethic
- All the debate around carrying capacity, Vogt/Malthus/Ehrlich and The Population Bomb, Hardin & the commons, even today’s concept of planetary boundaries— how to reconcile with tech innovation, Green Revolution, population growth, govt policies around family planning
- 1970s also → establishment of many national parks, reserves
- Idea of sustainable development tried to ease tension btw conservation and economic development, but difficult to implement in reality
- To protect biodiversity, conservationists have to convince fellow humans to make some sacrifices… but how?
- Some efforts financed by hunting, but many protections could not be covered in that way, and had little short term benefit to locals → resentment of federal govt
- Emphasis on land preservation— wildlife corridors, EO Wilson’s Half-Earth
- Conservation/environmentalism → reputation for being anti-human
- Important to remember that to some extent, we are different from other species, even if it’s just that we are our aware of ourselves as a species (Christine Korsgaard)
- When we only recognize a subset of humans as distinct → darkest chapters of history: eugenics, genocide…
- Perhaps one more core belief of conservation bio is needed: that humans are capable of protecting the rest of life vs ourselves
- Most recently, attempts to quantify value of ecosystem services and conservation
- Costs and benefits often unequally distributed: the poor carry the burden, the wealthy enjoy the benefits → antipathy towards laws like the ESA, proposals for new parks
8: The Rhino and the Commons
- Garth Owen-Smith in Namibia
- Mid 1970s: international conservation movement beginning to prioritize sustainable development over new parks/reserves → negotiation amidst top players over various top-down strategies
- Emergence of new generation of conservationists emphasizing indigenous rights, working with the people who lived amidst and often relied on the species for survival
- Community-based conservation, utilization of caloric/financial resources
- Ex. employing poachers as game guards to report poaching, communal conservancies in Namibia
- Began as reaction to top-down conservation strategies, but can be implemented alongside them— people’s parks
- Still integrate trophy hunting, which can be targeted to specific animals and brings in tons of $$— simply banning hunting overlooks complexity of the situation
- Limitation of these strategies = take time to develop, and many species don’t have this!
- Elinor Ostrom (Nobel winning economist) → Hardin’s tragedy of the commons idea wasn’t real— people were actually good at sharing resources given clear boundaries, reliable monitoring, reasonable costs and benefits, predictable, fast, and fair conflict resolution o process, escalating punishments for cheaters, good relationships between community and other authorities
- Principles used in implementing community-based conservation strategies above
9: The Few Who Save the Many
- Current age of extinction driven by same factors as always— habitat destruction/loss, over hunting— and exasperated by climate change
- New urgency to need to protect a species while still common— shift from conservation biology as a crisis response field
- How to conserve species in abundance, in place, in perpetuity?
- Rebuild local conservation institutions, like in Namibia
- Work within existing institutions to tell a different story: granting legal standing/personhood to natural objects, with humans as guardians
- Drawing inspiration from Māori people
Conclusion: Homo Amphibius
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Aldous Huxley → twofold nature of humanity:
Whether we like it or not, we are amphibians, living simultaneously in the world of experience and the world of notions, in the world of direct apprehension of Nature, God, and ourselves, and the world of abstract, verbalized knowledge. Our business as human beings is the make the best of both these worlds.
- Reckoning with the fact that we are destroying species at a huge scale, but also developing gene-editing tech that gives us theoretical powers of creation…
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Margaret Atwood, reflecting on the relevance of Brave New World:
Alone among the animals, we suffer from the future perfect tense.