In the fall of 2012 at the headquarters of The Nature Conservancy, the largest conservation organisation in the world, there was a meeting to try to dampen what was becoming a very public squabble amongst the leading conservationists in the US.
Mark Terek the head of The Nature Conservancy (TNC) was flanked by his lead scientist Peter Kareiva outspoken ecologist, member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a renown stirrer. Peter with two co-authors Michelle Marvier and Robert Lalasz wrote, Conservation In The Anthropocene , a simple easy to read thirty or so paragraphs that in a very public way gave legitimacy to what some had already been thinking.
On the other side was Michael Soule known for being the chief promoter of what is called Conservation Biology, Don Weeden, Stuart Pimm, and Reed Noss. Former Sec or Interior Bruce Babbit wisely pulled out of attending at the last minute.
Karieva of the Conservancy had been openly mocking many of the ideas these scientists had spent their careers promoting. Karieva in a very public fashion had been destroying many of the myths of environmentalism, he'd been letting the air out of the inflated pomposity that is modern conservation. Audiences loved it, and in truth Karieva had been taking aim in a very target rich environment.
For their part the "old" conservationists met in Denver and decided to push back via a coordinated response. Some tried to get Karieva fired, others wrote, and of late some had been encouraging large donors to withhold funds to the Conservancy.
An agreement of sorts was reached. Karieva would write only in peer reviewed journals. Soule would continue to work on his book about how horrid humans are, Pimm would study birds, etc. Hale fellow well met and all that.
The truce ended at about the same time as the meeting. Soon Soule and others were penning Letters to the Editor of Conservation Magazines castigating the "new conservation" and mentioning Karieva by name 13 times. Over the fold for what it is that so enrages these famous greens.
New Yorker Article Long form mostly about Terek and TNC, description of meeting half way down. Great New Yorker cartoons.
Interesting that there is no wiki entry for Peter Kareiva.
"Most of the people actively involved in environmental groups are extremists, not reasonable people" In 1996 32% agreed with that statement, 2004 43% agreed, today more than half do, says Kareiva.
Polls consistently show strong support for clean air and water, protecting the environment and natural places. Environmental values consistently encompass people from all walks of life and stretch across all political affiliations. What is it about environmental groups that cause them to be viewed as unreasonable extremists by such a large and growing segment of our population?
Karieva and others like him have not just poked holes in many ideas that have been taken for granted by environmentalists for forty years, they've held them up to the light and laughed at them. No matter how silent Karieva might be at this point the cat is out of the bag, it's now ok to disagree with the self righteous, it's even ok to laugh.
The word anthropocene is now in common use amongst those who follow these sorts of issues, and with acceptance of that word comes acceptance of much of what the naming of this era of the earth's history engenders. The idea that humans are shaping and responsible for the very environment in which we live has profoundly changed how we look at nature and our place within it. If we are shaping our environment via development and climate change, so too can we shape our surroundings to better reflect how we want them to be. Humans as caretakers of the garden, stewards of the environment.
"To be the first going somewhat public with this kind of critique from [inside] an organization framework, it's not only pioneering and important, but brave," Brand said. "He's a guy who's risking his job." Stewart Brand the Whole Earth Catalog guy
http://www.eenews.net/...
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/...
Four of the environmental myths Karieva has set his sights on are:
The Fragile Apocalypse. The whole world is about to end tomorrow if this pipeline is built, due to this oil spill, if we lose this species, etc etc etc. Hyperbole. The earth is resilient, single species can often disappear and it really doesn't matter. Ecosystems can and have recovered from catastrophes. Nothing is the end of the world.
Jobs versus nature. Sorry ranchers, loggers, fishermen, miners, farmers, and all others, feeding, clothing, and providing for the world comes second. It's time to make conservation work for poor or working class or indigenous people.
Pristine Wilderness. I call these the Never-Wuzzers. The idealized worship of some time far in the past when the garden of eden existed. Never Wuzzers wish to de populate all places inhabited by people and return things to "how they were". Similar to other religious fundamentalists, "how things were" is something we need to impose on other people.
And lastly Rejection of Technology. Only artisanal foods from the farmers market for that once a week people don't eat out or get Thai take away. GMOs are evil even if we starve half of Africa. Anti vaxers. No electricity or cars or nice houses for the third world.
Ecological Anxiety Disorder: Diagnosing the Politics of the Anthropocene
So if that is what New Conservation isn't, what exactly is it?
Broadly it's
Quit Romanticizing
Put Nature in Cities where people actually live
Broaden Constituency to include everyone, even farmers, ranchers, indigenous people, the poor.
Embrace Technology
Partner with Business works better than fighting them.
Nature for People instead of being removed from the people.
Probably the greatest example of a New Conservationist is Barack Obama. The huge increases in gas mileage agreed to by car companies. Shutting down coal, fast tracking solar and wind, big carbon agreements with China, a more pragmatic approach to species conservation and a legitimizing of the wishes of people directly affected by any conservation action. President Obama has put out the effort to partner with farmers and ranchers, protect greenways and landscapes for recreation, bring nature to the cities where people actually live. President Obama's Great Outdoors Initiative without fanfare was the direct use of many New Conservationists ideas. A peek at my link reveals bullet points that might well have been lifted verbatim out of the New Conservationists playbook.
A 21st century conservation ethic that builds on local ideas and solutions for environmental stewardship and connecting to our historic, cultural, and natural heritage.
Sounds like Kareiva to me.
While writing this post this new article appeared on my twitter stream. A Scientist's Call for Civility And Diversity in Conservation an attempt to return civility to the discussion via a petition signed by Kareiva and Soule as well as 240 cosigners.
On the one hand you have a movement that has already shifted in one direction via strategic partnerships with very large corporations and six years of the Obama administration. On the other hand are individual donors and supporters who have an emotional investment with the picturesque landscapes shown on the Conservancy's web site. Many people now know that rewilding African carnivores in a corridor from Mexico to Alaska is a far fetched and pointless dream, but getting Dow Chemical to change some of the ways it does things will show immediate and tangible improvements in peoples lives. Those are two extremely different approaches to conservation, and one is happening.