Thoughts of a Conflicted Conservationalist

(note: this entry was started during my last year at Cornell. I've only recently gone back to finish it)

When I first started college, I viewed conservation from an almost completely ethical standpoint. I did not go as far as PETA with animal rights, but I did believe that all other animals have just as much right to exist on this planet as humans do. I followed the philosophy that humans have been here for such a significantly small portion of the earth's history, so who are we to judge who survives and who doesn't, what's important and what can be ignored?

That was about four years ago.

As the idealism began to clear, I began to think about things in an entirely different way. It was so different that it actually made me a little uncomfortable. I'll try to summarize as best as I can some of my conflicting internal arguments and what let to them.

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1) I began to ask, "how can environmental progress be achieved", instead of "how can I get people to understand that conservation is important".

I believe that progress can only be achieved if you ask the right questions. If your questions are off the mark, your answer will be worthless. I'm beginning to notice more and more that in my class discussions (usually relating to or directly about conservation and/or management of natural resources) the majority are still focusing on asking the latter. What I think we all need to realize is that most people are first and foremost concerned with matters directly affecting them and may not care that a certain species in is trouble. Why should a single housewife in the US care about some bird going extinct in South America? (Believe me, it hurts me to even think that, let alone type it on a blog). Their time is too important to listen to something they don't think they care about. Instead, conservationalists should approach it from an economic standpoint (using the definition of "economics" as the study of decision-making, too often it is mistaken as strictly money-based.) Instead of trying to convince the public that "I'm right, you're wrong", the goal should be to show the public why the act of conservation in question may be beneficial to them both now and in the future.

2) I began to accept putting pricetags on nature.

This also relates to certain statements made above. Associating a "price" to nature essentially translates "environmental science speak" into something more people can understand. Assuming the theory that people are rational and think "at the margin" (from Mankiw's principles of economics), most will be able to weigh costs and benefits. However, many people will not be able to make sense of an advanced scientific study (complete with big words and confusing charts!), whether they are rational or not. The majority of people that I've heard opinions from think that it's absolutely wrong to put a pricetag on nature. To that I say it really can't be helped. If you think about it, we put pricetags on everything, including human beings (it's called a salary).

3) I began to think about human development in the context of evolution and natural selection.

Survival of the fittest. The strong survive and reproduce, the weak decrease in number and may eventually die out. What if our technology is just a part of "natural" processes leading to our increased fitness?

4) I began to realize that it is impossible to save everything.

And this was what perhaps hurt me the most of all. My inner idealist wants to save the world, wants to champion world harmony, and maybe win the Miss America pageant in the process. But I've been naively thinking that there was a chance to save every creature in trouble. I've since seen that given our limited resources and priorities in other areas, there is no way that we can save everything. This is where we need to assign priorities. But then, that opens up a whole new can of worms. Different people have different priorities, or even different ways of achieving the same goal. How can we choose one over the other? And how can we say that one person's priorities are more important than another person's? We simply cant.

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There are so many intricacies involved in conservation and in so many different aspects... no wonder I've heard that conservation is not rocket science. It's harder!