Conservation Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Conservation is the protection of certain features from modification and use. The evolution of conservation ideas, coupled with the creation of particular models of natural resource management, are rooted in key historical events, ethics, political philosophies, and understandings about the relationships between humans and the environment. These ideas also differ culturally, as many countries have pursued their own conservation strategies that fit with local understandings of the environment. Interest in conservation in the United States expanded at the end of the 19th century as the result of economic, demographic and environmental factors. Prior to this time, industrial and urban expansion on the continent superseded a national concern for conserving the American landscape. Environmental historian Roderick Nash argues that Americans were primarily afraid of the wilderness landscape and were intent on modifying it for their comfort and use.

The early settlers cast the environment in superstitious tones that presented it as a threat to their existence, consisting of evil elements and spirits. These ideas were supported by the need for raw materials to support the Industrial Revolution, which made the clearing of the environment part of the national mission. These pressures began to be challenged as people became increasingly aware of the value of the American landscape. Historian Frederick Jackson Turner published an influential essay in 1893, which asserted that the American frontier, the iconic representation of American character and lifestyle, had disappeared. The U.S. census at that time marked the official end of the frontier with the closure of the American West. The westward expansion that accompanied Manifest Destiny and the Homestead Act had effectively transformed the region while laying the foundation for a growing conservation ethic.

Conservation principles and ideas have been heavily influenced by a number of American writers in the 19th century. Primarily located in the urban Northeast, a number of authors helped instill a sense of beauty for the natural world. One such group was the Transcendentalists, who broke from the principles of the Enlightenment in asserting that truths could be discovered not through science, but in vision and emotion. Transcendentalists argued that wilderness was critical to experience and that the natural world represented and reflected spiritual truth and moral law. Key among them was Henry David Thoreau, who in his classic book Walden detailed his time spent in nature near his Concord, Massachusetts home. In a classic lecture before the Concord Lyceum, Thoreau argued that the preservation of the world could be found through experiencing nature.

An Emerging Stewardship

The Transcendentalists were not the only group arguing for a changing relationship between humans and the environment. In his book Man and Nature, George Perkins Marsh asserted that the destruction of the natural world represented a threat to the survival of human civilization. In suggesting that ancient civilizations declined because of their abuse of the environment, Marsh helped develop an emerging stewardship for the natural world. Another influential writer and activist was John Muir, who spent much of his adult life in the wilds of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Muir became a nationally recognized figure, and worked in concert and in opposition with key actors to help establish Yosemite National Park and other protected areas. One of Muir’s key legacies is his advocacy for preservationism as a guiding conservation philosophy. Preservationists argue that the natural world should be left to its own devices. This belief contrasted with utilitarianism, which asserts that the utilization of the environment is acceptable and necessary. One key utilitarian advocate, Gifford Pinchot, became the first chief of the Forest Service and argued that conservation was best realized through the use of natural resources and development. In one of the central rifts of the early conservation movement, Muir and Pinchot fought over the damming of the Tuolumne River in the Hetch Hetchy Valley of Yosemite National Park. The decision to build the dam within the national park represented an early victory for utilitarian conservation.

Conservation Models

One of the central conservation models has been the national park, which has its origins in the United States in the 19th century. Writers and activists were successful in pushing forward the idea of a national park to protect natural landscapes and wildlife from intrusion. Also important were various industries, including tourism and railroad, that were looking for opportunities to expand into the American West. Several expeditions were funded by financiers to help develop interest in the western landscape. The Washburn-Doane Expedition of 1870 is regularly cited as a catalyst for the creation of Yellowstone National Park, but the expedition’s influence was only part of a convergence of factors for the creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872, which was the first protected area of its kind. Yellowstone was a bit of an oddity; it did not prompt the immediate expansion of the national park system and was intended to benefit the expanding tourism industry into the Western United States. The Yellowstone bill specifically identified the geysers, hot springs, and other geological features to be the most critical for protection. Wildlife species were not given the same consideration, and early park management was intent upon removing various predators that were believed to threaten the bison and other wildlife the tourists wanted to see. It would not be until the 20th century that wildlife and fire management strategies would be changed within the national park system.

An expanding urban population in the Northeast fueled an increasing desire to experience nature. This resulted in a growing tendency to associate wilderness with the frontier and pioneer past. Wilderness was believed to be responsible for many unique and desirable national characteristics and acquired importance as a source of virility, toughness, and savagery. Natural landscapes were increasingly invested with aesthetic and ethical values, and as such, they become valuable for contemplation and recreation. National figures such as Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, and John Muir helped push for expanded conservation in the United States through the Forest Service and Antiquities Act. The National Park Service (NPS) was established in 1916 in an effort to connect the various national parks under one department. The NPS began working to expand the number of national parks while meeting the needs of a growing number of tourists.

Dramatic Expansion

Conservation expanded dramatically in the United States in the latter half of the 20th century. The environmental and health effects of continued industrialization and development prompted the passage of various pieces of legislation. In the classic book Silent Spring, Rachel Carson warned of the health impacts of chemicals upon ecological systems. Her dire warnings prompted the banning of DDT as a pesticide following World War II and helped the recovery of bird species, like the bald eagle, whose population numbers were in decline. In A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold used ecological principles to argue that a land ethic was needed to change the relationship between humans and the environment. Various pieces of environmental legislation were signed into law that helped make the environment more central to national policy. The Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Air Act, and Endangered Species Act (ESA) were all critical pieces of legislation. The ESA established a list of endangered species that are managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The 1964 Wilderness Act established a national network of wilderness areas managed by the Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Fish and Wildlife Service. There are now many different conservation types in the United States, including national parks, state parks, national monuments, wildlife refuges, sanctuaries, national and state forests, and tribal lands. Their management is entrusted to local, state, and federal agencies.

Sustainable Development

Conservation principles have expanded globally through sustainable development, which attempts to merge economic development with environmental sustainability. The origins of sustainable development can be traced to the 1970s as the result of a number of events and conferences. The United Nations (U.N.) Conference on the Human Environment held in 1972 in Stockholm, Sweden, was the first major summit on environment and development. Attendees from 113 nations agreed to a number of principles, including the idea that economic growth and environmental sustainability could coexist. The Stockholm Conference was followed by the World Conservation Strategy (WCS) of 1980, which attempted to integrate development goals with conservation planning. The WCS helped merge conservation of the environment with mainstream development processes. A major event in the establishment of sustainable development was the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) Our Common Future Report of 1987, which defined sustainable development as “[meeting] the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Among its many goals was the conservation of the natural resource base and the merging of environment and economics in decision making. Sustainable development has played a key role in the expansion of conservation throughout the developing world. Conservation areas were linked with sustainable development principles and premised as key areas of protection for threatened flora and fauna species. Their creation was considered all the more important, considering the rates of deforestation and habitat destruction occurring around the world.

The concept of the national park did not exist solely within the United States and Europe. Throughout Africa, colonists created conservation areas to provide natural experiences in wild Africa. The interplay between human and nonhuman species in these constructed geographical spaces was designed to allow wildlife to be observed unfettered by human interference. In the post-colonial era, African countries found that national parks, and other types of conservation areas, presented a significant source of revenue. Tourism became a contributing factor to conservation and these areas presented a source of economic growth for national governments.

These trends have expanded the presence of national parks and protected areas around the world. Between 1900-49, less than 600 protected areas were established worldwide. Between 1950-90, however, this figure grew to nearly 3,000, of which 1,300 were established just in the 1970s with the majority located in the developing world. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) has categorized protected areas into eight separate management domains: scientific reserve/strict nature reserve; national park; national monument/national landmark; managed nature reserve/wildlife sanctuary; protected landscape; resource reserve; natural biotic area/anthropological reserve; and multiple-use management area/managed resource. At the end of the 20th century, more than 25,000 protected areas existed worldwide and approximately 5 percent of the land surface of the planet had been set aside as protected areas with a variety of management goals and structures. More recently, the 2003 U.N. List of Protected Areas identified more than 100,000 protected areas that constituted roughly 11.5 percent of the land surface of the planet.

The drive to protect biodiversity and habitat often comes at the expense of human populations that live adjacent to national parks and protected areas. Concerns for the impacts of national park planning upon local populations have expanded interest in community conservation strategies that attempt to integrate local livelihood needs and concerns with the broader conservation mandate. Community conservation is a broad category that includes community-based conservation, community wildlife management, collaborative management, community-based natural resource management, and integrated conservation and development programs (ICDPs). There are examples of these approaches all over the world, such as the extractive reserves in Brazil and the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) program in Zimbabwe. CAMPFIRE was created in 1989 to allow private property holders to claim ownership of the wildlife on their land with the goal of providing incentives to protect environmental resources. CAMPFIRE was designed by the government’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management (DNPWM) to decentralize management authority and decision-making of common property resources (CPRs) to the local communities that incur the costs of management. Since its beginnings, the CAMPFIRE approach has been applied to the management of other CPRs, including grazing, forest resources, and fisheries. Other community conservation initiatives, like extractive reserves in the Brazilian Amazon, have increased in popularity as a means of reconciling the competing demands of human development and conservation.

Another strategy for combining conservation with development is ecotourism. Tourists continue to visit international destinations for their diverse ecological features. Often labeled ecotourism, this trend represents a promising opportunity to generate revenue for conservation while providing incentives for developing countries to protect their environments from development. The International Ecotourism Society defines ecotourism as “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people.” This involves the following principles: minimized impact, development of environmental and cultural awareness, generation of financial benefits for conservation, and the support of human rights and democratic movements. A number of countries, including Costa Rica, Belize, and South Africa, have been aggressive in promoting their national parks and assorted conservation areas to generate financial revenue through ecotourism.

Various environmental challenges confront conservation ethics and the global community. Biological diversity is threatened with the continued deforestation of various habitats around the world. Global warming remains one of the most significant challenges that will require shifts in energy consumption, infrastructure, and planning. Underpinning these issues are continued debates about the appropriate relationships between humans and the environment. It remains hotly debated as to whether conservation should be guided by a preservationist or a utilitarian perspective.

Bibliography:

Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness (Ballatine Books, 1971);
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (Penguin, 1999);
Krishna B. Ghimire, “Parks and People: Livelihood Issues in National Parks Management in Thailand and Madagascar,” Development and Change (v.25, 1994);
Martha Honey, Ecotourism and Sustainable Development: Who Owns Paradise? (Island Press, 1999);
Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There (Oxford University Press, 1968);
George Perkins Marsh, Man and Nature (University of Washington, 2003);
Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (Yale University Press, 1967);
Roderick P. Neumann, Imposing Wilderness: Struggles over Livelihood and Nature Preservation in Africa (University of California Press, 1998);
Sayre, J. Mansour, X. Li, T. Boucher, S. Sheppard, K. Redford, “The Parks in Peril Network: An Ecogeographic Perspective,” In: Brandon, K., Redford, K.H., Sanderson, S.E. (Eds.), Parks in Peril: People, Politics, and Protected Areas (Island Press, 1998);
Henry David Thoreau, Walden (Bramhall House, 1970).