There’s a fresh, strong breeze blowing in the field of conservation and it is redefining conservation itself: conservation as not just protecting land, water and species, not just playing defense against venal politics and the juggernaut of human growth and development, fighting this battle here, that battle there. No. This is conservation going for what it really wants: 1) healthy, ecologically functioning landscapes with all species and habitats represented in effective numbers; and, along with that, 2) people, part of the picture actively involved in restoring the health of the land and its many species inhabitants. The strength of this hopeful vision is built on a growing consensus in solid cutting-edge science devoid of political influence, a science in the service of a deep affection for the natural world and all its inhabitants, not just the one, us. It combines two major strategies that are now coming into their own here in the early 21st century – conservation biology and ecological restoration. In this two-part set of articles, we will look more in depth at these two emerging strategies.
These two strategies aren’t really that complicated. To simplify just a little, conservation biology teaches the three ‘C’s: to establish an ecologically healthy functioning landscape we need: 1) large core wild areas, many of which are already established; 2) movement corridors that knit the cores together so the species can roam, spread and intermix; and, 3) crowning this landscape fabric, keeping the other species checked and balanced, are the top carnivores.
Cores are true wildlife refuges, the incubators and source areas for native biodiversity. We need more of them, spread geographically and ecologically, but we have a great start with our awesome history of national parks, wilderness areas, wildlife refuges and other nature preserves. “National parks are the best idea we ever had.” – Wallace Stegner, 1983.
We used to think cores alone were enough to preserve nature. But with the help of a discipline called Island Biogeography we’ve come to realize they aren’t. Animals need to be able to roam and spread far and wide to propagate and share their genes. Safe, permeable landscapes and corridors are how they do that. Instead of leaving our national parks and other core areas as isolated islands in a sea of lethal, hostile development, we need to connect them into a usable matrix of compatible lands. Adolescent male animals especially need to move, find new mates and establish new territories, and corridors allow them to do so. In some cases this means we have to retrofit the landscape, at highway crossing barriers for example.
Learning to live again with top carnivores is also key to re-wilding. Not only would we preclude an experience of deep wildness (‘self-willed’ land), we simply cannot recreate wholesome healthy ecosystems without them. Top carnivores perform the irreplaceable function of top-down regulation of the ecosystems they are part of. Without them, mid-sized animals, including deer, coyotes and other ‘meso-predators’ increase dramatically in numbers, which can have devastating effects on other plants and animals in a cascading effect. For example, not enough predators, and deer populations explode. Too many deer leads to the over-browsing of the plants they eat, as well as excess car accidents. Top-level carnivores ‘right-size’ things. We can co-exist with them in a mutually respectful way, and we can figure out how.
The eco-revitalization of the land with carnivores includes not only the ones we have spent so much time and effort getting rid of – wolves, bears, and large cats – but also wild trout and salmon; whales; otters and other members of that family; and owls, hawks and other raptors. These top-level species are sometimes called ‘umbrella species’: protecting and restoring them protects many other species that share the same area.
Of course the issue of the reintroduction of some carnivores will require a long social conversation, carefully monitored and defined experiments, and gradualism. Centuries – even millennia – of fears and negative attitudes need to be allayed, and that takes time, but early experimental results, for example with wolves in Yellowstone and the North Woods, are very promising. People sometimes speak of the question of balance, but it’s important to remember that most of these species have had their former ranges and numbers reduced by 75-95% as over-dominant mankind has expanded by the millions bringing our roads, livestock, pet cats and dogs, and appetites for land, lumber, minerals, food and water with us.
Thoreau, in his Journals, wrote: “I take infinite pains to know all the phenomena of spring, thinking that I have here the entire poem, and then, to my chagrin I hear that it is but an imperfect copy that I possess and have read, that my ancestors have torn out many of the first leaves and grandest passages…” He described his native Massachusetts, even in the 1840’s, as an “emasculated” landscape with many of its greatest species deleted.
We can co-exist, and by doing so we will immeasurably deepen our psychologies and enrich our lives.
Conservation biology is of course more complex than I have laid out here, but these three ‘C’s lay out a basic scientific scaffolding for re-wilding our continent. There are many regional implementation efforts already underway in the West (Yukon to Yellowstone; Arizona Wilderness Coalition; Sky Islands; etc.), East (Southern Appalachians; Maine to Adirondacks; etc.), North (Canadian Rockies); and South (in Central America’s Paseo Panthera project), and on larger and smaller scales. These projects are often instigated by non-profits but are increasingly supported by progressive elements in the various federal and state agencies. Collectively they show great promise.
Right now there are many ongoing efforts to implement landscape-scale conservation plans using the three ‘C’s’ as described in the previous article on re-wilding. These efforts mostly involve multiple states and jurisdictions, and so are usually best-facilitated by an overarching non-profit whose work includes building public support and raising private dollars for such efforts. Supplementing these regional jig-saw efforts are myriad other non-profits and land trusts, and, a new phenomenon, their growing armies of volunteer stewards.
Although land trusts date back to 1891 in Massachusetts, they have grown by leaps and bounds in recent decades to now number over 1,200 in the US and about 150 in the 11-state West. Using sophisticated real estate skills, they protect land first and foremost, and have spectacularly protected tens of millions of acres around the country. This is critical for filling in the pieces of the giant landscape puzzle. Much of that land is then turned over to public agencies for ownership and management. But much is also retained as private land with an underlying conservation easement so it will remain undeveloped or lightly developed.
But in addition to protection, the Trusts and their trained volunteers are increasingly trying their hands at habitat stewardship and restoration, including on protected farmland and other private and public lands. It is becoming a movement of sorts, one in which people are becoming a positive, healing force in nature. Agencies from the big federal ones through state, county and local park districts are also involved.
It’s not always enough simply to protect the land – it has to be managed, stewarded, as well. Think of all the wounds our culture and history has subjected the land to – hunting off or chasing away major species; cutting trees, spreading weeds and other non-native species; preventing natural fires and flooding; fragmenting once flowing landscapes into small postage stamp-sized squares; plowing the ground and letting wind and water erode away the precious topsoil; surrounding them with houses, factories, roads, parking lots and other incompatible uses; littering them with plastic bags, beer cans and cigarette butts; sowing Eurasian grasses and mowing them short; poisoning the land, air, water and wildlife itself; and altering the climate.
Yes, we have often abused what one of the founders of modern conservation, Aldo Leopold, called “the land organism.” Through ecosystem restoration, native species and processes, like fire or flooding cycles, can often be restored, natural complexity/ diversity increased, and lands brought more towards climax conditions that will tend to support rare disturbance-sensitive species. Understanding of how to do this and on-the-ground efforts to do so have increased dramatically in the last few decades. But, as testified by the growing armies of volunteers, in this unique and dramatically involved way we can also restore our own personal and deep relationship to the natural world that surrounds us and that we depend on.
Two enormous motivations come together to engage people in ecosystem restoration – 1) they want to help; and, 2) they love to garden: it’s America’s number one pastime. Restoration is the gardening, not of vegetables, but of nature, cultivating a return to natural diversity, following the great natural laws of succession and disturbance. When agencies are involved, it can be as large-scale as agribusiness, using some of the same mechanized equipment like tractors, plows, back-hoes seed-collecting equipment and the like. But with volunteers, it is very hands-on, using a variety of tools and techniques, shovels, rakes, loppers, saws, sickles, gloves, clipboards and forms, hand lenses, binoculars, nets, and more.
It’s a multi-faceted endeavor. Depending on which ecosystems are involved, restoration includes tree-planting, seed-collecting and planting, invasive reduction and removal, trail management, dam removal or modification, prescribed burning, and lots of observation and monitoring – in other words, plenty of great work for trained, committed citizen scientists and other volunteers. People want to feel they’re a positive force in nature, working with nature, bring back native plants, insects, birds, and mammal
So, in a typical example, in all kinds of weather, volunteers gather at scheduled sites to work, restoring health to preserves by cutting brush, pulling invasive weeds, gathering and sowing native seeds. Citizen scientists collect important information about the plants and animals, monitoring changes in sites as restoration proceeds and adding to the knowledge of local ecosystems, with many opportunities to become expert in local details no one else may know as well.
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