Emma Marris takes her reader to the final destination. She discusses where the reader fits in. There is no “perfect restoration” method. People have to take into account “budgets, politics, and time” and realize it no longer is feasible. Some of the decisions to be made are whether or not we preserve species in their native ecosystems or displace them. The ultimate solution is not clear and it’ll require deliberation among landowners, governments, and people truly passionate enough to want to make a difference. Marris lines up her action steps that she deems necessary and her goals revolve around coexisting.
Rambunctious gardens become the much needed compromise that our current societies are missing. Land ethics which Marris defines how humans extend moral obligations to “soils, waters, plants, and animals” (Marris). Much of Marris’ ideologies can be traced back to Arne Naess, a Norwegian philosopher who held a “biocentric view of life” (Marris) where all life is linked to us, so in essence by protecting and maintaining the environment around us. This ideology is called deep ecology. Simultaneously, while we respect all the species, threatening species may need to be regulated to ensure biodiversity. With respect to all living, breathing organism, what happens to the forests, mountains, and rivers. Ethicists believe that “these entities have their own intrinsic value” (Marris). It’s important to place them on the same importance as the myriads of animal species and at the very bottom it would be valid to always put human development beneath all else.
Out of all the species in the world, it almost seems ridiculous to target our attention to charismatic megafauna which would consist of “big mammals with big eyes” (Marris). However, Marris makes a point that these “whales, dolphins, elephants, gorillas, tigers, and pandas” (Marris) live in ecosystems that support a slew of species that aren’t visible to us. Marris argues that umbrella conservation becomes the most effective and efficient way to protect these areas. Ecologists and other experts believe there’s mainly one solution however, each country actually needs to be dealt with independently. This leads into the next set of objectives for Marris. Many times conservation simply is delaying the diminishing factor that kills of the number of a certain species. Conservationists usually set the goal as returning “the rate of extinctions to its ‘background rate’ before human activity” (Marris). Another factor that is mentioned is the funding required to pass the threshold of success. A certain amount of funding would be necessary to complete a task. However if there is not enough funding to complete the project, it would be a wasted effort. The question raised targets the feasibility of preservation financially.
Aside from philosophies and other methods, Marris explains some of her other goals such as improving the genetic diversity of the environment. To an extent, this is accomplished by the Endangered Species Act. The importance of these actions fits within her big picture of the artificial, half-manufacture nature. Many people focus on individual species in an ecosystem and fail to see the big picture and miss that increasing genetic biodiversity is the key. A larger gene pool helps along years of evolution thus prolonging our chances of recreating former ecosystems.
