In the last chapter of Rambunctious Garden, Emma Marris concludes the concept of rambunctious garden by stating that we are to manage our planet in different places for different goals like historical restoration, species preservation, and ecosystem services. It is through rambunctious gardening that can achieve the combination of goals we desire for. She also describes seven goals that conservationists commonly pursue for.
The first goal is to protect the right of other species. This goal focuses on biocentric view of life, giving species and ecosystem moral status (154). Deep ecologists are the ones that take on the biocentric view and believe that all living things have intrinsic value and should be protected. Some suggests that it is a moral obligation to the natural world to reduce our intense impacts on the planet and to reduce human population (155). I find this concept a little extreme since reducing human population is restricting the rights of human to expand, which is also a part of nature.
The second goal is to protect charismatic megafauna, who are large animals that “humans like and really don’t want to see go extinct” (156). According to theories, most popular species are also keystone species, species that have great impact on the ecosystem. It would lead to umbrella conservation, where conserving the keystone species will help conserve the ones depending on the keystone species.
The third goal is to slow the rate of extinction. By that it means to return the rate of extinction back to its “back ground rate” (158). Statutes like the Endangered Species Act are also passed to make it equal weight for species to be protected. However, if we have every species equally weight and only focus on halting extinctions, some species are not to be saved when budget is tight because some are more economic feasible to save than others.
The fourth goal is to protect genetic diversity. The reason being is that species with genetic variations are likely to adapt to changing climates (161). We are to prevent genetically weird species from going extinct. If they go extinct, we can be losing a million years of evolution. However, genetic diversity might lead to preserving genes of species in a freezer that might not do anything that will help the ecosystem nor the species physically.
The fifth goal is to defend biodiversity. Biodiversity usually mean a variety of species that exist. However, true biodiversity should also expand to variety of gene within each species and variety of ecosystems on Earth (162). It is also complexity of an ecosystem where species interact with each other to form a beautiful web of interrelations produced by evolution. We should conserve so that we can maintain the complex relationships between species in ecosystems.
The sixth goal is to maximize ecosystem service. It suggests conservations to occur to preserve the services that ecosystems provide for humanity like filtering water and dampening floods (164). The services and supplies ecosystems provide are finite, where the growing population of humanity depletes them more and more. Part of the conservation effort under this goal should be to pass legislative polices like financial incentives and taxes for people not to destroy ecosystems. However, it implies that people are entitled to destroy nature, and are given compensation if they do not. Also, the effort under this goal would encourage the planting of monocultures of plants that provide the services we need most and might reduce biodiversity.
The last goal is to protect the spiritual and aesthetic experience on nature. For most people, nature is a place to refresh their spirit (167). Some ecosystem and species also represent specific culture (168). We are to conserve the beauty in the cultural and spiritual experience that nature is providing for us.
With many goals, it is difficult to fit all of them into each ecosystem. Each ecosystem has to compromise its interests and to find the best goal or goals for it to be conserved. We need to be honest about our goals and costs, and to keep land from mindless developments (171). We are also going to do everything we can to keep green on this planet, even if they are not native landscape. We are to manage earth to reach our goals, which is called rambunctious gardening.
