Anthropocene Response

The Anthropocene, as described by Kareiva in her article, “Conservation in the Anthropocene,” is defined as the new geological age that we have entered in which humans influence every part of the Earth’s natural system. This transition into the Anthropocene period is a result of the increasing amount of changes that humans have on the Earth. In the post-industrial world, we value economic gains and opportunities greater than we do nature. People transform land in order to help expand their business or clear trees to build roads to make transportation easier. However they do not think about the effect that their actions have on nature and the Earth’s ecosystems. This is particularly why the name Anthropocene makes sense since there is so much human impact on nature. In his article, “Human Domination of Earth’s Ecosystems,” Vitousek also claims that humans are making changes to natural habitats for economic purposes. He writes that “human use of land alters the structure and functioning of ecosystems, and it alters how ecosystems interact with the atmosphere, with aquatic systems, and with surrounding land.” This shows that people are making changes that effect many different parts of the Earth’s ecosystems. In her article, Kareiva claims that conservation methods are not going to be effective in the Anthropocene era because of the vast impact of humans on nature already. “The wilderness ideal presupposes that there are parts of the world untouched by humankind, but today it is impossible to find a place on Earth that is unmarked by human activity.” This shows that since humans have had an impact on all areas of the world and nature, conservation techniques are not really going to work because humans have already made changes to the land. I think that the concept of the Anthropocene is much better than our current conservation methods for the Earth’s ecosystem. Right now, we are setting land and creating parks in the name of conservationism, which is not really helping the biodiversity or ecology of the Earth. As Kareiva states in her article, as the number of conservations increases, nature has increasingly lost much of its biodiversity. I find her idea about having conservationists partnering up with corporations in a science-based effort to integrate the value of nature’s benefits into their operations and cultures. We cannot continue to blame capitalism for the condition of the Earth’s ecosystems since capitalism is the reason behind some of the greatest economies in the world. Our successful economic practices cannot change so, instead, we should try to combine conservationist tactics with corporation practices so that they can make necessary changes to reduce their harmful effects on nature. If conservationism is able to help poor countries better their economies some how, then there will be much greater overall support for conservationism around the world. Since developed countries have enough resources to give to conservation of nature, getting developing countries would make the conservation effort more of a global effort. The Anthropocene definitely addresses the main reason for the current state of Earth’s ecosystems, but our current conservation efforts are clearly not effective. With the growing population and increasing use of Earth’s resources, effective conservation solutions are needed.