Marris’ The Rambunctious Garden gave a very in-depth detail about modern ecology. She talks about the pollution humans are leaving behind, conservation ideas to help these problem, and new projects that will help humans and wild life as a whole. However there are many things that Marris says that do not seem realistic or unnecessary.
Her last chapter is meant to give us a list of goals she believes are necessary for the future of conservation, however, I felt the chapter lacking. Some of the points she mentioned didn’t seem like they could be realistic, and some unethical. Here are points that I found necessary to comment on.
The land ethic is a term used to describe “soils, waters, plants and animals, ” and the moral obligations we have toward these creatures. That we are all interconnected in a web of species where id one is disturbed can cause drastic consequences. She also talks about giving plants and animals a moral status. Though she makes it sound like she wants animals to have human’s rights, animals and plants deserve to have mutual respect from humans. This specifically includes the livestock that we butcher. Humans are part carnivorous animals and it is understandable, and essential for us to eat meat. However the rate at which we consume it is unnecessary, especially since most animal farms keep animals in the worst of condition. By creating a healthy environment for animals in slaughterhouses could be a way for meat prices to raise and keep us from over consuming it.
Charismatic mega fauna, which are the really big animals that humans do not want to go extinct, is something that can help provide more support for conservation. By telling people that the habitats for certain animals will lead them to extinction would have them (hopefully) more involved and considerate for nature. It may sound like this is targeting only a select few; however by saving environments these mega fauna inhabit will save the same homes the smaller wild things live.
Deep ecology sounds like an interesting idea. It means to look at the intrinsic value of nature and work at this by looking after the world as an extension of us. Saving genetic diversity seems to be the best way to look at diversity. Saving species that are very different from each other is perhaps better than saving one species and its subspecies, and its very closely related one. It would be best to have the one Picasso, one Rembrandt, and one Leonardo Da Vinci, than just the three Rembrandts. Species from very similar animals will soon enough go through evolutionary processes and will continue to differentiate. Losing a very different animal as a whole however cannot be brought back.
Conserving biodiversity will perhaps save the aesthetics of nature by maintaining a balance amongst the complex relationships of flora and fauna, however Marris does bring up that we do not know how the relationships work, and they may have been an accident that learned to stabilize. Conserving ecosystem for ecosystem service will not only save biodiversity, but will also maximize our resources from them (hopefully not too much to make them go extinct.)
Saving nature wholly for the aesthetic aspect is something would like to invest in because people still want that serenity they get from it. However with an expanding human population, matters like these might lose validity, and designer ecosystems could be the new fad.
Perhaps people look to the serene because it is something that we have recently began too lose. But when we think of central park, we know it is man made, but it has been a designer ecosystem that has worked out. Human collaborated, or artificial nature does not seem to be a problem, or thought of as taking away from serenity. Most of our nature has become artificial since humans in many ways have polluted most. Artificial clean up will try to clean up the mess we did in the beginning.
