The tenth and final chapter of Emma Marris’s Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World is entitled “A Menu of New Goals.” Rightly so, the chapter presents a list of goals that Marris suggests for when “you admit that you can’t put things back the way they were” (219). With this list, Marris manages to come up with conservation hopes that solve any problems possible instead of trying to solve everything. Goal 1 is to protect the rights of other species, which follows along with Marris’s recurring argument that humans can and should coexist with nature. Goal 2 is to protect charismatic megafauna, which is the preservation of large mammals that humans like. Goal 3 is to slow the rate of extinctions, which is to assign all species equal value. Goal 4 is to protect genetic diversity, which is to transcend the concept of a species and save animals of varying genetic composition regardless of their label as a single species. Essentially, this will conserve as many organisms as possible. Goal 5 is to define and defend biodiversity, which regards whole ecosystems as more important than the individual species that make them up. Goal 6 is to maximize ecosystem services, which is to conserve mainly those ecosystems that provide something beneficial to humans other than preserved nature. Goal 7 is to protect the spiritual and aesthetic experience of nature, wherein conservation is done simply because humans like the look and feel of nature versus the usual reasons of maintaining wildlife and the environment.
Marris distinctly points out that “the final lesson is that no single goal will work in all situations” (220) and that “there is no one best goal” (243). Given that, some of the goals that she presents are quite contradictory. This is not a flaw on Marris’s part, but just something that will forever be an issue when it comes to the matter of conservation. In fact, Marris does a pretty good job of covering the different schools of thought on conservation. Still, there will always be different views and opinions on what is best for the planet, which Marris uses to her advantage in promoting the concept of the rambunctious garden: “In different places, in different chunks, we can manage nature for different ends—for historical restoration, for species preservation, for self-willed wildness, for ecosystem services, for good and fiber and fish and flame trees and frogs” (245). I’ve agreed with Marris on this point throughout the whole book. We need to make the best of what we still have. Sure, the ideas of historical baselines and reintroducing native species sound really great, but they’re basically impossible. All of the goals discussed in this chapter have some level of significance in the world of conservation, and there is nothing wrong with some overlap across the world. Everyone does not have to conform to one goal; all of the various goals can be accomplished in different places where they would be the most appropriate and beneficial. Nonetheless, these goals must be attempted to some extent. All the conservationists of the world will never come to a consensus on what one thing is best for the environment, so we’ll just have to do what we can because the most important thing in all of this is the bigger picture: saving the natural world that we’ve so brutally destroyed and learning to simultaneously flourish alongside it.
