The main point Emma Marris, author of Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World, is trying to get across in her book is represented in one of the lines from the opening chapter: “This book is about new ways of seeing nature.” Marris tries to point out the flawed way many ecologists and conservationalists see nature and try to preserve it, and how due to the changing definition of nature, there must be new ways to study and take care of it. Marris has made a very good case in the first two chapters of her book, explaining the dynamics or nature and bringing many examples of her experiences studying the ecology of many places, including Hawaii, Australia, and Yellowstone Park.
Marris argues that nature must be viewed and understood correctly in order run it correctly. Her main argument is that people must admit that we are running the world in order to run it “consciously and effectively.” Marris provides many examples of how people are running nature because of the ways nature is lost to us and how people have brought about so many changes in nature. She explains that nature is lost in two ways, it is destroyed and we “have hidden nature from ourselves.” People often believe nature is “out there” somewhere but not accessible or near to us. Marris makes a good case talking about the everyday aspects of nature and how it is “almost everywhere.” She mentions nature is in the commonly thought of places such as in the forests but it is also found as well in the cities, where plants still grow and bees still pollinate. Focus on preserving nature is placed onto natural parks but because nature can be found everywhere, Marris argues there should also be a larger focus on the everyday nature found around people, whether it be in a large city or rural area.
Conservationalists are “desperately trying to stop the wilderness from changing” yet as Marris points out, “there is no pristine wilderness on planet earth.” People have been changing the landscape for many years on a global scale with things such as “climate change, species movements, and large-scale transformations of land.” Marris provides many examples of the way nature is adapting such as how “bobcat families [are] moving into foreclosed suburban homes.” Because nature is constantly changing, “whether humans are involved or not,” there are many problems with the common practice by ecologists of setting a baseline when studying an area. A baseline is used to compare the current ecological state of an area to a certain period of time, but many factors affect the validity of such measurements.
Marris’ main point of the book seems to resonate in one of her quotes, “we can find beauty in nature, even if signs of humanity are present.” Marris disagrees with the the static way ecologists are trying to preserve what they consider as the only nature worth preserving, and argues that nature is all around us and effected by us, so it should be studied with that in mind.
