The world has always been changing as a result of human interaction with their environment. However, with the exponential increase of population and increased economic development around the world, the effects of human influence have become more apparent and widespread than any other time period. Scientists have called the current geological era as the “Anthropocene.” The Anthropocene is a term that essentially indicates that humans are the dominate force that dictate how Earth’s current ecology have and will change. The articles “Conservation in the Anthropocene” by Kareiva et al and “Human Domination of Earth’s Ecosystems” by Vitousek et al both emphasize that human economic and urban activity has resulted in negative alterations in the planet’s ecology and geochemistry, but also recognize that because we exist in an Anthropocene, human involvement is vital to maintaining the world ecology.
The two articles both acknowledge the extent of human influence on the world, but have different views on determining the method that humans should involve themselves (or in some cases, detach themselves) in order to conserve ecosystems around the world. The Vitousek et al article follows a more traditional view of conservation (possibly due to it being written in 1997), where preserving the wild and understanding human interaction with these “wild” ecosystems should be the main goal of saving the world ecology. This approach views ecosystems around the world to be fragile and unadaptive to change, thus humans must be responsible for maintaining the changes. The Kareiva et al article takes an updated approach where, although wilderness conservation is still important, humans should focus on protecting an adaptive wilderness/nature while embracing the needs of human development. This approach aims to incite more change from the general human population by integrating economic interests with the interests of conservationists.
In the Anthropocene, the coexistence of nature and urban life is vital to the health of our world ecology. As city life grows larger due to economic development, the interaction between nature and urban environments, otherwise known as “urban ecology,” becomes more important to both humans and nature. Humans must find a way to preserve nature along with these urban environments in ways that are beneficial to the urban populations. By doing this, nature develops a place with our urban communities, rather than being destroyed. Yet, fast human development makes it hard for both nature and urban life coexist without damages to either side. What should be the next step for humans?
I find that in the Anthropocene, the updated approach to conserving nature is very useful in solving ecological problems. By following the traditional approach of preserving wilderness, we save several species and ecosystems around the world. However, merely barring humans from intervening in ecosystems is not efficient since the humans will not use the land while effects from urbanization like pollution destroy these ecosystems. There also lies the problem of funding conservation projects and having people adhere to the rules. However, by adopting some ideas from Kareiva et al, conservation is possible by incentivizing the protection of nature with projects that benefit humans, such as cleaning pollution in freshwater locations and saving locations where we rely on for food (like the ocean), funding for conservation becomes more accessible and humans are able to directly benefit. Whether it is possible for both economic development to grow along side conservation is up to human choices, since it is our geological era.
