Belonging Here
Today was a beautiful morning to walk in the woods. It rained last night, so the steams were running, the bark on trees was still damp and dark, and the greens of the mosses were rich in the bright morning light. Spider webs in the trees were outlined with water droplets. The first ripe blueberries on Schoodic Head, sparkling with dew, looked like opals under the green leaves.
Because my "day job" focuses on asking people for money to support science and education at Acadia National Park, I spend a fair amount of time explaining why it is important to protect and preserve Acadia. Why do we need National Parks like Acadia? What is it that makes the Park so important? Shared values and shared answers to such questions must be firmly in place before I can talk about the importance of scientific research at Acadia, or about the need to give young people more opportunities to experience the Park.
I am not alone in having this problem of needing to make a case for nature–it seems to be common to everyone who argues for the importance of conservation. The usual pattern in this argument is to focus on utility–on the important role that the rest of nature plays in supporting the health and wealth of our one species. For example, I am just now reading a book on the potential effects of global warming. The author (correctly) concludes that he cannot simply assume that the reader will understand that preserving biodiversity is a good thing. (Why is this? Why is it more obvious that keeping the inflation rate in the U.S. economy at 2%, and not 3%, is important, while something as fundamental as preserving the diversity of species requires an argument and explanation?)
So, how does the author make the case for biodiversity? One typical argument focuses on the potential loss to medicine when we lose species and the evolutionary innovations that they might contain. For example, the author points to the recent extinction of a rare frog that had the unusual ability to transform its stomach into a brood chamber for sheltering its offspring, somehow rearing young frogs in an environment that is otherwise acidic and hostile to life. The argument is that the loss of this species before scientists had time to study it foreclosed any chance of discovering new ways to treat stomach disorders based on the gastric mechanisms and genetics of this frog.
Similarly, people argue for the conservation and protection of watersheds because of their ability to filter and purify our drinking water. Forests are valuable because they play a role in controlling climate and, of course, as a source of lumber, pulpwood, and fuel. Wetlands are important because they buffer coastal towns and cities from the full effect of storms. And so on. The value of a species, or of an entire system such as a coral reef, is measured in economic terms, where the ultimate measure of value is its utility to the human species.
That’s not how I see it when I am out for a morning walk. I am just happy to be there. It is not about utility, but about being part of something bigger than me or my species. It is not about me, or what the forest can do for me. It is more about the forest, but also about the exchange between me and the forest. That is where the science comes in. The science helps me better understand what is happening in the forest, and that understanding is, itself, a source of pleasure. Sometimes what I see surprises me and even makes me laugh. The understanding also helps us take action to protect the health of the forest. (Not my health, but the forest’s health.) There is interaction here. I have a role. Wind, rain, plants, and other animals have roles.
Aldo Leopold said that it is a question of ethics, not utility. Here is an excerpt from the beginning of his essay titled "The Land Ethic."
When god-like Odysseus returned from the wars in Troy, he hanged all on one rope a dozen slave-girls of his household whom he suspected of misbehavior during his absence.
This hanging involved no question of propriety. The girls were property. The disposal of property was then, as now, a matter of expediency, not of right and wrong. …
There is as yet no ethic dealing with man’s relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it. Land, like Odysseus’ slave-girls, is still property. The land-relation is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations. …
All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. His instincts prompt him to compete for his place in that community, but his ethics prompt him also to co-operate (perhaps in order that there might be a place to compete for).
The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. … In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.
Aldo Leopold wrote "The Land Ethic" nearly 60 years ago. It is a broad essay, dealing frankly with threats to world-wide ecosystems, and is still largely fresh and relevant today. Leopold expresses optimism that Homo sapiens will develop a land ethic, just as the species has, over time, developed ethics for relations between individuals and between the individual and society.
This is an appropriate focus for our work at Acadia Partners for Science and Learning. I have no illusion that, working on our own from this corner of the United States, we are going to create a world-wide change in the relation between people and the land. But we do have this Park to work with, as members in its "land-community." We have the opportunity to invite others to join that community. We can start by inviting them to take morning walks and to develop their own history and conversation with this land and with these plants and animals. And we have the opportunity to help each of these members gain a better understanding of the community, of what is healthy, what is at risk, and of how things interact, and of the work to be done, so that they can be more effective community members.
It is really not about use. It is about belonging here.