Discussion prompt from Cox: Should we set spaces aside where humans tread lightly in order to enable nature to thrive? Or should we find ways to cultivate nature efficiently for increasing human demands for wood, paper, drinking water, and more?
As environmental sustainability has become a hotly debated topic over the past decades, one of the main questions raised is how we should interact with nature. As the prompt suggests, there are two dominant views on this matter: preservationism and conservationism.
John Muir, an active environmentalist, argued early for the preservationist approach. He believed that nature should be untouched, as interacting with it would inevitably cause negative consequences. Personally, I can understand why a lot of environmentalists support this argument. Throughout history, the human race has caused great damage to nature. We have taken advantage of the plethora of natural resources often with only our benefit in mind. We affect the wilderness both directly by destroying jungles, forests, or grasslands, and indirectly through global warming.
However, I believe that leaving nature untouched is not the solution. We have already affected nature in a way where ecosystems might not be capable of sustaining themselves if we leave them be. Instead, we should take a more conservationist approach, as Gifford Pinchot supported. Pinchot stated that we should stand for a “wise and efficient use of natural resources” (Cox 2016, p. 5). For instance, by helping endangered animal and plant species, these species might return to stronger numbers in the wild, which in turn benefits the ecosystem. Furthermore, conservationist measures such as ecotourism has helped raise awareness about nature. All in all, we can be environmentally sustainable by helping and conserving nature, which benefits both us and nature itself.
Cox, R. 2016. Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere. Sage, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
