There is a reason to save nature that goes beyond saving our own skins.
Being a part of the conservation movement since 1991, I quickly grew weary of talking about the value of thriving nature exclusively in terms of what it can do for humans. The term “environmental services” grinds like sand on a sunburn to those of us who have values beyond just saving humanity from a fiery, violent, hungry future.
What if the best argument for nature is simply that it exists in the first place?
We don’t truly know how or why anything in nature exists in the first place. Therefore, everything in it, all of it, has intrinsic value.
Most of the time when people discuss the value of clean water, ancient forests, clean air, wilderness, and healthy wildlife populations (biodiversity), we couch these things in terms of how they benefit humanity.
In the conservation community we learned long ago if you want people to sit up and take notice, you’d better show them what’s in it for them. Pull on their heartstrings or tell them they need to care because cures for human disease always come from nature.
The Prescription Bottle Campaign
One campaign that worked well for us in the 90’s was based on the idea that the next miracle drug for cancer was still waiting to be discovered in the rainforests. We collected prescription bottles from members and took thousands of them to Washington DC to dump on the steps of the Capitol.
Great imagery. Arresting, thought-provoking. It really hit home for people. And that’s what gave me pause. Something wasn’t right. It felt like a terribly cynical play.
The argument for such campaigns has always been to do whatever it takes to get attention and get people to act. Even if it makes you squirm inside.
Is nature’s only value to humans that it keeps us alive? Is the only way to get people to give a damn about extinction and climate crisis to make them afraid for their own lives?
People respond to cute and cuddly nature, demonstrating some affinity for certain creatures that push the cute, quirky, or majestic buttons. No conservation organization ever broke fundraising records with a campaign featuring earthworms or wasps.
And, despite the apparent early success of the Dolphin-safe tuna campaigns, people are still buying tuna. Well after we were all made aware that no tuna fishing is safe for dolphins. And now tuna is on the brink and will be gone if we don’t pull back on demand.
Maybe what we need is something more akin to a spiritual philosophy rather than self-preservation or scolding moralizing.
There is a growing community of humans around the globe that see everything in nature as having intrinsic value. A Black-Footed Ferret doesn’t have to have any direct or indirect value to humanity to have every right to exist, just as humans do.
“Unhappily, the extensive moralizing within the ecological movement has given the public the false impression that they are primarily asked to sacrifice, to show more responsibility, more concern, and better morals. As I see it we need the immense variety of sources of joy opened through increased sensitivity toward the richness and diversity of life, through the profound cherishing of free natural landscapes. … Part of the joy stems from the consciousness of our intimate relation to something bigger than our own ego, something which has endured for millions of years and is worth continued life for millions of years. The requisite care flows naturally if the self is widened and deepened so that protection of free nature is felt and conceived of as protection of our very selves.” ~Arne Naess, Philosopher, coiner of the term “Deep Ecology”
Seeking a balance with the rest of nature was seen by Naess as a “beautiful act” regardless of the contribution made to the planet.
Deep Ecologists believe that wolves don’t have to prove their value to humans. Nor do salamanders. Nature is not a utility or a bank from which we can make withdrawals without accounting for what we take and putting it back. Not one of us believes humans were placed on Earth as shepherds or to have dominion over everything else.
Human exceptionalism is not a thing for deep ecologists. In fact, we believe that in order to honor creation at the highest level is to honor ALL of creation, and not just the parts that suit us.
This is why I always hate the spider memes. They aren’t funny to me because, even though it’s natural for some to get the creeps on sight, I know that me and that spider are the same. Part of each other in this dance of life obviously intended, by whatever creator you believe in, to be here.
Nothing in nature is a mistake, not even humans…
…though we have collectively done absolutely everything in our power to destroy the only place in the Universe that harbors life as we know it.
We’re pulling the plug in the only boat floating on an infinite sea of nothingness. And we’re doing it consciously. With purpose.
So maybe, if any of this rings true to you, the next time you start to make an argument based on what’s good for us in the protection of a wild thing, you stop and take another tack. For example, if you are a Christian, ask the unaware if they think God made a mistake by putting Grizzly bears, nettles, mosquitoes, or wolves on Earth.
Everything we know. All we have known. It all hinges on Wildness.
In Wildness is the Preservation of the World ~Henry David Thoreau
It’s where we came from. But it was never for humans alone. Millions of separate species of flora and fauna exist in their own stories on the timeline. Just as valuable. Just as important. The story we humans tell ourselves about being special is just that; a story.
There’s no good answer in any religion or philosophy which debunks the idea that nature, of which we are a part like everything else on this Earth, has intrinsic value. That every lifeform has every right to unimpeded access to time, evolution, and carrying out its purpose; to simply go on.
I hope this empowers readers to expand into doing things for nature for the beauty of it, rather than a moralistic chore or out of some sense of self preservation.
Nature is simply good. Every single bit of it. We are part of it, even though currently we are acting apart from it.
