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Newton & Freyfogle All About Nature 43

The massive writing on these questions certainly has its our strong sense of its incompleteness (Freyfogle & New-
place. But it is no substitute for, and should not be con- ton 2002).
fused with, a clear conservation goal. In his response, David Ehrenfeld (2005, this issue) in-
Let us return to the substance of such a goal. The pos- cludes a variety of comments about the steps necessary
sible elements of it, set forth above as three intercon- to achieve conservation success. He speaks of moral ex-
nected categories, were intended not merely to illustrate ertion and change in world view, about using energy and
our point, but to present what we view as the key com- materials more efficiently, and about love and respect to-
ponents that need considering in framing a sound goal. ward nature. But these are all about means, not about
There is the functional and organizational component, the end. Maybe they are necessary, maybe they are not.
the ethical component, and the aesthetic component. Too often we argue endlessly about means when our true
We want nature to function in particular types of ways disagreement is really about our unstated and perhaps ill-
over time, both to produce the resources we need and considered ends. The “ecological footprint” idea (Wack-
for other reasons. As for ethics, nature’s condition may ernagel & Rees 1996) gets us closer to a goal, in that it
be good only when, in dealing with it, we abide by cer- counsels us to reduce our footprint (and vividly illustrates
tain ethical norms or ideals, which could take a variety of our destructive life patterns). But how small do the foot-
forms. (For instance, if we feel ethically bound to protect prints need to be, and will a small footprint automatically
all species, all species must then be part of the physical implement the ethical and aesthetic elements of our goal?
nature that we protect.) Finally, there is the aesthetic com- Indeed, will it necessarily even protect nature’s ecological
ponent, which has to do with what nature looks like and functioning?
whether it accords with our aesthetic preferences. Robert Paehkle’s response (2005, this issue) also over-
Readers, of course, might object at this point. Have flows with thoughtful comments about means, from
we not said that our conservation goal should not be greater economic efficiency and productivity, to embrac-
dictated by human behavior and issues of morality and ing material sufficiency, to new product designs, to “re-
mental state? We have, and it is important to see why our balancing our social and economic priorities.” We find
positions are consistent. it revealing that, when he does comment about how we
In developing a conservation goal, it will be necessary assess impacts on nature, he finds it appropriate (essen-
to take into account a wide variety of considerations— tial?) to use the terms ecological health and the health
human needs, social justice, and ethical aspirations of ecosystems.He observes that we face “a limit” in what
among them. Yet it is critical to realize that these issues we can extract from nature, and of course we do. But
are all intermediate ones. They are steps on the way to what is the limit, and how do we identify it? Industrial so-
the conservation goal and not part of the physical nature ciety, we are told, is “problematic for nature.” To be sure,
goal itself. By way of illustration: five people may have but where is the line between the problematic and the
five different reasons—inconsistent ones, even—for be- nonproblematic? As for enhancing “production of human
lieving that we should protect fertile soil. If they all end well-being,” how might we respond, armed only with sus-
up in the same place, protecting the physical soil, people tainability, to the libertarian claim that we can adequately
are free to choose different logical paths to get there. honor the next generation by bequeathing 10 symphonies
Arguments about intermediate issues have been, and in place of the 10 species we have exterminated? Or bet-
remain, costly and confusing. How much energy has ter yet, does the invention of the transistor justify, in our
been spent—wasted, perhaps more aptly—arguing about intergenerational calculus, 10 hypoxic dead zones? When
whether humans do or do not have to overcome their an- all considerations are lumped together, it is too easy for
thropocentrism to live right with nature? And what about nature to get lost.
the academic energy spent on what the term wilderness In their concluding comments Padoch and Sears (2005,
means (as if its meaning were something other than a this issue) head in our direction but stop at a position that
dynamic human convention) and whether or not true we find troubling. They contend that a sound goal would
wilderness really exists? refer “to how humans are interacting with the natural
Surely we would be better off if we put aside such environment,” and they recommend that we each need
issues and got to the core questions: How do we need “to know what are the problems that affect the health and
nature to function (within the limits it imposes)? In what well-being of our own and other communities.” We agree,
ways should ethical ideals constrain our uses of nature? of course. But observations such as these provide merely
And what would we like nature to look like? It hardly a place to begin. The question is not about knowing how
needs saying that answers to these questions need to at- humans interact with nature, it is about evaluating their
tend closely to nature itself. Nature, that is, must play a big interactions normatively. Yes, we need to attend to the
role in producing our answers. It is vital to note (and again health of our communities, but how do we measure it,
the confusion on this is legion) that these are normative and when is it healthy enough?
questions, going well beyond science. Moreover, a sound Both Ehrenfeld and Paehlke refer to the issue of fos-
conservation goal takes into account not just science but sil fuel energy and to the shortages in our supplies of it.

Conservation Biology
Volume 19, No. 1, February 2005